When a map is a useful tool.

So, if you've read any fantasy novel you've probably noticed Fantasy authors tend to absolutely love maps. They'll make maps of continents, countries, cities, towns, castles, everything.

I personally think some of them go a little crazy with the maps, however. I mean, if you're writing a Fantasy epic like The Lord of the Rings, or something not so epic but still fairly big in scope, with many events happening in several locations but still all tied to each other then yes, a map is great.

Now, the question is why? Why is a map great if you have a story that is what you would call 'big' in scope?

Let me give you a few reasons:

1. It helps you decide how your characters go from one point to the other.
2. It's an awesome way for you to remember plot points and to add them or remove them.
3. It gives you a visual representation of where you are at any given point in your narrative.
4. It offers the readers a chance to become familiar with your world, and to visualize it.

That said, I thought I'd provide an example. As you know, I'm cowriting a Ranma 1/2 story with Daisukifox titled Lost Together, and the story involves several locations in China that are taken from the manga, and a few others that we had to create to help our story move along. Because of the nature of the story, which involves lots of travelling around the region by at least three different parties, a map became a very useful tool when it comes to planning story events.

And so, I decided to create a map for it, which I present below, and if you've read the story you'll see how some of the things 'click' a bit differently now.

Ranma 1/2's Bayankara region in China, the setting where the events mentioned in Lost Together take place.

There are many map creators available online, but I use inkarnate as the interface is the easiest to use in my opinion and the free account, while somewhat limited, does give you many options to customize your map.

Well, all that explained, the last I could say about this is that yes, maps are good tools to help build your narrative, but their usefulness depends entirely on what the scope of your story is.

The elements of style.

So, The Elements of style, by Strunk and White.

This one I'm sure most of us who write be it fanfiction or our own original fiction, have heard about before; maybe you heard about it at school, or you were looking for any source that would help you improve your writing and found it recommended somewhere, or you heard Stephen King claims it's one of the best books on the subject. Either way, chances are that if you write, you've at least heard of it. And that means that I don't need to say much about it, which is a relief.

What can I say then? Well, I could mention my own opinions on it, for one, but that woud take too long so I will settle on telling you only one thing: it is useful, and you should consider reading it.

Fortunately, the book is not that difficult to find, and your local library, or your school library if you're in high school or college should have a copy available.

If you don't want to bother with going there to find one, you can always read it online, I'll even share a link where you can find it:

The Elements of Style (pdf).

Consider giving it a chance, you're probably going to learn something useful, and the book isn't that long either.

The importance of reading

One thing most people who write will tell you is that to be an effective writer you have to read a lot, and that is one piece of advice I can agree with. Reading is not just a way to expand your vocabulary, which is always important, but it is a good way to expand your creative wings; what I mean with this is that by reading you get to see what other authors create, and that allows you to consider the many possibilities and variations of a theme that can exist. This in turn helps you to stop limiting yourself when you write your own stories.

And besides, reading is an enjoyable activity all on its own, you don't need to go out of your way to read something, you can either pick up a book or just read something online, it is literally one of the most accessible activities in the developed world, there is really no reason not to spend a few minutes reading everyday, and there's no shortage of things to read, from trash to masterpieces, you can read everything and learn something new from it: you can learn what to do and what not to do in your own writing, and that is but one of the many advantages of reading.

So next time you're considering reading something, maybe give a chance to a book, a story or a poem that you've avoided before, you never know what you'll get from it, but I'm sure it'll be, at the very least, a new experience.

When fanfiction authors are gone.

This is a rather personal entry, and one that I didn't really plan beforehand but I need to write this for personal reasons. A friend sent me an email last Saturday, asking me if I knew that Ranma 1/2 fanfiction author The Eternally Lost Lurker had died in his sleep this month, and that he had just learned about it.

To be honest I didn't even remember who he was.

Then my friend mentioned this story titled Road Diary of a Young Martial Artist, which I didn't remember either.

It was not until my friend sent me a link to the old RAAC (Rec.Arts.Anime.Creative) Google group, and then I read it and rememembered the story and a little bit about the author. The reason I couldn't remember anything about it is because this story was published way back in 1996.

But I did remember the author then. I read some of his work back in the late nineties and we even exchanged notes in the FFML (FanFiction Mailing List) at the time.

My friend mentioned that he had gotten curious about how other Ranma 1/2 fanfiction authors from the old days were doing, and he discovered a few of them were now dead and mentioned another writer, Durandall, had committed suicide due to depression in 2014. He also mentioned Jim Bader had died that same year, apparently of heart failure.

I admit I never talked to Durandall even if I did read some of his work in the FFML, but I do remember having a couple of email conversations with Jim at one point in the early 2000's.

It was shocking to learn the three of them were dead.

This made me think and wonder if writing fanfiction is worth it or not. I've been asking myself a few things for the last couple of days, things like, is fanfiction something you wish people will remember you for? Is it something worth your time in the end? Considering the causes of death in these cases, I also started wondering, what kind of people are we as fanfiction writers? Are we even healthy?

I mean, none of these men were old. The oldest was probably Jim, and he should have been at least in his mid to late fifties by now; that's not so old.

What makes me think is... that by the time more of us old guard Ranma 1/2 fanfiction authors (I started writing for this fandom in 1999) are gone, will this be the only thing people will remember us for and does it matter?

I'm not sure, perhaps the reason why this is affecting me is that I had health issues earlier this year, and to learn others who share the same hobby of writing fanfiction for fun are no longer around hit me a little harder than what it should have. I can only say that the three of them will be missed.

I guess that in the end all we can do is live as best as we can, and do what we feel is good for us.

Translating your own stories, pros and cons.

I sometimes translate my stories from English to Spanish, though I've never done it the other way around, so that more people can read them.

There are a few good things about this, though this also comes with some negative ones.

Some pros include:

• Translating some of your stories helps you practice another language.
• It gives your story more exposure and a new audience.
• You can then get to know more people this way.

Some of the cons are:

• It takes time away from your other projects.
• Some things can't be translated as they are, and you have to change them.
• Your readers in one language may feel left out.

In the end, however, I think translating something that you wrote to another language, if you are able to do it, is very much worth it, if only for the practice it brings, as that's very good to help improve your writing skills.

If you can, you may want to consider giving it a try, it can be a fun and rewarding experience!

More fanart in color!

Lost Together, hug scene from chapter 7

As I mentioned before, I decided to do another illustration for the Ranma 1/2 story I am cowriting with Daisuki Fox, an alternate universe titled Lost Together.

This particular one is based on a scene from chapter 7, and I think it looks quite good now that it was colored.

I really like the way it looks now. It's very nice.

So... I ended up revisiting another story.

Cover used in For her, I'll do it.

After taking a look and rewriting one of my oldest stories a few days ago, I decided to see if the rest of my old stories could be improved in one way or the other. And yes, I noticed they could be better.

So I ended up rewriting "For her, I'll do it" which is a story I also wrote in 2001 and after looking at it now, well... let's just say it wasn't really that good. It is written in first person, which I don't like much, but back then I was experimenting and wanted to give it a fair try to see if I could do something with it. I discovered first person PoV is not my thing, and in fact, this fanfic is mostly responsible for my decision of dropping first person PoV for good; I find it limits my options a lot when I'm writing.

After rereading the story, I realized the ending was weak, and that it wasn't as strong as it could be, I also didn't offer an explanation on how the shock ending could be possible, so I was forced to add a second chapter to expand on the initial situation to make the ending have the required impact on the reader.

I'm not sure I was able to do what I wanted, but one thing is for sure, the story is much better now, and I feel satisfied with it.

Old, and I mean really old, fanart.

Genma's Daughter fanart

I recently found some fanart I drew and colored way back in late 2000. I had forgotten about it, but it seems I was able to color stuff on my own back then. All things considered it seems I have not improved or gotten worse, which surprised me a bit.

I made this illustration (and also another I remember not being very good and couldn't find, though I guess it's on the internet somewhere) for a particularly nice Ranma story titled Genma's Daughter, which was uploaded to Fanfiction.net, along with its sequel, in 2011, around ten years after its original publication.

Anyway, something funny about this is that even when I know I drew it almost twenty years ago, I can't actually remember the whole process or how I did it. Oh well, at least it's not so bad.

A rewrite can give your old stories new life and improved quality.

Cover image for When life is not what you expected.

When life is not what you expected is one of my oldest Ranma 1/2 stories. I first published it in the old FFML (Fanfiction Mailing List, now defunct) and in Fanfiction.net way back in 2001.

Since then, the story has gone through two revisions.

The first one was back in 2015, when I did the first rewrite to correct grammar mistakes (I can admit the story was awful in that one aspect), add a bit of background to the situation described on the story, give some actual character development to the protagonists and include an epilogue to give the story some closure.

I did the second revision only recently, which consisted in yet another rewrite of the main story and the epilogue, as well as writing a second epilogue. Of course, now I decided to divide the story in three 'parts'.

Part 1 deals with the main story, which tells the story of what would happen if Ryoga married Akari, but never got over his feelings for Akane, even after she marries Ranma. Hint: it doesn't end well.
Part 2 deals with the aftermath of the events in the main story and how that affected the two main characters.
Part 3 deals with the lives of the rest of most of the Ranma cast in this Alternate Universe, though only in passing, since most of part 3 focuses on how Ukyo was affected by Ranma and Akane's wedding.

An interesting detail I like from this story is that I was able to use two very minor characters from the Ranma universe, the first being Anna Brown, who only appears in the anime as one of Ryoga's love interests, and the other is Hayato Myojin who is one of Ukyo's rivals and appears very late in the manga. I did this because I sometimes enjoy using obscure characters, and this story gave me the chance to do just that.

So, with this second revision I can finally say the story is completed as it should be, and I feel satisfied with it.

Maybe I should give the same treatment to other of my old Ranma 1/2 stories, some of them really need it, I believe.

Fanart now in color!

KiyomuMitsune, who I cowrite Lost Together with, was kind enough to color two of my previous illustrations, one for the fanfic we're writing and another I did for my Mega Man story Relic from the seas.

I really like how they look in color, so I am sharing them with you here.

First the illustration I drew for  chapter 6 of Lost Together:

And now the illustration I made for Relic from the seas,  which corresponds to chapter 39:

Lost Together illustration 2

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to do another illustration for my Ranma 1/2 collaboration Lost Together, in this case for a scene you can find in chapter 7 of the story.

As I've said before, I can't do digital coloring, so again this is just the line art. I don't know about you but I think this one is a little bit better than the previous one all things considered.

If it ever gets colored I'll share it here as well.

From the favorites list #2

Another story from my favorites list that I want to talk about is Reprogrammed, written by moviefan-92. The story is set in the Mirai timeline of Dragon Ball Z, and it centers on the (mis)adventures of Mirai Trunks as he has to deal with Android 18, who due to some special circumstances, loses her memory when her programming reboots and ends up thinking Trunks is her boyfriend.


Or, as the official summary states:

"Future timeline. A lightning strike erasing all of 18's memories. Future Trunks captures her and has her reprogrammed as a protector. Now she's taken a liking to him and attempts to seduce him. As he tries to ignore 18, villains that have not yet appeared in the Mirai timeline appear." 

The story, while it may seem a romantic comedy thanks to the above description, it is nothing but that, it's more of an action adventure with some drama and romance mixed in, and it does have lime scenes that push the rating as far as it can go without crossing the M line that fanfiction.net holds so dearly.

The pairing of Trunks and 18, while really out of the ordinary and the main focus of the story, is honestly very interesting and handled as best as possible, but the fanfic really shines the most when villains from the movies and Dragon Ball GT appear, since the way the author handles them and how the pair of heroes deal with the threat the villains represent is clever and well narrated.

Overall, this is one of the best Dragon Ball Z stories you'll find in fanfiction.net in my opinion, and it comes highly recommended.

Critics United

One thing that happens once or twice every given month (luckily some months it doesn't happen at all) is that I get either an anonymous flame or an anonymous review mentioning my time as a member of Critics United.

The flames I delete, while the questions range from silly to well structured, but those are not something I feel like answering in my stories.

The one thing I can say about Critics United, or CU for short, is that I learned many things about the site (fanfiction.net) during my time in the forum and that I'm happy I got to be a part of it.

I don't know how the group is doing these days or if it is still active, I stopped being a member about two and a half years ago at the moment of this writing and I haven't really visited since then.

I think some of the members I am familiar with are still there; I heard Goody inherited the forum from previous owner Paladin, and I believe Cha and Warg are still active mods. I'm also almost sure Zad is still a member. They were all nice to me and I have a lot of respect for them, I really wish them and CU the best.

So, in short: no, I don't regret my time at CU, I respect the members I am familiar with and consider them friends and I hope the forum can continue helping people as it has so far.

And that's all I have to say about the issue.

But, if you want to know more about the story of CU, here's a nice interview with the mods/founders from a few years back:

Behind the Scenes with Critics United