I honestly felt really bad for traumatizing that poor Chikorita, so I decided to draw a happier moment for it. It's okay, I promise! (And don't worry, Oak gets his due at the end of this chapter.)

You've Mastered the Basics--Now What? Part 3

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Hello and welcome back, dear writer! You may remember that last week, I covered a lot of ground discussing plots and how to handle them. In this final installment, I have a few more things to say on the subject of story construction, and then some other miscellaneous tips for the intermediate-level story writer.

Made-up names

Neopia is a fantasy world, and that’s awesome for making things up. Characters need not have names that correspond to anything found on Earth today—names such as Blarthrox and Kakoni Worrill. And when you’re making up Neopian characters, there’s really no reason why you can’t give them unusual and fun names as well.

However, don’t get carried away and create something unpronounceable or convoluted. Those kinds of names are hard to remember, and if your cast is full of Ybbythriunias and T’lal’ov’kiiys, they’ll be very difficult for a reader to keep straight. It’s a good idea to make a name’s spelling as simple and intuitive as you can manage (for example, “Hildra” instead of “Hylldrah”), and try not to throw in exotic items such as dashes and apostrophes unless they’re a legitimate part of that Neopian’s culture.

 

 One of those things that seems to make sense from a gameplay perspective, but is really difficult to believe from an in-universe perspective.

Maybe that's why Mewtwo in the first movie used a hypnotized Nurse Joy to carry out his bidding--he can't figure out how to do stuff like send letters and open doors and operate cloning machines.

 In the latter half of the 20th century and first few decades of the 21st, for whatever ill-advised reason, there was a trend in a lot of paleoart to reconstruct dinosaurs and pterosaurs with weirdly scant amounts of soft tissue, leading to under-muscled bodies and even being able to see the fenestrae in skulls and other skeletal details that probably were not visible on a healthy living animal.

It's really important to remember that dinosaurs and pterosaurs had muscles and connective tissue and fat and organs just like every other animal. Just because a certain generation grew up seeing dinosaurs a certain way, doesn't mean it's not terribly, terribly wrong. So I drew this very unfortunate Lambeosaurus to remind us all to give our dinosaurs plenty of soft tissue.

I've been reading retro dinosaur books for fun, but I usually just find myself commenting on the artwork out loud to nobody (or my cat if he's around). I'm trying to be patient with the whole "the 20th century didn't know as much about dinosaurs as we do now" thing, but for Pete's sake, treat these creatures like real functioning organisms, not warty toothy movie monsters. 

I still can't get over this truly cursed Deinonychus from one book where not only were the hands all sorts of wrong (and reminded me way too much of aye-aye hands), but the eye was in the wrong fenestra. I was really shocked to see this from an artist who was pretty well-known for his dino art back in the day. If you make an occupation out of drawing dinosaurs, you ought to be familiar enough with them to know which fenestra in theropods is the orbital fenestra. And even if you didn't know that (but you honestly really should know that), spending just a few minutes with some research papers will set the record straight. There's absolutely no excuse for that kind of thing.

(And no, you don't get the excuse that in the 80's, in the pre-Internet days, it was harder to access scientific journals. If you're a professional paleoartist, you owe it to yourself and the world to make sure you're well-stocked with reference material. And, if you're in the 80's, you could totally just call John Ostrom, the man who discovered Deinonychus, and ask him about it because he's still alive.)

Put in the work, people. Taking the time to do your research may take you a few hours or a few days or maybe a week tops. But cringey paleoart will forever stand as a testament to your lack of effort.

... Okay, back to more rage-reading! I have such strange hobbies.

 Earl Dervish is certainly an unforgettable NPC. Just... don't follow him too closely. I get kinda dizzy just reading this one.

 So it either smells like fresh-baked cookies, or old perfume and too many cats.

You've Mastered the Basics--Now What? Part 2

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Welcome back to my guide for intermediate-level Neopian Times story writers! In part 1, we discussed why it’s important to plan ahead, as well as a big ol’ stack of guidelines for getting your prose to read right. Now that we’ve got the technicalities down, let’s start talking about story.

The law of setup and payoff

One of the fundamental tenets of a cohesive, emotionally satisfying story is the law of setup and payoff. It states: Don’t set up for something that doesn’t pay off, and don’t reveal a payoff for something you haven’t adequately set up.

What it means is, plot twists and other events that significantly impact/alter the plot are great—but you can’t suddenly introduce something drastic that doesn’t tie in with the story at any other point beforehand, and you can’t act like you’re building up to something that never happens.