Chrono Compendium
Kajar Laboratories - Fan Works and Submissions => Fan Fiction => Topic started by: ZeaLitY on December 08, 2006, 06:07:32 pm
-
Don't write like this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3719/1/
This is my first story I’ve written. I hope you enjoy it...
The year is 1005. It has been 5 years since Crono and his friends went through time to stop Lavos. This is what happens after the destruction of Lavos...
"Crono! Crono! Where are you Crono?" "Marle! I told you not to bother me!" "Oh come on! The fireworks have started!" *BOOM* *BOOM* "Oh man." Crono leaves his house towards Guardia Forest. He is attacked by some monsters. Crono zaps them with a lightning bolt. "Man, these monsters are too easy." "Wait a minute! I thought all monsters were destroyed when Lavos fell." Crono spots a glowing portal in the center of the forest. "Oh man, I need to tell this to Marle." Crono heads towards his house. "Marle! Marle! I’ve got something to tell you!" "What is it Crono?" "You have to come with me to the forest. Bring Lucca with you." The trio heads towards Guardia Forest. "Look at that!" "It’s the biggest time gate I’ve ever seen!" "I wonder if Lavos was destroyed." "He was destroyed." "So where are all of these monsters coming from?" "That gate." "We have to enter the gate and see who or what is sending these monsters." "NO! We can’t just go through the gate. Who knows when we would end up." "So you want these monsters to keep coming?" "No." "Then let’s go!" The three go through the gate.
In the year 25,000 ad...
A gate opens up. Crono, Marle, and Lucca pop out. "When are we?" "And where are we?" "Luckily I invented a new machine that can tell us when and where we are." "Lucca, what would I do without you?" "Come on, check the machine." "Give me a second, I need a power source." The trio finds a power source. "The year is 25,000 ad. The place is The Temple of Lavos." "Lavos?" "I thought he was dead." "He is, remember?" "This is just a temple to Lavos." "Well only the Mystics belived Lavos was the ultimate power." "So then the Mystics built this place." "Look at that statue!" "It’s glowing." "Lucca, can that machine do anything else?" "It can tell what any substance is made of." "Well check that statue out." "This statue is made from the remains of Lavos’s shell." Crono touches the statue and is shocked. "Crono!" Crono is thrown out of the temple. "Where did Crono land?" "Let’s look outside." Marle and Lucca step outside to see Crono surrounded by a band of thieves. "Crono!" The thieves look up to see Marle and Lucca. The thieves start speaking another language. "Aiwoemnrnfuvjanwioeu." "Awoienjnviuiqjklqkjl?" The thieves run off dropping a glowing dagger. "Crono! Crono! Wake up Crono!" "Marle use Cure on him now!" "CURE!" Crono floats in the air as he is healed. "Oh man, that statue can take it out of you." "Crono, are you alright?" "I’m fine, but where is the Gate Key?" "The thieves must have taken it." "Lucca, check the machine and see if you can track them down." "The thieves have headed north to the Northern Truce Dome." "Truce Dome?" "Let’s go to Northern Truce Dome!" The trio winds up at Northern Truce Dome and hour later. Two stone golems step out of the ground. "We are here to stop intruders." "We must destroy you!"
*What will happen to Crono, Marle, and Lucca? Will they get the Gate Key back? Will they find out where all of the monsters are coming from? Find out in the next story.*
-
:lee: Oh gawd. How awful. It's embarrassingly crap.
-
Yeah, it's the oldest CT fanfiction on Fanfiction.net. Anyone who has submitted something there invariably digs that up. It's like a rite of passage to read that.
-
Lied, sorry. Just wanted to see your expressions.
Story sucks though. Seems like somethin I would write when I was 4 though.
-
Hmph. I've written worse. Whoever wrote this is probably 10 or something like that, and I can tell you... the bit I wrote at that age wasn't stellar. My dinosaur-loving phase spawned 'Last of the Dinosaurs' - that would have been in '93... okay, so I wasn't quite 10 yet, but guess what influenced THAT? So, so bad. And it wasn't the worst. There were my stories about an inter-galactic trans-temporal adventurer (sort of a pan-heroic Sinbad) named Idiro. God, I can't believe I was actually proud of it back then.
Though, I must admit, the latter idea... well, it still resonates with me. Sounds stupid from just that, I know, but subtly there's something to be done with it. Just a few months ago I tried to write a space battle, and I used that guy as the basis... but I portrayed the ship-battles as sort of the combat between Homeric heroes. A bit odd, but only a bit of an experiment.
Anyway, true enough, there are bad things out there on ff.net. And I'm ashamed to say, my own CT fanfic is a bit... subpar. However, it's not just ff.net. Have you seen some of the things that get published? Just a while ago there was this book lauded - I read it just for the heck of it when my sister got it, and I think it was the last fantasy book I read - called Eragon, which was supposedly so great because a 19 year old kid had written it. Oh, boy. I tell you, if that fool's parents hadn't been publishers, it'd gone nowhere. There is a reason 19 year olds are almost never novelists - poets, occassionally, but novels require more age and experience. Talk about derivative and trite, and totally unoriginal for a fantasy book. And here's the kicker... they made a movie about it. And not just some made-for TV thing, but a bloody full-scale multi-million dollar movie with John Malkovitch and Jeremey Irons! Dammit, the kid can't even write (yet), and they make a movie? Ridiculous.
Anyway, yeah, long story short, there's a lot of bad stuff out there. And I'm always worried I'll contribute to it. Just today I read Aristotle's Poetics, and boy does it make me feel guilty, all his 'a story has to be based around a good plot' and how 'plot is pre-eminent' and... yeah. I'm not a plot-writer. I'm a theme and style writer. Okay, so my plot's not terrible. But it's not my focus, and old Aristotle was sure giving my writing a working over as I read him.
-
The worst is when there are a lack of descriptions making characters seem to warp to key spots: like there is a time-gate or something. In that story just posted. What is Guardia like? Is there new inventions? (After all 5 years with Lucca is plenty of time for new things to pop up) How much older did the Trio Looked like. What does the Temple look like. Complety intact or kinda falling apart? What did the scenery around the temple looked like? Etc. I could go on and on if there was more chapters.
That work dosen't describe enough to me. I think storys that skip straight to the action makes it stale and dead because it's all Rinse and spit. Yuck. Sorry if this rant annoys you folks.
-
I don't really know what to think. But yeah, I agree With 4th Triforce piece. It needed a lot more description. And I always hate it when in a story or fanfiction, they have this great piece of technology that can do almost anything. It just seems lame when that happens. I'll admit, I've seen a LOT worse than that. If it had been written right, it could have been good.
-
Good god almighty, it was just quotation after quotation. I couldn't tell who was saying what. Whoever wrote this obviousloy didn't do much research either, they have the whole story screwed up...
Well, it's noit as bad as this: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/156682/1/Untitled_4_now
I hate when writers do that whole script thing, it makes them loook lazy. And even worse, when they cut in the actual text with something OOC or a smiley. Ugh...
I made the link link (all it needed was a space after the colon)...
~V_Translanka
-
I REFUSE TO COPY AND PASTE! please link.
-
Scriptments can be quite beautiful when they're well-done. It's my personal favorite form of artistic expression -- gives the writer lots of flexibility to use as little or as much prose as he or she wishes. But I guess that factors into the whole laziness perception, lolz.
-
I've only written a few fanfics, but a couple of them have been in script format. For instance I'm writing Chrono Cross one right now, and it makes it a lot less complicated with all of the characters. I try to only do it when there are a whole bunch of characters.
-
Do you have the script hosted anywhere, Delta Dragon? I'd be interested in seeing it. We'll need script writers for the Chrono Cross project.
-
I'm still writing it, and it's not all that close to being finished. Well..ah whatever. It's Serge playing through the game while all the other characters make fun of it. At the moment, they're still at Viper manor the first time.
Wait, what Chrono cross project?
-
Whoa, Geez this makes my writings look really good and I must say I thought I was the worst writer on the planet. This has given me hope :lol:
-
I've started quite a few fan fics of various topics, but I've only finished two. They're both Chrono trigger. They are both written out, but they need to be checked over again. One is actually a sequel to the other. Once they're finished I'll probably post them. They aren't that good, but I'm pretty sure they're better than this. Also, especially the first one, is entirely silly. The second one is too, but not as much.
-
I've read the thing up at the top at least 5 times now and I still laugh. :lol:
-
There really isn't a whole lot of adventure fanfic for CT on the net except "dead" ones. :(
Unless of course I skipped them due to lack of intresting summery. I tend to take summeries very seriously before I read the story as a key to it.
-
There really isn't a whole lot of adventure fanfic for CT on the net except "dead" ones. :(
Unless of course I skipped them due to lack of intresting summery. I tend to take summeries very seriously before I read the story as a key to it.
That's retarded, especially considering a site that has summaries only consisting of things like "ferst story dont flame lol R&R and I will R&R fav pls pls pls!!! ^w^"
-
I actually do take summaries seriously when they mean stuff. My summaries consisted of the main plot, a little info on the newest episode, and a request to be nice.
As for that little blurb... dear god. I think I've written better even when I couldn't keep my characters' names straight (one famous incident was when the character, Terra, was referred to as Kitari, another character in a completely different story with no connection to the other one).
-
Someone should re-write that fic in ZeaLitY's post and turn it into a grandiose 20+ chapter epic. lol
-
I actually have to disagree. I was writing better stories than that when I was 10, lol. Then again, I always had natural voice to my writing which my teachers loved to point out to the entire class.
-
Of all the fanfics I've done... The first actually was a Chrono Trigger one I believe. Long long ago back when the net was young. I never did complete it though, but I am incorperating some of the aspects of it into my newer one.
Someone should re-write that fic in ZeaLitY's post and turn it into a grandiose 20+ chapter epic. lol
Well we can already double its length by using the [enter] key. Paragraphs are a reader's friend.
-
We'd need to come up with an overarching theme and character arcs.
What is the theme of that fanfic? Anyone wanna take a stab at it?
-
"to bravely put all text in one paragraph; to search out new ways to confuse and annoy"
-
If only bad fanfic-ing was the internet's final frontier...V_V
-
ahem. don't you mean seek not search? :shock:
-
Lmao, aw man..
i got a little over halfway through, but then my HP dropped to zero from the devastating literary assault.
shit was worse than grand stone and dreamless all at the same time
-
"Give me a second, I need a power source." The trio finds a power source.
Reading this again and laughing so hard jesus christ
-
My first time reading this... LMAO! :picardno :picardno :picardno
Painful. But hilarious! :lol:
"Look at that!" "It’s the biggest time gate I’ve ever seen!"
For anyone who's watched Godfrey Ho's spliced up ninja b-movies, this line particularly reminds me of them - specifically a scene in 'Catman in Lethal Track'.
A gate opens up. Crono, Marle, and Lucca pop out.
I think the narrator's bits might be my favourite part of this.
The thieves start speaking another language. "Aiwoemnrnfuvjanwioeu." "Awoienjnviuiqjklqkjl?"
While coming up with accents / dialects / languages is never easy, this extended typo stuff is just...!
"Marle use Cure on him now!" "CURE!"
Actually, the fact that Marle has to yell 'Cure!' might outdo the narrator for my favourite bit.
*What will happen to Crono, Marle, and Lucca? Will they get the Gate Key back? Will they find out where all of the monsters are coming from? Find out in the next story.*
Sounds like the end of a 1960s Batman episode!
Pretty funny stuff. While I agree with the folks who said they could write better in grade school, the comments made me feel pretty bad for the guy. They were pretty mean-spirited and the author sounded like he couldn't be past his early teens, and he never posted anything again after those awful two paragraphs.
-
As an English Major reading this story, I can't help but do this:
:picardno
My favorite lines:
This is my first story I’ve written. I hope you enjoy it...
This is perhaps the quickest way to put this guy's story into the circular file.
The year is 1005. It has been 5 years since Crono and his friends went through time to stop Lavos. This is what happens after the destruction of Lavos...
This is narrative intrusion up the wazoo! What, you don't think fans of CT wouldn't know this already? This is just insulting.
"Crono! Crono! Where are you Crono?" "Marle! I told you not to bother me!" "Oh come on! The fireworks have started!" *BOOM* *BOOM* "Oh man." Crono leaves his house towards Guardia Forest. He is attacked by some monsters.
With its impersonal narrative substance, improper formatting, and tedious dialogue, this just screams “I’m a beginning writer!”
A gate opens up. Crono, Marle, and Lucca pop out. "When are we?" "And where are we?" "Luckily I invented a new machine that can tell us when and where we are." "Lucca, what would I do without you?" "Come on, check the machine." "Give me a second, I need a power source." The trio finds a power source. .
A blatant Deus ex Machina! What’s not to like about it?
Crono touches the statue and is shocked. "Crono!" Crono is thrown out of the temple. "Where did Crono land?" "Let’s look outside."
In this order: Who said that? Outside of the temple, and Duh!
Marle and Lucca step outside to see Crono surrounded by a band of thieves. "Crono!" The thieves look up to see Marle and Lucca. The thieves start speaking another language. "Aiwoemnrnfuvjanwioeu." "Awoienjnviuiqjklqkjl?" The thieves run off dropping a glowing dagger.
Apparently, this author has streamlined grammar, syntax, roots, vocalizations, and foreign influence into his artificial language. All he had to do was pound the keyboard and say, “The thieves spoke like this!” Do you hear that? It’s the sound of J.R.R. Tolkien spinning in his grave.
"Lucca, check the machine and see if you can track them down." "The thieves have headed north to the Northern Truce Dome." "Truce Dome?" "Let’s go to Northern Truce Dome!"
Five years of R&D into a plot device has done wonders for genius inventor Lucca. Also, I didn’t know there was more than one Truce Dome. Did you? But I guess it makes sense to call it the Northern Truce Dome since its "north" of where they are.
*What will happen to Crono, Marle, and Lucca? Will they get the Gate Key back? Will they find out where all of the monsters are coming from? Find out in the next story.*
Cliffhangers are a breeze for this guy since he didn’t invest much effort in the first story. Maybe he’ll improve the next time around. If not, please post the sequel (if there is one). As a fiction writer myself, I just love deconstructing stories.
-
First of all....HAHA! I don't mean to be meanspirted, but it was freaking hilarious. Add in a tawdry sex scene and it'll be the quintessential Fanfic.net piece.
I'd like to think that we gents over at Fictionpress do a bit better, seeing as how all of our fiction is our original ideas(which, I guess means they're not technically fanfics) but a lot of times users degenerate to the same.
As for script writing, mine is deplorable if you mean it to be fiction. But it serves its purpose for what I use it.
-
So......it was Professor Plum.......in the Truce Dome...... with the candlestick?
I still can't get past "Oh, come on." if I'm focusing hard. By that point my eyes are already bleeding. I wonder if the recpetion would be better if it was just spaced out a little more? But I've never written a fanfic, and this person has...so points there for them?
-
Hah. Looking back, this captured the essence of DBZ at its worst.
-
where's the part where Magus runs up and says "I'm
Janus Dalton - :kz-Jesus Batman and Schala's like "OMG SOMEHOW I KNEW ALL ALONG THAT I TOO WAS A SKYWALKER" and they start hugging?
-
where's the part where Magus runs up and says "I'm Janus Dalton - :kz-Jesus Batman and Schala's like "OMG SOMEHOW I KNEW ALL ALONG THAT I TOO WAS A SKYWALKER" and they start hugging?
Along the Star Wars line...
Lynx:: "No, Serge. I AM your father!"
Serge:: "That's not true! That's IMPOSSIBLE! ...Oh shit. Wait. I'm a silent protagonist."
REDO!
Lynx:: "No, Serge. I AM your father!"
Serge:: "...!!!!..."
-
Really. I thought it was:
Lynx:: "No, Serge. I AM your father!"
Sege:: "...(Nothing saying I can't think out my lines. NOOOOOOO!!)...."
-
Lynx: Serge, I AM your FATHER!
Serge: Fine. But Kid's not my sister is she?
Lynx: I don't get what you're referencing.
Serge: Well that would just be like "worst-case scenario" right now, ya know?
Lynx: But why would that be the one thought that...forget it, I'm your dad. Doesn't that BLOW your MIND?
Serge licks himself. Then finds string to chase.
Serge: Not really. It kind of explains a lot.
-
Lynx: "I AM your father!"
(Serge searches his head for cat ears)
Kid: "That ain't how ya do it!"
Caramelldansen starts playing, and she gets everyone to do the dance. FATE spontaneously combusts, the Frozen Flame shatters into pieces, and the Time Devourer kills itself, releasing Schala from it's grasp.
They all live happily ever after. THE END
-
Yeah, that "story" at the top was pretty painful. There are many lessons to be learned here, but the most important one is this: to be an effective writer, you must also be an avid reader. It is difficult to learn how a story is put together without reading stories published by other people. That is why they give out reading assignments in English and creative writing courses. If you enjoy reading, then learning story structure will come natrually over time. It's not that hard. But if you don't enjoy reading, then you are not going to get that valuable experience - and you will end up writing passages like the one above. :shock: Writing fiction is not a race to the finish line.
Aside from reading published authors, the best advice I can give is that fiction is fundamentally about character. Every type of story has been done before, but character has no boundaries. A time-travelling epic can, by its nature, become very convoluted and hard to follow. It is a mistake to think that Chrono Trigger's success is due to a time-travelling storyline and cutting-edge (for the time) graphics. "Back to the Future" also had a time-travelling storyline and great special effects for its day. But that is not why we remember the film so fondly. We love it because of Marty McFly, Doc Brown, and George McFly. Those characters radiated a life of their own. Who could forget Marty's heavy metal performance in front of his incredulous audience, or George balling up his fist to slug Biff? Just the same, we love CT because of Crono, Marle, Lucca, Glenn, Robo, Ayla, and Magus. Without them, there would be no fan community. Chrono Trigger would have just been another game, quickly forgotten with the next generation of hardware. Much of the fan-fiction I read online just concentrates on plot, combat, and special powers - or just repeating existing dialogue from the game. This does the Chrono franchise a disservice. The original game already gave us plenty of plot twists and battles. What we should be doing is expanding on the characters in a way the games could not. By necessity, the games must move at a brisk pace to keep the player engaged. That limits character development. Fiction does not play by the same rules. It's okay to slow things down a little. Readers are most engaged when they care about the characters. Keep the characters interesting, and you will find success regardless of your level of writing experience.
-
Excellent words of wisdom, Lennis. I would add that to be an effective writer, one must not only read widely, but also pay extreme attention to his or her own surroundings, and even his or her internal state of mind. If you've got a story that takes place in the wilderness, spend some time outdoors hiking (preferably in a safe location that doesn't feature wolves and stuff) and pay attention to the sights, smells, and sounds you hear. When you experience a powerful emotion, probe it, its causes, and its effects on you mercilessly. Bring a notebook with you and try to capture these little glimpses of nature and humanity while you're still witnessing them in realtime.
-
Here's some words of wisdom for writers out there:
- Learn the rules of good writing. Then, learn how to break them. If you're a good writer, you won't get caught. A good breaking of the rule will enhance the reading experience, while a bad one will simply draw attention to the fact that it's been broken.
- Read your work out loud. Not only will it bring clarity to your story structure, but it's a really great way to sharpen up and bring realism to your dialogue.
- Write as if you had a deadline to make. Time is a great element not only to exploit in fiction, but also in real life. Just convincing yourself that you have a "deadline" to meet can help bring out your best writing ability. But be careful, because it can also cause you to stumble. Use conservatively.
-
- Learn the rules of good writing. Then, learn how to break them. If you're a good writer, you won't get caught. A good breaking of the rule will enhance the reading experience, while a bad one will simply draw attention to the fact that it's been broken.
Ahahahahaha! Yes, thank you Genesis! The greatest flaw of most would-be authors is that they try to find the magical formula that yields great fiction.
Listen well, true believers: It cannot be done. More importantly, it should not be done. This is one of the main reasons that Twilight author Stephenie Meyer was criticized so harshly by author-emeritus Stephen King. It was a formulaic book, following basically the same patterns as fiction before it. Her writing style is more or less an amalgamation of J.K. Rowling, James Patterson and Daniel Steele, targeted at teenage females.
No, the greatest writers are those who break the rules of the previous generation, or do something that rebels against authorial dogmas.
If you're someone that takes an active interest in writing, and wishes to pursue it, learn this lesson. If you're a casual writer of slash fanfics, then keep walking.
-
Wow! That was pretty bad. But I have seen worse fanfiction.
It certainly did not do the Chrono series justice.
-
Oh, I almost forgot a most important piece of advice:
- Keep a log of overheard dialogue. Do you know why screenwriters down in Tinsel Town carry tape recorders with them? Not just because they had a brilliant idea at the time, but because they're looking for some real-life dialogue. By learning how people talk in real life, you'll imbue more realism into your dialogue. Believe me, there are few things worse than artificial dialogue.
Try this website on for size to see what I mean:
http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/ (http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/)
-
No, the greatest writers are those who break the rules of the previous generation, or do something that rebels against authorial dogmas.
Explain the Faerie Queen, then. It was the culmination of an entire genre that came before it.
"Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgements."
The greatest writers are those who write works that are significant to humans over long periods of time. They may break the rules, they may not. They may follow formulas, they may not.
One should be willing to break a rule when needed, but also one should be willing to keep a rule when needed, and one should be able to write absolutely brilliantly regardless of the rules.
The key is to write, and to keep writing. An amazing amount of everything else will work itself out in the process.
-
The key is to write, and to keep writing. An amazing amount of everything else will work itself out in the process.
...Have you been reading Boo's Book of Thinking, Reading, Writing...?
-
I liked the Faerie Queen. Both fun and epic.
As for rule-breaking, that's just something that a novice author might experiment with and either:
a) get a good reaction
b) get a terrible review
Remembers, folks... Hanlon's Razor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor)