So--the whole crossover debate. Crossovers are very tricky. Two wholly separate worlds, characters, and authors' styles melded into a singular believable one is no easy task.

Many people give the advice of just staying away from crossovers. But for those who want to write one, this thread will be for questions and tips.

The biggest tip I can give (and this goes with *any* piece--fan fiction, original fiction, poetry, whatever) is research. So many people want to just jump into writing a story without researching. If you want to make credible characters and have a crossover world that makes sense, research--and lots of it--is essential. Both genres, both words, both authors, everything needs to be scrutinized first before spinning out your tale.

Well, I'm hungry and about to go out. I'll add more when I'm fed and back home.

Edited: When I start misspelling one of my favorite characters names, I know I'm losing it!

When writing crossovers put the basic elements of each in the story. For example, if you want to do a Harry Potter/Clique crossover you have to find the main purpose of each. Harry Potter's is to destroy Voldemort and Death Eaters, while the Clique's is (I think) to be the top girls (in all aspects). So, I guess you do do a fic where the Clique goes to Hogwarts and tries to claim their spot at the top while Harry works to deafeat Voldemort. As I said, I haven't written a crossover or read that many, but I think this is a good tip. Just work wth it. Something should come up. I hope this was helpful.

This is very good advice. I've seen far too many Star Trek fanfics crossed with Buffy, until I want to scream. In fact, I've seen far too many of any thing crossed with Buffy for my taste.

I once wrote an Austin Powers/Harry Potter crossover. How? Easy. Dr. Evil was the new DADA teacher, and Voldemort was his henchman hired to KILL HARRY POTTER!! Ahem. Yes, it was humorous. And there were plans for Mrs. Norris and Mr. Bigglesworth to hook up. There were credible reasons I spliced these two seemingly incompatible worlds, so it wasn't entirely humor-based, but I think the humor helped. Pulling off a non-humorous crossover that is credible can be difficult, from what I've experienced.

A very popular plot device is having the characters of your desired fandom enter hogwarts as new students. in quite a few crossing fics the new characters will always have the same positions thus making such fics repetitive and boring. try finding another way to introduce the foreign characters - i read fic where the teenagers of the other fandom were simply aged a few years and started as TEACHERS at hogwarts. the story "history of magic" has currently over a thousand reviews for 8 chapters and kicks ass. :)

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Both characters got attacked by their rival enemies, thrown into a nightmarish battle with their personified negative emotions (screwed up versions of themselves), and had crude self-lobotomies in order to rid themselves of them (Hinata cut clean, but Daisuke... well, let's just say he needed many more stitches at the clinic).

However, the events cause the untapped portions of their brains to create a tiny universe (about the size of the Solar System, but a whole landmass) where they and their friends are sucked into.

It's not exactly too complex... but there are vultures out there, you know (not referring to you, of course... ahem... well, everybody needs a hobby).

You think it's rather far-fetched? The events are very similar to (you probably guessed from the title) Pink Floyd's "The Wall".

Anyway, I should go to sleep,

God bless ya soul,

St.Gabriel

I'm trying to write a House/Scrubs crossover, and I'm not sure whether it would work or not.

(On Scrubs, Dr. Cox was making fun of House, so I guess it sort of works.)

Any tips?

Hi WuHaoNi! Did you get my PM that I accidentally sent on the wrong account? (Seriously, when you have 4, it's hard to remember which one you're on.)

The best advice i got for crossovers is from notmanos, one of the better authors here...s/he said "Don't be afraid of it, but make sure it works." Basically, don't cross things that are completely implausible...for example, don't cross cartoons with live action characters...could i take my favorite character (Wolverine) and stick him in, say, the Babylon 5 universe? Maybe...he'd probably still be alive in 250 years...but could i take Sidney Bristow from "Alias" and stick her in the Smurfs? Not so much...unless you're sticking them in "Scooby Doo", don't even go there...

In short, blending genres is fine, as long as they're similar...make it sound like something that could really happen and it'll work...trying to shove two things that are NOT like the others together is probably not a good idea...

He makes it both believable and exciting. Him and his group know how to write!

As for more Kid friendly crossovers may I suggest Anthoney Bault's Heroes of Arcadia series?

My tip is, is that it helps if the two novels have similar themes or genres. Then the characters will seem more likely to exist in the same universe.

Like Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. They could both work.

I'm not overly familiar with the Percy Jackson books (those are the modern day demi-god books, right?), so i can't tell you how well the two would mesh...but from the little bit i've read online, i think they should blend all right...as long as you keep the characters from each 'verse in character, you should be all right...:)

I settled to write a BTVS/POTC fic simply because it is very convenient to write. The characters are all used to odd and strange things happening to them and therefore they are open to believing in the old legends. Also the story of Glory opening the Portal with Dawns blood and it leading to other worlds happens to be a very useful little show.

With my fic I have gone down the Phillip Pullman root in believing there to be millions of other words all overlapping each other. I have then taken the idea of Wills world and Lyras world being the same, but different. To think of the POTC world as one and the world of BTVS with its vampires and demons to be another is a much easier way of thinking of it all. And in my eyes more believable than just going back in time.

But then again I haven’t really merged the worlds. I have just chucked one character from one world into another….

Either way I believe a good crossover doesn’t look like a crossover at all. It should not centre on simply crossing two worlds but should instead centre on a plot that just so happens to cross the two worlds.

Another is to make sure that they have a meshing story line. If they just happen to be living in the same building, but the characters from one story have one plot and the characters from the other story have a totally different plot, what's the point of having the cross-over? Just write two different stories. The characters all have to work together towards a common goal in the end.

Personally, I feel that if you have a crossover, the only reason you would have an OC would be if it was the bad guy. In that case, the other characters from the different shows, books, video games, etc. would be working together to defeat this evil.

I've been working on a crossover among three separate video game universes. It's a pretty common match up, actually: Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, and Sonic the Hedgehog. I've got two or three protagonists from each fandom, and one enemy - a character from the Zelda Fandom, Vaati. Anyway, the story starts off pretty predictably. Princess Toadstool gets abducted by bad guy, while Luigi gets turned to stone in the process. Mario has to save her. Pretty normal so far.

Then comes my plot device. I've created an OC by the simple name of the "Elder Toad." He's the oldest living toadstool in the Mushroom kingdom, and he's very wise. Actually, now that I think about it, he sort of reminds me of Dumbledore... but I digress. Anyway, he gives Mario a secret power up item that he created for times of terrible crisis. Mario accepts the power up, and the Elder Toad's help, and he is sent across "realms" into the realm of hyrule, to try and stop Vaati and prevent him from kidnapping anymore people and achieving his goal of a spell to grant himself immortality.

Mario eventually teams up with one or two characters from each fandom, as Vaati's kidnappings create in the other characters an alliance against a common enemy.

In a way, both Vaati and the Elder Toad are my plot devices. The villain drives the action, and the Elder Toad fills in with solutions to the more elementary problems of realm travel and other stuff Mario and the gang wouldn't be aware of.

I'm not saying plot devices are THE way to go, but since I see them in almost all crossovers, I've formed a hypothesis that they're an important element in such stories. :)

Brava ragazza!! Nothing like your friendly neighborhood plot device making your fic all the more plausible. If the universes are pretty similar, then a vacation or job-related thing that requires one or more characters from Universe A going to where Universe B is set would do the trick. But if they're significantly different (different times, planets, dimensions, you get the idea), Universe A is going to have to get to Universe B through slightly less conventional means, like time travel (provided they have the technology) or magic.

And if we also can have a purpose of the two universes meeting, in addition, one that actually is inherent to the stories' plot, that might be the icing on the cake and the recipe for a good X-over.

Some universes have the way how to merge cut out for them. For example, the Highlander universe with their Immortals can merge with a lot of other universes that are set in historical or future earth, or even in any space travel universes; the guys can live forever, after all, so they can pop up anywhere where they have any means to travel to. In Star Trek, you have this wonderful device of "time travel by star ship". And if anything goes wrong with that, you can have Star Trek characters even pop up in LOTR, since technically, Tolkien meant the LOTR story universe to be a mythical past of modern earth. (I know. Stop screaming, already. I have seen it done somewhat acceptable, actually, although it *did* take some getting used to). Discworld can be crossed with nearly any other universe because of the L-space, that connects canonically all very big libraries anywhere in the Multiverse.

With other universes, it might be harder to cross them in a believable way, though...

Now in theory that same accident could have brought Characters from different Universes to Earth. It is feasible to say that Master Cheif could end up in City 17 with all his weapons. Or that Cloud Strife ended up at a Combine Citadel.

The Fandom litterally throws these possibilities out there so it's not hard to make it believable.

Also, make sure you 'stay on track' when it comes to plot. I have deviated from my plot because it was so much fun placing the canon characters in different situations, but in the end, I was unhappy with the quality of the story because of it.

Choose a handful to concentrate on (i would say no more than half a dozen) and put the rest in supporting roles...if you have certain pairings you want to do and that's the reason for the crossover, focus on those pairings...if it's just because you want to blend the two, decide who you want to be the main players ahead of time and stick to it...just because each universe has dozens of characters doesn't mean you have to give them equal page time...

Thank you for your suggestion though, it helped me to focus better

Don't confuse "supporting role" with "insignificance". Just because you're not giving dozens of people equal page time doesn't mean you're not treating with those you don't choose as main characters. Now, i'm not familiar with the fandoms you mentioned, but here's an example:

Fandom #1 has eight main characters: Bill, John, Larry, Fred, Elizabeth, Annie, Jane and Susie.

Fandom #2 has six main characters: Lois, Agnes, Kathy, Bonnie, Nancy and Willy.

Already, that's FOURTEEN people you have to consider, not counting other minor characters or any OC's you might need to bring in (such as villains, parents or other relatives, school friends not part of the main cast, teachers, things like that). SO, let's pick six to deal with exclusively:

Fandom #1: Bill, Fred and Annie

Fandom #2: Kathy, Nancy and Willy

The others are the "supporting" cast. This doesn't mean they won't get plenty of page time, only that they are not the MAIN FOCUS of the story. They are not the REASON for the plot. Have you ever watched the Oscars and wondered why someone was up for "supporting actor/actress" when s/he seemed to have tons of screen time to you? It's because a "supporting" role is someone who helps to move the plot, but isn't the REASON for the plot. Once you know what your basic plot is and flesh it out a bit with a few specifics, the "main" cast will fall into place, because certain characters are better equipped to resolve the plot, while the rest will still perform their same basic functions, only without the benefit of always being in the spotlight.

It's the same with any ensemble cast. In television, for example, some episodes will focus on certain characters more than others, because the others are not the focus of this week's story. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great example of this. Sure, Buffy is undoubtedly the "main" character, but there were many episodes that did not center around her or her duties as the Slayer. In one episode, it was all about Xander and his (mis)adventures, another was all about Tara and her issues with her family, while still another dealt with Willow and her addiction to magic. Yes, Buffy was THERE, but she wasn't the catalyst for the plot in those (and many other) episodes.

See the difference?

Believe it or not, every character in a novel or play becomes the protagonist in at least one moment. I like it when characters all are given a degree of importance. Sure, supporting roles do not mean that they mean nothing, it is just that you do not see much of the character unless they stop out into the stage center, or yell out, or say something meaningful.

There's a saying that goes "one who begins too many things ends up doing nothing". I always try to limit the amount of characters I put into the story. That way, I can give them their spotlight time appropriately. Everyone gets an equal share of the pie! No "supporting" characters! Sure, they may still fill that role, but they still mattered.

For example, I wrote a story where two characters, the protagonist and his supporting girlfriend, were chased by a band of insane people. They had reached a dead-end alley, fenced off with chain-and-barb-wire fence. However, the girlfriend spotted a gap in the barb wire, and thus climbed through it, the boyfriend following.

They climbed down a sewer hole, only for the ladder to give out and the boyfriend fall unconscious. She grabs him and leads him down a tunnel before more came. She was seized and almost stabbed, but she managed to kick her way out and escape to a hospital basement. The next chapters deal with her doubt, and with brain waves from an unknown source that confuse and deplore her and her boyfriend, who actually asks her to kill him.

She and a disembodied voice talk about whether the boyfriend actually likes her. Sure, the girlfriend now has become the protagonist... note, however, the story is still about her boyfriend, not her!

A "supporting" role in fiction, be it original or fan fiction, is someone who's there to serve a purpose and assist in the movement of the plot, but they are not the FOCUS of the plot. Will there be times when a supporting character is the focus of a plot POINT? Sure. But that doesn't mean they take over for the entire plot. Even a seemingly simple plot will have complexities that you didn't necessarily plan for in the original planning stages. For example:

Plot: A young man joins the Army fresh out of high school.

Seems simple enough, right? Well, he'll have to do basic training. Is everyone in his training group automatically going to become extremely important to this plot? How about his drill instructor? The guys who work in the mess hall? Other training groups on the base? Officers on the base? Heck, we could travel all the way up the chain of command to the President himself. Is EVERYONE in the Army going to be important to the plot?

The answer? No, they're not. Take it back to only those men and women in his immediate training group. Like anyone else, there will be people he'll become friends with and people he'll barely know. There may even be people who are instant enemies, for one reason or another.

"Harry Potter" is a good example of "main" vs. "supporting". Your main cast is Harry, Ron and Hermione. Your supporting cast is Fred and George, Ginny, Dumbledore, McGonnagall, Snape, Neville, Luna, Hagrid, Draco, Crabb, Goyle (please don't make me try to list them all!). Bit players and walk-ons would be "everyone else". Why? Hogwart's is MASSIVE. There are hundreds of students in the school and you never even learn the names of 90% of them, because they simply aren't important enough. They fill in the backdrop for the rest to play against and nothing more.

Not every character can be a main character. Some have to be supporting characters, otherwise you really won't get anything done and you'll find yourself with a plot that's spiralled out of control with no way to save it. Nemrut wants to blend fandoms that seem to have many "main" characters of their own. By choosing who will be the Harry, Ron and Hermione of his story will serve him (her?) much better than trying to give equal attention to too many characters.

Keep in mind that this is NOT arbitrary advice. This comes straight from my own education as an English major with a focus on writing, which I hope to teach someday. Your method works for a main character with a single supporting character, but if you get much beyond that it will fall apart.

While this is all well and good for some Fandoms like the Comics section. Some things will not make sense.

For example

I've seen one where People from Naruto or Full Metal Alchemist go to Hogwarts.

now there are some conflicting things about this.

The world of Naruto is stuck in mainly the Feudal system of Japan. Also the continents of Naruto are nothing like ours. They all revolve around the Respective villages.

With FMA it's the same thing.

The Goverment of Ametris is somewhat representitive of Nazi Germany. There are no Planes in FMA. The land of Ametris is huge and is covered by an expanding Dessert. With but a few habitable areas in between.

Therefore they cannot exist on the same world as Harry Potter.

Yes, as a matter of fact, all of those people do. Depends on which way you look at it. The average Sue punk would not notice. He would only babble on about how he is just nervous, and how he wants to bang that hot little single soldier chick three tables away. However, the good writer would single out every damn character out there and throw him into the mix. They do matter to the story, all these characters!

Who started the war? The president did! Who ordered the boy drafted/called up? His supervising general did. Who served him with sustenance and a hot pot of gruel? The cook/ladeler did! Who pressed him into service? Heck, the guy at the front desk that stamps his service ticket, and gets him inside.

I may sound like an idiot saying all this BS, but you have to admit, there's some truth in it. It's all building blocks, friend. You have to put the first one down if you want to get the other twenty on or next to it.

It is up to the author to jot down every little detail he/she can get his grubby little typin' fingers on, it is up the author to not make his character a Sue or appear selfish. Remember, even though your character may sympathise with the average joe from the get-go, you still have to consider that the story could get old after a while. You have to divert, take another track, just in case the one you were one doesn't suddenly buckle under pressure.

Even though those 10,000 recruits or Hogwarts students their names you don't know, they're still there; they're still part of the story, even if they're still a tiny part.

God, listen to me, I sound like a lunatic!

The point is, do they matter? Yes. But does every last person matter to the story? No.

Limiting details and characters is a practiced talent of a good writer.

You make a good point. However... well... I don't know how to say it, but yes, I say every last person matters. Take the cook, for example, the author could say that those contacts have a reason for being there.

He could say that the cook is still under service to the army, and that his eyes had been injured, say, by an experimental flash bang grenade. He was lucky his brother managed to get him a couple that were high in augmentation that were not completely white, otherwise the man would look like a blank-eyed zombie. It represents the dangers the army places in front of him, besides, obviously, that single little snag: death.

And as for that recruit sitting at the other side of the mess hall, he matters too: because he is a brother soldier of the protagonist now, along with every other soldier in here. Somewhere, sometime, that man will either be blowing up a tank or sending a missile up the ass of some unwary Iraqi soldier, saving his and a thousand other lives in the process.

The writer must also remember the complexity of the topic, and that what you see of the iceberg is only 10% of it; the rest of the 90% is under the ocean, nearly invisible to the eye but a nightmarish and inmense view to the mind.

Thanks for clearing this up, I really have confused those two and now I see your point. I guess I have to be stricter with the whole character issue.

In my story the five W.I.T.C.H. girls would be the main cast with with with nearly all ninja (Until now I haven't figured out if it's called ninja or ninjas if you refer to more then one) in supporting roles. Pairings

I didn't plan, so I guess no pressure from this point.

It's because a "supporting" role is someone who helps to move the plot, but isn't the REASON for the plot. Once you know what your basic plot is and flesh it out a bit with a few specifics, the "main" cast will fall into place, because certain characters are better equipped to resolve the plot, while the rest will still perform their same basic functions, only without the benefit of always being in the spotlight.

still, I can imagine, or better I will experience that this will be quite hard to pull of, I would be eternally glad if you could give me some pointers as well.

Thank you for taking your time to help me and it is him by the way^^

First off, according to your profile, you're 14. Best case scenario, based on your join date, you're 15 now. As a writer, you're an INFANT. You say you bleed detail, you don't know how to control it...this is why. I'm more than twice your age and, as I've already mentioned, I have most of a degree in English (minor in writing) because I want to TEACH writing. Controlling your story comes with education and experience. You haven't completed the first and don't have enough of the second.

You make a good point. However... well... I don't know how to say it, but yes, I say every last person matters. Take the cook, for example, the author could say that those contacts have a reason for being there.

Ok fine, he wears contacts for a reason. Does the main character care? Would he even think to ask? Why would he bother to ask? Does the information have ANY impact on the story? No, it doesn't. He's just the guy that serves the food. But most importantly, DOES YOUR READER CARE?

No, your reader doesn't care. So what if Billy Bob the base cook wears colored contacts? Your job as a writer is to create people your readers care about and if you try to make them care about ALL of them, they're not going to care about ANY of them. You won't have time to MAKE them care about all of them. On our theoretical military base, there could be THOUSANDS of people. Writing a book that deals with all of them wouldn't just be stupid, but impossible. It'd be larger than the Encyclopedia Brittanica and no one would read it.

He could say that the cook is still under service to the army, and that his eyes had been injured, say, by an experimental flash bang grenade. He was lucky his brother managed to get him a couple that were high in augmentation that were not completely white, otherwise the man would look like a blank-eyed zombie. It represents the dangers the army places in front of him, besides, obviously, that single little snag: death.

But our "story" isn't about Billy Bob the base cook. It's about Jimmy Joe, our fresh-faced, newly-graduated soldier in basic training. If you want to have Billy Bob tell that story, that's your choice. But unless Billy Bob is going to become an integral part of the plot, there's no point in getting into his entire background. You already have a perfectly good "main" character in Jimmy Joe. If you take the focus off him and his experiences, they'll stop caring about him. And every time you give them someone else to think about, Jimmy Joe will become less and less important until he might as well not be there at all.

Do you even read books? Watch movies or (non-reality) tv shows? They all follow a formula FOR A REASON. Casts are small FOR A REASON. As soon as you start getting into a bunch of details about minor characters that have no real bearing on the plot, you will lose the focus of the plot, the reason for the plot and, most importantly, you lose your audience.

You're young, you still have a lot to learn. And the first thing you need to learn is that you're not always going to be right. The second thing you need to learn is that there are people out there who know more about some things than you do, especially those of us with the education to support our arguments. Learn, grow, move on.

Why would I want to and why SHOULD I have to read the life story of a character that has no bearing on the actual story? I'm all for good characterization and details, but there is such a thing as too much detail. As a reader I don't NEED to know why said cook has contacts. If they help you as an author to complete your inner picture of the story then fine. If we never meet this cook, he doesn't appear at all other than a footnote such as "The cook had out done himself today." or some such, I'm not going to invest my time to get to know him.

As a reader, why should I invest my time getting to know a character if I'm never going to see that character or they will never appear in the story again? If he figures later on in the story then yes, add his information, but then he would no longer be a minor character.

Minor/supporting characters don't NEED every detail of their past told. That is one reason WHY they are minor, they are not in the story long enough to warrant more being written about them.

I've read stories where the detail was so heavy that I almost forgot what the story was about. Hell, when I read The Princess Bride (the original, unedited version) I gave up! Why? Because I didn't need 26 PAGES of Buttercup packing, a page or so of her traveling and then ANOTHER 26 pages of her UNpacking! It's not needed.

It just cutters up the story and can confuse the reader. By that I mean they will be paying attention to details that are unnecessary to the plot. This is a good way to annoy your readers. I know that some would think that the writer couldn’t make the story long enough, so they started adding extraneous information to pad the story.

Just my $0.02 as a reader, a beta reader and daughter of an English teacher.

It's really matter of deciding for yourself a few basic points:

1) Who

2) What

3) Where

4) When

5) Why

6) How

WHO are your characters? WHAT are they doing? WHERE are they doing it? WHEN does this take place? WHY is it happening? HOW are they going to resolve it?

Those are the six things you need to answer. Some are easy to answer ("Story takes place from May to November of 1937"). Some are more difficult. You can use these 6 questions as an outline by answering each one with a sentence or two. Use that as your basis, flesh it out and you'll have a story written in no time!

But it is a good way to build the structure of any fic, the foundation if you want. Thank you very much for taking your time to answer me.

With all due respect, though, you can't really say that I'm inexperienced just because I'm young. Don't you learn anything from the books and the novels you read about teenagers and children and so on? They're sometimes older than you think.

I've aged a hundred years in only fifteen. Even though it was probably the same a decade or two ago, with the whole global warming or the end of the world coming, you still have to grow up with the fear and the worrying and the philosophy of such things. I don't think anything is going to happen, that the Earth will get fixed up and keep grinding on through the blackness of the Universe, but it just might happen when I least expect it.

To be quite honest, I am learning. Why do you think I came to write fanfiction? I wished to learn before I set out doing my own things. I keep notes, I stay in line, I treat people with respect like a good little student.

Of course I read books: my favorite is Ray Bradbury, which you will see that my writing style almost mimics him. My favorite movie is The Godfather, and my favorite actor Al Pacino. My favorite TV show is Law & Order: SVU. But why do you ask such questions about me? I don't TV is that healthy for you, too much of it at least.

But your comments have made me think. Thank you. Oh, and that "Encyclopedia Britannica" part? I would definitely read it. I'm sure everybody will read it, even if they have to go get a digest to digest everything that raps them over the head.

But, then again, why not read the whole thing? People used to watch movies 3 hours long, and, if you've noticed, the shorter they get, the crappier the critics and viewers think they are. So, why go that way? Why make it shorter? Why let the critic get a better vantage point? Make it longer, make him work for his snivelly little saying on it.

Your comments make me think, thank you.

I've aged a hundred years in only fifteen. Even though it was probably the same a decade or two ago, with the whole global warming or the end of the world coming, you still have to grow up with the fear and the worrying and the philosophy of such things. I don't think anything is going to happen, that the Earth will get fixed up and keep grinding on through the blackness of the Universe, but it just might happen when I least expect it.I don't see how you've aged a hundred years in fifteen. :/ All the rambling on about worrying and global warming does nothing but make the words "relevance please?" pop up in my head. :p Are you trying to say that because you have fears and worries in your life, that it makes you any more experienced than your other peers, or those of you who are even older than you are? You know as well as I do that such generalizations are unsafe ground in debates, and especially since you can neither prove nor disprove them.

To be quite honest, I am learning. Why do you think I came to write fanfiction? I wished to learn before I set out doing my own things. I keep notes, I stay in line, I treat people with respect like a good little student. 'kay. :3

Of course I read books: my favorite is Ray Bradbury, which you will see that my writing style almost mimics him. My favorite movie is The Godfather, and my favorite actor Al Pacino. My favorite TV show is Law & Order: SVU. But why do you ask such questions about me? I don't TV is that healthy for you, too much of it at least.I'm forgetting the conversation already. Did she ask what TV shows you liked, or what books you liked? o.o *suddenly I feel as though I don't belong here, lol*

But your comments have made me think. Thank you. Oh, and that "Encyclopedia Britannica" part? I would definitely read it. I'm sure everybody will read it, even if they have to go get a digest to digest everything that raps them over the head.Reading the encyclopedia is therapeutic and educational. But it's not the kind of experience that most people look forward to when they open up a fiction novel. ;) I think that's the point she was trying to make, lol.

But, then again, why not read the whole thing? People used to watch movies 3 hours long, and, if you've noticed, the shorter they get, the crappier the critics and viewers think they are. So, why go that way? Why make it shorter? Why let the critic get a better vantage point? Make it longer, make him work for his snivelly little saying on it.Think of your story like a dog. Now, you can on the one hand have a dog that's neatly trimmed and groomed, and there are no mats in its fur, and it has been freshly shampooed and brushed. On the other hand, you can have a dog whose fur is clotted with dirt and mats, and it may even have little bits of doggie doo stuck to its fur by the rear end. It may stink and track mud everywhere.

In that example, both of them are complete dogs. You might say that the second one is even more complete, as its fur hasn't been trimmed, and many dogs consider dirt an essential part of their bodies (just ask any dog who's just had a bath and is then given a chance outside. Nine times out of ten they'll go for the nearest dirt pile and start rolling, lol). However, that "complete" dog has undesirable qualities that can be clipped off, bathed out, and cleaned up. Excess detail is the same kind of thing. It can bog down your story and make it smelly and hairy... er... I mean cluttered and messy. :p

Anyway, you get the idea. And if you don't, then it's my fault, not yours. xD

To Nemrut and St. Gabriel:

To get back for a moment on the idea how to write an ensemble fic that gives each character (of the main cast, not of everyone in the story!) a moment in the spotlight, a profic example of this I admire would be Stephen King's "It". It is really about how the six main characters work together to conquer the thing that threatens them, but the power of the book is in part in the rotating view points. At least it was for me.

I suppose that way of writing is very, very hard to do well, though. I, for my part, go with the "focus on the main pairing" advice in my own stories. Still, if you wish to try writing an ensemble fic without a 'main' protagonist, this one might be a good example how to do it. IMHO, at least.

Aislynn

(Edited to keep the example on the profic writer)

If you don't want to read the whole thing, i have headed each section according to who i'm responding to...:)

Nemrut:

I see, so basically I have to build and follow a certain structure. I will try my best to find them in my story and, if needed, add them, even though I think most of them already apply to my story.

But it is a good way to build the structure of any fic, the foundation if you want. Thank you very much for taking your time to answer me.

Precisely. Those 6 questions will lead to more questions, but you will eventually find that they're all variations of those questions. "Who is my main character? What kind of person is he? Where is he now? Why is he doing what he's doing? How is he going to do it?" But you'll also have "Who is this second character? What kind of person is s/he? How did s/he meet my main character? When did they meet?" See the progression? Six basic questions that can and do have an answer that applies to your story.

And you are most welcome...:)

St. Gabriel:

Wow, you guys sure like to give good advice! Especially you, Ms./Mr. Rowena. Good to hear you want to be an English teacher. I'm aiming for a doctorate myself, though.

Writing advice is why we're here...:) And i don't plan on stopping at my Master's degree (which is required if you want a tenured position just about everywhere). And it's Ms., just so's ya know...:)

With all due respect, though, you can't really say that I'm inexperienced just because I'm young. Don't you learn anything from the books and the novels you read about teenagers and children and so on? They're sometimes older than you think.

Yes, I can. I was 15 once...it's not like i skipped it over and went right to thirty...since my fifteeth birthday, i've done the following (more or less in order):

Quit taking speed and suffered the worst withdrawals i ever want to experience.

Broke my back, thus ending my dance ambitions (thirteen years of ballet, gone on a toboggan).

Graduated high school.

Went to college.

Fell in love and got pregnant with my only child.

Quit college due to extremely high-risk pregnancy.

Gave birth to my daughter.

Had my daughter's father leave me because he couldn't handle the pressure (haven't seen him for almost 19 years).

Had my tubes tied, due to several doctor's telling me "you should never have children again, it's too risky".

Fell in love and got engaged twice, moving to a new city each time.

Became a stripper.

Quit being a stripper to move back home due to horrible roommates.

Learned how to use DOS and discovered the old-school BBS system.

Met the man who would become the one, true love of my life on said BBS.

Became an aunt twice.

Lost family to breast cancer, heart disease and stroke.

Lost a dear friend to drunk driving. He was the driver.

Been date raped.

Got engaged to the one, true love of my life. Also got handfasted to him that same year.

Lost a dear friend that was 3 years younger than me to a blood clot that he'd developed playing World of Warcraft for hours on end and didn't even know it was there.

Almost lost the one, true love of my life less than a year ago to pancreatitis.

And that's not even ALL of it. The fact is, with age comes experience...so yes, in a way, i am saying that your youth is getting in the way of your writing, but only because you haven't had the TIME to experience the things that i have...you can have all the fears and worries, dreams and desires that you want, but that only shows that you are aware of the world around you and for that, i commend you...most people your age don't see the big picture...they think they'll live forever and that the world will be there, waiting for them with open arms...they're in for a rude awakening...but i wasn't talking about that.

I was talking about experience in WRITING. There's only so much you can learn from a classroom, the rest comes from what we experience throughout our lives...what we do, what we see, where we go, who we meet along the way...yes, life has a cast of BILLIONS, but a story doesn't...it has a cast of a few, with a few others who help out along the way...it's up to you to decide who is the most important to the story you want to tell and tell it through THEIR eyes...otherwise, you lose the point of your story by wasting time trying to tell the personal story of every person your main character/s meet...be honest, not with me but with yourself...do YOU want to learn more about the life of the lunch lady at school? The bus driver? The mailman? The garbage men? Do you ever even think about them beyond their basic function? THIS is why Billy Bob the base cook isn't important to the story of Jimmy Joe the new recruit...

Of course I read books: my favorite is Ray Bradbury, which you will see that my writing style almost mimics him. My favorite movie is The Godfather, and my favorite actor Al Pacino. My favorite TV show is Law & Order: SVU. But why do you ask such questions about me? I don't TV is that healthy for you, too much of it at least.

Well then, at least you have good taste in literature, movies and television...:) But it didn't matter to me if you loved Ann Brashares, thought "House of Wax" with Paris Hilton was the best movie EVAH and watched nothing but "Hannah Montana"...the point was to get you to think about the "cast" in each of those things and to compare the amount of "screen time" each person gets...i simply wanted you to realize that not everyone is important to the movement of the plot, only those around which the plot centers...

But your comments have made me think. Thank you. Oh, and that "Encyclopedia Britannica" part? I would definitely read it. I'm sure everybody will read it, even if they have to go get a digest to digest everything that raps them over the head.

But, then again, why not read the whole thing? People used to watch movies 3 hours long, and, if you've noticed, the shorter they get, the crappier the critics and viewers think they are. So, why go that way? Why make it shorter? Why let the critic get a better vantage point? Make it longer, make him work for his snivelly little saying on it.

You're welcome. And i HAVE read the Encyclopedia Brittanica, over the course of the summer when i was about thirteen, i was very sick most of the summer and had nothing better to do...but not everyone has either the desire or the inclination to undertake such a task...a three-hour movie is one thing, because three hours isn't really much of a commitment (i actually sat through a triple feature of all three LotR movies when the third one came out)...reading something as massive as the Encyclopedia would seem a daunting task, requiring weeks if not months of reading...not many would read a fictional novel that required that kind of time and it would be far less educational than the aforementioned collection...

I'm very glad you've gotten something out of this debate...i hope it's something you'll take to heart and keep with you for a long time to come...:)

Kamejen:

Thanks for the backup...:) Loved the dog analogy, though i would have probably used something more like a dress to make the same point...you know, you make the dress according to the pattern and it's a very nice dress...but then you think "if i just put some trim HERE and do some beading THERE and maybe add ruffles HERE, HERE and HERE, and oh, what the heck, let's put some rhinestones on THIS PART and some sequins THERE", before you know it, your dress looks less like something a normal person would like and more like something a drag queen would wear...but only onstage...in Vegas...and only if they lost a bet...:)

Well, i hope we've all taken something away with us throughout this experience...my apologies if i came across as harsh or bitchy, but i was at work when a lot of what i said was posted and my frustration at being interrupted while posting by idiots on the phone might have leaked through a bit...i'm usually very nice, i swear!

I have a feeling that the trimming I do is going to be minimal, but it is still somewhere to start. As you've proven, I have much ahead of me, which means I have a lot of time to dig out my path through the jungle.

Quite a life you've had. And I congratulate you, for it is a monument now, in my country, in my mind. Excuse me for my rudeness, but please, tell me, are you content with everything that has happened to you?

Are you happy with your daughter? Did you have fun being a stripper, or were you ashamed? Are you grateful that you still have everything you could ever want, your one true love, the memories and the spirits of your family & friends? That you might just teach English, and that you write as a hobby and you touch the souls of others whilst you do so through some glaring screen that brings you to worlds you never thought existed at all?

If you could answer, you've done those who read a good voluntary service. If not, that's ok too. It is a rude rude thing to do, what I'm doing. But, I'm naturally nosy (both metaphorically and literally... when it comes to width), and it is within my inner evil to ask such pestilences.

Oh... and... uh... don't know how to say this... so...

WARNING! LONG POST ALERT!

So much for "trimming the detail". Sorry, damn... I'm a cruel chimpanzee... I WILL delete this if you so want to.

Yes, i am deliriously happy with my daughter. She's beautiful, smart, hard-working, a talented dancer and has a head for math and science, but hates to read and write (maybe it skips a generation?). I loved being a stripper and if i was even ten years younger and sixty pounds lighter, i'd do it all over again. And it wasn't just the money either; the experience was strangely liberating. I'll never understand people who think strippers are being exploited. I'm terribly grateful for what i have and what i may still achieve, and if i've done or said anything that's touched someone and they've come out better for it, i am also grateful for that.

If there's one thing i could tell everyone and know for a fact they'd believe me without question, it would be this: No matter how far you've come, where you've been, what you've done, there's still more out there to see, touch, experience and learn. If you limit yourself to only what you know now, you'll miss out on other opportunities. One of the rules for writing is "write what you know". But my first writing teacher changed it a bit and said "write NOW what you know NOW". It didn't make sense in the beginning, but by the end of the course we all understood. Basically, just because you don't know anything about something right this second doesn't mean you can't educate yourself on it. So write what you know right now, but if you want to include something you don't know, learn about it first, write about it later.

Yes, trimming things down in writing is difficult at best. After all, you've "given birth" to it, why should you change it? As writers, we write the stories we have inside us, but there are ways to go about it that are better than others. I don't want you to think that i don't agree with you on the people in a story. In their own way, they do matter, but only in a very general, very technical sense. But as a writer, i have a duty to the reader to tell the story in the simplest way possible. The plot can only handle so many characters having their time in the light. So it's up to me to choose the people who will best tell the story and let them tell it.

And there's no need to delete anything...:) I'm not going to say that my ENTIRE life is an open book, mostly because the bulk of it would put a hyperactive weasel on speed to sleep, but there's no need to be sorry...:)

Thank the gods for email alerts! ;)

And you're welcome...:)

Isn't this getting a bit off topic? not to be rude but F/R did say to keep the spam level down to a minimum. SOrry if I sound like an idiot.

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