User blog:FedeTkd/Writing Guidelines for Aspiring Writers

Hi guys. I’m making this blog to give the new users or new potential writers some guidelines and advices about writing. I know I’m not an expert in the matter but I think I got more experience than many here and I really thought that giving some advices could be useful for some user here. I also believe the most experienced users here should do the same as I’m doing right now because I think you got your own experience which is different than mine and it’s great to have more than one opinion on this one.

Of course, those who disagree with me and say “GTFO, you don’t know fucking shit about writing.” or something like that for whatever reason, I invite you to get out of these blog and stop wasting your time. Go. Goodbye. Be free. Have fun.

Now, for those who stay, good for you guys. (Super thumbs up).

Now, I think I’ll start with story and characters before moving on to my personal recommendations. Part of this will have my opinion, but I’ll try to leave it aside until the final part.

Story
Now, I think I’ll divide this area into two:


 * Stories set in a Non-Canon VRMMO: In this case, it’s important the setting of the game. For instance: Place and time, Parameters, Races, Combat, etc…Of course, you can’t just write everything in the first and second chapters. No. That’d be an overload of information and that chapter wouldn’t be a chapter but rather a text exposing about the VRMMO. You need to give the basics in the earliest chapters and then start building upon that on the upcoming chapters.


 * Stories set in a Canon VRMMO: Those who start here have an advantage. The VRMMO has already been quite well explained in the Light Novel (or Anime probably, since that’s probably the reason why you’re here in this wiki), therefore you don’t need to expose much here unless it’s relevant for the story. However, in this case, I do recommend you guys to search in SAO Wiki for true data about the VRMMO you’ll be working in. I’ve found some mistakes in some stories.

Now, you’ll also need a plot and I mean and actual plot (I’m looking at you fans of just-tits-and-ass anime). Well, if you have ever been to school, you should know the parts of the plot:


 * Exposition: main relevant things about the story.


 * Rising Action: conflict. The struggle of the character or characters.


 * Climax: turning point.


 * Falling Action: path to solve the conflict, taking into consideration the climax.


 * Denouement: resolution of the conflict. Could be good, bad, etc.

For more info, google plot. I’m certain. It’ll help you.

Characters
Characters are the most difficult aspect of the whole story and the most important one. A bad story can be “saved” because of its characters. Now, it’s not possible the other way around. How good a character is depends on how they’re explained or how they’re written.

Now: what makes a good character? Is it guys with spiky hair? Is it girls with big tits? No. It’s their characterization, or else they’re just talking faces (Although, to be fair, the tits are a plus for the girl that’s for sure. lol). And I’m not talking about the MC alone. I’m talking about all characters, including antagonists. Characters are essentially the soul of any story.

I’m not talking about them MC alone here. I’m talking about all the characters in general.

According to Wikipedia, characterization is the concept of creating characters for a narrative. It’s a literary element and may be employed in dramatic works of art or everyday conversation. There are two ways of doing this:


 * Direct or explicit characterization: The author literally tells the audience what a character is like. This may be done via the narrator, another character or by the character themselves.


 * Indirect or implicit characterization: The audience must infer for themselves what the character is like through the character’s thoughts, actions, speech (choice of words, way of talking), physical appearance, mannerisms and interaction with other characters, including other characters’ reactions to that particular person.

Searching a bit for this blog, I found a site that read the following: “The 9 Ingredients of Character Development”. The nine were: Communication, Background Story, Appearance, Relationships, Ambition, Character Defect, Thoughts, Everyman-ness and Restrictions.

I find this a good way for describing, but personally, I differ with the number. For me, they’re not 9. It’s just 4:


 * Communication, Relationships, Thoughts (Personality): We could basically sum up this three into one big aspect named “Personality”. It’s important to show this in the very first chapters you write, specially speaking about the MC. Remember: Character development is needed. The character needs to change as the story grows to resolve the conflict somehow (or not solving it at all). When the story finishes, the characters needs to be somehow different than how he started, result of the experiences he lived through the story.


 * Communication: how the character talks. What expressions he uses. Remember: much of the personality is reflected on how the character talks.


 * Relationships: how does the character relate to other characters? Is he a loner or a friendly guy? Etc.…It’s important to the character to have influences in other characters.


 * Thoughts: How is the internal dialogue of your character? How does your character deal with internal struggles or dilemmas? Etc.…


 * Restrictions, Character Defect (Humanization): your characters are humans. This means they have flaws. They’re not perfect. The character feels real if he has some defects so that the reader can see he is a human. Maybe they’re irrelevant to the story, but it’s important for them to have errors. This can be physical or personality-wise. Also, having this balance between skills and flaws is the only way that you can appreciate the achievements of the character. If they’re perfect, their accomplishments aren’t accomplishments, because they just do anything in a whim. Likewise, if you have a character that is too weak, it’s going to be pretty boring. So yeah, Balance that.


 * Ambition: The characters goal. Their passions. What he’s trying to accomplish. Their reason to fight, to live, to be embarked on the specific journey you created. He could totally have more than one. Though the character needs the ambition to go forward, I believe he needs to have a personality aside this goal. If you removed that goal, they should be able to stand on their have a personality. It’s the job of the plot to make it difficult to achieve this objective and that’s what makes it interesting.


 * Background Story: backstory of the character. Personal experiences before the start of the story. Events that define and forge his/her personality.  You should also show these little by little.

Not considered:


 * Appearance: appearance may say a lot about the character, but it’s really relative to the story...I don’t think so. Besides, you can make the page here and upload a photo and whatsoever.


 * Everyman-ness: How relatable a character can be? We could place this inside the second item “Humanization” and it’ll be the same.

‘’’Also, remember that this aspects apply for most characters, if not all. Of course, it’s quite difficult to develop every single character, but it’s necessary to characterize most of them, that’s for sure.’’’

Personal recommendations
I believe the best way to write this part is by small tips to you guys. This is strictly personal and it’s my pure opinion:


 * I believe many users find it easy to start in the very first day of SAO because we all already know what happened. Well. Do NOT do that. Why? For the exact same reason. Why would I want to read something I already know about?! Find a different way to start. Any way. But seriously, skip the very first day of SAO.


 * Draw inspiration from what you see or what you like. Every great writer is a great reader as well. But inspiration doesn’t come just from what you read. It also comes from what you watch.


 * Don’t rush things up. Take your time. Do it slowly.


 * Use reasonable time-jumps or time-skips.


 * Personally, I have the rule of uploading a chapter once it has more than 10 pages. However, I first had the rule of uploading it once it has more than 5.


 * First-person writing (FPW) vs. Third-person writing (TPW): User: Ishimura_Elite and I always have that discussion of which is the best way of writing. Personally, I choose the latter. Why? Because this way, I think, it’s easier to develop other characters aside the MC. In first person you may get a greatly developed MC, but you have the risk of almost forgetting of the rest of the cast. To avoid this, you can use FPW and switch between your MC and the secondary characters or you can have no MC at all.


 * Switching between FPW and TPW: there are certain moments where the FPW fits really well. These moments are very specific and generally center on the MC. For instance: a dream sequence or the epilogue/prologue.


 * Try not to use Plot Devices. A plot device is a mean of advancing the plot. It’s often used to motivate characters, create urgency, resolve a difficulty, etc.... This can be contrasted with moving a story forward with dramatic technique; that is, by making things happen because characters take action for well-developed reasons.


 * I emphasize with one specific type of plot device: the Main Female Lead (MFL). Give your female lead something to do. Develop her, please! This was probably one of my biggest mistakes in writing PoA, if not the biggest. Guinevere is probably one of my favorite characters, but to be fair, her development is almost non-existent. I could say she exists mainly as a Plot Device for my MC Galant. Fortunately, I can see I’m not the only one who made this mistake. Reki Kawahara, writer of the SAO LN created several one-dimensional female characters that are mostly there because of Kirito. But I must criticize her development of Asuna above all of the other female characters (With exception of Sinon, who’s just awesome). DON’T MAKE THE FEMALE LEAD JUST SOMETHING FOR THE MC TO STICK HIS D*CK INTO. Seriously, I beg of you guys, develop your MFL.


 * “I will protect you all bullshit”. Don’t use that. Seriously. It’s overused. It’s in 99.99% of Shounen Anime. Just don’t. However, using it in an explicit way…that’s fine, at least for me.


 * Try not to use empathy in the background story of the character, it’s too cheap. Think about it for a while: “Oh, I feel bad for this guy, that means I like him!”…See…It doesn’t work that way.


 * Don’t chew more than what you can swallow: Don’t overload the story with underdeveloped or underused characters. Try to introduce characters that you know you can develop somehow or characters that have influence to the plot. Otherwise, you’ll end up with characters that are more useless than the horn of a plane. Or characters that are more useless than Black Widow is for the Avengers.


 * My biggest and most important recommendation for you guys is to write when you really feel like it. Don’t see this as a responsibility. NO. See it as a hobby. Something you do for fun. Otherwise, you won’t be able to write properly and well, everything will fuck up.

Well. I guess that’ll be all for now. If I change my mind, I’ll change something later, either adding information or removing.