Friday, January 27, 2012

I Want To Be A Turk!: Chapter 42

I shall start my author's note with a reference to the title of my new chapter. In A MOMENT OF WEAKNESS, I DID write during the week. Some from "I Want To Be A Turk!", some from the second part of "I Want To Be A Turk!" (i.e. events in FF7), some from stories that are yet to be published. gosh, that sounds mighty 'procrastinative' in my school work side, huh?

Anyway, here's my author's notes on the new chapter.

I was reading back my older chapters and I realised that I DID mention Jasper once (under Chapter 21, "Love"). Did anyone notice? Even I forgot, I only remembered Patricia the (dead) Turk saying that she met a boy who knew their true identities in Bone Village, but I didn't recall writing his name as well. Now you know.

Ah yes, I hope I didn't make you guys dislike Jasper already (after one chapter!!). If I had it my way, I'll most certainly add in a chapter or two more about what happened between Jasper and Meia. Mishaps and mini missions together. Alas, time isn't on my side. Well, time AND the exponentially increasing number of chapters LOOMING behind my back telling me not to extend the story past a hundred chapters :P

It was exciting writing about how Meia felt swayed by Jasper. His sincerity, advocated by her disappointment by Reno's silence, was something i wanted to bring out: Meia is human and will feel swayed. Well, I don't really want to talk about the entire history of how this idea came about but bottom line is this: Yes, Meia was terribly attracted to Jasper, but... will she really fall for him? Stay tuned for the future chapters... or at least, the next chapter :P

Also, I enjoyed writing things in Rude's POV. Rude is a character less explored, and many authors tend to (too easily) describe him as a silent person. I feel that there seems to be more to Rude than he's letting on. That explains the sunglasses :P I don't think that I've nailed Rude's character as well as Reno (not that my portrayal of Reno is flawless but comparatively, Reno is better portrayed than Rude). There aren't many sources explaining what Rude is like.

Actually, for that matter, even Cloud's personality befuddles me. But that's for another time. Or if someone is an expert on Cloud Strife, please PM me!!

Back to Rude. Like i said the previous time, I'm trying to create the opportunity for Rude to have a crush on Tifa so that it wouldn't be too -weird- in FF7, when Rude tells Reno that he likes Tifa. Also, the next chapter and this was supposed to be ONE CHAPTER. but oh well, you know where THAT turned out. XD Just so you know, the next chapter will be short. Like 3500 words short (hurray!) :P

Okay, i shall talk no more :) Thank you for your time and enjoy the weekends!

Monday, January 23, 2012

3-Review-Maximum Curse!

That's what I think happened to my story "I Want To Be A Turk!" No matter how hard I try, I just cannot exceed the average of 3 reviews per chapter. it always seems like everytime i get a new reviewer, an old one stops reviewing XD it's a conspiracy, i swear!!

Sorry to sound so desperate for reviews. I know that many authors (if not most) are fine with a steady amount of reviews, since they get story alerts and favourites all the time. But they (those who don't write fanfiction) don't get it, authors live by reviews!!

I'm not going to be all humble and say something like, 'i write because i love to. even when the whole world decides not to read my stories, i'll never stop!' the truth of the matter is (at least for me), the more reviews I get, the more likely people will take notice and want to visit my story. I often found myself being attracted to stories with loads of reviews, simple as that.

okay, the nicer side of the truth: it brings me joy (and a boost to my ego) to see that you readers like them. recently, a particular reviewer said that the story was vivid and pointed out some mistakes that i could focus on. that was really sweet of her, at least i know if i am on the right track, you know? then again, some people may not know what to write, or maybe they don't think it's all that fantastic anyway :P

bottomline: yes, my fanfiction writing passion thrives on reviews. as far as i love writing, it'll be a greater joy if there are people who enjoy them (and tell me so)

that being said, i bet im the only lunatic author who's telling her readers to jolly well review consistently and appropriately :P so well, another ranting session from me, erm... just move along and forget what i've said? :D

(P.S: to other authors, if you'd like me to read your story, let me know and I'd love to... if I have the time. Just PM me or something!)

In other news, I'm here to declare to everyone (and myself) that I will not write anything new (in terms of writing new plots or continuing stories) until I get my assignments 50% done... I really hate how much of a procrastinator I am... I'm 4 weeks away from graduation and I've not started on my assignments? Shame on me. *lock fanfiction folder away*

Saturday, January 21, 2012

I Want To Be A Turk!: Chapter 41

And the last of the Turks is finally introduced! Good luck remembering their names! Don't worry, I'll list them all here.



From left to right, top row to bottom row:
Veld - Tseng - Reno (*insert fangirl scream*) - Rude - Rod (Rod)
Alana (Gun Female) - Kido (Two Guns Male) - Cassie (Shotgun) - Mason (Martial Artist Male) - Leia (Martial Artist Female)
Haato (Katana) - Cissnei (Shuriken) - Jasper (Nunchaku) - KK/Katherine (Knives) - Legend (Bomb)

Hope you guys remember them better now :)

The initial idea was that when Reno was away and Meia went to Don Corneo's mansion to discuss the deal, Meia would be captured (not under Don Corneo's orders) by Francis, that needle-loving freak, remember? I wanted him to capture her and torture her (experiment her pain threshold with needles). i wanted to play with the idea that not all the time the girl will be saved by the love interest. in this case, Reno can't save Meia and Meia will indeed be tortured with no one to rescue her. Yeah, she'll escape...

There was a scene i thought of, where Reno walked into her room and found her sleeping. He'll be pained and guilt-strickened to see her in that state because he wasn't around to save her. Reno will hold her hand softly but Meia will cry in her sleep because it hurts. So Reno will stay by her bedside but when she wakes up, he won't be around, though the only thing lingering was his fresh laundry scent.

and i would've done that, if not for the fact that i need to quickly move on with the story. jasper is pretty important for the story, though he won't appear too much. hope you guys like him :)

i hope you read and review!!! it'll mean a lot to me :)

Monday, January 16, 2012

What contributes to a good OC (original character)?

the following post might be a little sensitive/offensive to some people. Names and people are changed or not mentioned, but if I harmed anyone in any way, I sincerely apologise for the damage done. *bow*

so anyway... i was chatting with a fellow fanfic writer last week. We were randomly talking about a particular OC fic based in FF7. and she was telling me how she convinced her brother that fanfics aren't rubbish, using that story as an example. when i saw that i was thinking to myself, 'NAW. that story isn't that great!'

i know that everyone is entitled to their opinion, and i respect that. here's mine, not that anyone really bothers to notice (since i'm not mentioning any names and titles). when i first read it, i was pretty blown away. everything about that story kept me hanging on for more (and a good thing too, i had 30 plus chapters to catch up).

i loved how the story started. like lots (and LOTS) of FF7 fics opening, this story also began with a suspense-filled chase. and eventually, the OC integrated herself into the environment and made friends and all... I had tons of fun reading the comic chapters and loved how the story was progressing, because the plot was really good.

then the problem began. i started feeling a little... awkward around the OC. you know the feeling when (in real life) you hang around someone and it's not like you dislike the person but there's just... SOMETHING that is making you not warm up to the person enough. (i'm generally a friendly person so to me it's a little weird for me to feel that way.) and then suddenly i thought the OC was getting a LITTLE too overpowered for my liking... honestly it's not as if the OC was exaggerated, but i felt that it felt a little too... unrealistic. plus, most of the canon characters love to hang around her.

on top of that, the story started off with the intention that it is following the canon timeline, but for some reason certain events didn't happen. i ended up convincing myself that the story changed into an AU... in order not to tear my hair in loophole agony.

argh.

somewhere inside of me, a little alarm went 'mary sue alert!' and it irked me knowing that the OC could've been MUCH better... However, the coward in me refused to say my feelings to the author. I seriously don't want to be a flamer nor a hater. Besides, it's not as if the author is doing such a bad job that I HAD to intervene. Everyone loves the fic and found no problem with it, wahahahahahhaa XDD so how could i??? >.<

I'm a coward.

so to those who are slinging their arm over the chair and going 'What the heck is your problem?'... yeah, i wonder that myself.

The main crux of what I want to say:
I believe a good OC (and believe me, I.... okay, I hardly read OC fics, I'm sorry!!)... well, if i say a good OC is one that is not a Mary Sue I'll CERTAINLY get thrown out of my own blog. So lemme be a little more specific by bringing in some factors that randomly pop up in my head. Yes, people. I'm writing this on-the-fly.

Originality.
Okay, so I'm quite 50/50 on this. Yes, your OC should be original (duh), but I feel making the OC just that extra EXTRA bit special is a little too much. This is where the Mary Sue part comes in, because most Sues are overpowered, even more so than the canon protagonists,
heheh.

Multi-f
aceted Personalities
For minor characters (and I mean characters such as the sales assistant, NOT the trusty sidekick), it's not a big deal if the OC is flat in character. Literature students should get what I mean by flat and round characters.

Being humans, we have many many personality traits. We don't just describe someone as a humorous person and conclude that that is all there is to it. EVERYONE is special and unique in personality. Does the character have weird quirks and idiosyncrasies? How about a nasty habit? Any catchphrases or frequently-used words, yo? (Yes, the Reno reference is necessary!) Include them and use them to your advantage.

Remember what I said about flat and round characters? Flat characters are characters that are resistant to development, despite the change in circumstances. It is the round characters that are shaped and molded in the development of the story. So is the OC free for development and change? A nice example of a round character was given by my Literature teacher. Pip from Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations". I thought Ron Weasley from the Harry Potter series was quite a round character too. He certainly shaped up with more confidence across the seven books.

R
ole to the story
This is not so much on the content of the story. Most OC fics are OC-centric (duh), so it's expected that the OC will be the main focus of the plot. I was referring to the role of the OC in accordance to how the story is presented. there's no point if the OC (as a main protagonist) does absolutely nothing to value-add the story. this point is rather hard to explain, and truth is that i don't have any assessment tools to conclude if an OC has played a part in being a good addition to the story. In fact, i go by gut feeling. Does the inclusion of the OC make the story better? Or does the OC (even though it's a protagonist) introduce entropy to the story so much so that the plot details are messy and incoherent?

... see? i don't know how to explain it. Gut feeling, that's all I'm going to say. Yet, i feel that this is the factor that make or break the OC. In the mentioned fic's case, I felt that the OC did not value-add the story after a point in time.

***

of course, since i've so pompously written such an article, it's only reasonable that my OC, Meia from "I Want To Be A Turk!", gets put under the radar.

Originality? Well, since I make it a point to make Meia as plain Jane as possible (the only special thing about her is her photographic memory and high threshold for Materia equipping), I've made her as.... dull as possible. But I thought that the photographic memory was a nice twist. heheh, it sounds so weird to critic my own character)

Multi-faceted personality? Hur hur. I wish. I tried but well, it's always easier said than done. As of now, her main, child-like personality is not very consistent (damn it!! >.<), though her quick temper seemed to be quite well-established. I'll continue to work hard to try and make her child-likeness show more. that being said, she'll start changing and developing. my lament is that i don't want to waste so much time on it because i have lots of content to cover... so maybe i should rethink my actions?

Role for the story? ... Shall we even go there? Being a hidden character of the canon, OF COURSE it doesn't matter whether she's there or not. My intention of making Meia in the story is... a secret. Maybe if I remember this again, I'll reveal the secret, wahahahah! Yes, there was a side-side-goal that I've given myself when I wrote Meia. So far, a few of the reviews have said things that make me realise that i have kinda achieved my objective. but well.. i'll stretch myself and see how far i can go.

all in all, i urge you not to think about whether meia is a good OC because I don't think she've value added to 'i want to be a turk' either. it's true that i'm quite happy with how Meia has turned out so far and if given the chance, i wouldn't have changed anything much either. however, there are a ton of OCs that are good, i just didn't have the chance to read them yet.

'dying to live' OCs are good... not because they fulfilled any of the stupid stuff that i've said above. they simply made the story good, and that was all i needed to be convinced. so... maybe the 'role to the story' is more of a subjective factor.

gosh, what a wordy post. i shall end here... and continue editing my story :)

once again, i apologise if i've offended anyone with this post.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Updates on my writing so far

dear folks, i've just finished chapter 50 of "I Want To Be A Turk!" WAHAHAHAHAHA!
well, not that it's fully done, i still have chapter 45, 48, 49 where some scenes are not written yet.
but what i mean is that i'm going to stop advancing into chapter 51 and all.
now, I'll focus on refining the chapters from 41-50.

some chapters lack good flavour, it's plain dialogue and i thought the story at some point became a little bland. also, some chapters (especially during the Nibelheim incident) have too many words but you know what? just for the fact that the Nibelheim incident is such a milestone event, i WILL write more than 5000 words for that chapter. Hope you understand (I'll give you a heads-up when it comes!)

that's the update for my Turk fic :)

Recently, I'm thinking of continuing my "The Only Exception" fic, a mere 1000-word progress so far. I've been pouring my creative juices into Meia's story that I feel so inspiration-less for the others :P

Also, i want to write "AVALANCHE!" still... im still getting some scenes thought out, but nothing substantial for me to start writing. *sigh* looks like i can't get anything done till the meia story is done. damnnnnn >.<

Just a little teaser, AVALANCHE is a spin off from "Moves Like Jagger", but the protagonist is Tifa, not Elena :) Maybe the last chapter of "Moves Like Jagger" will give you some inspiration :P

Ahh, how could I forget? I've been wanting to write "Be My Knight!", a fanfic based on FF8. I've only uploaded Chapter 1, though I've written another chapter after that. Looks like I won't get it done anytime soon too. *sigh*

If only i get paid for writing fanfiction :P

Thursday, January 12, 2012

I Want To Be A Turk!: Chapter 40

And so the aftermath begins...

Gosh, 4000 words still. I really should cut you guys some slack and write some 3500 word chapters once in a while :p and i did write some shorter chapters later on, just that i always find trouble in reading long chapters, so i try not to make you guys suffer the same. nevertheless, i guess for the sake of this story i HAVE to write long chapters, if not i'll never finish my LONG story.

Yes, i'm worried if i made Meia a little too mopey, though i've seen worse (i'm looking at you, NEW MOON!). i'm trying to make meia concentrate all her efforts into finding things to distract her from thinking about Reno, but i realised that after chapter 45 i kinda didn't talk about it anymore, heheh.

also, the many line-break monster strikes again! XD

again, another kunsel scene. but yes TWA, Meia and Kunsel will never be together, no matter how hard we hope it to be. truthfully, i planned them to be together first, before she realises that she likes reno. but i like kunsel... i don't want him to be thrown aside T_T i did consider a kunselxOC fic too, but no ideas so far, and i doubt there are people who likes kunsel fics XDDDD

Also, at last, an alana (Gun (Female)) scene. i haven't wrote much about her so far but im hoping that when the canon storyline dies down a little (probably after zack dies), i'll focus on the BC turks. for now, it's more of following the canon storyline in BC and CC so most of the scenes (from chapter 44-50) are a reenactment with added scenes, not that i lifted them entirely, okay??

the rude and reno part was my favourite in the chapter, all the scenes. FYI, the scene where reno 'found out' that rude likes tifa was one of the very first scenes that i wrote when i was planning for 'I Want To Be A Turk!', guess you can imagine how excited I am that finally, after 7 months of waiting, I can publish this portion :)

even though it is only stated in canon that Rude admitted that he likes Tifa in FF7 events, i thought it was strange that Rude would only like Tifa after meeting her less than 2-3 times. So hence, i created this scene where Reno and Rude actually meet Tifa waaayyy before FF7 time, so that at least we know that Rude has a crush on Tifs for a long time. Maybe not consistently, but i thought it'll make more sense that he knew Tifa for a substantial amount of time to conclude that she is a good girl to like, rather than 'love at first sight' (because i don't see rude as... that sort XD)

naturally, i gotta make reno so drunk that whatever he pointed out to rude that night was forgotten the next morning, hence removing the discrepancy that Reno was genuinely surprised to hear Rude say that he likes Tifa in FF7. confusing? like what my tutor in college/university says, "try and keep up" :P

also, the last two scenes, where Reno desperately tries to forget Meia by one-night-stands (do people REALLY do that????)... the last portion where you know, Reno ends up in the bar again (because he chickened out) was also another one of those first scenes i wrote before i started 'I want to be a Turk!'... it was heart-breaking to imagine him so, and i hope you guys caught the torture he felt? :)

anyway, another long A/N for you :) things are getting a little more interesting from here, so enjoy the ride :D

Saturday, January 7, 2012

forgetfulness!

aren't i smart?

i tried to upload chapter 39 last night and i went to sleep hoping that i'll get some reviews in the morning to read.

... i forgot to upload :\

okay, now it's finally up (not that people check my blog first before reading my story XD)

I Want To Be A Turk: Chapter 39

I'VE GOT A FOLLOWER!!! :D

i feel so popular!!
okay i exaggerate. by the way, please forgive my spelling and grammar. proofreading in the wee hours of the morning is not the best thing to do :P

i'm pretty glad to declare that i've cut down my words... from 4940 to 4848. Not a huge achievement, i've done better, but it's better than nothing :P

well now, about this chapter. i really love this chapter. from the very beginning since i wrote the story, it has been decided that reno and meia will be separated for a long time, i just didn't realise that the time gap can be THAT long. twas a pain in the you-know-where to link and fit everything together, but i think i barely made it :)

i know i haven't been juggling the many turks' perspectives often, that's why i inserted a Legend POV here. will continue to try other POVs as well, once i figured out how they are like :P

so, do you guys like how the story is turning out so far? well, this is why the story isn't going to end at 20 chapters or something. there's too many bumpy rides for the characters, wahahaha XD besides, i just had to add a small dash of realism. make meia understand rejection and loss a bit without blowing it up and making her the character who suffered the most or something like that XDD

Oh yes, just so you know, i drew inspiration about rude's fighting from "Dying to Live" :P i clearly remember the part where Dawn was supposed to fight Rude after Reno and Dawn said that Rude was a gentleman (because he allows the girl to start first). i thought that was a pretty neat characteristic drawn out for Rude because he does seem like the sort, so there we go, i snitched it like the Grinch! :D

alright, i'm getting bitten by mosquitoes all over. i'm gonna quickly upload this and sleep! goodnight :D


oh yeah, and happy new year :D

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

gosh! as i was doing some random planning for future chapters for "I Want To Be A Turk!"... i realised an important possibility.

i can finish the BC and CC events witin 15 chapters after the Nibelheim incident.

*GASP*

i know you guys must be like 'yeah... so?' XD just so you know, the Nibelheim incident is coming around the corner XD okay, maybe i'm excited about things that you can't see yet. this is because i'm writing the Nibelheim incident and so i can already see that the first half of the story (events up to before FF7) is going to be completed.

i'm so happy :D this kinda motivates me to go on further, now that i see the faintest light at the end of the (first) tunnel!

okay, that's all :P

in other news, i wrote a ff7 x 9gag fic for new year. well, for fun. but i'm not going to talk about it so that's all :P