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James discusses writing and "writing dead ends"
12 years ago
ScottishFurHi all, and welcome to another discussion....which I haven't posted in a LOOONG time D:
I've been wanting to do this for a while now but I've been held up by writing blocks and illness x_x
Writing is tough. I'm not going to lie, but writing is a real chore to do, but its rewarding at the same time.
What makes writing a challenge is creating characters that are compelling and worlds in which the reader can imagine and possibly escape too (after all most media is escapism). Do furry writers do this? Well that's pretty impossible to answer giving the sheer volume of writers on FA
I'm just going to focus on some of the tropes and clichés of bad writing and to point out any good writing examples.
On with the discussion :D
Cliché No.1 The Gay story
This cliché is really really common (mostly with male/male characters) and to be honest is pretty darn boring after a while. I read tonnes of these during my times on SoFurry.....mostly because there was very little else. They varied from ok to bland
What's the premise? Well:
Character No.1 is a nervous wall-flower, closet homosexual
No.1: I'm into other guys but I'm so shy!
Character No.2 is also homosexual and more forceful and is obviously a perfect match for No.1.
No.2: I'm gay and cool. Hey, No.1, lets have sex!
No.1: Gee No.2, I'm not sure.....
No.2 then grabs No.1 and we get a sex scene for eye candy....and quick as that they're together.....you know I don't think that's how true relationships work :o
Side characters No.3, 4, 5 and possibly more: We're all supportive gay friends!
Optional character No.6 (with possible goons): Grrr! Me evil homophobe! Me hate gay people because they are stupidses!
and.....that's really all. There are variations and continuations, but they're not too spectacular.
Ok well the first thing is that its pretty much too perfect. The two main characters instantly click and boom they're together.
Now in some cases its revealed the characters knew each other for a while, which is ok. But I don't think doing it with someone will mean instant love D:
Second problem is the antagonists. Most are just too simplistic. The one exception being the two homophobes in the comic Roommates. They're college students who are more likely to be naïve in the face of relationships and do have a remorse and revelation. They're not straight up villains or evil, they're more like real people.
The same cannot be said with others. Or sometimes there are no homophobes. In these cases there are two routes where the story can go:
-Character development
-gratuitous sex scenes for only mind-candy and nothing else.
Guess which one is better
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against homosexuality. I'm all for gay and lesbian rights.....but these stories can get a bit repetitive. Some aren't even stories and just exist for the eye candy or word-candy (the written version of eye-candy)
Why anime style and why cruelty? Why?!
yes, anime style stories x_x
will those weeaboos ever learn that life in Japan is not like an anime series?
Now by anime style stories I mean that they take bad elements of anime and stick into a poorly written pile of vomit. Usually includes capturing people, torture, looking up skirts, perverted groping, drooling, exaggerated bodies and all manner of gross stuff.
There are 2 points I want to make:
1. Its cruel. As a friend once pointed out, (
Lurdanjo who is awesome and does some great ideas ) anime can be really meaninglessly cruel. Its just not fun whatsoever and isn't creative. And I have to ask, why? Why be so mean? :o
2. Its unimaginative. Anime isn't that imaginative when you look at it. Just a bunch of gooey eyed, gelled haired characters with doomed destinies and fighting monsters or just being in highschool with giant boobs and being stalked, or god knows what.
I speak directly to people who make this sort of thing......
Why? You're a human. You have imagination, possibly one of the most powerful and fantasic things in the world and you use it on this which is something that's done by low paid Japanese animators who probably are just looking for quick cash and appeal to lowly basement dwellers. You could do so much else.
....I know this might have sounded cheesy, but I really believe people should try and be creative and not be reduced to "fanservice" (god I hate that word.) or screaming desu or baka or other broken Japanese words or thinking Japan is the best country in the world. You do know its a very racist country that thinks anyone that isn't Japanese is inferior? And No they're isn't really a big population of muscular or fat furs in funboshis in Japan...that is fiction. I don't even think Japanese people are into that either D:
(for any newcomer reading this, yes, I don't like anime due to....reasons x_x. I used to be interested, but that interest has been stamped out)
Aside from that there still a lot of cruel, mean spirited stories on FA, mostly derived from crappy 3rd rate anime and porn. Why would you do that? Its gross and not fun at all.
There's nothing wrong with having dark moments in a story, heck I have a lot of dark times in Tales of the Eternals, with creepy atmospheres in the Epithedrial fortress and later on an isolated space station and a few dark themes such as racism and slavery, but being cruel and mean all the time is just horrible and not fun to read.
Writing dead-ends
Now this is a big topic.
You ever seen someone who does the same thing over and over? Like all they do is fat blob furs or TF or vore or something.
In writing I call them dead ends. If all they do is the same thing over and over, its pretty dull. There's never any variation or change to either the writing style or the story itself. I always imagine a goldfish banging against the glass of a tank, they go nowhere.
If you really want to try adding things like Transformation, make the unsuspected, make them a surprise. And try to involve the character more, rather than just:
"Blah blah blah, I am fat now"
or whatever
Good stories out there
Ok so enough of the bad stuff, I'll say I think I comment on good stuff.
The best stories I have seen are in the FBA (Furry Basketball association). Its a collaboration between really skilled writers and really talented writers and has such fantastic characters and environments.
Its also very involving as characters are picked out for teams. Some make it, some don't (though they can try again) and their reactions are realistic and they feel real :o
There's also a lot of varied species presented also, from insects and fish to mammals and birds. Its fantastic to see this much and its a welcome change.
And there's a tonne of poetry and other stories both clean and adult (mostly straight) which goes unnoticed. I think there is some genuinely good stuff out there that needs to be seen.
Overall I think that the fandom is full of clichés. Scenes that are so tried such as creepy vore scenes or fattening and so on. I think we need to break away from these clichés and tropes and try and do something different. There's so much that you can write about.
This has been a James discussion
thank you for reading
I've been wanting to do this for a while now but I've been held up by writing blocks and illness x_x
Writing is tough. I'm not going to lie, but writing is a real chore to do, but its rewarding at the same time.
What makes writing a challenge is creating characters that are compelling and worlds in which the reader can imagine and possibly escape too (after all most media is escapism). Do furry writers do this? Well that's pretty impossible to answer giving the sheer volume of writers on FA
I'm just going to focus on some of the tropes and clichés of bad writing and to point out any good writing examples.
On with the discussion :D
Cliché No.1 The Gay story
This cliché is really really common (mostly with male/male characters) and to be honest is pretty darn boring after a while. I read tonnes of these during my times on SoFurry.....mostly because there was very little else. They varied from ok to bland
What's the premise? Well:
Character No.1 is a nervous wall-flower, closet homosexual
No.1: I'm into other guys but I'm so shy!
Character No.2 is also homosexual and more forceful and is obviously a perfect match for No.1.
No.2: I'm gay and cool. Hey, No.1, lets have sex!
No.1: Gee No.2, I'm not sure.....
No.2 then grabs No.1 and we get a sex scene for eye candy....and quick as that they're together.....you know I don't think that's how true relationships work :o
Side characters No.3, 4, 5 and possibly more: We're all supportive gay friends!
Optional character No.6 (with possible goons): Grrr! Me evil homophobe! Me hate gay people because they are stupidses!
and.....that's really all. There are variations and continuations, but they're not too spectacular.
Ok well the first thing is that its pretty much too perfect. The two main characters instantly click and boom they're together.
Now in some cases its revealed the characters knew each other for a while, which is ok. But I don't think doing it with someone will mean instant love D:
Second problem is the antagonists. Most are just too simplistic. The one exception being the two homophobes in the comic Roommates. They're college students who are more likely to be naïve in the face of relationships and do have a remorse and revelation. They're not straight up villains or evil, they're more like real people.
The same cannot be said with others. Or sometimes there are no homophobes. In these cases there are two routes where the story can go:
-Character development
-gratuitous sex scenes for only mind-candy and nothing else.
Guess which one is better
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not against homosexuality. I'm all for gay and lesbian rights.....but these stories can get a bit repetitive. Some aren't even stories and just exist for the eye candy or word-candy (the written version of eye-candy)
Why anime style and why cruelty? Why?!
yes, anime style stories x_x
will those weeaboos ever learn that life in Japan is not like an anime series?
Now by anime style stories I mean that they take bad elements of anime and stick into a poorly written pile of vomit. Usually includes capturing people, torture, looking up skirts, perverted groping, drooling, exaggerated bodies and all manner of gross stuff.
There are 2 points I want to make:
1. Its cruel. As a friend once pointed out, (
Lurdanjo who is awesome and does some great ideas ) anime can be really meaninglessly cruel. Its just not fun whatsoever and isn't creative. And I have to ask, why? Why be so mean? :o2. Its unimaginative. Anime isn't that imaginative when you look at it. Just a bunch of gooey eyed, gelled haired characters with doomed destinies and fighting monsters or just being in highschool with giant boobs and being stalked, or god knows what.
I speak directly to people who make this sort of thing......
Why? You're a human. You have imagination, possibly one of the most powerful and fantasic things in the world and you use it on this which is something that's done by low paid Japanese animators who probably are just looking for quick cash and appeal to lowly basement dwellers. You could do so much else.
....I know this might have sounded cheesy, but I really believe people should try and be creative and not be reduced to "fanservice" (god I hate that word.) or screaming desu or baka or other broken Japanese words or thinking Japan is the best country in the world. You do know its a very racist country that thinks anyone that isn't Japanese is inferior? And No they're isn't really a big population of muscular or fat furs in funboshis in Japan...that is fiction. I don't even think Japanese people are into that either D:
(for any newcomer reading this, yes, I don't like anime due to....reasons x_x. I used to be interested, but that interest has been stamped out)
Aside from that there still a lot of cruel, mean spirited stories on FA, mostly derived from crappy 3rd rate anime and porn. Why would you do that? Its gross and not fun at all.
There's nothing wrong with having dark moments in a story, heck I have a lot of dark times in Tales of the Eternals, with creepy atmospheres in the Epithedrial fortress and later on an isolated space station and a few dark themes such as racism and slavery, but being cruel and mean all the time is just horrible and not fun to read.
Writing dead-ends
Now this is a big topic.
You ever seen someone who does the same thing over and over? Like all they do is fat blob furs or TF or vore or something.
In writing I call them dead ends. If all they do is the same thing over and over, its pretty dull. There's never any variation or change to either the writing style or the story itself. I always imagine a goldfish banging against the glass of a tank, they go nowhere.
If you really want to try adding things like Transformation, make the unsuspected, make them a surprise. And try to involve the character more, rather than just:
"Blah blah blah, I am fat now"
or whatever
Good stories out there
Ok so enough of the bad stuff, I'll say I think I comment on good stuff.
The best stories I have seen are in the FBA (Furry Basketball association). Its a collaboration between really skilled writers and really talented writers and has such fantastic characters and environments.
Its also very involving as characters are picked out for teams. Some make it, some don't (though they can try again) and their reactions are realistic and they feel real :o
There's also a lot of varied species presented also, from insects and fish to mammals and birds. Its fantastic to see this much and its a welcome change.
And there's a tonne of poetry and other stories both clean and adult (mostly straight) which goes unnoticed. I think there is some genuinely good stuff out there that needs to be seen.
Overall I think that the fandom is full of clichés. Scenes that are so tried such as creepy vore scenes or fattening and so on. I think we need to break away from these clichés and tropes and try and do something different. There's so much that you can write about.
This has been a James discussion
thank you for reading
As far as cliches go, I can understand why they can be irritating after a while, especially in fiction. Reading a story requires greater commitment than, say, watching a movie, and thus the need for a good payoff is conceivably greater. Nevertheless, maybe you're looking at cliches *too* negatively... Consider a parallel in the blues. Yes, I'm talking about the musical genre. Blues are wonderful for their simplicity. Nobody listens to blues because they are searching for innovation or progressive music, but because they want to hear a familiar song played in a slightly different way than they've heard before. In blues, it's more than possible to get by on a few similar-sounding tunes, so long as you put your own personal spin on 'em and play your heart out - that's what the genre is. Maybe writing can be the same way? (to see this done professionally, check out the Redwall series) Fiction which doesn't try to build its setting or endear its characters is another matter, but these romance stories are clearly fun to write for many people, and maybe you can get a better appreciation of them by not assuming that they're all the same by default and taking note of any small but creative differences they have.
Also, if the things you mentioned really aren't for you, maybe you could make a greater effort to avoid the stories built around them. I don't support judging a book by its cover or a story by its description alone, but I think you can get a feeling of whether or not this is going to be an enjoyable story for you with minimal effort invested. In Hearts in Atlantis, a character suggests reading one-tenth of a book to judge whether to read on, and I think you can employ a similar strategy to online fiction. Give the story a few steps' chance, but if your gut tells you this isn't going to be fun for you, move on. You can't critique a story on that alone, but you can save yourself a lot of time and disappointment.
I was just recounting my days of SoFurry, where there was not much in the way of variation and it seems that in this year the creativity gears on FA are grinding to halt, especially with the introduction of MLP into the fandom x_x
Luckily all I looked it was the clean stuff (I was not impressed with adult art. Its sometimes pretty poorly drawn and isn't that brilliant) and so saw the people behind the furries, mostly for better (and sometimes for the worst in the case of a bratty popufur or two )
I do not like the perfect fairytale endings where everyone lives happily ever after.