Have a great idea for a lecture? Looking for information on a topic but unable to find anything in the archives? Scribble out an idea and place it in our suggestion box here! If a professor stops by, he may take you up on your suggestion and write a relevant lecture on the subject! Please refrain from holding conversations here; stay on topic!

In each post make sure to bold a possible lecture title, and explain why you think we need it, like in this example below:

Lecture: Pink Party Pony
Write a lecture on how to write Pinkie Pie, because she's hard to write!

Lecture: Your Character and You

Can I request a lecture on keeping your characters separate from yourself? When I write, I keep going back and realizing I've been writing myself into the situation instead of the character.

...Or this is just a personal problem and I'm in need of some kind of mental assistance.

3994296
There could be a lecture on the relationship between an author and their character. A lot of the time, I would encourage that the authors take some personality trait or experience of their own and write it into the character, both because it's easier to write, and because it will make the writing more realistic. The real issue is keeping the characters separate from each other, something that requires that you design your characters with unique attributes and voices. If you're curious about character building, there is a lecture here.

As for a lecture about keeping your personality out of your characters, I might do a lecture on the balance of when to include yourself and when to exclude yourself, because both have benefits depending on the situation.

We shall see. Thank you for the suggestion!

Can we get something on Exposition? All I've found is Bluegrass Brooke's tip, specifically

Number 6: "Let me tell you the story of my people." Minimize your exposition! (A bit more complex than my other suggestions)

I have real trouble staying away from heavy-handed exposition, and I have troubles integrating it into the story.

4508312 Hmmm. That sounds like something I might be able to do! I have a personal vendetta against excessive exposition anyway.

4508587

I await it eagerly.

Lecture Request: Medical Scene's

Basically anything to do with either emergency medicine or actual normal medical procedure. It would be helpful to be provided resources to research said subject as well if possible (sources I've found are mainly pointed at first aid / triage). Technical writing for this type of scene would also be extremely helpful for me, if someone has any expertise.

Clichés

I don't know if there's a lecture on this but a lecture on how not to have to many clichés? Or how to avoid them? Something along these lines.

Protagonist clone

How to create an oc that is not a clone of the protagonist.

I have this athlete character in mind and he is an inspiration from rainbow dash, but I don't want him to be an exact clone of the real rainbow dash.

4624228

The first step is to get to know clichés, TVTropes is a pretty good place to learn them. Then you just have to learn to notice them in your writing and either avoid them, or try to include them, but with a twist.

Don't think it could be covered in a lecture, since there are lots and lots of clichés, and covering every single one is impossible.

4809020

It's as simple as giving that OC a few triats the main character doesn't have, and vice versa - make him not have a few traits that characterise Rainbow.

The other way, if he has to be very similar to Rainbow, create an altered personality for him and make it an original one. The Rainbow-like façade can be a result of him being Rainbow's fanboy and wanting to be like her. This way you have the fact that he's different established, but you can still use that Rainbow-like character of his.

4996158 thanks. I have another question.

What is thriller and horror in genre?

4624228 THIS is a bit cliche, In my story Link loses the Ocarina of Time (again)

4624228 4996158 Actually, cliches is a really simple topic to address. By trying to avoid them you are demonstrating that you neither understand what they are, how they work, how they came into being, or why they exist. Tropes and cliches are tools of the author. They are things that have proven to work time and again. Since written language is tens of thousands of years old you'd be hard pressed to write anything that isn't a trope or a cliche. The question should not be about how to avoid using them, since that's silly, it should be about how to use them correctly/invisibly.

4002581 Trying overly hard to distinguish your OC from everyone else in the cast is equally painful to read as any other badly written character. Every character you write is going to have a little bit of your personality in them, even members of the main six (as your interpretations of other people's characters), and that's unavoidable. The thing to take away from this however is that you'll want to keep it being just a little bit. The easiest way I can suggest to do this is to stop thinking about the story as a story.

A story is your finished product, and when you're writing, what you're writing is most certainly unfinished. Instead try to think of it as a puzzle with your character's personality being one of the four corner pieces. The other three pieces should be the setting, the theme, and the conflict. Consider that everything you attach to one corner must help you connect to those other corners, since that's how you build a frame.

It may help you to write down some of those personality traits on a sticky note so you can always keep track of them while trying to fit other pieces to this one. Same with a one sentence theme, and so on. Ultimately keeping a character separate from yourself simply relies on constant reminders that it is not you. It's not in your environment, and doesn't have your history and experience. So, keeping the character in-character will require you to be very aware of who and what the character is, and then try to think like that character.

4508312 4508587 Exposition is a natural part of narrative design, and even the rule of "show don't tell" doesn't address it. That is because any time a reader is given any bit of information about the world, its characters, or the events therein they have been exposed to exposition. Simply put, you can't tell a story without it.

That, however, is not to say that all exposition is dry dialogue simply dumped from the mouth of a character in the know. Exposition: the telling of the world, comes in all the forms that writing has to offer. When you say "reduce exposition" it should be better to ask how to change the nature of delivering key information.

If something is so important that it must be directly stated, try reducing the amount of stated things in other areas by using inference, and implications. Using body-language to imply some things is a great place to start reducing unnecessarily expressed things so that you can spend that precious dialogue on other, more important things. Every character--every person--no matter how outspoken or how quiet uses body language to communicate. There are other ways to reduce your reliance on the "spoken-word delivery" but communication (the nature of a story is to communicate to the audience) largely boils down to three: direct, indirect, and tacit.

4999260
I'm not exactly understanding what you're saying in the rest of your response, but I definitely agree with your final statement: "Keeping the character in-character will require you to be very aware of who and what the character is, and then try to think like that character."

5000272 I'm just trying to illustrate something that comes up so often with character problems. People get so focused on their characters--a single aspect of their story, which each are tiny and individual parts--that they forget that they're working on story as a whole. Stories live and die as a whole, and knowing how to fit the pieces together is just as important, if not more so, than any piece individually.

Trying to think like the character also means trying to think like the world they're in. How what's going on in that world is reflected in their thoughts and actions. It means exploring the whole picture from a different perspective.

5000503
Oh absolutely. It is important for writers to take into account all of the aspects of the world that they have created in order to make the story flow realistically (or at least feel like it). I wrote about that in my lecture here: How to create a story

Well actually I have a few suggestions;
-Romance
-Grimdark/horror/gore
-Drama

There may be lectures on these already, but I just had to ask in case. These are probably the three most used genres and they're the ones that can go south fairly easily if not treated with proper care. This would certainly help beginners such as myself.

hmm, I have not seem to find anything like this in the forums, but do authors have any specific tools at their disposal?

I mean, there was paper/pen, now we have kayboards and google doc/word/ whatever app you use.

I'm thinking more in terms of apps, or even diagram models, specially designed for story writing. Like, diagrams to help visualize a character's traits and personality, with ways to for example link some traits to another character, to help in defining character interactions.
In fact, I might as well look at some diagram to show a character's evolution through events (simplistic I guess, since no change happens overnight except from breakdowns).

I don't know if my questions sound strange, so not clear enough, so let me say this: I ask because in my work (Program Engineering), a lot of the work is the design, and for that there are tons of tool to help visualize the design, and the different steps in a program. Was hoping there could be some equivalent for story writing.

EDIT: should I take this lack of answer as a no? There is no tools or support to allow for a visual representation of character traits or dynamics yith other characters?

5163461 As far as apps go, there's my Introduction to writer's tools lecture, though it mostly covers editors, communicators and timers. I may expand it a bit more, add software for making story charts, checklists and so on.

For now, though, I can recommend Twine for story flow, yEd for mindmapping, and Realtime Board for general purpose use.

5221963

Why, thank you very much. I'll check those out right away!

so, any inspiration for crossovers, prefreably superhero-based

so, can you do a lecture on how to do crossovers right

5246064 I think its been done I'll look when I get home

5246064 Here is an older lecture by Mr.Ignorable one of the previous Professors, if this doesn't answer your questions reply to me and I'll see about getting another more up to date lecture set up.

http://www.fimfiction.net/group/916/school-for-new-writers/thread/2772/sub-lecturefaux-pas-crossovers

5246398 I got what to do, but i'd like something a bit nicer

5246494 define nicer

5246494 ohh i see what you mean, okay well i'll post one later tonight/tomorrow for you

I'm not sure if "Lecture" is the right term for it, but could we have a Discord chat group, where we all talk and discuss stories and help people write better?

5382349 We do have one now!

5386977 YOU DON'T. Originality isn't taking a recipe for banana and apple smoothie and copying it exactly, but then claiming it's toats original because you changed 1 minor step. Originality isn't a circlejerk of over 10,000 accounts sharing ideas and concepts in the form of memes so they can amass them as two brain cells to collectively rub together. I don't care how whiny HiE fans get when the overdone concept is criticized, X in equestria and Y in equestria and X turned into Y in equestria because reasons and X turned into Y thanks to cosplay magic/a mask salesman is NOT the peak of originality.

Your effort would be better spent on literally anything else, bro.

5386235 Also, good. When I get a PC, I'ma join.

5392254
5386977

Hmm, someone doesn't seem to like HiE very much... not that I mind..

But, if I may weight in my own opinion:
a HiE fic is essentially the opposite of an alien sci-fi on earth. An alien from a never before seen specise (here a human) arrives through X or Y on the planet (here country: Equestria).
The variables in such a story are therefore, the alien itself, and the civilization he comes from (may or may not have an influence on the method of arrival).
I'd say we've already seen many different characters from many different origins, with more or less subversions on the genre. As such, I'd say, originality may be a little too difficult.

Doesn't mean you can't make a good story. If I may make this comparison, James Cameron's Avatar could be summed up as sci-fi Pocahontas, doesn't make it a bad film.

So how to make a good HiE. Aside from general advice on writing, Isee three core aspects for HiEs:
-Well, the most important thing for a HiE is obviously the human. There are already lessons here about OC creation that can explain it better than me so I won't go into details, but you do need an interesting main character. And always remember to let this OC act as he would, showing us what kind of character he is rather than just telling us (I know this lesson's been hammered down everywhere in here, but it's for a good reason).

-And since HiE is a subgenre of the "First contact", the interaction between different cultures is also a core aspect. The alien (here the human) will try to adapt to this new culture while at the same time sharing his own. These interactions are not just dialogue scenes here to help move the plot along, the ARE the plot. They have to flow naturally, feel realistic, or else risk turning down a reader regardless of how good the rest of the story is.

-Consequences. In every story, characters change and mature as they experience the world. HiEs really depend on this. This is almost certainly a major, life-changing event for both Equestria and the OC, and maybe the OC's civilization (unless stumbling accross uncharted planets inhabited by previously unknown species is a tuesday for the OC/civilization). You've added a pretty big change to the plot (and possibly some others in the form of whatever vilain you thought of to add), let the readers savor those consequences, each and every minors ddeviation leading to a completely different adventure! Because yeah, adventures are a consequence of interactions!

Well, to be honest, there's more that is very important (such as knowledge of Equestria and the show... rather obvious, no?) and these points are valid in just about every other work of fiction out there, but to a HiE fic they are absolutely vital. I dare say they're way more important then any plot you many have in mind, and indeed, you could just make your entire plot of observing the interactions and consequences between your OC and the world.

It's very common genre, it's done, done again and even overdone, and often with the same mistakes in storytelling, the same OCs type (too many Sues can be found in here, way too many...), contrived events happening just so the OC can show how skilled or how caring he is, making it lookmore like he's in a cardboard set designed to look like Equestria but customized just for the OC...

Avoid those mistakes, work on the core aspects and you'll do fine. If you really want originality though... Well, originality does means either an idea somebody never had, or a subversion or mix of ideas that you're the first to have. and preferably a proper execution of that idea... Can't really help ya there.

To conclude, that was my opinion. Maybe a holy book should be made of it, or maybe I should burn at the stake for even having it, or anything in between (I'll vote for the holy book myself...)

Lecture: Adventure genre
Describe the elements of an adventure story in great detail

Story Name: Miles Away
Link To Story: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/425160/miles-away
Word Count: 109,994
Tags: [Slice of Life] [Romance] [Drama]
What It's About: It is about a Unicorn in the fictional city of Hoovesiana who makes friends with a online user on a online platform and ends up becoming a couple. It also follows his real life issues of growing up and facing fears.
Why It's Awesome: This story is a different take on a romance story because it focuses more on long distance relationships and shows the accurate struggles with it, as well as some positives. It I'd also based on my true story with long distance relationships.
Oh, And Also: Its long. REALLY LONG.*****

7062356
I noticed that you're promoting your story in several groups. I don't think you're paying close attention to what the purpose of the threads your posting in is. This one, for example, isn't for story promotion. It's for suggestions to make the group better, lectures it should feature, and so on.

Your story does none of those.

3990458
Lecture: Writing The Best Adventure
Describe how to write a story that even A.K. Yearling would be proud of.

7062356
This Thread is not for free advertisement.

3990458
Lecture: Montage in literature

You know how sometimes in movies and TV shows, characters will do things super fast and one after another? Well, it’s a montage, but everyone knows that already. The point is, I want - I need - a lecture on how to do the same thing through words and narration.

Thanks in advance!

3990458
Lecture: Character Progression

How to write a character arc for your characters, canon or OC. They can be either positive, negative, and/or flat depending on the story.