The Last Poster Wins! [v22]

[Chakramaster]

[Bulbasaur]

Still said it's his fault. Argument invalid!

[Chakramaster]

Doesn't make him any less awesome, soooooo nu-uh

[Noblejanobii]

Madder's still gonna stab you either way.

[Scytherwolf]

I'm actually writing a novel right now (though it's been slow going lately XD). I don't plan to publish it though, it's mainly just for fun, like my fanfiction stories.

Sometimes I kind of feel like a weirdo for still writing something I started in 2007 when I had just barely gotten into the online fanfiction world and had no idea what I was doing. But I can't help still loving my old stories and wanting to finish them. I still read the stuff I wrote as a kid and enjoy it. Plus with my main pokemon story, I think seeing the improvement from the first chapters is cool.

Of course I understand why people don't want to finish their old stories. I realize I'm an outlier. xD

[Neo Emolga]

I'm actually writing a novel right now (though it's been slow going lately XD). I don't plan to publish it though, it's mainly just for fun, like my fanfiction stories.

Sometimes I kind of feel like a weirdo for still writing something I started in 2007 when I had just barely gotten into the online fanfiction world and had no idea what I was doing. But I can't help still loving my old stories and wanting to finish them. I still read the stuff I wrote as a kid and enjoy it. Plus with my main pokemon story, I think seeing the improvement from the first chapters is cool.

Of course I understand why people don't want to finish their old stories. I realize I'm an outlier. xD

I have a bunch of old stories I never finished. Sometimes it's because you had that bang awesome idea that you had to get down on paper, but then you never thought about how it's supposed to keep going and get to the end once all the juicy stuff got covered. I feel that way with the PMD fic I started long ago back when PMD was fresh and new. It started great and was fun and it eventually went to Nowhereland because I had absolutely nothing in mind for an ending or even a real conflict at hand.

The manuscript I've been trying to get published was started back in 2007 too, so that's not weird to me you're still going with something you started eleven years ago! I tried to start a sequel to it, but yeah, it's just not hitting any sweet spots and originally I didn't intend for it to have sequels so it's probably better off not going that route.

[Scytherwolf]

I have a bunch of old stories I never finished. Sometimes it's because you had that bang awesome idea that you had to get down on paper, but then you never thought about how it's supposed to keep going and get to the end once all the juicy stuff got covered. I feel that way with the PMD fic I started long ago back when PMD was fresh and new. It started great and was fun and it eventually went to Nowhereland because I had absolutely nothing in mind for an ending or even a real conflict at hand.

The manuscript I've been trying to get published was started back in 2007 too, so that's not weird to me you're still going with something you started eleven years ago! I tried to start a sequel to it, but yeah, it's just not hitting any sweet spots and originally I didn't intend for it to have sequels so it's probably better off not going that route.

Oh wow that's really cool! I also have a super old PMD story (from 2008). I started revising the old chapters so that I could continue it. Still gotta finish doing that. XD

[Chakramaster]

I'd love to be able to start my own, but I'm not the best at starting something out. I can build something after it's started, but starting out is the toughest part. Then ending...oh man is that hard.

[Neo Emolga]

I'd love to be able to start my own, but I'm not the best at starting something out. I can build something after it's started, but starting out is the toughest part. Then ending...oh man is that hard.

It's actually better to start working on your ending right at the very beginning and have in mind what you want everything to lead up to. Imagine something awesome and epic for a final conclusion and create a "wouldn't it be cool if there was a final battle where X, Y, and Z happened and there was all this other cool stuff like A, B, C, and D?" Well, since you don't want to randomly drop all that stuff in when it doesn't make sense, you set yourself reasons and means for all those things to be there at the end by setting them up as milestones along the way. And by making those things, you also start making strides toward a setting that allows them to be there. Such as if you want the final battle to involve a horde of cyborg ninjas riding ice dragons taking on a swarm of colossal demonic insects because you think that would be awesome as a final battle, well, that just means you need a reason and means for those things to at least be at the end and that's something you can set either at the beginning or have something that appears in the middle and gets the proper development it needs to show up properly in that final showdown. And of course you want all your plot devices to work this same way, also. You can picture it like a bunch of railways all converging from different towns and stations all going to one grand central station at the end.

But yeah, it's best to work on your ending and conclusion early, because it will at least give you a destination to go to. And it's okay if you take a few detours along the way. That's normal with story-writing, but you still want to have your eyes set on what you want everything to lead up to. That's your goal and destination and the journey to get to that gives you good motivation.

[Chakramaster]

It's actually better to start working on your ending right at the very beginning and have in mind what you want everything to lead up to. Imagine something awesome and epic for a final conclusion and create a "wouldn't it be cool if there was a final battle where X, Y, and Z happened and there was all this other cool stuff like A, B, C, and D?" Well, since you don't want to randomly drop all that stuff in when it doesn't make sense, you set yourself reasons and means for all those things to be there at the end by setting them up as milestones along the way. And by making those things, you also start making strides toward a setting that allows them to be there. Such as if you want the final battle to involve a horde of cyborg ninjas riding ice dragons taking on a swarm of colossal demonic insects because you think that would be awesome as a final battle, well, that just means you need a reason and means for those things to at least be at the end and that's something you can set either at the beginning or have something that appears in the middle and gets the proper development it needs to show up properly in that final showdown. And of course you want all your plot devices to work this same way, also. You can picture it like a bunch of railways all converging from different towns and stations all going to one grand central station at the end.

But yeah, it's best to work on your ending and conclusion early, because it will at least give you a destination to go to. And it's okay if you take a few detours along the way. That's normal with story-writing, but you still want to have your eyes set on what you want everything to lead up to. That's your goal and destination and the journey to get to that gives you good motivation.

True in every way yeah, but the important phase is starting out first and foremost. Not knowing what kind of characters I want and who will be there from start to finish and enemies (possibly some turn good in the end). It doesn't help start it. That's key to the starting one.

As for the ending yeah it'd be good to have in mind an idea for the end at least. It may change a bit as you work there. As you write you may come up with new andbetter ideas to improve certain storytelling. It makes for something possibly more creative. Where one minute it can be just about a Pikachu searching through some destroyed building and finding some item or someone's previous item left behind and suddenly it gets changed and instead the Pikachu is searching that same debris, but instead the floor gives way and it's searching through some catacomes underground now. A hidden dungeon! Things like that