A New Life (Tentative Title)

[demonix]

And I am improving if what Mirage was saying is correct.

Oh yes, your writing stly has improved considerably. Your first story here had run-on sentnces that went on for up to ten lines. You managed to curb that habit nicely.

I actually started curbing that habit once you told me about it (chapter 2 of that story is proof of that (although I did have to re-write the beginning since the first sentence or two did go on for a bit) although that was only noticed when I started work on facing my pains since I was still working on that chapter at the time).

All I'm going to say with regards to this story is to watch this space as it's just getting started, and more ideas about how to move the story forwards will start to surface (I've pretty much got the next chapter and the chapter after that all but sorted out in my head).

[Scissorlips]

I always feel that there's a logical reason for everything that I write even if it wasn't planned and I just have to figure out why, or if it was related to something I'd already written.

Translation: everything I write makes sense even if I'm not sure why.
I'm sorry, but that's bullsh--that's ridiculous.

Lets not go down that route this early in the story since there's still a lot to come.

Understandable. Let's go over what we know so far, okay?
-"Dark", mysterious past: check
-Extraordinary abilities (became extremely fluent in Japanese in less than "a few months"): check.
-Multiple disabilities to ensure maximum unique snowflake potential (wounded hand, wounded foot, dysfunctional eye): check.
-Popular for no reason (Shizune throws herself on her sword for him, then throws her best (and only) friend under the bus to laugh alongside him, clubs are all throwing themselves on him when it's the second day of school and they should still be after just about any new students period): check.
-Extremely charismatic (Hanako explodes out of her shell for him when she should be a nervous wreck; it's the beginning of the school year, there are new students, she has new teachers, it should be a miracle that she's out of her room at all. Unless she and your protagonist are secretly long lost friends, or he looks exactly like her father even though he's only half Asian, or some other contrived reason, good luck explaining this to any amount of satisfaction) (practically bosses the nurse around) (obviously a badass since he can lie about his parents' death to a complete stranger and completely defuse Kenji without batting an eye): check.
-Let's see, any flaws so far? Well... he showed a small amount of hesitation towards approaching the subject of his parent' death (at times but not always). Oh, and he forgot to take into account customs and immigration, obviously he's a completely believable, fleshed out character, and he doesn't talk like a robot.
Conclusion: Mary Sue/Gary Stu potential: high. Again.

There are times where an idea comes to me for how to progress things in the story before I get to a certain point (I just start with enough material to get me started along with something that would become a major part of the story), so it might be unlikely that I'd write myself into a corner (I've even thought about ideas for other stories that I could start writing over the past few days).

No matter how many ideas magically flow to you, it's still possible for you to write a situation or character that you can't logically or satisfyingly explain your way out of. This is a danger that everyone faces.

The only reason it wasn't pointed out was because it was subtle and didn't show up at the second contact scene (she stammers in the library and then talks normally until Lilly enters the room), which is why I made that mountain out of a molehill analogy since you're only basing it on what would be a small part of the whole story.

You have a point in that it's still fairly early on in the story. But please at least admit that this Nega-Hanako is extremely out of character (because she is), even if you plan on explaining it later.

It allows to at least explain some of what I know is behind the writing (or as what will likely be happening in the next chapter some authors notes)

It's okay to have author's notes and try to share some parts of your intentions and your creative process with your readers. However, spelling out half a dozen details without which your story doesn't make sense is a crutch, and it hurts your story as a whole and makes you look like a worse writer than you are, because you need to rely on material outside of your chapter in order to make your story function.

And I am improving if what Mirage was saying is correct.

Clearly you've improved a good deal from your first story. All I'm saying is that, if you want to continue to improve, you need to learn to accept criticism instead of constantly saying "nope, you're wrong, here's an example why you're wrong that doesn't make sense, by the way I'm always right and everything I write makes sense". Because that's simply not true.

[YourFavAnon]

So I've read through this, and as has been said before, there are some big time flaws. Mostly characters being so OOC that they might as well just be different people (namely Hanako).

Listen, I'm not going to tell you how to plan (if you plan at all) or anything, but you have REALLY got to think about things as you write. They cannot be magically logical in your head, especially if the character is so far different from the original game that they're basically unrecognizable. You can shoot my advice down, you can get mad about it, I don't really care. We're trying to help you become a better writer, and sometimes that means accepting that what you've written is off and needs some fixing. That's not to say you haven't improved, as you have, but there are still some major holes here.

Now, if you're like me and don't really sit down and plan and more or less just write as the ideas come to you, you need to always at least have a basic idea of what the entire chapter / piece will be about. You also, and I may sound a bit redundant here, need to absolutely make sure that you're keeping people in or close to their character. The reason I say at least close to is because, depending on the situation, it may make sense that the person has changed a bit mentally. You could look at some of my earliest one-shots and see how awful I was at character development, and now that I look back, they were pretty far out of character in a few early ones. That being said, as I've progressed to where I stand now, I'm always keeping people at least extremely close to their original character. For example, even if Hanako were fifteen years removed from high school, she's still probably going to stutter. It doesn't just magically disappear.

Anyways, sorry if this seems somewhat off topic in a sense, but I'm just trying to sort of 'teach' from personal experience. What you do with the advice you're given is entirely up to you.

[demonix]

clubs are all throwing themselves on him when it's the second day of school and they should still be after just about any new students period

Do you think the clubs would just focus on the first year students when a new senior student has arrived, I just took a thought about what might happen, got a general idea from something I watched and amplified it a bit (I wanted to have some kind of situation where he would meet Lilly unexpectedly with this being the only thing I thought would be the best idea, and just so you know that was part of the plan and not something I just thought about).

Also I'm getting sick and tired of almost everyone in this thread making a mountain out of a molehill with regards to Hanako talking normally since you're basing it on less than five lines of text which would amount to less then a minute total of talking.

Okay, I might not have thought the progression through completely, but I did have the initial part up to the first contact scene planned out (if I wanted to go completely out of character, I would have had Hanako talking normally from right after the introduction).

Multiple disabilities to ensure maximum unique snowflake potential (wounded hand, wounded foot, dysfunctional eye)

Reading that part clearly tells me that you haven't read the story correctly since there's nothing wrong with his eyes (apart from the sight issues) and the wounded foot is actually a wounded leg with a loss of feeling in his foot caused by a damaged nerve in the leg.

And I will say again is to just watch since this is just the beginning and some of what has happened will impact on how the story would progress.