Animation Source Forums

I don’t usually do forums but I'm really, really, really, bored. While I have no Balto stories I’ve written several TLK stories and have been writing for a while. I was reviewing the various writing aids on this forum. I agree with all of them I saw but decided to write a sort of advanced tutorial going into more detail on things I think are especially important or useful.
Note/ If parts of this are repetitive, obvious, too complicated or otherwise unhelpful ignore them. What’s useful for me may not help you in the same way.




NARRATION
Narratives and by that here I mean the underlying story/ stories within your story and holding together, everything from the main plot to sub plots.
IT SHOULD BE HIDDEN!!!!. Let me explain it’s important you get your narratives across to the reader but the reader as much as possible shouldn’t be aware he’s reading it. Things should be implied not stated directly. Give out your narrative in parts to keep the reader interested. It should blend with the characters actions not seem abstract.
Do you like reading long dry explanations of wants going on? I don’t!
This is an extreme example I know, I’m doing it on purpose to get the point across. Which sounds better?

A/ She was very sad because a year ago her mate had died fighting wolves in this field and she still hadn’t been able to forget it.

B/ She hadn’t meant to come here. Yet against her conscious will her daily walk had brought he back to this forsaken place once again. Looking out over the field she felt a familiar ache in her chest. It had been near here, just over that rise. She could still hear the wicked howls in her ears like ghost haunting her. A tear ran down her face. Had it really been year now since she’d lost him?

In A I told you everything I wanted you to know about my character and as the reader you don’t care in the slightest, so what she’s sad, wolves, whatever, it’s boring.
In B I told you far less actually using far more words. Its not abstracted my narrative is woven in with her actions so it flows. More importantly your interested (or more interested) in the character. My readers going to want to know wants going on so they’ll keep reading. Now later in my story I’ll weave in that her mate was killed defending her from wolves. I might give this all at once or further break up the information the point is when the reader finally gets it all they can put it together for themselves and its far more interesting then A.


Note/ Using this tactic WILL make your writtings longer this is not allways a bad thing, while it is a lot more work. Its harder to have plot build up the shorter a story is.



CHARACTER PERSENALITIES.

Personality/ most important part of your character as I hope should be obvious, thus its worth considering in detail.
Personalities are complicated, but for me it helps to break it into two parts.
1/ the inner self - the actual workings of the character.
2/ the projected self - How the character attempts to project himself to others.

These two parts are always related usually the projected self stemming from the inner self’s logic. Note this logic may in no way be coherent to any one but the character.

For example most “bully” characters would have an inner self that is cowardly being afraid of most things they attempt to scare them away. Thus their projected personality is aggressive.
What can make a character interesting is his understanding or lack thereof of his own inner workings? Using the above example imagine a bully who has been a bully so long he has begun to believe his projected self is his inner self. He may then be completely unaware of his true nature and when it shows itself he will become confused or angry.
Another interesting thing could be if the character has more then one of either of theses two parts.
With multiple inner self’s unless the character actually has “split personalities” One is dominate A character might have a kind loving inner self but is occasionally plagued by a strong temper. Something amusing might be to have the character for whatever reason projecting a self in accord with a non-dominate inner self. As this will strengthen that inner self, as in the above example of a character with a kind and loving inner self plagued by a lesser angry inner self, imagine what would happen if that character has to project an angry self a lot. His angry inner self might get out of hand maybe even enough to challenge his kind and loving self.
Multiple projected selves is not quite so complicated an example being a character trying to impress one group by appearing aggressive while trying to convince another he is gentle and loving. Something interesting you could do with this is have the projected selfs conflict.

OH MY GOSH!!!! DUDE I CAN'T BELIEVE NO ONE HAS POSTED ON THIS!!! Rohad, you are THE BEST fan writer I have EVER seen on this site. In my LIFE. And that's no exaggeration. You are TRULY my inspiration, I would die to have you read my stories, at least the third one. I want to know what you think of them, because as far as I'm concerned you are the authority on fanfics. You seriously are. You were what caused me to read through my first story and make it better, based on the way you write. I couldn't believe how well your narratives flow, and I know EXACTLY what you're talking about on the first bit of advice you listed. I LOVE the way you write, and I love the flow and everything about it is just awesome. if you could read my third story, I know you may not want to, but if you could, I have it posted in the same place you do yours on fanfiction.net. look for "The Fantasy of the Prideland Army" and don't think the title makes it cheesy, it really isn't. it's the best writing I've ever done, and the other three stories of mine are there too. I kind of look at your fics as an rpg game, the story is HUGE. and intricate. so yeah. I'm leaving for a while on the 20th and I'll be gone quite a while, so if you DO read it, then go ahead and post a reply and I'll be sure to get it. thanks a bunch.

Very good advice. I all ways have trouble with using the more words in the beggining and keep it interesting. I hope you'll put more things on this topic.

This is great. This will help me heaps, I think it should be stickied. I was hooked even on the little paragraph that you used as an example!