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Lockoneyes: I’ve seen that pic on your Tumblr before! It’s soooooooo cute! XD Love the rainbow. <3
Unfortunately, entry to this particular contest requires following the prompt (http://sparklermonthly.com/forums/topic/monthly-prompt-challenge-1-december/#post-2475), which is “winter-themed” art. Would you like to submit a winter version of that pic, maybe? I’m imagining Santa Hats plopped on. *lol*
The great thing about having “cool parts” and “great/important scenes” in your head from the beginning is twofold:
1.) Having something cool to work toward will get you to sit down and write! Good to have something to look forward to in a loooong race. :)
2.) You recognize what makes a scene cool/great – which means that you can use some of those elements in other scenes. A book shouldn’t be a lot of boring stuff and then a few great scenes – every scene can be great, or at least interesting. So when you find yourself writing something that’s boring to you, stretch your brain to try and figure out how you can make it more exciting or insightful, using your “good” parts as inspiration. Can you add a cute character moment? A running joke? A surprise? An interesting setting? If the scene isn’t interesting to you, it may not be interesting to your reader, either. O.O
You mention you’ve finished Beyond Beauty – that’s awesome! Do you mean you’ve scripted it all out for Scotty? This might be a topic for another thread, but I’d be very interested to hear how you work with Scotty as a writer/artist pair for a comic, since Beyond Beauty has a nice harmony between its art and writing. A lot of creative pairs can’t pull that off.
Can I just say how great it is that Sachi and Kado’s questions are both re: Sachi’s boners.
Hey, sometimes the best creative work is done in the middle of the night, after a flash of inspiration–there’s something surreal about nighttime, especially to the sleep-deprived brain, and you’re often free of distractions at that point. :)
Your creation process of role –> setting –> character is really interesting, Doreibo. That makes a lot of sense, since often, characters grow and adapt only AFTER you put them in a situation and make them face some stuff; in other words, that leaves plenty of space for good character development. In your system, it sounds like the purpose of the story (tale of redemption, loss of innocence, whatever) will be pretty strong from the beginning, which is something a lot of people struggle with.
Don’t be afraid of cliche and archetypes in your early drafts! Cliche is something everyone understands – it’s immediately accessible, and usually popular for a reason. You want to try to diversify in later drafts, of course, but cliche is a good starting point to get your engine running. Sometimes that will help you better picture where a character belongs in the story (the genki type moves the plot forward/the red shirt dies to show that the situation is serious/the tsundere is the one the main character wants to crack), and then you can get creative and screw with the formula once you’re knee-deep in your plot creation.
A few years ago I wrote a post on livejournal about my writing process, which is less about plot and more about setting, characters, and writing style. But that may be relevant to this conversation.
Also, YOU WERE WRITING ADAM PORN?! :D And you mention the short stories, so…Sachi x Kado or something? Yee hee hee! XD (I know how easy it is to rely on sexy dream sequences. But they’re awesome, hence Tokyo Demons has about a million. It’s a good way to unearth hidden desires and have a little fun.)
OH GOD, COLIN’S HAND IN TORY’S POCKET. <3 animatorwannabe (Christian?), this is SO GOOD. The colors! The hint of Tory being a dom! *lol*
Ah, Doreibo’s beautiful breakdowns~.
A lot of what you brought up are big unknowns right now, but will definitely come up (including details on how Touya’s power works, which is coming up next month, via Kado). Both Touya and Kado have complicated pasts, including their past together…and unlike, say, Ayase and Sachi, they’ve been more “aware” of their powers and “power communities” (like Kado’s relationship with his family of semi-inbred psychics) for a while.
Kadoyuki, so desperate and little. He really screwed himself over this time.
That kid’s been having a terrible, parallel adventure with Touya in the background since Book 1. And…yeah. He’s in big trouble now. I know there are a lot of Kado fans out there, so I don’t know how they’re going to react to the news that he’s a traitor. :(
Kadoyuki admittedly seems like he is worse off than Ochi, but that may be because he has to deal with what goes on in the present.
Kado’s problems run deeper than just him dealing with his power(s), but Ochi’s been suicidal for a while. They just translate their misery differently. Being a psychic really, really blows sometimes…Sachi’s the exception, not the rule.
I’m still a little confused, he can see the future, but if it is not due to his Malum trait and in fact due to a supernatural trait, then he would be suffering as much as Wipe has due to a reconfiguration of his brain. I guess his Malum trait is what is allowing him to stay ‘sane’.
You’re on to something there! Still, you’re assuming Touya’s sane. :)
Could it be that Kadoyuki and Touya are related?
:^o
Doreibo, I’m so happy to see you at Sparkler! XD I noticed your posts popping up last night, and I can’t wait to go through them all. The new chapter’s up now, and I think it went up, like, 30 seconds after your post. *lol* Glad you’ve been enjoying Sachi getting some action and the boner jokes. Also, PLOT STUFF I GUESS. :) Those bodyguards are hard to control, which may…come up soon, heh. Glad you like Sparkler! It’s really been coming along~. Becca and our writers, artists, and editors are totally nailing the other serials. I’m so proud of everyone. <3
Tacto, Ochi and Nakajima are so freaking tight-lipped that I don't think ANYONE guessed his power. But if I'm not mistaken, you guess that "Mother" was Touya all along, right? And I think Doreibo did, too! (And Doreibo figured out Touya could see the future a looooooong time ago, based on puzzling through the Prologues of Book 1 & 2.) You guys are good at this. <3
Tokyo Demons has another important chapter next month - the climax of Book 2, and rem's doing the cover for Sparkler~. And then the end will come out in March or April. Almost there at last! This book is over 110K words by now. O.o
I’ve been out of the forums for WAY too long. Tacto, Romy, Scotty! These are all so great! XD
Tacto: YOU KNOW I LOVE EVERYTHING YOU DO. And seeing Mitsuko and Miki all snuggly is, like, THE BEST. FEELS.
Romy: I can’t get over how cute this is. I’m so used to seeing/imagining Clio all sweaty and gross in the Gauntlet, but seeing her in some girlish bedroom is so squee!
Scotty: I LOVE the colors (gradient on that hoodie is sweet) and how Colin looks really suave in Tory’s head. Not the fainting, awkward weirdo we know and love. *lol* Also, blushies~!
Do you mean a general writing outline, or the type of outline we ask for when people pitch to us?
As far as pitch outlines go, most of the accepted submissions have just broken down their books by chapters, giving us a one-paragraph summary of each chapter. Some have pointed out moral development/themes/character arcs in addition to basic plot summary, but it’s not always necessary, as a good plot summary will usually get that across. And before we even offer a contract, we usually talk with the creator about how we think the book could be improved, what genre and marketing we would like to assign to it, editorial feedback, etc. It’s a pretty fluid process…that outline is just a starting point, really. Some outlines are MASSIVELY changed between submission version and the final version we think warrants an actual contract. But in order for us to be interested enough to talk to the author, that first outline needs to be pretty solid: a good story arc, broken into chunks that will keep readers coming back; compelling, interesting characters who have noticeable development; strong emotional core.
At least in prose, most of my authors have stuck pretty close to the final, editorial-approved outline, although they’re getting good at punching up each chapter and making it more exciting once they actually write it. We can do more “punching up” while we edit the roughs of the text, too.
The only book that’s constantly veering from its outline is Tokyo Demons. But that’s mostly a function of the size and age of the series…and the fact that I’ve worked in adaptation for a decade, so I’m used to starting with something and then constantly slashing it and rearranging the pieces. If we had another author like this, and she had the backlist to prove that we should trust her, that would be fine, too. But what I do is dangerous and stressful, and I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it. *lol*
Angi! XD This is so cute! I’m totally sending this to Lydia and Phong Anh. <3
By the way, guys, and especially Neila--how do you feel about extending this prompt until the end of January? Editorial forgot to promote it much with all the holiday stuff/new launches lately. To compensate, I'm happy to put everyone who participates in the prompt by Jan 1st into the raffle twice, for being timely. *lol*
Ha ha, so do we! :) Like Awake, Dead Endings has a great mystery framework for a story that’s about people, relationships, and identity. Traditional mystery novels never had enough FEELS for me. But Dead Endings expertly crosses genres and is compelling for a bunch of different reasons.
Shit gets really intense later, too. I was on the edge of my seat when I read the outline. :D It’ll be awesome.
We’re in final negotiations with a few series for the spring that might scratch that itch, Serene. :) Really fun, explosive stuff for when the weather turns warm again.
OMG, love it! Masculine sashay with SPARKLY SNOW. <3
First half of your sentence: we actually discussed this in editorial/marketing awhile ago, but in traditional publishing, thematic anthologies don’t sell well, so we’re being a bit conservative at the moment.
Second half of your sentence: exactly! Shorts are great to fill in gaps, and they also add extra surprises to an issue, so that’s our main purpose for them now. Some will probably also be pilots for bigger series.
I loved Maiden and the Fish, too. <3 We're slowly building up a backlog of shorts, which is also the reason submissions opened up for them specifically in December.
NoNane, the PS Vita should pay you for that post! *lol*
Serene, Otomen is AWESOME. Such a simple premise, yet endlessly entertaining (and compelling!). That series has a really wide crossover audience, from what I understand, because playing with gender in a pretty sanitized, good-natured way makes everyone smile.
Sgl, you’re one of the people who’s always made me REALLY want to check out Chihayafuru. That’s on Crunchyroll, right? It sounds awesome.
TRIPLE HIGH-FIVES to anyone who mentioned Skip Beat. That series kicks ass, even when it goes on insane side rambles. Ren Tsuruga is one of the most interesting shoujo heroes of all time, because that dude is LAYERS OF CRAZY. Kyoko is crazy, and it’s all on the surface. Ren is like an onion – you can just unwrap crazy to find more, delightfully hidden crazy. And as a couple, they’re so batshit that I laugh just thinking about it. THEY SHOULD MAKE BABIES. Yoshiki Nakamura is a rare type of mad genius, and you should check out her really, really awesome series before Skip Beat: Tokyo Crazy Paradise.
I watched Attack on Titan and Free! this summer, like a good female otaku. Titan took a while to get good, but when it did, damn.
