Subject: Arcs
Author:
Posted on: 2012-12-03 21:48:00 UTC
I think this may prove to be the first story I have ever written wherein I follow some sort of written-down plot skeleton!
God above, what am I getting myself into...?
Official Fanfiction University of Azeroth!
I am in the planning stages for it. I already have a location that can be reached without needing to buy any expansions (the Stonetalon Mountains, which remain mostly neutral and are lore-wise expansive enough to hide a community of Pandaren in); a two-house idea (Horde students to the right, Alliance students on the left); a few teachers and classes picked out (Koltira Deathweaver and Thassarian will have a one-semester course titled something like 'Across the Line: Writing a Believable Interfaction Friendship'; Anduin Wrynn will teach 'Difficult Parents and How to Handle Them'; Sylvanas Windrunner will teach 'Vengeance for Imbeciles', with guest instructor Maiev Shadowsong offering a two-week seminar on hunting down your prey to the ends of this world and every other world he runs to); and I have the application form almost worked out.
Why am I posting all this now? The answer is quite simple: I have no idea what I'm doing and seriously need at least one or two co-writers to help me out. I have never attended any school higher than high school (not so surprising, this is my first year out of high school), have no idea how to work out class titles, and would really appreciate some help with things like scheduling, vacations, field trips, semesters, etcetera, etcetera, ad nausium. If no one's willing to co-write, can I at least get some people to whom I can turn for advice or ideas? Heck, I'll even take pointers posted as responses to this thread!
Not giving up on this no matter what,
KittyNoodles
You seem to have gotten some advice already, but here's what I'd recommend:
- Use your fandom for inspiration. Most of the plots from OFUM were related to fanfic trends and stuff like that.
- Keep it funny or you run the risk of getting too much on a soap box.
- While OFUM is quite episodic in form, some long-term plots and arcs help make it feel more coherent. Don't be afraid to refer to past events and have some character development (especially for the main character).
- Don't try to cop OFUM too much. Seriously, I think the more successful OFUs are the ones who adapted the idea the most to their fandom. I tailored OFUM for LotR - don't just take elements of it and put it in your OFU. Adapt it as much as possible.
And good luck! (I play WoW, so extra luck in fact.)
I was the one who suggested to Kitty she read OFUs for inspiration. I'm not copying (at least, I hope not) but a lot of how to write an OFU--creating a believable yet relatable fanbrat main character, how to show your course coordinator interacting with canons without making her Sue-y (I always watch my self-inserts very carefully), how to show the fanbrat interacting with the canons realistically, the overall tone of it.
And overall writing skills, because reading goodfic helps you write goodfic. And OFUM is not legendary goodfic for nothing.
Excuse me for a minute... -squeals into a pillow-
Anyway, you play WoW, too? Sweeeeet. What server are you on?
Also, thankies for the advice. I have a couple of good ideas for longer-term story arcs, so hopefully they pan out well. (And my poor students will get no rest, because Garrosh and Varian are in charge of the Horde and Alliance students. Hee.)
I have an idea for the prologue actually - have the main characters (there's two, but one's kind of... Secondary-main?) introduce it in first-person, with their filled-out applications at the bottom. Do I run the risk of making it seem too corny by doing this?
I'm on Dragonblight EU. Don't play as much anymore as I used to, but I still do raids now and then.
Introducing the student(s) and then the application is how a lot of OFUs do it, and how I did it. It doesn't have to be corny, it all depends on how you write it, you know?
Ah well.
Yeah, I'm a bit old-fashioned that way. And I think it's not corny - so far. I think the epilogue - if I ever get there - will be first person, too, again with the two main characters. Because that kind of stuff gives me happy goosebumps~
I've never played WoW (the home Internet connection isn't even up to playing Zombie Lane), but I can help with any questions about college. My e-mail is LLWatts@juno.com.
I wish I could help out with this sort of thing, but I lack the time and the energy to devote to this.
I can offer advice or ideas if you need some. I am well versed in Warcraft Lore and I have five Warcraft characters that could lend a hand if you need them.
Also, I don't know if this is going to happen, but I saw mention of Hellscream and Wrynn inciting a war between the faction students. I figure, you could go further with that and just make those two the heads of their respective houses. What could possibly go wrong?
Also, someone needs to teach some basic geography and history. You would not believe how often I see fics that happen in areas that don't exist (a subcontinent Northwest of Quel'thalas? You mean the ocean!?) or in time periods that don't make sense.
-Phobos
I'll take any help I can get (mostly because there are done who would claim - correctly - that I lack confidence until I find my rhythm).
Hmm... I'd actually tossed that idea around a bit, having Hellscream and Varian act as house heads. Now that I know I want them to be the Sauron versus Morgoth duo of OFUA, I can think of plenty of ways to torture the students make things interesting for the students. Hee...
Yes, I've noticed the geography and timeline issues too - I'm MSTing a badfic where all the leaders have teenaged kids... Three years after WotLK. When none of them had kids. I kind of want Thrall to teach the geography class - or is that a bit too obvious? And--
-le GASP- I wonder of any Aspects would be willing to teach classes? I've always wanted to write Nozdormu...
Thrall might be better used somewhere else, actually. Maybe a comparative religion course.
Now, if you are looking for a good geography teacher, look no further than Brann Bronzebeard, High Explorer of the Explorers' Guild. He's been everywhere.
Nozdormu would be quite a challenge to write. Good luck with that.
-Phobos
Oh, I feel silly now..
Comparative religions? I don't know much about Thrall's character - I started really getting into WoW after the Cataclysm expansion came out - so I'm not sure how to work that one...
I think Nozdormu would be an entertaining teacher, especially since he seems to pop in and out of the present at random. More often than not, his class will probably get substitutes!
Thrall is an interesting character. He was a major part of the effort to unite the Horde and the Alliance to bring peace and understanding to Azeroth. Then he left to keep the world from tearing itself apart after Deathwing borked the whole thing. Garrosh is very much the anti-Thrall.
I'd recommend reading the novel "Lord of the Clans" to get some of his early history. WoW Wiki is also a great resource. It is my go-to for mission information.
-Phobos
I'm not totally up to date on Warcraft lore, but I know the basics. My email is at alixnyden@yahoo.com.
And I felt the same way when I started, and I didn't have the PPC community. So I had to do the research on my own (finding the PPC in the process). Still doing the research, in fact.
Some things I've figured out that might help:
-Read OFUs. I looked up every OFU I could find in fandoms I recognized. I've read both OFUM and HFA multiple times, and there were already some (abandoned) attempts at a Star Trek OFU so I read those too. Take inspiration from them.
-Read misscam's rules for writing OFUs. They're on her website.
-Come up with an overarching storyline. OFUM's is the Lina/Gimli relationship, HFA's was the Canonquake and the subsequent Sue invasion, etc. Come up with something relating to your fandom/fanbase. My overarching storyline has to do with the fact that fanfiction started in Star Trek.
-This cannot be stressed enough: keep it funny.
-Don't get hung up on details. I've never attended a university either; so I just modeled some of the scheduling on high school. Focusing on details makes it not funny.
-The crazier, the better. OOCness is acceptable to a certain extent. Look at Sauron in OFUM.
All I can think of right now, but if you need any help with OFU stuff (I don't know the fandom), I'll do whatever I can to help.
It's hard to write an interesting school setting story without a plot, which is why so many High School AUs are so bad.
I haven't gone to college either, but I found it easier to write a master schedule with all the weekly classes, and each class only met once a week or so (it was probably made up for by tons of homework).
And since I can hardly keep my attention to one plot for seventy five chapters I settled instead for at least one arc per semester, although multiple minor arcs popped up, and there were two main arcs in the third semester of IAHF. I think for MBSFA I'm going for one overarching mystery arc for each session, provided my attention can stay for that long.
I think this may prove to be the first story I have ever written wherein I follow some sort of written-down plot skeleton!
God above, what am I getting myself into...?
Those are some useful tips I hadn't considered - especially the one about reading other OFUs and taking hints and inspiration from them. Thanks for offering them!
You can feel free to toss me an email (/points above) for any OFU-related questions.
Personally I like writing in actual lectures that correspond to problems I see in the fandom - like for example, the Sherlock fandom had a mild controversy over not tagging artwork for dub-con and stuff, and people started flaming each other, so I wrote a lecture where Irene Adler berated people for not tagging their porn. Just keep it relevant, informative, and overall FUNNY.
(I'm one to talk with the current arc of IAHF, really.)
I kiss your feet!
(See, those three classes I listed will be AMAZINGLY varied. Anduin may turn out to be a favorite - he strikes me as having a dry sense of humor under all that fluffy niceness he seems to glow with. Meanwhile Sylvanas will have everyone flinching at the sound of her name within a week, and there will be a Thassarian/Koltira scandal among the students, and Varian Wrynn and Garrosh Hellscream will probably destroy the school while they continuously try to kill each other and may mobilize the Horde- and Alliance students against each other... Hee, this is going to be fun...)