Katawa Shoujo Forums

KronosTrinity wrote:Then expect the beginning to go up sometime this month...I hope.

Please, as a beginning writer myself, I beseech thee: Write before you post. I wrote my introduction, then abandoned it for nearly a month. Came back, then wrote 3,000 words of some of my best writing in two days. Since then, it has taken two weeks to get another 2.5k... The point is, you need to find your limits and make sure that your idea works before you post. Right now, I'm seriously considering scrapping my writing and moving it to another point in time because the pacing feels wrong for the characters.

Just start writing and worry about posting later. If you're worried about upsetting a story that already has your main character included, PM the author.

Heed my warning or not, just know that it is a long road to finish something that you are happy with. I wish you the best of luck.

Not Hisao - Fair enough. There's plenty of Hisao-focused stuff, and plenty of good non-Hisao stuff. Just pointing out, though - a lot of people won't consider it a pseudo-route unless it's Hisao x ?.

Well acorrding to the archive: "
A “Route” is a story that begins with Hisao (or another character) meeting a girl and describes the entire relationship."
So if the library has any authority on KS fan fiction noitions, it should be considered one

Mournful3ch0 wrote:Please, as a beginning writer myself, I beseech thee: Write before you post.

Yes, this. Nobody knows who you are, so saying you're a writer, are working on a book, or whatever else does nothing to inspire anticipation. At best it puts undue expectations on your shoulders, and at worst it insults your potential audience by broadcasting an air of superiority where none is proven to have been deserved.

If you're worried about stepping on toes, don't. Send a PM if you just can't bring yourself to be 'that guy', but, honestly, there are so many disparate tales creating an untold number of alternate universes spread across this forum that one more diversion isn't really going to bother anybody. Canon is canon and fanon is fanon. We request that you pay attention to the former, but the latter is practically a non-issue.

As pertaining to the major point of 3ch0's post: "Write before you post." That's how this is usually done. That's how I got started. I didn't ask anyone for permission. I didn't make a post saying I'm about to write something, I just started writing. When I had something I felt was ready for public viewing, I pasted it into a new thread and fed it to the wolves. Every single story I've posted here started the same way.

Just write something you think is good and post it. The worst that could happen is we tell you your prospective writing career is a complete waste of time and you should go back to shoveling manure, but that would just be our opinion, man...

Comrade wrote:

Not Hisao - Fair enough. There's plenty of Hisao-focused stuff, and plenty of good non-Hisao stuff. Just pointing out, though - a lot of people won't consider it a pseudo-route unless it's Hisao x ?.

Well acorrding to the archive: "
A “Route” is a story that begins with Hisao (or another character) meeting a girl and describes the entire relationship."
So if the library has any authority on KS fan fiction noitions, it should be considered one

It is one definition of the term "route" and it is the one we decided to use for the library.
Others might posit additional requirements like the four-act structure (which I think is a bit arbitrary - I could randomly put Act numbers in front of my chapter titles to fulfil that requirement) starting at the same time as the VN (which imo limits originality) or other things.
None of the definitions is "right" or "wrong" but since everyone is using the same term confusion is created. For the library we decided on one definition, because it is supposed to tell people what to excpect, and it's hard to do that with too much ambiguity.

Regarding your plan to write an Iwanako route - currently there is one in the works not counting the one by Leaty which is probably different enough from your idea to not pose any danger of rip-off accusations.
All other stuff has already been pointed out by others, so if you still want to go ahead, best of luck.

On the contents page for the Suzu route, below the chapters you'll see several one-off stories in the theme of the pseudo-route, but not directly part of the route's timeline. Perhaps write a couple of these for your route idea? You'll get to try out your skills by publishing smaller stories for us to read, get feedback, while staying within the boundaries of the route idea you're obviously very passionate about.

As others have mentioned, the Suzu and Rika routes are the most popular examples of completed pseudo-routes.

I wanted to write a route a while ago, but eventually decided against it. While planning it out, I did a little analysis so I could know how much work I was in for. You may find this information useful:

Both routes have an average of 12.5 scenes/chapters per act.
Both routes have 3 acts - 2, 3, and 4.

A sampling of Suzu route chapters gives an average chapter length of 4,325 words per scene/chapter.
A sampling of Rika route chapters gives an average chapter length of 1,183 words per scene/chapter.

Suzu route has an approximate total of 162,187 words.
Rika route has an approximate total of 44,362 words.

(All these numbers may be inaccurate).

So, consider how much you're comfortable writing per month. 10,000 words? That's 16 months for a Suzu-length route. 5,000 words? That's 9 months for a Rika-length route. As ProfAllister and Mournful3ch0 mentioned, you can do more but you'll suffer burnout and thus a likely reduction in story quality.

KronosTrinity wrote: So im thinking that it would be possible for her to go down the line of a delinquent, developing Bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder, eventually getting her suspended from school. After seeing a counciler, it wouldn't be impossible for him to refer her to Yamaku, a place where she could cope with her issues and be around other people who are broken in similar ways as she is.

Sorry to be a party pooper, but Yamaku doesn't accept mental disabilities. This is stated at some point in Lilly's route if I remember correctly, but the school only accepts people with physical disabilities, with the exception of people like Misha who are attending, I believe for a higher fee, to learn how to cater to the disabled.

There honestly isn't much reason for Iwanako to be at Yamaku, unless she is in some freak accident and coincidentally gets sent to the same school after, say, losing the ability to walk. Mental illness isn't a viable option due to the school's policy, and she doesn't have any known health complications that could send her there. The whole depression thing could lead to an attempted suicide which cripples her, but that's stretching it just a bit far to have her wind up in Yamaku, in my opinion of course. You're free to write whatever you want, and I'll just end by reinstating the infamous "route warning". If you have never written a long project before, anything under 15,000 words doesn't count, then don't start with a route. Start with a few one-shots, then eventually you'll write one that you think you can extend to a larger project. It'll happen naturally, don't try to force a route if you have no idea how to structure one.

Hotkey wrote:Suzu route has an approximate total of 162,187 words.
Rika route has an approximate total of 44,362 words.

I know for a fact that the Suzu route hit 250,000 words because I have it copypasted into a word document on my computer, but this only makes your statement more potent.
The Rika route I haven't had time to put into a file, but I haven't read all the endings, either.

Hotkey wrote:Suzu route has an approximate total of 162,187 words.
Rika route has an approximate total of 44,362 words.

(All these numbers may be inaccurate).

So, consider how much you're comfortable writing per month. 10,000 words? That's 16 months for a Suzu-length route. 5,000 words? That's 9 months for a Rika-length route. As ProfAllister and Mournful3ch0 mentioned, you can do more but you'll suffer burnout and thus a likely reduction in story quality.

As listed in the archive:
Can You Open Your Heart? – Route by Rikabro (completed, 63,615 words)
A pseudo-pseudo Suzu route – Route by Scissorlips (completed, over 240.000 words)

If you want some really scary numbers, over the ~18 months I've worked on Tomorrow's Doom (I'm approaching 19 months since I started), I've written ~25,000 words per month (450,000 total, unfinished). That's an average, mind you. The first 15 chapters were written and released between July 1 and August 4th 2012, and totaled ~115,000 words. That's around 3200 words per day. I'm still working on it, almost daily. I wrote 2200 words last night.

It. Is. Difficult.

There have been times I've gone for almost a month without writing anything meaningful. More than once, almost weekly, I consider giving it up and throwing in the towel. Even as I've been using almost an entire cast of original characters, it's hard to keep them straight, make sure they come through, and continue impacting the story.

My chapters are all neatly separated into their own files, but along with them are about 40 additional scrap files: chapters started and stopped, story threads that didn't quite make the cut, outline notations and dramatis personae. There's probably another 100,000 words of junk files collecting digital dust in a raggedy folder - probably more, actually.

Just to distract myself over the months, I've written other things as well. This past Christmas I put a week and then some into a holiday story about Hanako and Taro that remains unfinished, but probably spans ~32,000 words. Then there's The Kenji Files, a crossover fic with Kenji and Emi as secret agents that I've put about 20,000 words into - 5,000 or so unreleased.

Just be careful about what you're getting yourself into. If I hadn't had a clear idea of the story I wanted to tell all those months ago, I never would have gotten as far as I have. The details weren't all aligned, and I've muddled some things along the way, but I started knowing the character I was creating, her friends, their relationships, how they think, act, where they're from, what they want, and that for a main cast of 6 people, plus another 4 that got extra development along the way. I'm committed at this point, but after over 400,000 words, I'd better finish.

Think about that before you leap into making a full-length book.

Well being several months of devolpment into my Iwanako route has made me go back and forth on wether to comment on here or not cause I don't want to seem like I'm trying to wipe out completion or something stupid like that (something I would never do ever) but I have been wanting more Iwanako stories for months so I'm happy to see your interest in writing this story. Onto of that reading your ideas it will be nothing like Leaty or my own story so you won't get any accusations of coping someone (a fear if my own)

So I'm going to go ahead and tell you to give it a try. But I also warn you this, if the size of the story is anything like any of the big ones you are in for months if not more then a year of work, work, and even more difficult work. My story is many months in dev and it's not going to be anywhere near the size you want yours to be. And most everyday I do something related to the story wether it be sitting down to come up with what to do next or art or research or many more things I won't go into right now.

Also another fair warning, it appears you have a lot of experience writing non fan fiction stories but not much fan fiction experience. In theory it should help but it doesn't. Writing a fan fiction is much harder then writing a simple story about a original idea. So my piece of advice that i hope helps, write some one offs, you don't need to post them just get a editor to edit the so you can get some experience and you route will be much better. Please please take my advice on this, I want your story to be the best it could possibly be. Please feel free to pm me to have more off a conversation about this or if you need advice or anything I can help you with, pleas please don't let anything I say discourage you from writing this or anything else.

First of all, write what you want to write Don't let the fact that others are writing routes for characters prevent you from doing your own thing. You're not encroaching on anyone's territory, nor stepping on anyone's toes.

That being said though, I feel the same way about what a few others said here.

If you're going to write a route using the canon information that we know about Iwanako, then she has no reason to end up at Yamaku because of a disability. There are really only a few reasons that make sense for her to be at Yamaku at all, and the main two would be visiting Hisao (as someone mentioned) or she becomes so obsessive that her parents send her there (There are a few "normal" students at Yamaku, after all.)

In order to come up with a non Alternate Universe reason for Iwanako to be at Yamaku with a disability, you're going to have to put in a lot of effort. You'd honestly do better putting the effort towards an original character who interacts with Hisao or someone else at that point. I suppose she could get into a life altering event like a car crash or something similar, but still, it would be easier to write an original character because you're not going to be fighting the disbelief that the readers will have.

Fanfiction is one thing, and can be about nearly anything as long as it pertains in some way to Katawa Shoujo. Psuedo-Routes, however, follow a pretty strict set of unwritten rules in that they try to mimic the structure of the originals as closely as possible. (Hisao or OC gets transferred, meets someone at the school, comes to terms with their own disabilities and those of the others, forms relationship with someone, etc.) There's plenty of room to play around within this framework, but stepping outside of it makes it pretty hard to call the work a psuedo-route in that case.

If the character in your story has to have a disability to be at Yamaku, then it's very hard to have it be Iwanako.

If the character in your story doesn't have a disability or interact with Yamaku, then it's very hard to have it be Katawa Shoujo.

One more thing, as one who's dove head first into a psuedo route that's updating slowly - I have to rewrite everything at least a dozen times and I still make edits to the stuff I post. Writing a psuedo route isn't just a matter of having the free time - it's a matter of having the skill to tell a story, or more importantly, the ability to learn it. So many writers (in general, not just here) write themselves into dead ends and power through it and the entire thing suffers.

The best tools you can have for this are to just sit down with a pen and paper and brainstorm. Don't start writing right away. I wrote a ton of blurbs and spent months doing my research for the story before feeling confident enough to sit down and start actually writing for real, and only three chapters in the story is going in directions I didn't anticipate. When you write well, your characters write themselves, and you have to have the ability to guide them while they play

Best of luck - I look forward to reading what you decide to write!

More power to you. It's a really fun and interesting exercise and it will also challenge your knowledge of the "stations of the canon" in ways you may not have expected. But it can be extremely fun and rewarding.

However, don't underestimate how much of an undertaking it is. It's a lot of work, and that's not just the sitting-down-and-writing stages. A lot of planning and research will go into it. Most of the work you do won't be in the form of actually writing prose, it will be all the peripheral stuff that goes into it.

Iwanako's an interesting character and surprisingly tends to be overlooked so she would be an interesting topic. Try starting something and see where you go with it.

The main challenge is that when you write in a serial format (releasing bits at a time in "updates" as most tend to do), you wind up nailing down and making permanent a lot of story details that you might regret in the long run, so try to stay a few steps ahead of yourself.

Also try to make Iwanako different from the other girls in KS, at least as much as they are from each other. If you can find a distinctive feature of hers and expound on it, that's probably a good starting point. Think of kinds of people that are unaccounted for in KS.

Again, good luck.

KronosTrinity wrote:

Oddball wrote:

KronosTrinity wrote:I read the Suzu route and absolutely fell in love with the writing and character herself and it made me want to make an Iwanako Psuedo-Route. However, I know one already exists so I was wondering if it would be in bad taste to try and make my own? If not im getting to work right away but I wanted to check and make sure nobody would bite my head off.

Not at all. You write what you want to write.

I will warn you though that making an entire route is a lot of work. You might want to start smaller. Do a few one chapter oneshots first to easy your way into things, perhaps.

To be honest with you, I have way too much time on my hands anyways. So I would like to kind of have something that will suck away all of that excess time I just spend sitting on my roof and give me something to look forward to doing. Im going to make sure I don't bring some really crappy story to the table though, don't worry. I am going to use the Suzu route as more of a quality guideline, so im going to start rereading that and taking notes. Anything tips that you could give me before I dive into this?

A story that doesn't revolve around Hisao would be an excellent idea, you'd be breaking away from the well worn path and finding your own story to go with, you should note, however, that despite how much time you have on your hands, it's not enough. The few finished routes in the fan fiction section have taken downright scary amounts of time to finish, a year is nothing far fetched at all, many seem to take longer than that. I've lost count of how many authors came in and tried to start a route, never finished it, and left one more body in the pile of forgotten fanfics. If this is your first time writing, don't do a route. I made that same mistake(sort of), got about 50k words in, and lost all interest, hadn't even gotten into act 3.

First off: Make sure you've read all of the KS routes to their good endings(Not needed, but it helps to prevent some blatant *wats* in your story as well as contradictions, it's a fan FICTION so you can stray off the story if you want but many people will point out, repeatedly, and sometimes not in the nicest of ways, if you do.

Start with stories to build your knowledge, not saying you need to start with a oneshot, you can do mini stories, side stories, w.e the hell those 50k "scraps" are called, and etc, I suggest writing a piece about many different things, try a parady, a yuri(coughpls) a standard route, substandard(xOC), unique(OCxOC) etc, just various different things, should also give you an idea of what kind of route you want to do, assuming you still want to. I personally suggest not doing a route of a character that has already been done, or attempted, a really good one that I can't seem to find too many of, if any, would be an OCx"notHisao", a few OCxOC floating around, alot of HisaoxOC, but there's not really been any OCxnotHisao, I can think of maybe 2-3 and I'm not sure if any of them got finished.

*coughdoayuri*

Also remember that the Suzu Route started off as a one-shot. You can always just start a short story to get some experience, and then continue it later if you want to.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're not trying to discourage you, the more fanficion the better, it just looks like you're biting off more that you can chew.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're not trying to discourage you

Seeing that the topic creator hasn't posted since the flood of warnings was unleashed, we probably succeeded in doing just that.

Guest Poster wrote:

I think I speak for everyone when I say that we're not trying to discourage you

Seeing that the topic creator hasn't posted since the flood of warnings was unleashed, we probably succeeded in doing just that.

Or maybe he's gone and done what I did, and decided not to post as I write. I hate retconning stuff after people have already seen it. Maybe we'll get lucky and a book will emerge from the tunnel of fiction writer darkness (and lemme tell you, it is dark, and there are grues).