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WRITING IS HARD

Well it sure is, when you consider everything, it really is hard to write something with everything you want and in a solid block. Sometimes, I feel the need to just block off the rules and formalities, in order to write, and sometimes I feel like if I don't follow them something will result in a flaw, and cause problems later on (which is why I want this next story to be entirely written out before I begin)

Being constantly influenced by many things also adds to the difficulty, especially when you want to take the elements of things that you like, mesh them together in a new way, and present them to the world. Just the sound of that sounds hard, but it sounds so fun, and so fulfilling.

Recently, I just binged about 300 episodes of anime in the past 1-2 weeks, to get a grasp on what I was writing, and to chew out the flaws and good points other creations have made (notably popular ones, and things I've been generally avoiding). If you want to see what I've been watching, you can check it out here: 

my list of anime

Another thing that is creating this writing block, is no less the result of wanting to capture an audience to an enticing story. So many manga, and stories, can have bad starts, and appear as generic, no matter how much effort is put in to make it dynamic. Ignoring the rules feels too dangerous here, but following the flow of the medium, and the rest of the tropes and ideals seems to also lead to a swift death.

Either way, I want to experiment with how I can get people to read a text, without being to overbearingly scary. So I want to appeal in this order:

1. An interesting, unique cover page. 

For example, Let's take other manga as an example. Of the cover pages here, which one are you most likely to read?

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Without personal Bias, the fourth one seems the most interesting, but the overall level of these title pages seem to draw almost no attention to what the manga is about, except the fourth one, and possibly the fifth one (ignoring the titles).

In their own right, they are trying to appeal to certain audiences, such as the first one, would tend to appeal to people going after shoujo romances. But they are also general enough to leave a wider audience wondering what it is about. More specific targeting cover pages, would use elements such as sexual appeal, an item of interest ( sports, weapons, magic, school clothes) , or anything of the like. But what I would like to make is something that is either shows an original style or representation, that would pique a potential reader's curiosity. Colors, design and overall conveyance are all important. I think the consistent style of Assassination classroom's cover pages brings a curious reader to try it, while bright colors or unusual colors that draw attention that highlight the context of the story, (or does not) does well to bring attention. It is not to say to judge a book by its cover, but people easily judge a book by its cover, nearly all the time.

For my OH MAN covers, I had experimented with this in itself. With an appealing title logo, and ensuring the content of the title pages itself are interesting. Subtitles were also used to help the impression and increase the curiosity levels.The first one, calls out the curiosity factor for this odd looking character in the world. The second cover page, brings in the new characters, which has an appealing factor, working in tandem with this odd character. For cover page 3, I used complementary colors, and an element of the story to bring out interest. For cover page 4, bright warm colors were used to highlight the new world, to create an eye popping sensation. For cover 5, I experimented with a newer style and a more scenic composition and a variety of colors and a misty feel to highlight the fore coming and current elements in the story. I actually considered these elements a little, but composition was more important before most of these creations. Check them out here ( and see how bad they are.. ). Which one do you think is the most interesting?

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Aside from cover pages, next would be..

2. Plot summary and Synopsis

Generic plot lines, generic names, and synopsis covering only the beginning scope of the story, are what I dislike the most. Things that do well to leave the reader in thought of the characters and potential elements, instead of summarizing the beginning of the story do much better to present the work. Many works have misleading synopsis of what the actual content of the anime, or manga actually holds, because it doesn't look to the meat of the story, but rather the tip of the iceberg. If you were to go to a fancy restaurant, and order a steak, you would rather want a superb delicacy over a pretty piece of rock. It is much more important to tell you about the taste and texture of the meat, rather than the decorations that present itself for your first impression.

3. Introduction and Beginning events

In line with the synopsis, must work well with the actual beginning of the story and its function. If people can't get curious or interested at the first chapter, it has already failed. People read the synopsis in order to prepare their expectations of the work, and if you make it too specific, what you are limited to do in presentation starts to diminish. Highlight what people seek, and lead them on. Presenting all your cards will limit the ability to do things past the first step.

For the actual story itself, the power of presentation of information has to lull the reader in to ask questions and have them answered, in time and in cycle. Just like a manga, cliffhangers are presented to lead people on to ask a question, and have it become answered in possibly the next chapter. However, it is not just limited to chapter by chapter, but, page by page, event by event, panel by panel, or even text by text. Of course, the smaller the element, it needs less impact, and needs moderation in how important the dialogue is. Set up people to understand what will happen, and try to read the expectations by what has been set up. With this, you can control the reader and the story both, to have a very good time, or a bad time. Its all up to how well it is written and executed.

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Those would be my main 3 focuses in creating my new work. But before all that has to even take place, I need to write and ensure that a fantastic, interesting, surprising story can even be made, before introducing all of the extra elements. For my next post, I want to try making a super short story ( or at least an intro to one), and see if you guys are interested in it, or think it sucks.

 

Anyways, thanks for reading!

ceroblitz

 

 

 

 

Creativity and Exciting Writing

One of the hardest things to do when creating something is not just learning the skills, taking the time, or the assets and polish. Rather, starting it and finishing it is what is the hardest thing to do. However, there can be many qualities that determine a "finished" or "incomplete" project. If you were to write an essay with a missing paragraph in the middle, but had a strong introduction and conclusion, would that be a completed essay? If you were to complete an art piece but not add any value to it, would that be completed?

Instead of questioning the value of completion, it's better to know what yields the best result for yourself as a goal. To reach that goal and achieve it satisfactorily, and to know that your best effort went into it, doing it without any regret... That is what you can consider complete. It isn't bad to have incomplete projects, but completing a project and allowing it to rest is great. It becomes wholesome, and can reach out to many.

Now, creating something good and refreshing in this day and age requires something new and original, but that becomes harder and harder to do. How do you be creative and original, without scaring away the audience, or confusing yourself? Particularly, the most important things are to stay away from what is normally done, and / or execute it differently. But how do you do that?

First off, creativity is something that you create yourself, a spawn of your ideas to share. This doesn't necessarily have to be original, but happens without a consideration of outside influence. Originality is where you stray away from other successful tropes and cliches, and try something that people either don't expect or don't know what to expect when going into it. The former will tend to cause some to stray away from new, unknown material, while the latter, will innovate old things through new ideas. The best of both worlds would contain both original content with creative execution.

Considering this, we have general formulas that stories, manga, and anime tend to follow these days. These patterns become so recognizable, that they have even coined a term for them, as "flags". For example, a death flag would be an event that happens in the story that causes or gives reason that the character would die. For example:

Girl 1: I've finally realized it! What Boy 1 was telling me all along!

Boy 2 "So you've finally realized it?"

Girl 1: Boy 1.. likes me!

Boy 2: Heh.. you finally get it.

Girl 1: I must go tell him now!

Boy 2: Hold on, it's a bit late for..

[Girl 1 has already left]

Boy 2: Oh boy..  [turns on weather channel]

TV: It seems storms are coming to town. Please seek shelter as soon as possible! It is expected that a high risk of death will happen.

Boy 2: Oh..

 

Now, this pattern suggests that (with a bit of exaggeration with the weather event) the girl had finally realized it, but this certain event tells us that there won't be a full on realization between boy 1 and girl 1 just yet, and there may even be some tragic event coming up. This creates a reader to tighten up their guard for the incoming, which allows the writer to manipulate the reader. Usually there is no manipulation to satisfy the readers. But with proper usage of these flags and more subtle hints in progression, you can throw events that would either surprise or become unexpected, rather than predictable and boring.

If you were to set up for a boring event to come forth and instead present an exciting development, that would instill far more excitement than if it was consistently set up to throw out exciting events on every odd chapter. It's the same feeling of discovering something for the first time and uncovering a new aspect in something you thought you knew. But, this is all a part of execution. Even if you can set up original and creative situations that betray the reader's expectations in a good way, it still must be contained in an immersive and reasonable state to happen within the story. Either way, this is all a part of understanding the balance within a story, shifting from event to event and giving the reader a shifting progression instead of constant. If it's constant, it is static, it is boring. Playing these event right is what creates a good story and makes it interesting.

Playing into this with outside elements is also important in appeal, to appear as original and creative as can be. In the age of anime and manga about school, action, harems, and self-insert fantasies, having something outside that circle is unexpected and exciting in itself. A wave of new and old comes along slowly, just like progression within a story.

But that's for another time

thanks for reading!

ceroblitz

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