Fanfic writers, what's your inspiration and methods?

Media Outlet Fan Fiction Library
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Test…I LOVE pie

[I’ve always wondered what happened in the minds of fanfic writers, because of the stigma that fanfics are that…fan fictions by fanboys/girls that just want to see their favorite characters any positions and situations they choose. God complex I suppose.

Of course I’m not exactly immune to that at all, considering my first foray into fanfics in general (not SRK) started off with Ryu-and-Chun-Lovers-Syndrome and boy did I ever exploit the shit out of that. However for taking my recent one as an example I decided to balance it out with as much bad shit that can ruin such a pairing. I still feel guilty for writing such fanboy rubbish in some of the parts, but hey…it felt good to a certain degree, sort of drawing a doujin.

As for fanfics, here are some personal self imposed guidelines I usually follow:

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[*]I never, if not rarely, create offspring of established characters. (I will however used established offspring) These are one of the things I truly avoid because in doing this, you have to make some sort of pairing up with existing characters, which is kinda fanboyish as stated above.

The other thing that bothers me is that often I feel that if I did such a thing, it would only cheapen imagination due to the fact that the character would just be a combination of mother and father, or just a clone of either or, which really serves no purpose at all but to re-affirm that you wanted some characters to have sex together. I once made a Chun-Li-Ryu hybrid daughter who had a move similar to Yang’s OCF+K special, but it was basically a rising lightning kick.

As for those people who do this, and pull it off well, the more power to you because I’m telling you, it’s hard enough it is to not get an established character to go through the regular loops, but to have offspring to avoid being too similar to their parents is a feat I have yet to accomplish.

[*]Usually I will follow the core cast of characters. I find sometimes just adding people for the sake of writing up magnificant fights just bogs down the writing process. Sure it’s fun but why on earth would Zangief need to enter the fray? Why would E. Honda tag along…for the sake of tagging along?

I’m sure that I can think up of some way to squeeze people in to feature them into the main storyline, but I think that it would deivate to the next rule…staying within character’s limits. If anything, I would create at most a cameo, but I try to keep the referental cameos to a bare minimum. If anything, if I felt that if I were to want my fanfic to be considered serious enough to be a considered valid part of the SF universe, I should approach it like making SF3, not like MvC2 where it has cameo’s galore and plenty of references for spazznesslessness.

[*]I usually keep characters within personalities, but with a twist: It’s easy enough I suppose. But when I consider writing up an interesting enough storyline that involves a character, you do have to make them leave a path that’s already been treaded, especially when most of the fun in a character is playing with them, in this case you have to direct where your viewer is going to see it. I’m not about to make everyone a shotokan character or make Dan the greatest fighter that ever lived.

But neither am I going to basically rehash what to be expected. In some cases, I felt going through the typical Ryu-goes-Satsu-No-Hadou, he would be more active to seeking out fighters much like Akuma. But in the case of meeting with Ken he would have crippled him. Now certainly that does make for a entirely different personality with Ken, who would be more like a mentor/teacher out to protect the world from a rampaging Ryu, but nothing entirely out of the realm of possiblity. I like having characters go through hell.

[*]I hate filler/downtime. This is something that had bogged me down in writing in general. I get enthusiastic to write a situation, but the fact remains, how to arrive to said situation really hits me hard in development and still being able to ethrall the reader in still reading. Originally part #2 of my fanfic here, was supposed to start off with Mel and Isaac already in England in order to set up more stuf to appear later. However since that part ballooned up into 15 pages, as opposed to the last chapters 8 pages, it had made me rethink how to exactly approach it, especially with the cannon fodder that existed in the beginning.

So bang, out goes the filler, in goes to the psychiatric prison. I sacraficed pacing (which I do lament) for keeping the reader interested, but it did develop my skills in general to see how to set up the next chapter and my skills for any form of writing other than fanfiction.
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Well that’s basically it. There are other things I should follow, but these are merely guidelines. I had broken these rules a few times, but they did result in a good read, especially one about KOF with offspring and everything.

OC](orange)

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Hmm.

First, I’m more motivated by fanfics as a tool for conveying humor. There are tons of ways you can look at any established story or property and make fun of the silliness of it all. (Like…why the hell don’t most people in Street Fighter’s backgrounds pay attention to the duel between two superpowered beings behind them? Like the lady washing her clothes/dishes/whatever in SF2 Chun-Li’s stage. “Fuck those turtles. I gotta feed my damn kids!”) I also enjoy exaggerating some of the less obvious details in a character (like how Final Fantasy VIII’s Rinoa Heartilly is a radical socialist, KOF’s Vice is an uber American comic book geek, May Lee loves the fuck out of fried chicken, and Iori Yagami is a pacifist rock star.). Most of my stories, I admit that you have to be a part of the source material’s fanbase to get some of the jokes. If you’re not part of the fighter community, you won’t get half of Ansatsuken Kid. Jokes that make the least people laugh are the funniest.

Second, I admit to writing fanfics as a means of seeing somethings happen in a story I wish had happened. I don’t think it’s god complex as much as it is the desire to just tell an interesting story, even if deviation is necessary. For example, I was playing Project Justice earlier and noticed how just about everybody was trying to bumrush Kurow at the end, only to have him knocked the fuck out by Demon Hyo. For some reason I thought it’d be funny if Sakura Kasugano (who, according to one of the Evolution discs, wasn’t available for Project Justice because she went off to join Ruby Heart in Marvel [!]) came back in the nick of time to save the students’ asses…along with Magneto and Cable.

See, Cable wouldn’t have let Kurow’s gang slide; he’d’ve FUCKIN’ SHOT Momo, and Magneto would’ve snapped Yurika back, going to work on Kurow’s little sinewy ass. Then, afterwards, with nothing else to do for the time being, Magneto and Cable would serve as substitute English teachers while the schools themselves reorganize.

…I dunno.

I’m prone to crossovers. Fanfics are the one medium we can most rely on to see wild crossovers (besides comics and video games, but we’ll NEVER see a 24/Rurouni Kenshin show unless someone does it in fanfic form). Obviously I like to make the most of it, within reason (and I consider Marvel/Capcom/SNK/Sammy to be “within reason” since they’re part of the inexplicable VS Multiverse of fighters), but I’d love to see someone pull off wild shit with a sense of flair and intelligence (unlike that Quantum Leap/Hamtaro/Anne Fucking Frank fic I saw once).

Third, I don’t like doing original characters for fanfics. My original characters belong in my original stories; at least that’s how I figure it. A lot of the advantage that comes from using preestablished characters is that you can be sure the audience is already familiar with the character. With original characters in fanfics, you gotta at least describe the fucker and set up a distinct personality, picking and choosing from the right characteristics. Except under some circumstances will I not be able to tolerate original characters (ESPECIALLY fucking original character + established character romances. Reading the author fucking Chun-Li is NOT entertaining. Unless the author is a big black inmate.) interacting with preexisting ones.

With that said, I’m working on an original story right now, and have been for the past couple of weeks, writing it occasionally. Maybe I’ll have it up here by next week.

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LOl Bin, great stuff, also considering the Ansatsuken Kid, I can see why you said what you said, very funny and smart.

BTW, have you read the “Saved by the Bell/Power Rangers” crossover? And the “Daria/Sailor Moon” crossover? Good lord, I haven’t read them, but the very thought of them makes my skin crawl.

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my inspiration comes from life itself. i just tie my expierences in the story along with the original storyline. it makes it seem a little more real. small twist in the story adds a diference besides no one wants to be reading the same old shit that’s been said for years.

my method is to just write. no plan, no guide, no outline, nothing at all. just sit down and write what comes to my head. daydreaming and a good imigination helps also. when i was in high school i always got excited about writing a story. it gave me a chance to express myself and the ideas in my head. a teacher almost put me in detention once because i wouldnt stop writing when the bitch was teaching, fucking whore made me stop and listen to her bullshit…whoops trailed off.

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Basically I just have a bunch of stories in my head, and I write them to get them out. They play in my mind over and over…but when I actually write them I really think it comes together better than I originally picture.

In general it seems like I have minimal control of my own stories…the characters pretty much write the tales themselves.

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I actually wanted a Passion of the Christ fanfic.

Or a Passion/The OC crossover. “The P.OC”

Yeah, it was gonna be rough…

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http://home.netcom.com/~mblackwl/Neo-zero.txt

Okay, the story is horrible. Pure, unrelenting rubbish. But the link above is a MSTing of it, which is absolutely hilarious. It’s worth putting up with the story just to read the MSTing.

I may post more later but right now I just wanted to share that link.

Oh Jesus. That doesn’t even make sense. I can’t even comprehend the levels of space and time we’d have to distort, how many fabrics of reality we’d have to rip like a cheap pair of pantyhose in order to make that work. I mean…damn.

Just reading that made me break out into barely containable laughter at work.

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Ok, bored at work so I’m back to post.

My story originally started as a challenge to myself. At the time, I was disappointed (and still am) with the pathetic treatment video games get from Hollywood. I thought to myself “I can do better!” then I put myself to the test when I started writing my fan fiction, based on Killer Instinct.

Now, I’d say more than a KI fanfic, it’s a story that involves Killer Instinct. I would like to see it published/pipe dream of a movie deal one day, and if I never get a thumbs-up from Nintendo and/or Rare I’m completely prepared to remove the Killer Instinct out of the story.

I think I was fortunate in that KI’s story never got too deep. That let me take liberties with the characters and storylines…nothing as drastic as say making Sagat an arms dealer, or Ryu Chinese, but I could play around with what was there and work with that. For example, in the game, Orchid and Jago are sister and brother, somehow separated. In my story, Fulgore 2 uses the Ultratech time travel technology to go back in time and attempt to kill Jago’s parents before he was born. He made an error though, and killed them well after Jago’s birth. A very young Orchid witnessed this, and the trauma caused her to lose her memory and wind up on the doorstep of a man who worked for a secret government agency. Jago was found in a dumpster by Tibetan monks who took him back to their Tiger Shrine. Stuff like that.

The three main characters, Orchid, Jago, and Fulgore-X, I’ve fashioned after myself. They represent three parts of my personality - Orchid is the down-to business “do what I must” side, Jago is the indomitable nice guy who fights for what is right because it is right, and Fulgore-X is somewhere inbetween - just kind of lost as to what to do, and will float from point to point until he finds something useful. Despite grafting myself onto these characters, I think I’ve kept them fairly close to the originals (except for Fulgore-X, who was my own creation).

I don’t feel any obligation to use every character, and I’ve killed off a few. I’m considering going back and rewriting some of the story to cut out more characters that don’t quite fit.

And I’ve made a few new ones. The most notable is Julie, a half-human half-cybord hybrid who serves as a love interest for Jago and a rival for Orchid. Anytime I make a new character, it’s to serve a role that none of the existing cast cannot.

I dunno, at this point I feel like it’s gone beyond just KI and turned into a story that involves KI. But I and other KI fans can still enjoy the KI aspects because it doesn’t stray too far away from the established. It’s a funny thing to deal with in fan fiction - creativity vs faithfulness to the original. If you make something someone already knows, that’s boring. But be too creative, and purists will complain about inaccuracies (ie Hawaiian E.Honda).

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Let’s see.

I started my CFAS Fan Fic over at Gamefaqs but I kind of wanted people to continue the story. It was just a way to kill time before the game came out. Next thing I know, the game didn’t come out and people were asking me to continue so I moved the Fic here. Then it became something for people who wanted the game to come out, but I wound up making lots of stuff up, and I tossed in Vs. Battles I wanted to see like Dante vs. Morrigan and stuff. Not knowing too much about RS, thedude.com helped me a lot with Akira, I’m not sure I got her exactly right, but I did my best.

The second time I wrote a Fic, everyone on this Thread was supposed to help write a Top Tier Fic in the SRK Manhunt. I said I would write my three chapters and so I did, I tend to keep my word as best as possible, but I’m not good at keeping rules straight, so I just did a side story of sorts and broke all of the rules, LOL! least I got to write my favorite Anime Character, Sagara Sanosuke!

Anyway, I learned a lot from writing these fics and I’m putting what I learned in my X-Men Vs. SF Fic which I’m writing since there’s still no comic version out and I had the story for it locked up in my head for a while.

As far as character interpretations, for Ryu and Chun-Li, I’m a fan of unrequited loves so I’ll only imply something may be going on, I’ll never have them kiss or have sex or anything. I just wish I was skilled enough to be extremely subtle like the SFZ Anime, you can see something there if you want to or you can ignore it.

So, yeah, basically I write these Fics for myself and delude myself with the reasoning “The Game’s not coming out!” and “The Comic’s not coming out!” but in the end, I’m just a shallow man, LOL!

When I started my X-Men Fic, it was important to tell people right off the bat that it will be all action and not too much character development, because that’s the kind of Fic it will be, so people who want to read a Fic that deeply explores who Cyclops is need to look elsewhere. I think people expect too much from Fan Fic writers. We are Fans writing Fiction. If we were Anne Rice or Stephen King, we wouldn’t be writing Fan Fiction. We just do the best we can and when you write a Fic that uses Game Moves and the like, it’s not an easy thing. :slight_smile:

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Get this.

It’s a lemon.

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What in the-? How in the? Wha? But? That’s…? I mean…? It just can’t…? Hua? In the…?

I am at a complete and total loss for words on that one.

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Well, my writings aren’t the usual fan-fiction. Instead of creating stories centered around pre-existing characters in series, I come up with my own. Creating original characters is easier for some series than others, most of mine being for Guilty Gear. Background stories are included, of course, but the main focus is gameplay, which includes normals, specials, overdrives, and instant kills. In terms of plot, while I don’t make any of them weak, I don’t make them too powerful, either (in other words, no one on the same level as the likes of Sol, Slayer, Dizzy, or Justice). Gameplay is for the most part focused, if only a bit broken in some cases. Aside from the background stories, I also include PWAB reports, done in the same fashion as the ones in the story mode in the ports of XX/#R (I only bothered to make a story mode for one of them, though). If anyone actually cared enough to read this far, you can find two of them here (one on page 2 and another on page 4).

http://www.thegearproject.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=383&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

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Sam must’ve leaped into Hamtaro in heat. The only way I could see that one happening.

Anyway, I don’t tend to mess with original characters. At least when they are supposed to be members of a established universe(Like Ryu’s son or something like that.) It just seems like you will have to restrict certain personality traits because of their relationships to an established character.

The ONLY character I did which broke from my norm was a girl in the last fic I wrote(A Warrior’s Saga), who was Gouken’s daughter. Too bad Mr. Wizard destroyed it…