All Things Story: General Discussion Topic Board

Come one and come all! Let's all talk about all things stories. It can be your stories or even other stories you've found and wanted to share about.

No rules here! Talk about everything and everything you'd like.

Some topic starters to get this started though:

-What current(if any) story projects are you working on?
-What are you favorite stories to tell? (Or read!)
-Any tips or tricks you've learned along the way of making stories?
-What has been the hardest story element you've had to (or tried to) tackle in making a story?

Feel free to throw out more questions and just general talking shenanigans! This is a story free for all board.

made this a sticky cause it's a good starter topic :>


My favourite stories to tell are character-driven ones; I like big adventure stories with high stakes and people getting hurt (and maybe mutations/body horror) but the characters need to be strong. (my favourite character dynamics are loner-adult-taking-care-of-kid and dorkbros... and I'm a huge sucker for strong platonic bonds in general haha)

Heee yess! Character-focused stories tend to be my favorites! The ones you can really tell the characters were probably the first thing that were created, and than the story being the first thing that was focused on.

((As long as the story is still goood! I'm always disappointing when there's a movie with strooong characters but then the story is so messy. While the character interactions are always fun to watch, it isn't always as satisfying result XD; ... the best example I can think of is probably Despicable Me. Which I think I even remember hearing them state on some Behind the Scenes Doc how they like to start their movies by "making the characters" first. REALLY developing those characters and knowing everything about them before getting into the story. And the characters in that movie WERE great, I loved them! XD But the story itself seemed soo weak in comparison. Same thing goes for the Lorax movie. _{Although I feel like thaat story was even way worse in comparison XD;;} Like I REALLY loved the Lorax and Onceler characters. But I also really wished they WEREN'T the Lorax and the Onceler XD Like I want those SAME characters and interactions, but set in an completely different story/movie ahhhhh))

Wheew yes.. I'm gonna just stop there for now XD

Yeah, it's the combination of the two that makes a good story; you need a good plot to give the characters purpose, and great characters give you a reason to care about the plot and what's at stake. (For me writing the plot is the more challenging part since the characters usually come first/easiest... but I definitely think both are important!)

Yessss! And I think I shall also put out there, that I also really love... really depressing (with the occasional blood) and intense stories!

I think it might just be that I'm sadistic XD But give me a story in which in which a character gets everything they love taken away from them, with lots of death and sadness because I will eat it up!

But I also love seeing stories with characters who are able to dig themselves out of those horrible pits of despairs and grow into a really strong new kind of character! ouo

((Speaking of which, if anyone has any good super depressing shows or series they'd like to share - please dooo! XD Some good examples that I'm already watching/seen: Dangan Ronpa, Game of Thrones, Attack on Titan, Future Diary, annnd I've been hearing good extremely depressing things about Breaking Bad that's been making me want to watch thaat hahaha))

Yaaaay story chat! xD

I agree with character-driven stories being my favourite. Of course plot is important too, but if it's got a great plot and weak characters, I generally can't get into it. This seems to be a problem with a lot of fantasy novels I've tried to read, sadly... now I tend to avoid that genre unless it's one I've heard very good things about. It's a shame because when it's good, I love the genre. It's just hard for me to find good ones.

I tend to write fantasy-type stories myself, though it's usually a slightly more modern type of setting.

The story I've been working on at the moment is called The Lost Seasons. I plan on it being four books long, and have been planning it on my head and with notes for years. @_@ Last summer I finally decided to sit down and write the dang thing, and finished a very rough draft of the first book, and now I'm still in the process of editing which is taking forever. xD Also adding in a couple parts I skipped over because I was stuck. I think that's the hardest. I'm still stuck on a couple things. x.x I hope I can hurry and finish this dang thing soon because I want to start writing the second one... 

I have a little summary on my charahub: It's on this page under Setting... a bunch of my other character info is on there too. Complete with embarrassingly bad sketches of some of them I really need to replace soon. xD

Sky, I'm a sucker for depressing stories too. I am also curious about Breaking Bad after I've heard some people were up all night crying after watching it. So curious what gave them that reaction... anyway, I used to watch a ton of depressing shows and read depressing novels, and now of course I can't remember any of them (besides GoT which you already have listed)... hmm... only thing popping to mind is an anime called Wolf's Rain I watched many years ago. I definitely remember that one being depressing, especially the ending I think, but I really liked it.

OH GOSH WOLF'S RAIN! It's just been so long since that one that I forgot it as well! XD I wanna kinda rewatch it cause the last time I watched it was like middle school years. But oh gosh. It started off with one death... and I cried nonstop. AND THEN IT JUST KEPT GOING DOWNHILL AND I WAS LIKE NOO WHY crycry hahah gosh frickin goodness that wolf's rain! XD They bottled up all their sads to be ALL RELEASED at once for their ending my goodness.

But oohh man good luck on your story! Sounds like you're getting some pretty good work on it though if you're already mostly finished with the first one! :3 I think you should go ahead and start at least roughing out the draft for the second one while you're still fixing and editing the first one - since you say you're so eager to already start on it. Eagerness is like the best motivational tool, so I'd use that up any chance you get! XD

And yeah man books and even movies tooo I've seen and read a lot that had REALLY well developed stories with a whole lots of world building things and the like in there. The stories were GREAT they had so much they could DO and fantasy worlds and YEAH AWESOME! But then the characters were so... boring that, it didn't even matter XD Just makes me want to steal the STORIES/WORLDS in that case and place better characters in them haha.

I enjoy depressing stories a lot too, but for me some of them push it too far? Like there's so much depressing that I can't get invested in the characters/plot/stakes, because I'm like... 'oh well they're all going to die horribly, why bother?' (Or sometimes it's really obvious who has heroic plot immunity, while the rest of the cast are clearly no more than red shirts... and that's even worse because there's no sense of danger for the main cast in addition to the inability to connect emotionally to cannon fodder.)

But yes Ky, I agree, you should go ahead with the writing if you're excited to do it! C:

Yeah I do agree that stories can overdo it with killing off characters. I think for me, I prefer a nice mix. I don't like a story to feel too hopeless. I think I also prefer stories that are depressing without just killing characters left and right. Like finding more creative ways to be depressing or emotional. Death isn't the only way to make a story sad...

And yeah that's a good idea! I think I probably will jump ahead and start working on part 2 while I still feel really eager and motivated. n.n Actually I was thinking about finally participating in nanowrimo this year and doing a rough draft of the second book for that.

Hehe Wolf's Rain caught me off guard. I mean it had a sad feel but I didn't know it was going to turn out the way I did; I held out hope the entire time. Anyway, that reminds me of another story element I really like... for some reason I love characters that have multiple forms or can transform somehow. Especially if one form is human, and another is an animal or beast or something. No idea why, just always found that really cool and interesting. I need to find more stories/comics/shows/whatever like that. And somewhat related, I really love secret identities too. XD

oh yes dooo
I do nano every year and I'm quite fond of it c:

Yeah, with the stories that go overboard on the deaths it starts to feel like it's being used for cheap shock value. There's definitely a lot of great subtle ways to handle sadness in stories (like Unsounded sdgfhsgf). You can have a really powerful/distressing story without resorting to culling the masses. (It's one of the many reasons I hated snk actually; it's one of the worst cases of slaughtering broad swathes of boring redshirts I can think of.)

Heheh, I agree that if it's too overboard and you EXPECT them all to die, then it makes it less fun. ((Like horror movies gee wiz XD You can nail those down TOO well some of the super silly ones. That ones going to die first. This one is going to be the last survivor. The unhappy end!))

But I love it when a story can TRICK me into thinking they're NOT going to do that! XD Like, while I agree Attack on Titan has waay too much deaths where you can't get too attached and so why bother, I like when they faked me out killing someone I thought WOULD NEVER be killed!

Like a spoiler part from Titan:

Spoiler:

Oh yes! That reminds me of a good example of an anime that actually DID do that! And did it WELL!!!

Which would be Gurren Lagaan. Diiiid not expect such an important character to die so soon within the series! OnO Such a surprising death! And I must confess, made the rest of the show SOOOO MUCH BETTER afterwards! (Even though it was SAD, it's because of that sad - and seeing those characters having to deal with that grief and overcome it and still try to continue fighting aahhman! Thats the good stuff)

Basically, setting up the story so the audience THINKS they know whats going to happen next - but then totally changing it! That's one of the best things you can do for a story.


And oooh Kynale, do you know of the anime series called Spice and Wolf? That one has a wolf girl who can change her forms in which you might be interested! XD I enjoyed it~!

idk I never expected

snk spoiler:

but I dunno, I feel like 'killing' the main protagonist and then resurrecting them/having them never have died in the first place is a pretty common thing? It can work in some cases but most of the time just comes off as trite, a trope used by lazy writers who want the shock value of killing a character without having to deal with the aftermath.

(I still haven't watched Gurren Lagann but I really want to!)

That's actually a pet peeve of mine... I really don't like when characters get "killed" and then magically resurrected or come back somehow. Ruins it for me. Unless there's an amazingly good story reason for it, but I can't even think of any examples off the top of my head where there was.

(Not counting zombies and the like, that's a bit different haha.)

Nooo yes that was my point XD If he had STAYED dead that would've been the good example. Like in Gurren Lagaan- which IS the good examples because, hey whoa - STAYED dead haha.

The resurrection thing IS done a lot though haha. If that character had died in a Disney film I would've been MUCH more convinced they were going to bring them back some way some how XD But since it was a show where people were dieing left and right I had some hope.

((My pet peev is when something super horrible happens to the main character, and the side character things them dead and mourns over them. And they MAGICALLY awaken/back to life. Ugghh!! XD I mean gosh you can't just go through so much and then act like you're feeling better then ever. (Unless I guess IF it was due to some silly 'magical' resurrection thing, but then .. ugh XD Silly magic go away!) I was so happy when a part like that happened in HTTYD - except he STAYED knocked out like a good little realistic human being who had just almost died heehee they done it right finally))

And Hiccup didn't come out of it unscathed either (leading to that beautiful moment at the end where they're leaving the house and you can see the foot, and then Toothless's tail sweeps into the frame and sdgffdsdgh they are actually the same)
...But yes, realistic consequences of near-death experiences. Including psychological ones because it always bugs me when the character has this Big Epic Adventure with lots of rough things going on and then it ends and they're just... happy, and content going back to their normal life like nothing ever happened.

And I agree Ky, the They Got Better trope is pretty annoying since it's almost never done well. It's hard to pull off in a way that is believable within the setting and doesn't feel like a lame cop-out.
....I actually did think of a good example though; the story has a lot of necromancy in it anyway, and it makes sense given the context of the character/setting.

Ohmygosh since we have a general story discussion board now allow me to come here to just gush out some intense story feelings I've gotten because, geez, writing out super-emotional-parts-of-stories aahhhh!!

Gosh these past three days I just kept suddenly getting LIGHT BULB ideas of how to make certain parts of the story better and or more emotional and aahhh.. just writing it all out... so much fun but ahhh... I want them to be shared already XD

The pain that is keeping your mouth shut and patiently waiting for your story to be ready for the eyes of viewers too see what they think about it. Goooodnessss! All I can do is come here and vent about it heheh!

Dreamy siiigghh though... stooorrieeessss
Guys I love stoorriess

Sky, I can totally relate to that feeling! It's the best thing ever, isn't it? I'll randomly have these epiphany moments where a certain change to the story or scene makes it so much better or more emotional or dramatic or something, and I love the feeling. Gets me so excited and eager to write. XD

Reminds me, this is kinda weird, but I've actually had this happen to me from dreams a couple times. I wish I got these more often, because it's pretty rare. There was one in particular where I dreamt up an entire scene I never would have thought of on my own, and it was so interesting, I had to include it in the actual story. I'm really glad I had that dream because I think it definitely helped me change the story for the better.

Out of curiosity, does anyone else ever dream about their own characters and stories? I probably have one every few weeks or so (that I remember anyway); most of them I can't really use for ideas because they make no sense in the context of the story. XD But I still really love these kind of dreams. I often have vivid dreams in general though... I know not everyone remembers their dreams.

On another note, I'll put this here since it is related to stories, but I've been reading through your comic Sky and it is so incredibly interesting and adorable, I love it. n.n I've still got a lot of catching up to do though hehe.

Ohmygosh you're reading my comics? I am haaappyyy! UuU

And oh man luuuccckky! I WISH I could have dreams about my characters and stories ugh! XD I always want them soo bad! The closest I've gotten so far is having two of my characters being IN my dream. But the dream was still very much silly-nonsense-dream logic shenanigans and so all that they did was... kind of embarrassing and grrr what a waste XD

On the other hand though, I DO get LOTS of story-based dreams! But they're always for NEW stories! With NEW made up, usually very vague, characters. And some of them are really good and I end up using all that material the dream started off with to make them into really nice new story ideas.

It's a gift AND a curse because now I have... sooo many stories I want to tell, and not enough time to work on them! XD

I'm the same as sky haha, I rarely dream full scenes for existing characters, but I do get a lot of ideas from neat dreams that become new stories/characters, or sometimes I'll incorporate elements from a random dream into an existing story!

(Drystan came from a dream, actually xD most of the dream-characters tend to be pretty minor though...)

Speaking of big story epiphanies... the idea that really got me excited to write Alizaron actually happened because... I wanted to draw cute things, haha. What began as a gratuitous cute semi-AU turned out to be just what the story needed! Sort of a butterfly effect that led to so many other ideas and things becoming more interesting C:

Oh gosh yes! Story butterfly effects are so much funnn aahhh!!

One happened to me in which I thought up of a sudden random character interaction idea. Except the interaction didn't fit with the personalities of any of my already made characters - so I made up some generic ones real fast just so I could draw out the scene in a little mini comic XD And I ended up liking those characters... and made another one........ and then that led to me thinkin up a WHOLE nother little story for them hahah!

BUT I actually came here to lush about another thing with me when it comes to story oh man. This is what happened when I made Derek! It's happening all over again. Make a semi-simple-quick-ish design for a character thinking okay this is fine, this character isn't going to turn out to be that important later anyways.

But then you start actually DRAWING them in the comic once they show up and... and gosh dangit I'm falling in love with my new character again! XD I better not turn them into another Derek otherwise I'm going to want to give THIS character so much backstory and adventures toooooo oh noo hahaha.

but I'd say that's a good thing! it's a mark of good writing that even the side characters are compelling. (or... the characters who only get like three lines but keep appearing in the background and are flawless and convey so much personality with the simplest actions and gestures.... and then they DIE HORRIBLY AND YOU CRY FOREVER dsgdfhfjgh)

Heehee yess of course it's a good thing! XD Unless you're the writer - and you don't want this story to get any bigger than it already is because nooooooOOO I wanna start on my other stories sooonn! Haha.

((Basically, as long as I can fall in love with this character without having to make an entire THIRD chapter called "Theirname's Story" I will be okay with this! XDD))