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It was a dark and stormy night....
Ah, writing. How I love you so.
Well, not really.
I was thinking a bit lately, after staring at certain things, reading certain things, procrastinating (but that's the norm! :D), etc. I was wondering whether or not to do another Touhou fanfiction, or well fanfiction at all, but Touhou in particular I guess.
The problem is, I don't actually enjoy writing so much. I think there are certain, very rare times, when I am in the zone and everything I type out I am completely satisfied with, and I end up with say, three thousand words of beauty. I suppose in terms of writing, I do enjoy those times, but they are very, very rare. I can't see it as a particular hobby, or if considered a hobby something I'll indulge on very rarely. I'm not sure what it is. I just loved writing when younger, but it is of my opinion that 90% of the stuff I wrote when younger were crap.
I suppose if it's humour or something, I may like writing it.
No, it is not writing I enjoy. It is storytelling.
I write and I draw because I enjoy storytelling. Storytelling is not something you often do for yourself, if at all. Someone once told me, possibly Akira (actually probably) that I should write for myself and I agreed then. Yet a big reason why I've had such a large writing hiatus until very recently is probably because I despise writing for myself. I do not write for myself. I cannot write for myself. I have many, many, many stories I have never shared with other people. No, they are unpublished and unshared not because I wrote them for myself, but because I deem them failures.
Storytelling is my true goal. When you tell a story, you tell the story to a person, an audience. I'm not looking for a large audience, nor an audience full of strangers. If I were writing for myself, perhaps that would be true. Yes, what I just said sounds contradictory, but hear me out. If I were to write for myself, and I liked what I wrote so much, enjoyed that I want others to see it as well because well, my opinion is probably shared by others, and so they may enjoy it as well...that is the reason I would publish it for the world to see. However, I often am never satisfied with ANYTHING I write. At all. Therefore I rarely feel they should be allowed an audience full of people I do not know to see. It is not good enough for such an unpredictable group. I do though, like writing and then sticking it in public, here. I am in the comfort that there won't be many strangers roaming around to read it, but the entry is public for a reason. I am not against someone random reading it, however I know that there won't be many strangers. I do know that I have a few friends who might read it on their free time, and that is my ultimate goal.
To entertain said people.
Perhaps if I actually wrote characters they cared about, they would enjoy such fictions more. The problem is if I am not invested into what they're interested in, I cannot possibly write a story of good quality that would be enjoyable in the first place, but most if not all I write there is often little knowledge needed of the actual source to understand the story. I could replace all the names of every one of my stories with a different one, and no one would notice. Yes, even the one I recently wrote, supposedly my take on a character's backstory--replace all the names and it'd still make sense.
Yet why do I choose to use characters created by others then? Why not create my own if stories I write do not technically require knowledge of said character in the first place?
I am not a person who enjoys creating original characters. The closest I've come was a joint-thing I did with my brother, where we created a group of dalmatians, royal ones who nonetheless are within a ridiculously dysfunctional family. The main character is called Spot, named after a dog from a children's book. He was evolved from a rather childish, innocent-look on life to a bumbling idiot who hates absolutely everyone; is incredibly racist to humans, yet still is the Prince of Dalmatia and heir to the throne, in a gigantic family of thirteen other children or somewhere along the lines. I lost count.
Spot is not a proper name for a prince however. His full name is actually Simon Thomas <Spotto's Last Name I Refuse to Reveal to You!> the...tenth or something, I dunno.
The thing is, I have never written these characters. Ever. Their existence is shared between my brother and I through roleplay with my stuffed-dalmatian puppy. Why have I never bothered to share their tales with other people? Because these original characters are entertainment for my brother and I, and not for anyone else. That's why. He plays a part in their creation as well, in fact did all of the royal technicality parts when I was too young to figure out what half of the stuff he made up meant.
But why do I not create characters of my own? I must admit, I have a very high standard of a good character. I honestly do not have the confidence to create one because as you can tell through this blog I am very, very critical of characters and most often OCs because to me they are not done very well. (There are of course exceptions, but since I do not actively search for stories involving OCs I can't name too many) Creating a character of my own that I will enjoy and love myself would be a long and daunting task, and it is better to evolve characters through a plot I imagine up rather than one from scratch. The thing is to write a story with a plot in a first place, I still need a character to anchor the story, so I borrow from the fictions I love.
And well, I don't like just thinking up a plot from scratch either. I admire those who can do such tasks as thinking up a plot or character from scratch, but I always do like imagining what it would be like to put an existing character in a certain situation, and then the plot results from how they react. A huge reason I am so endamoured with Touhou is because the characters lack a lot of story, but possess endless potential. Gensokyo is a cesspool of imagination for me, so much that I rarely if ever think of the characters in an AU setting at all like I usually do. (There are again amazing storytellers who can put said characters in an AU and make it fit.) I have created many plots in my mind involving various characters, from the characters of Scarlet Devil Mansion to those of the Myouren Temple. Yet I have not written any of them at all. The one story I have written and posted here was started because I just felt like wondering what exactly caused the character's backstory, but I never had a completed image in my mind of how it went. That is why it took so long for me, and because it did that is why I posted it. I put a lot of effort while writing it rather than thinking it all up in my head first, and due to my dislike of writing I thought it'd be a waste to keep such storytelling to myself.
There are original characters however. I tend to resort to them to sometimes explain the plot of a fanfiction. They are often never named because I do not see them with enough importance to be named. They are major enough, in particular my latest story, where only one character is not my own, but like I said before, I create characters for the plot. I create plot for the characters. Or rather I should say, I create characters for the plot, and I create said plot for the canon characters. That is my extent of the characters I do create. They may be fleshed out actually; they may be round, or static, or flat, or dynamic, and they are always nameless. Perhaps someday they will graduate with a name, and be placed in a different plot, similar to the one I already made, but different enough to be my own, that does not require an existing character to anchor it. That is how inspiration often comes about doesn't it? You enjoy a book. You may start writing something similar to said book because it was such a good book. There might be similar themes, or the same time period, or vaguely similar characters, but we are always careful to not make it completely the same--else it is not a story you created at all.
Learning comes in imitation, after all. (And there are several characters that seem VERY similar anyway, so perhaps they did draw inspiration from the other source, or blatantly stole it, who knows? P: )
So, should I write another story? I do have shades of a plot forming in my head, but nothing concrete. Would I have to imagine as I write, and thus have several versions of the same story, or end up scrapping multiple attempts at the story? I always hate to doing that. It is the same when I draw. If I draw something and it does not look right, I never scrap it and draw another. I will always erase and fix it. I will always envision what I want to draw before, create what I imagine, and then fix it as much as possible because my skills are not good enough to do in the first try. I never though, scrap it.
The only few times I do scrap it is if erasing the entire thing will smudge it all and ruin what good I did do in the first place, so that's when I try again, but it is very uncommon.
Mostly likely the plot I form, should I do in my head, will not be written, but if I so desire I will put down my thoughts, put down the story and maybe even share it with this blog.
Well, not really.
I was thinking a bit lately, after staring at certain things, reading certain things, procrastinating (but that's the norm! :D), etc. I was wondering whether or not to do another Touhou fanfiction, or well fanfiction at all, but Touhou in particular I guess.
The problem is, I don't actually enjoy writing so much. I think there are certain, very rare times, when I am in the zone and everything I type out I am completely satisfied with, and I end up with say, three thousand words of beauty. I suppose in terms of writing, I do enjoy those times, but they are very, very rare. I can't see it as a particular hobby, or if considered a hobby something I'll indulge on very rarely. I'm not sure what it is. I just loved writing when younger, but it is of my opinion that 90% of the stuff I wrote when younger were crap.
I suppose if it's humour or something, I may like writing it.
No, it is not writing I enjoy. It is storytelling.
I write and I draw because I enjoy storytelling. Storytelling is not something you often do for yourself, if at all. Someone once told me, possibly Akira (actually probably) that I should write for myself and I agreed then. Yet a big reason why I've had such a large writing hiatus until very recently is probably because I despise writing for myself. I do not write for myself. I cannot write for myself. I have many, many, many stories I have never shared with other people. No, they are unpublished and unshared not because I wrote them for myself, but because I deem them failures.
Storytelling is my true goal. When you tell a story, you tell the story to a person, an audience. I'm not looking for a large audience, nor an audience full of strangers. If I were writing for myself, perhaps that would be true. Yes, what I just said sounds contradictory, but hear me out. If I were to write for myself, and I liked what I wrote so much, enjoyed that I want others to see it as well because well, my opinion is probably shared by others, and so they may enjoy it as well...that is the reason I would publish it for the world to see. However, I often am never satisfied with ANYTHING I write. At all. Therefore I rarely feel they should be allowed an audience full of people I do not know to see. It is not good enough for such an unpredictable group. I do though, like writing and then sticking it in public, here. I am in the comfort that there won't be many strangers roaming around to read it, but the entry is public for a reason. I am not against someone random reading it, however I know that there won't be many strangers. I do know that I have a few friends who might read it on their free time, and that is my ultimate goal.
To entertain said people.
Perhaps if I actually wrote characters they cared about, they would enjoy such fictions more. The problem is if I am not invested into what they're interested in, I cannot possibly write a story of good quality that would be enjoyable in the first place, but most if not all I write there is often little knowledge needed of the actual source to understand the story. I could replace all the names of every one of my stories with a different one, and no one would notice. Yes, even the one I recently wrote, supposedly my take on a character's backstory--replace all the names and it'd still make sense.
Yet why do I choose to use characters created by others then? Why not create my own if stories I write do not technically require knowledge of said character in the first place?
I am not a person who enjoys creating original characters. The closest I've come was a joint-thing I did with my brother, where we created a group of dalmatians, royal ones who nonetheless are within a ridiculously dysfunctional family. The main character is called Spot, named after a dog from a children's book. He was evolved from a rather childish, innocent-look on life to a bumbling idiot who hates absolutely everyone; is incredibly racist to humans, yet still is the Prince of Dalmatia and heir to the throne, in a gigantic family of thirteen other children or somewhere along the lines. I lost count.
Spot is not a proper name for a prince however. His full name is actually Simon Thomas <Spotto's Last Name I Refuse to Reveal to You!> the...tenth or something, I dunno.
The thing is, I have never written these characters. Ever. Their existence is shared between my brother and I through roleplay with my stuffed-dalmatian puppy. Why have I never bothered to share their tales with other people? Because these original characters are entertainment for my brother and I, and not for anyone else. That's why. He plays a part in their creation as well, in fact did all of the royal technicality parts when I was too young to figure out what half of the stuff he made up meant.
But why do I not create characters of my own? I must admit, I have a very high standard of a good character. I honestly do not have the confidence to create one because as you can tell through this blog I am very, very critical of characters and most often OCs because to me they are not done very well. (There are of course exceptions, but since I do not actively search for stories involving OCs I can't name too many) Creating a character of my own that I will enjoy and love myself would be a long and daunting task, and it is better to evolve characters through a plot I imagine up rather than one from scratch. The thing is to write a story with a plot in a first place, I still need a character to anchor the story, so I borrow from the fictions I love.
And well, I don't like just thinking up a plot from scratch either. I admire those who can do such tasks as thinking up a plot or character from scratch, but I always do like imagining what it would be like to put an existing character in a certain situation, and then the plot results from how they react. A huge reason I am so endamoured with Touhou is because the characters lack a lot of story, but possess endless potential. Gensokyo is a cesspool of imagination for me, so much that I rarely if ever think of the characters in an AU setting at all like I usually do. (There are again amazing storytellers who can put said characters in an AU and make it fit.) I have created many plots in my mind involving various characters, from the characters of Scarlet Devil Mansion to those of the Myouren Temple. Yet I have not written any of them at all. The one story I have written and posted here was started because I just felt like wondering what exactly caused the character's backstory, but I never had a completed image in my mind of how it went. That is why it took so long for me, and because it did that is why I posted it. I put a lot of effort while writing it rather than thinking it all up in my head first, and due to my dislike of writing I thought it'd be a waste to keep such storytelling to myself.
There are original characters however. I tend to resort to them to sometimes explain the plot of a fanfiction. They are often never named because I do not see them with enough importance to be named. They are major enough, in particular my latest story, where only one character is not my own, but like I said before, I create characters for the plot. I create plot for the characters. Or rather I should say, I create characters for the plot, and I create said plot for the canon characters. That is my extent of the characters I do create. They may be fleshed out actually; they may be round, or static, or flat, or dynamic, and they are always nameless. Perhaps someday they will graduate with a name, and be placed in a different plot, similar to the one I already made, but different enough to be my own, that does not require an existing character to anchor it. That is how inspiration often comes about doesn't it? You enjoy a book. You may start writing something similar to said book because it was such a good book. There might be similar themes, or the same time period, or vaguely similar characters, but we are always careful to not make it completely the same--else it is not a story you created at all.
Learning comes in imitation, after all. (And there are several characters that seem VERY similar anyway, so perhaps they did draw inspiration from the other source, or blatantly stole it, who knows? P: )
So, should I write another story? I do have shades of a plot forming in my head, but nothing concrete. Would I have to imagine as I write, and thus have several versions of the same story, or end up scrapping multiple attempts at the story? I always hate to doing that. It is the same when I draw. If I draw something and it does not look right, I never scrap it and draw another. I will always erase and fix it. I will always envision what I want to draw before, create what I imagine, and then fix it as much as possible because my skills are not good enough to do in the first try. I never though, scrap it.
The only few times I do scrap it is if erasing the entire thing will smudge it all and ruin what good I did do in the first place, so that's when I try again, but it is very uncommon.
Mostly likely the plot I form, should I do in my head, will not be written, but if I so desire I will put down my thoughts, put down the story and maybe even share it with this blog.