Monday, October 19, 2009

National Novel Writing Month redux

I have pretty much decided that I am going to attempt to write a 50,000 word fan fic in the month of November. I even signed up at the National Novel Writing Month website. A considerable amount of my time over the last week has been spent brain storming ideas. I have and have had many story ideas, too many even. I am having trouble deciding anything. I attempt to work out the details, possibly create an outline, for one idea and I just get more ideas. While I will continue to brainstorm ideas, it is likely that I will end up just writing as I go.

The first story ideas I considered, and disregarded, were ideas I have already expressed on this blog or on various forums (though I may use aspects from them).
- The Ranma/Hellsign/other crossover idea while I think has promise; I don't think I want to go that way. The new girl/Sailor Saturn is too much of a Mary Sue and there are some other problems with the fic idea that would have to be ironed out.

- Taking a story arc from the manga and changing the point of view to first person to change the genre and include character thoughts. I again like the idea, else I would not have suggested it in the first place, but I think I'd rather go with something more original rather than rewriting a story arc in the manga. Though this would be a lazier way of going about it since much of it would be a rehash of events.

- Ranma monster hunter - A stand alone story that changes very little of the status quo, set in the USA, dealing with Vampires and Voodoo. This one is interesting in that it would have portrayed aspects of Shinto and shown that Ranma is a monster hunter (he is in the manga). I may include some things from this fic idea, most probably that at one time monsters were common (until humans killed off most of them) and martial artists were needed; they aren't really anymore (this is even shown in the manga, in that the bean gun plant had been very common before, used to fight oni but now since there are so few monsters left the bean gun plants are extremely rare and little more than myth).

- Ranma/ Dark Angel crossover - A fan fic idea that primarily explores the various eugenic programs seen in both series and pits them against one another that I never had any intention of actually writing.

- A story in which Ranma disappears somehow for 20 years. Haven't thought about the how but if Happosai can survive in a cave without food and water for around 15 years, Ranma might figure out how to do so as well. This idea was originally posted on a forum that I do not think exists anymore. The idea was mostly to see how Ranma reacts to all the changes since he disappeared. There were several secondary ideas, such as Tatewaki Kuno's delusions having grown to the point he actually believed that the pig-tailed girl was a goddess and Ranma's male form was a demon. Tatewaki Kuno over the intervening years had started a religion that is growing by the day and already has several temples and millions of followers (people do listen to him, after all he did convince many boys to attack Akane every morning). With all the weird things that happened around Ranma and his abilities it is not really that hard to see why people would believe that. I don't remember all the details I had come up with, though a major part of the fic idea was Ranma dealing with being thought of as a deity (it is one thing to be popular like a movie star or singer, it is something else entirely to have people think you are a deity and worship you). I was also contemplating that the acts of worship and such would actually be deifying him or at least empowering him (possible pointing out that it is shown that things like statues that are knelt before in hatred, and presumably in worship, absorb ki - Miss Hinako accidentally drained a bust of the principal which altered her personality and gave her a lot of ki).

- The last (not new) fic idea, I considered is actually one that I really, really would like to write but sadly I believe it to be entirely out of my current skill level. A Ranma versus Nabiki story. The reason I think it is not within my current abilities is because it would have massive amounts of character interaction, butterfly effect, character growth, dialogue, etc. Even though I don't think it is in my abilities, I may very well, come November, attempt to write this fic.

While I have put out other ideas in the past, such as a Ranma/Terminator/Sailormoon crossover, none of the other ideas I could remember are of any interest to me anymore. That particular one just mentioned had too much fanon, too many series, and was overly complex. I have a lot of new, or at least never posted on a forum or blog, ideas that I am contemplating (I may deluge this blog with them anon).

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