Part 5: “Easy, EASY! Now what’s going on?”
By Bane Keldare
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Something I haven’t been able to understand in the past few weeks.
Ok, I’ve been perusing though fanfiction sections, reading stories here and there. I’ll admit, I like reading stories all the time; in fact, three per day is pushing it for me. It makes me wonder how people do it sometimes.
But what’s been bugging me lately is how short and lacking some of these stories have been. You know, the story starts off with Sonic running, naturally, but then, about three pages later Eggman’s gone and everyone’s celebrating in a meadow.
And my head’s spinning, because I just can’t figure out how he got defeated or just what happened sometimes. There are times when I won’t even know what he did!
Do I even have to mention fanfiction.net? Well, I’d better do it now before I let it slip my mind.
(Deep breath)
Is there a point to putting my stories on www.fanfiction.net? I mean, sure, I have my current stories up there, and they stayed at the top of the “new” list for…oh, about three seconds. What pisses me off is that it got buried under all these stories that I just don’t get. Those stories that are, and they’re always described like this: “written at 5 AM on a caffeine rush.”
What the hell? I’m all for writing when you’re in the mood of writing, but for God’s sake, can’t you at least wait until morning until you post it somewhere? Even then, do those bad reviews sink into these people’s heads? Do they look at all the people going “that’s ****** up dude,” and “this story sucks,” and think that maybe writing on a caffeine high isn’t such a good idea? Does the word edit mean anything anymore?
To me, there are too many new people cracking their knuckles and dragging them across the keyboard. My stuff is in there with this crap, and I have to put up with it! I’m kinda glad I have Netraptor’s place, cause there I can actually feel like my story is worth something. There, I can feel like there aren’t five-year-olds writing stories left and right to impress their friends, and I can feel like people who actually care are reading mine.
And I swear, if I see one more person on FF.net saying “please review and don’t flame or else I’ll flame you back,” in their story’s comments, I’m just going to throw my hands up hit the back button. It’s already going downhill if the person doesn’t have confidence in his own stories. If that guy knows he didn’t write the story well, why did he put it there?
I’m never going to get it.
(/rant)
Ok, I digressed somewhat, but it’s easy to run this rant in parallel with my topic.
Pace yourself.
Yeah, I know, it’s hard. My current story is my attempt to better my own pacing by splitting the story up into chapters, and trying to get at least one done per week. Is it succeeding? Well, it was until I moved into my apartment, which is where I’m writing this from. Yeah, I could’ve gotten some writing done, but my chi’s a bit thrown off right now. Not having internet doesn’t help much either. Oh well, I should have some soon.
But I’m learning a lot about my own writing that I didn’t know about, because I’m pacing myself. I realized that if I split up the story, I have more opportunities to throw those quality ending lines on the end of my chapters. You know, those one liners that just leave the reader wanting more…and more…and more. I love those things, and because I’m splitting my story into chapters this time, I actually have the ability to do this more often.
Also, I have the time to focus more on description. That’s another thing I’ll touch briefly on, before I turn that into a full out topic. Description. It’s very, very important, and most of these quick three-page story writers have none. Sure, they may know the basics of dialogue and action scenes, but that’s it. There’s an entire world that Sonic’s speedily blazing through. He’s running past trees, and animals, and a city made completely of robotics and technology. Yet all the people do is go “Sonic was in Robotropolis and killed Eggman! Rawr!”
Eh heh…right.
Let’s just go into the dynamics of one scene. Here’s the setup: Sonic just slammed into Robotnik’s machine and destroyed it, forcing the machine to explode. Now, instead of just saying “it exploded,” expand that idea to your five senses.
How does it look? Well, an explosion is usually very bright, with flames shooting everywhere. Don’t forget there’s debris flying and falling around you, and hey, that explosion’s probably reflecting a fiery light around the room, right? How cool is that? Sonic can even have the cool Sephiroth-walking-through-fire scene, all to himself!
How does it sound? Loud. Explosions are loud. Explosions are very loud. If you haven’t ever heard a bomb explode, then I can’t help you. I was fortunate enough to witness a bomb demonstration at an air show once, where they detonated a bomb a long ways away. Even then, the sound was loud. Don’t forget about the debris, either. Was the machine all metal? Or was it made of glass too? Metal lands with a loud clank noise, while glass tends to tinkle down, maybe it’ll even crunch under the weight of more debris. Metal also has this nasty screech when it scrapes across other metal objects.
How does it smell? It’s not used as often as sight or sound, and for good reason. Smells are hard to portray in text. A “flowery” smell we can only assume is a nice smell, because every flower’s scent is different, and nobody’s going to be able to tell one from another. But how does an explosion smell? Well, fire’s got a pretty pungent smell to it, you know, with the smoke and all. But extreme heat’s got a sort of smell to it, too. When an explosion occurs, a great amount of heat is released. Don’t forget what’s on fire, too…that could effect the smell.
How does it taste? Now for this scene, and for most scenes, taste is an odd sense to develop, but it has a pretty powerful effect and can show off your abilities as a writer. If something occurs, and it can be tasted, and it’s not something eaten, then it’s a very strong smell, and can easily be put with the smell category. You’ve smelled something bad before, right? Something so bad you could taste it? That’s because that part of your face and head are connected.
How does it feel? That really depends, but we’ll take this from Sonic’s perspective. If an explosion occurs, first there’s a shockwave…a rush of air. The heat of the explosion usually follows this, and the heat will be continuous from that point on. Now, a number of factors can follow in with this. Sonic could feel a few small pieces of debris or flames hit him, causing him to yelp in pain, or maybe not. Who knows.
Now let’s see a scene like this in action, ok? Remember, the scene is: Sonic just made the kill shot to Robotnik’s latest device, and the explosion is what I’m describing.
Sonic landed hard, straining his knees to keep standing up straight. After steadying himself, he watched as the machine just stood still. The sound of electricity crackling and buzzing became louder and louder, until it all came to a breaking point.
The explosion rocked the small hedgehog, the shockwave almost knocking him off his feet. The blinding flash forced Sonic’s eyes shut, and the heat wave made him feel like his fur was beginning to singe. The loud boom hurt Sonic’s sensitive ears, which were now picking up the sounds of debris bouncing off the metallic floor below. A loud screech came from the heavy machine sliding painfully across the floor.
Opening his eyes slowly, Sonic looked at the pyre that he had caused. The fire reflected off the walls, the floor, and the ceiling like a great campfire, with sparks floating up from the wreckage. The smell of oil burning crinkled his nose, and the smoky smell was so strong that the hedgehog could taste it.
See? Three paragraphs of a story on one explosion! Now, don’t do this for every one, because it would probably get repetitive and boring, but this is the kind of great writing one can achieve if they slow down and pace themselves.
That’s it for now, I’m tired, and I have to head to work.
End Transmission. –Bane Keldare, April 12, 2004.