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Advice for Writers
Team Bonet
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An idea and something to say!
You start by deciding what the motive behind your story is. Who will be in it? What part of the anime/manga am I writing for? What will the end be like? Do I want my readers to feel sad or happy? Is this a joke-story? Then you decide what you want your story to do. Map out a diagram of your story and create scenes. Can you add or remove scenes as you go along? Of course! For example, in the story I wrote about Gundam Wing, Break the System, I mapped out the following:
Hiro Yui tries to escape the Federation, soldiers capture him. He is assaulted by an officer; he kills him. He wakes with Dr. J and learns his rebel base is going to move. The rebels fill his body with hidden weapons; they arm, and escape. As they escape, the soldiers murder most of the rebels.
Setting!For a story to achieve its best, you need to color out some setting. Where is it taking place? Where are the characters talking, running, kissing? The things around them create atmosphere and mood. Plus, it’s the sign of a professional story. Describe the room, the place, and the area. In my story A Dream of Magic, setting was of most importance:
The wooden door opened softly to her gentle tug. The huge green leave that hung over it made it difficult for ny else to open it, but this was her home. Kukuri looked behind her. Duo was staring at the green moss that was growing over the wall of the house. Woven over the wood. Huge ferns covered the porch. He smiled at the huge plants, looking at all the rich greenery. The trees interwove into the house themselves, almost as if the house were a tree house. Their roots dug under the tiles of the floor making patterns. Huge butterflies flew inside the house and they landed on some wild flowers that grew from the walls and from the floor. Duo stood breathless before her door. Kukuri smiled as she set the bouquet in the fireplace.
Dialogue!
Stories moves and breathe through dialogue. Conversations. What do the characters say to each other? Your story doesn’t have to be littered with dialogue, but it flows a lot better if, instead of telling us Hiro or Hiey said something, if you add the quotation marks and make him ‘speak.’ Make the dialogue do things! Make it funny, witty, sad, depressing... You are the writer, so make the characters say whatever you’d like, what you wanted to hear in the anime/manga. The most important thing to remember? Keep the dialogue true to character. We both know Vegita wouldn’t talk a lot, specially to Son Goku.We need to care for your characters!
Make them believable and interesting. In this kind of writing, your readers already know your characters and know them. Well, most people do. So, this refers mostly to secondary characters you create for the purpose of your story. These need to be realistic and we need to care for them. Give them motives for doing the things they do. Tell us a bit of their past and what they do. Reveal a few of the secret things that make them unique. Don’t just create random evil officers. Give them motives, reasons, behind their actions. Want to write about a girl who meets Kenshin and they both have a great time? Well, we know Kenshin already, so it’s the girl who needs to be introduced. Where is she from? What does she do in her spare time? What was her past like? Why is she with Kenshin? If you don’t know how to make her real, base her on yourself or your friends. That’s the best place for ideas: what you know. Give your characters some of your traits and qualities, adapting them to the story, of course. For example, a character from my Gundam Wing story Memories, I gave Trowa traits from myself and the old lady traits of my grandmother:
The woman, her kind face smiling as he lifted each dish and washed it carefully, nodded as he rinsed them properly. She slapped the bottom of her apron, laughing heartily. The young boy was very good at washing dishes. He had offered to help her, after dinner was finished because he was tired of watching the family serve him, give him things, care for him, while he just sat in his room. He didn't like to be served. He had never been. He had always been the servant.
Creativity and style!A story becomes truly wonderful when the writing demonstrates good quality. After you’ve written your story, go back and add poetic language, and vivid description. Don’t be afraid to use metaphors and similes and personification. For example, “The sky loomed like a piece of hot glass over him.” Create images for your reader! Make the piece interesting. Let your imagination run free. Buildings can stand like huge monsters or like quiet giants. A bird can look at Kaoru with angry eyes. This is fiction! So, create things as you like and describe things as wild and creatively as you’d like. An example from my Seimaden story Mist at Twilight:
The rain fell outside the window as if the world was dying; slowly coming to its end in a rage of madness. Lightning colored the small, dark room each time it struck, and the thunder rolled in the distance like the screams of the damned. The rain hit the window pain, each little hit like the hands of the clock, each driving him closer to insanity. He wished the small hits would stop, so he could go to sleep. So he could stop thinking.
Get someone to read your story!
Find a friend and let him/her read your story. That way you can see whether your story worked, and he/she may tell you where to improve. Listen to his/her advice, but remember to ask more than 1 person. After all, he’s not the writer and may be wanting you to change certain things you like. So, listen to more than 3 people so you may get the best feedback.Finally...
The last bit of advice is to start writing! Sounds weird? Well, no. Believe me, sometimes the only thing stopping a writer from doing a good story is beginning. Start to write now. Always wanted to do a story about Trowa and Hiro going shopping and finding a dead man inside the freezer? Well, what are you waiting for? To find a real man in a freezer? Start writing! The first one might suck (first ones always suck, so don’t worry), but they will get better. As you continue to write, stories will get better and you will develop a style all of your own and feel proud of your work. Remember you are the author. You hold the pen and decide how to make your story move. So, allow yourself to create whatever you like!
About the Advicing Author
Westside, the writer of this article, is a member of Team Bonet, currently the acting chair, and is a senior in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Central Florida, and has published work in The Cypress Dome and The Lullwater Review literary magazines and is the author of more than twenty pieces of fiction and poetry..
Team Bonet hopes it has helped a lot of writers out there. When we started writing for the Web in 1995, we didn’t know how many people around the globe would enjoy our work. We are thankful for this, and encourage every writer who ever wanted to create fanfiction! You are welcomed to visit our humble home, the Oki Doki Bonet Homepage. If you still need further advice, drop a line to hiroyui@aol.com or leave a message in our Guest Book Still, please remember that we cannot read stories and edit them, so please don’t send us stories to read. Send us questions on how to improve your writing or how to move forwards in your plot. Those are questions, which in the long run, will help you the most. Good luck and have a wonderful day!