Koakuma's Writer's Parlour ~ Have some tea and discuss fiction and writing here!

[Suikama]

Man, this place doesn't get nearly the amount of traffic of CPMC huh :V Well I might as well try opening up the floor.


Why do you want to write?

I say want because there are probably a number of people (like myself) who have many ideas that they want to write but lack either the time or motivation to do so.

Is it just because you want to get these ideas out there? Or just because these ideas buzz around in your head until you write them down?

Is it a means of expressing yourself? A mirror to your own life? Or do you want to tell a story about fantastic characters that couldn't exist in reality?

Do you write with a purpose? Or do you write for writing's sake?
Do you write from ideas? Or do you write from experience?

Does your mind drive you to write? Having ideas that you think are brilliant or not yet explored and so you want to bring them to reality.
Or your soul? Having the desire to tell a story that has meanting to both yourself and life in general.

Do you write for yourself? In order to release and express the thoughts that only you hear.
Or do you write for others? In order to tell a story to capture the emotions and minds of anyone who reads it, and contribute to expand thier persepectives.

Why do you write? Why do you want to write? Whatever your reason is, please share it.

[Dead Princess Sakana]

Hmmm, let's see.

For one, as meta as that may sound, I like the feeling of arranging words into something bigger. Putting together the right words to make them describe a scene, an action, a character just the way you imagine them in your head is something I just love. Having one sentence flow into the other to build a continuing story is hella lot of fun to me. Words are a wonderful thing, and being able to use them well is a skill I wouldn't want to trade in for anything else.

Now I don't actually use very detailed descriptions in my own style, but I noticed that apparently the images I want to give still come over as intended most of the time, which is very nice to see. That already leads to my second point: I like to do stuff that people enjoy. I enjoy writing, but I also want it to be enjoyable for the readers, I don't write only for myself. When I know that someone can read  what I wrote and have fun with it, smile at it or be amused, then I have reached my goal. I don't want to achieve "good writing" in the sense of a refined style, I want to write things that are enjoyable for others, so they can take a break from the pressures of the outside world and just relax for a bit.  :3
(This also means that chances of me ever writing a really serious story are slim. There are tons of people out there who are way better with that stuff than I am. My domain is entertainment via amusement.)

On a third note, I also love to see how ideas play out. I am not someone who plans ahead a lot, I start off with a vague idea and let  it take form as I write it out. Then I will talk about it with people and often new ideas are born there as well. Seeing how an idea I had plays out when I actually write it is half of the fun of writing for me. I have a list of things that are gonna happen in the Magical Librarians story later on, most of those are ideas that came to me while writing the story already, or from talks with people~

[Bias Bus]

I dunno.

More often than not, I write (or rather want to write) because it's a way for me to get my ideas on paper and bring them to life. They're no good in my head being they have a very high chance of being devoured by the beast of forgetfulness and thus lost forever. Building a world, creating characters, locations and various other concepts is what I like most about writing (and drawing as well). Even more so if I'm writing something completely original, like Hotblooded Pig. There was some aspect of just having fun with writing but that slowly gave way to a more serious approach as I realized I needed to improve and I couldn't do that while goofing off. By this point, I can probably afford to have a little fun now, but I still make the same stupid mistakes here and there that make me rage at myself for being a retard.

Another minor reason is to see how others react to these works. People have different views and opinions on what they see, I'd like to know what others will say when they read my work. Do they like it, do they hate it, does it confuse them, it's all something I can use to either better myself in one way or the other.

[FinnKaenbyou]

Hm. Several reasons spring to mind.
- Put simply, writing is fun to me. I think of it as having a picture in my head, and trying to draw the picture with words. It's an entertaining challenge.
- Other people enjoy my writing, so it feels like I'm producing something worthwhile. I get to write silly mahou-shoujo dolphin riding antics, and other people enjoy reading them. In the end, everyone wins.
- In terms of characters reflecting myself, it depends on the story. With silly random shorts that's not the point, but in bigger works it does play in a hell of a lot. Half the reason I never finished the first draft of Del Sancti was because Sango reminded me too much of my worst parts, and it sort of hurt to write. -_-
- No-one else is going to write the sort of story I like, so I may as well write it myself.

[Tengukami]

Writing has been a biological need of mine, like eating or urination, since I was able to spell my own name. Which isn't to say it's made me particularly good as a writer; just that it's something I have needed and do need to do on a regular basis or I feel myself starting to whither inside.

Just the act of putting words onto paper/doc/screen is enough to make me feel at ease with myself. My motivations depend entirely on what I'm writing. Often times it's to help pay the bills. It might be to bring something to light or to inform, or to make people laugh, or - in the case of fiction - to put into words a world, or a part of a world, in my head, and in so doing make it tangible.

Whatever the motivation is at the time, underlying them all is the primal, reptilian need in my blood to make words. Like Bill Burroughs said, language is a virus.

[Unassuming Squid]

I write for several reasons.

One of the main reasons is the ability to create something. I'm constantly inspired by the things I see on a daily basis, with music in particular being a major inspiration. When I listen to music, it will always make me picture something, whether it be a scene or a character or a landscape or a whole story. Part of my drive to write is describing and detailing these things I imagine. I've also always loved making my own interpretations of things, case in point being all the Touhou fanfiction I've been doing. Honestly, writing is simply the easiest artistic method for me to display the things I've created.

I also write as a form of venting. I very rarely talk to people about the issues in my life, and writing gives me a way to express what I can't on a daily basis, which is part of the reason most of my stories are darker in tone. Branching off of that, I write what I know. I can't think of a single scene I've written where I haven't felt what the characters at that point felt, or at least something similar. All the characters I write about I at least have some trait in common with, which is enough to allow me to get into their heads and know how to properly express myself through them. It's emotionally draining and, depending on the characters and scene, sometimes even painful, but by the time I've finished and have a chance to step back and pull myself back out, I generally feel better.

Having ideas that you think are brilliant or not yet explored and so you want to bring them to reality.
In order to release and express the thoughts that only you hear.

So pretty much this.

[Esifex]

- No-one else is going to write the sort of story I like, so I may as well write it myself.

ilu Rou you rock and never forget that

[Iced Fairy]

I love stories.  And I love characters.

That's the biggest reason for me.  A well crafted story is loads of fun for me.  Especially if it enhances a character I like.

I've always put together stories in my head (still do) and now that I've gotten in the habit of writing my mental stories tend to branch out more.  I'd always scribbled down ideas, but now I'm bringing more of them to fruition.

What actually gets me out and writing?  Having an audience helps a lot.  I started writing Touhou fics in order to try to shift the focus on fanon (Ha!) but I stuck with it because I knew my writing was reaching someone.  Add in some stubborn pride, and a need to finish what I start, and you get my current writing status.

But at the start it's about stories.

[Phlegeth]

I like writing cause it's fun and I can't draw with a damn.  Not that my writing is any better.  Seriously, one of my main reasons for writing is self improvement.  I write mostly for myself.  I mean I am constantly thinking up plots and stories in my head and if I don't write them down, I forget them after awhile and it all seems like a waste.  I mean I set there with them in my head and just keep building and building with these characters for months at a time.  Even now I have four stories in my head on top of M4 and still thinking up things for all of them.  I'm only on the fourth arc of a planned nine.

[Alfred F. Jones]

All you people with actual reasons to write make me feel jealous.

Yeah, I don't know why I do it >__> I just hit the keys and what comes out is sometimes interesting to think about, so I keep doing it.

[Esifex]

What actually gets me out and writing?  Having an audience helps a lot.

That's pretty important, too. I've stopped most of my writing on Sealed Fates because my audience promptly dropped off once I killed some nameless/faceless mooks, and also because I'm not that great at writing Sakuya.

Iced continues his BattleTech crossover because people like me are big into it. Ryuu finished 'Girl in the Cave' because I wanted to see how it ended, and I bugged him about it. Sakana finished the MotK Murder Mystery becau-

...oh, wait, that's right :V

[Dead Princess Sakana]

Sakana finished the MotK Murder Mystery becau-

Someday, when the main reason why I am losing tons of time and motivation has been resolved...

[Esifex]

Someday, when the main reason why I am losing tons of time and motivation has been resolved...

Esi did it

[Ryuu]

Ryuu finished 'Girl in the Cave' because I wanted to see how it ended

actually I finished it because the parsee in my soul kept roaring at me and it was distracting

[andrewv42]

Well... I write to organise my thoughts. It's a measure of system in a chaotic movement of life. And then there is to mention that inexpressible pleasure that accompanies a notion of triumph in your craft.

[Forte Blackadder]

I write because I hate the story to stuck in my head. Also proving how my Touhouverse > yours is a wonderful feeling.

That aside, I have some question to ask. I'm actually fond of poetry and did quite a large amount of poem before. So I'm curious how English write their poems? I read some poem online but it didn't give me any clue. I mean are there rules? About the rhymes, the rhythms, the amount of word in each sentence? Poetry is serious business in the East, I managed to understand 6 kinds poetry and the rules are really strict (except from "free-style poetry"). It's different because one word in English can have more than 1 syllable.
 

[Suikama]

Hooray, activity! :V

I'd answer my own question, but I'm being bogged down by exams. :ohdear: Still, I want to keep the discussion going, so here's another question.

It seems that most people have answered the previous question with something along the lines of "I have ideas that I want to bring to life, thus writing is a means of accomplishing that." So in liew of that, my next question is this:

If you had the power to make one of your ideas/stories read by every single person in the world, what would it be?

What kind of story do you want to be read? A tragic story? An epic tale? A comedic piece? A collection of short stories?
Would it be a single book? A trilogy? Or an entire long running series?
Would it have some sort of message? Will it exist to bring light to a specific issue? Or maybe to human nature as a whole?
Who would it be written for? To your friends? To your family? Your city? Your country? To all of humankind?

This is a chance for you to have your story be heard by absolutely everybody; so what would it be about?

[Iced Fairy]

Hrm... That's not really fair.  I mean if I could force everyone in the world to read something I wrote I'd be aiming for something a lot more important then one of my fics here.  Something that shook people up and maybe got them to start thinking.  It'd have to be a book sized manifesto with four or five years of research slammed into the thing.  Because honestly that's too important an opportunity to pass up.

Limited to fiction?  A story of triumph over adversity. Heroism tempered with reason.  I love that classic narrative no matter how overplayed it may seem.

Now for something a little more down to earth like something I've written that I'd want everyone on say this site to read?  I still hold great love in my heart for What Winter Left Behind.  I know I've written both better and worse fics since then, but I think that was one of my most pure pieces.

[Phlegeth]

I'd force everyone to read my awesome Cinro vs Sukowa FF parady from the first contest I entered here!   :V

Seriously though, it be the The Order of Artemis .  I have been "working" on it for years.  I have been going over rough ideas and fine tuning it forever.  I've even thought out many of the minute tiny details for it that I usually don't get to until I actually start writing.

Basically it's a fantasy piece.  It's about this girl "Al"ice and her sister Lucy.  At the start of the story Lucy gets pulled into a mysterious hole along with a crew member of the Artemis.  There they meet a couple from a planet that was enveloped by complete darkness.  Together they fight there was back out and back home.  Afterwords, Al sneaks aboard the Artemis and after a couple of adventures forces herself into being a crew member and drags her sister along for the ride as they search about these mysterious holes and a way, if any to restore the missing planets.

Along the way a mysterious illness sweeps across the planet killing the inhabitants and a man in golden armor stands against the Artemis.  They also meet a phantom from a world called Mu that has been on the planet before the holes appeared.  And the phantom reveals that the holes are part of an ancient intersteller passage way called Tartarus, but even deeper than that is the Imaginary Data Space, where the true threat, Angra Mainyu lies.  The crew keep investing Tartarus, trying to find a way into the IDS, until a giant hole rips across the sky and Angra Mainyu threatens the world.

Again, it's purely selfish, but I've been working on it and still am.  So yeah, I'd like everyone to read it.

[andrewv42]

I wouldn't mind specifically; I would just be grateful for that universal audience.

[Suikama]

Hrm... That's not really fair.  I mean if I could force everyone in the world to read something I wrote I'd be aiming for something a lot more important then one of my fics here.  Something that shook people up and maybe got them to start thinking.  It'd have to be a book sized manifesto with four or five years of research slammed into the thing.  Because honestly that's too important an opportunity to pass up.

Limited to fiction?  A story of triumph over adversity. Heroism tempered with reason.  I love that classic narrative no matter how overplayed it may seem.

Now for something a little more down to earth like something I've written that I'd want everyone on say this site to read?  I still hold great love in my heart for What Winter Left Behind.  I know I've written both better and worse fics since then, but I think that was one of my most pure pieces.

I said ideas/stories implying that it could be something that you haven't written yet :derp:

[Moerin]

Oh hey, stuff.  Maybe answering some questions might help.  Maybe.

Why do you want to write?

I... Just really love stories, to be honest.  I love the way the best stories can enthrall the imagination and set ablaze such wonderful pictures inside your head, the way they can take you to the gates of heaven, or plunge you down into the bleak depths of hell.  A good story lasts generations, and the best stories never truly die.  I... Just want to tell stories, really.  I want to come up with something that people will talk about for a long time to come, I want something of mine to last after I've gone, I want someday for someone to be at least somewhat moved by my stories.  I just want to know that somewhere, at least someone thought something I did really counted, and that one day they'll tell the story to someone else and when asked "who wrote that?" the reply would be "Moerin".

...Well, not "Moerin", more like my real name, but, um, still. >.>

If you had the power to make one of your ideas/stories read by every single person in the world, what would it be?

I have this one idea.  I've had it in my head since I was a kid, and it's grown and grown ever since then.  I could go on about how it's a reconstruction of the magical girl genre, or how it's everything I've ever thought of as "cool" thrown together in the hope that it'd work, or that it's just some silly, stupid little "Gurren Lagann with frills" kind of thing, but... In the end, it's just a story of someone who never gave up on their ideals, hope and the ones they cared about, despite insurmountable odds, soul crushing despair and seemingly the entire universe trying to get in the way.  It's... Really, really stupid when I describe it, and there's no way it could ever be as good as the vague pictures of itI have in my mind, but... It's just... Something I just really, really want toget down at some point.  Something I have to do, no matter how hard it is.  Something that I have to see through eventually, even if the strain of getting it out kills me in the end.

...Um... Sorry for the overdramatic pretentiousness in that last bit. >.<

Ugh... I just want to write something that people will enjoy.  I'm never happy with anything I write, but as long as at least one person gets some enjoyment out of it, it wasn't a wasted effort, was it?  Sorry, I've been droning on incoherently, kinda delirious at the moment.  Maybe when I'm in a clearer state of mind I can reiterate this all in a way that actually makes sense.

[Bias Bus]

What I'd have someone read?

Legend of a Hot Blooded Pig because alot of work is actually mapping shit out to make it a good story now that I'm not pressured by time.

[FinnKaenbyou]

Sorry for the off-topic, but suggestion: Should we make a separate topic or something along those lines for recommendations? There are almost definitely a ton of great fics out there that won't be archived in PSL, and I think it's part of the job of a librarian to share good fiction.

As such, here's something I found looking around TVTropes' fic recs - Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense.

[capt. h]

Sorry for the off-topic, but suggestion: Should we make a separate topic or something along those lines for recommendations? There are almost definitely a ton of great fics out there that won't be archived in PSL, and I think it's part of the job of a librarian to share good fiction.

As such, here's something I found looking around TVTropes' fic recs - Alice's Glorious Homestead Defense.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

You'll annoy/offend everyone who doesn't make the cut, but Sturgeon's Law does apply, and I would be far more interested in reading something because it was recommended than because it was recently updated.

[Dead Princess Sakana]

You'll annoy/offend everyone who doesn't make the cut, but Sturgeon's Law does apply, and I would be far more interested in reading something because it was recommended than because it was recently updated.

You seem to misread Rou's intent. He's asking about recommendations for fics that are off-site, so not PSL stuff.

[capt. h]

You seem to misread Rou's intent. He's asking about recommendations for fics that are off-site, so not PSL stuff.

Honestly, I would like both.

There may be a ton of fics on other sites I know nothing about simply because I don't know much about the other sites. If Rou wants to make a noteworthy author list, or a noteworthy fic list, regardless of whether it's only for MOTK or it only contains authors that don't post on MOTK I would be strongly interested.

Basically, any system that makes it easier to find the Dolphin Rider Koishis, the A New Worlds, and the White Rose of Chireidens among all the Shoot the Moons sounds great to me.

There are two reasons I thought you meant fics on-site as well:

1. Because the library catalog hasn't been updated in a while, and I thought you meant not all of the listings on-site would be archived. I wanted to apologize for thinking that, but also let you know that that's what I thought you meant when you said they wouldn't be archived.

2. Because we actually do have a lot of links off-site in the catalog. UsuallyDead, KimikoMuffin, and TakerFoxx are all in the catalog.

Anyway, absolutely yes to off-site recommendations, since I'm not going to find them on my own. I may not even know about some of the sites they are on, so a system for finding good fics and sites sounds wonderful.

EDIT: Incidentally, as a complete Mokou fanatic I hadn't read too many chapters at the time, but I did find Touhou: Journey to the Smashing Beyond to be interesting. I mostly post it because it's one that you'll likely miss, due to it being in the crossover section and that I've never heard anyone here mention it.

Basically, it's pretty good, easily the longest touhou fic on fanfiction.net, and exactly the kind of thing that would probably be overlooked if there isn't a recommendation for it.

[Dizzy H. "Muffin" Muffin]

Hmm. I admit I haven't been working on any of my fics this past week, but: I'm kinda not sure about continuing to post my fics here, since I do so seldom enough that, well, it could be months between posts, and, y'know, the 14-day limit on stuff.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Hmm. I admit I haven't been working on any of my fics this past week, but: I'm kinda not sure about continuing to post my fics here, since I do so seldom enough that, well, it could be months between posts, and, y'know, the 14-day limit on stuff.

For what it's worth, the 14-day limit is waived for PSL and AAA and danmakufu projects.

[Sect]

There's an actual limit on posting times, as opposed to the usual nekomancery etiquette or the CPCM? Either way, that's good to hear, considering that I really need to put more shorts on the RSS...