Story Writing 06: Know Your Characters March 4, 2010
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A story has many characters with different degrees of importance. And while you may not be able to anticipate every noteworthy character you’ll write about, you’ll have a general idea of what kind of person you want in your story. Now you just develope them as much as you can, and update as needed whenever you need to make a change. Odds are your story will not stay as is the first time round, and knowing how the characters played a role in the first version can help ease the transition into a newer version, since you know the character and you know how to deal with them.
Story Writing 05: Know Your World March 3, 2010
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When writing a story, no matter how original or historically accurate your story takes place in, once written down, it is yours to do with as you please. You control just how much of it resembles the world we currently live in, or you can throw all that out the window. If scientific laws and theories hamper your story, you can throw them right out the window. To use a phrase one of my friends told me, “In the story you write, you are its God.”
The underlying point is that a place exists in your story because you want it to, either strictly “just because” or because it plays a role in your story. I myself find it quicker and easier to create an entirely new world from scratch, because then everything can flow the way I want it to, laws of physics be damned if they get in my way. That being said, I don’t plan on ever just randomly breaking laws because I feel like it. It’s my choice to create a world with fewer restrictions because that is the most interesting kind of story for me, where even though a “law” is impossible to us in the real world, it is a common truth on that page and, depending on the authors level of depth, there’s even a way this law makes sense…in a creative way, tied closely with artistic liberty.
The world itself is not just the location (town, country, planet, or otherwise) but also its culture, its traditions, its laws, its science and art, everything in it, and if (for whatever reason) you decide there should be a powder that is sweet as sugar, but as adamant as a diamond, then by all means, please use it. Beverages that produce flames, living figurines, and virtually anything else your imagination can think of are all fair game. So before anything else, know your world and it’s laws and customs. What can and cannot occur in this world, and why? Once you have crafted the world as you see fit, then you know your limits and you know how to capitalize on it. And that’s one thing that attracts me as a reader. How many others share this trait is unknown to me, but a finely crafted world can do wonders for any story.
Manga: One Piece March 1, 2010
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Quite possibly the most addicting manga I’ve read to date. I originally was not that big a fan of this series. I blame most of it on the 4Kids dubbing and editing of the original animated series, combined with some “filler” concepts that made absolutely no sense, even by One Piece standards
Sometime before the beginning of the series, the Pirate King, Gold Roger, is sentenced to a live execution. His final words were a challenge to all pirates to find his fabled treasure, One Piece. And thus the Golden Age of Pirates began.
The main character, Monkey D. Luffy, lives the life of a pirate and dreams of being the next Pirate King. However, he starts off with no crew and no ship, armed only with the superhuman powers granted to him by the Gum-Gum Fruit, which allows him to stretch his body and renders bullets or just about any projectile useless. His travels eventually acquire him a ship and a crew to set sail for the Grand Line, the most chaotic place in the world and the most likely hiding place for Gold Roger’s treasure.
His crewmates consist of :
Roronoa Zoro, a man who fights with his own three-sword style in the hopes of becoming the world’s greatest swordsman.
Nami, the red-head navigator with an irresistable attraction to treasure and riches, whose dream is to chart a map of the entire world.
Usopp, a long-nosed cowardly but amazingly accurate sniper, who dreams of being a great warrior of the sea
Sanji, the blonde-haired chef with an iron…leg(?) who dreams of finding the All Blue: a place said to reside in the Grand Line where every type of fish in the world gathers.
Chopper: a reindeer who ate the Human-Human Fruit, allowing him access to human intelligence and form, as well as his natural animal form and a hybrid form. He is the crew doctor and dreams of one day being able to cure every disease in the world.
Robin: an archeologist who ate the Flower-Flower Fruit allowing her to “bloom” out extra limbs from anywhere within range of her eye sight, who dreams of discovering the history from before the World Government was founded.
Franky: a blue-haired cyborg who dreams of being the shipwright of a ship that will sail all over the world.
Brooke: a skeleton musician (with a deep-rooted afro, of all things) who ate the Revive-Revive fruit that allowed his soul to cheat death and return to his body, albeit after many years when his body fully decayed. He dreams of meeting a friend he and his crew left behind 50 years ago and play a recording of a song they sang shortly before they died.
It’s hard to accurately describe what about it makes it so much fun to read, and is probably better if you experience it yourself. This series has been going on for at least 13 years, and is one of the most read mangas out on the market. It is a title definitely worth reading.
