[senpai]

Originally Posted by CaliperCat

Maybe I should start keeping a dream diary as well! I have some pretty crazy ones, although I don't think I could write about the dream I had last nice (a bison tried to jump a fence and got caught in it, and I had to free her. No clue where that came from!). I've actually got four heroes who do have powers, although I'm still working out the powers with them. If you'd like to know in more detail what they are, it'd be best if I just attached them as a document, because otherwise this post would be a whole page long! I actually keep a "dump" document precisely for the purpose of keeping all of my little snippets, so that they never end up getting lost somewhere.

What's the story you're writing now about? I definitely understand having difficulty keeping stories short, as I tend to be a lengthy writer as well. I was writing a fan-fiction many years ago, and the chapters were all approaching about 6,000 words a pop. Actually, part of my problem is trying to get the ideas in my head out on a document or on paper- I can have something brilliant in my head, but it never comes out the same way on paper. Do you have any tips?

Yeah! Feel free to share them. I'd like to read them sometime. Your dreams sound like mine. A bison! How bizarre! Anyway, I'm sure you'll figure something out for their powers. Powers can be so fun to create.

It's hard to just openly discuss what I'm writing about. I always get funny looks or ‘awww’s from people when I tell them I’m writing a story about pigs. They assume I'm writing for children or imagine it’s going to be a fun(ny) story. Anyway, it’s a survival story about a group of pigs escaping a farm when they learn they’re going to be killed. My objective is to subtly educate people about pigs through my narrative (they are my favorite animals!) while playing around with some of the facts to make the story interesting.

To answer your question, I find it very helpful to listen to music while I set up a scene. Music like movie and/or video game soundtracks. Nothing with lyrics--that's too distracting. When I need to get something out and I’m having trouble, I’ll listen to a song that I think captures that scene well, and I’ll just write. I don’t worry about spelling or how coherent my sentences are. After I feel like I got the gist out, I turn off the music, go back to edit and clean up what I did. At least then I got out the pivotal points that I was struggling with before and can now focus on the actual writing part. This may not work for everyone but it may be worth a shot for you.

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

To answer your questions, yeas, it IS a lot of fun, once you get the hang of it. I don't usually do panel-by-panel, but tend toward the "Marvel style" that Stan used to use, where you basically sketch out the broad story action in short paragraph form, and use dialog and/or inner monolog like in movie-scripts, plus sound effects, and use just enough description to show what's happening. All my fics are on my ff.net page, so you can see them there, or on the author page in my siggy, as I post them there, too.

As for my TMNT stuff, I mostly work in my own AU version that sort of throws a little bit of everything from all versions in. For instance, it's MAINLY based in the OT/90's movie-verses combined, with a few things from other versions, like Hun and Bishop, Leatherhead as an ally, a few one-off nods to Venus and Ninjara/Alopex (Shredder comments to Krang about wanting to turn the OC into a fox at one point), Silver Sentry (Mikey's favorite comic book, though he doesn't actually exist in this particular world), Klunk, Xever (as a human) and Fong from Nick, and bits like Raph being the Nightwatcher, four different lairs from OT, 90's films, and 2K3, and Mikey gushing about wanting a guitar to go with the drums Raph got for his 18th birthday so they can start a band (the COoOS tour)! And little things like that. I use Lotus from the OT instead of Karai. (Karai didn't even exist yet when I first started writing it back in 6th grade in 1990!) Also Mona Lisa, some head-canon stuff like Donnie being mildly addicted to coffee, Leo doing origami, and Mikey being an artist and liking to dance.

So far, I've done three stories set in that AU- one of which is also a Gargoyles crossover- and have three or four more in the works for it. (One is Leo-centric, the others are sequels to the main one, however, none of them are "ready" for posting yet.) The rest are stand-alone drabbles, one is a turtle-tot story, and I also have a tragic tale set in the OT (with Kurtzman from Nick added, but his backstory is changed), and another AU where the turtles and Splinter are the bad guys, with Shredder/Krang, etc. being the good guys (a reverse OT world).

I also have ONE T-cest experiment story in the works (with a second possibly on the way), another is April/Casey-centric (That one is NC-17, LOL!), and a Donnie tale that's- let's just call it mildly disturbing in where it goes- and a Mikey-centric "April Fool's Day" story. So far, though, the Donnie, April Fools, April/Casey, and T-cest tales are not posted anywhere, as they are barely started, and I may not get around to them for a while. So, I guess you can say I do a LOT of different things!

And although I haven't managed to fit them in yet, I'm DYING to use Hob, Fugitoid, and Usagi. So far, only Usagi has actually been mentioned, but I DO have a story planned with him set in my main AU.

You have a lot of awesome headcannons! I like the Nightwatcher idea for Raph. I wish Nick’s series did something like that. 6th grade! Awesome! You’ve been a long-time fan of TMNT The reverse world sounds very interesting haha! I can’t imagine the turtles/Splinter being baddies! I love Hob. I think you should use him in your next fanfiction! He’s such an awesome character. Usagi is cool. I haven’t read the comics or know too much about him but I love the character design. Plus, I love the whole samurai code of honor thing. Like, I just love samurai movies and Usagi seems like he’s the epitome of all that.

Is there any way that you could submit your story ideas to Nick? It would be cool if you could co-write with them for an episode! I think that would be so fun, but I don’t know how this stuff works xP How is your paranormal original piece coming along?

Originally Posted by Refractive Reflections

I started a thread earlier if anybody read TMNT fanfiction:
http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=40294

It could give an interesting perspective on what some members are interested in reading.

Thanks, Refractive Reflections! Though this thread is geared towards original pieces, I knew I’d be getting some mentions of fanfiction and I’m glad to see everyone so eager to share their work!