Prove me wrong- No such thing as a highly anime-inspired non-Japanese novel?

[Giegue]

As the title asks. I have a LOT of very complex story ideas I'd love to share with the world, but I have an issue. ALL of them are VERY anime-esc. They have characters with odd-colored hair sometimes in spiky/other "anime" styles. Many of them make heavy use of Japanese mythological elements. Many of my settings are simultaneously high magic and high tech, something usually exclusive to anime, manga and JRPG settings. There is sometimes people with animal ears and tails. There is sometimes mechs. Power-levels tend to be on the higher end of the scale and there is a heavy focus on combat and fighting. There is bishie-like villains, complete with the long flowing hair most anime villains have. There is many of the story and character-related tropes of anime present as well.

As a result, I have been utterly afraid to put any of my stories to pen because they would never find an audience. I don't have the monetary and human resources to self-promote and thus self-publishing is out. So I fear that if I do write any of my ideas down they will never be anything other then word documents sitting idle on my computer. I can't turn my ideas into actual manga because my art skill SUCKS HORRIDLY so that is out as well. Basically, the only options for sharing my ideas are making them a written work of some kind or not sharing them at all, and out of fear I've been going for the latter and it's been killing me.

A close friend of me has told me otherwise. She believes that my ideas are not "too anime" and that there is a market for such HEAVILY anime-inspired written works. I don't think so, however, but neither of us can prove if our side is right because both of us are not knowledgeable enough about whats on the market to say definitely if there really is anime-inspired novels, novels that use many of the story and character tropes of anime or novels that just seem anime-esc out there. So, I turn to you, the well-read playground to hopefully give me confidence and prove me wrong. I want to see if any of you here know of any non Japanese(so light novels are out), non self-published(as this is NOT an option for me...at all) novels out there that are heavily anime-inspired or otherwise are heavily influenced by anime/manga. I'm not talking minor influence here either. You saw the first paragraph of the OP...


Anyway, I now challenge all of you here on the playground to prove me wrong.....if you can. Are you up to the challenge?

[Prime32]

I'm not sure about novels, but there's plenty of Japan-influenced comics out there, web and print, even leaving out fanfic stuff. (does Katawa Shoujo (tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VisualNovel/KatawaShoujo) count?)

[Giegue]

Comics sadly don't count since I already said my art is too horrid to ever make anything other then a crappy, poor-quality webcomic nobody will ever read. Thanks for trying, though.

[danzibr]

Uhh, the novels I've written have anime aspects. There's an important place modeled after east Asia, in particular Japan. But I don't think it counts as what's in the title.

So right, I can't prove you wrong.

[Jayngfet]

I say you need to go back to the drawing board and do some major reworkings if that's literally the only description you're willing to give of your work and your only real worry. Nobody watches Anime specifically for the brightly colored hair, or the shiny battle auras. That's all window dressing and vague aesthetic choices you've listed and almost nothing else detail wise.

After reading through your post three times I can't tell anything about any of your characters, none of the actual day to day affairs of your settings in general, none of your recurring ideas, and no real semblance of any kind of plot.

Once you get past those vague anime tropes they cover a wide range of Japanese products meant to be viewed differently and going for vastly different things for vastly different demographics. I mean like, just look at Getter Robo vs any random Gundam, which use basically the same list of aesthetic choices(Transforming/Combining mecha, funky hair, teen protagonists with special abilities), to produce incredibly different finished products, simply because the characters and conflicts have very little in common.

You're essentially trying to bake a cake using nothing but frosting. Frosting is tasty and can make a cake look cool, but without some kind of underlying base to give it structure and overall flavor all you're left with is a heap of sugary goo.

[Giegue]

It's the describtion I give because I was being general rather then adressing any actual plot. Most of my plots are very complex and feature highly involved settings that would take a monstrous wall of text to describe in-full. Thus, I was just naming general "anime-esc" elements that many of my stories share without giving any details about any of them because I was being general and using those elements to illustrate a point, not explain my plots. If you want me to go into more detail, I'd be more then happy to, you just have to tell me WHICH details you want, as telling all of them would require pages and pages of text. I have lots of ideas. If you want me to get specific then you have to tell me what specifics you desire or else the amount of information is simply not able to be summed up in one post.

Also, all of my plots are different from one another and thus it is very, very difficult for me to actually make a general statement that encompasses all of them. Hence the general paragraph I gave. It has no plot info on purpose. Each of my plots are unique, each of them cannot be lumped together on plot terms. What they share is the "anime"
elements I listed in the OP, but not all of those are present in every story, nor are those what define the stories. What defines them is plot and characters, those listed elements are part of the stories but are in no way their core. If you want more info on plot, characters ect... I can give it but you have to specific as to what you want to here as there is just too much content for a single forum post if you don't get specific.

[Prime32]

Not sure if you caught my last edit; have you considered visual novels? Could be easier to find an artist willing to draw the characters, especially if you already have the story to show to them.


As a result, I have been utterly afraid to put any of my stories to pen because they would never find an audience. I don't have the monetary and human resources to self-promote and thus self-publishing is out. So I fear that if I do write any of my ideas down they will never be anything other then word documents sitting idle on my computer.This is a silly reason. No starting writer can guarantee an audience. If you like writing, write. If "no one reads my work" is your worst-case scenario... well, that's the scenario you're in now; anything you do will leave you better off, and there's no way for you to fail.

[Soras Teva Gee]

The Codex Alera series was written on the premise of:

"Pokemon meets the lost Roman Legion"

Admittedly it came about on something of a dare.

...

However your first paragraph concerns me in that you have confused elements of anime that are purely stylistic with an actual type of story.

Spiky or vividly colored hair has little place in a text oriented medium, because its only there for visually distinctive designs like the deformed eyes universal to anime. In anime that is all well and good, in print only a someone with a significant reason should be dyeing their hair like that. And "its fashionable in the setting" I will warn you is pretty thin as justification, and if that's it I suspect you are still using it to make someone look cool when it can only mark someone out as odd to your reader.

I can make similar statements about much of your first paragraph:

Giant robots are cool, but the entire real robot genre is largely about telling war stories. Whether its giant robots or fighter jets, they are vehicles for the plot, not the plot itself. Don't believe me, watch Top Gun and Macross Plus.

Someone has ears and a tail? Workable but are they an alien, the results of genetic engineering, or the equivalent of elves/dwarves? What is their culture and societal interaction with humanity. All these questions become much much more important.

You don't see anime inspired novels, because storytelling is universal while certain things you are taking as distinctive won't translate to text. Someone can Flash-step in print, but its far far far less cool to write then to see. You can many of the more structural ideas (magitech settings for example) or something like a high power level (check out the One Power of the Wheel of Time) but they always are going to have to be novels.

As Jayngfet said though what you've provided though is the frosting not the cake.

[Prime32]

The Codex Alera series was written on the premise of:

"Pokemon meets the lost Roman Legion"

Admittedly it came about on something of a dare.As for The Dresden Files from the same author, it's listed on the TVTropes pages for Mentor Mascot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MentorMascot) and Shonen Upgrade (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShonenUpgrade). For bonus points, the mentor is a pervert and it's played for comedy.

[Jayngfet]

It's the describtion I give because I was being general rather then adressing any actual plot. Most of my plots are very complex and feature highly involved settings that would take a monstrous wall of text to describe in-full. Thus, I was just naming general "anime-esc" elements that many of my stories share without giving any details about any of them because I was being general and using those elements to illustrate a point, not explain my plots. If you want me to go into more detail, I'd be more then happy to, you just have to tell me WHICH details you want, as telling all of them would require pages and pages of text. I have lots of ideas. If you want me to get specific then you have to tell me what specifics you desire or else the amount of information is simply not able to be summed up in one post.

Also, all of my plots are different from one another and thus it is very, very difficult for me to actually make a general statement that encompasses all of them. Hence the general paragraph I gave. It has no plot info on purpose. Each of my plots are unique, each of them cannot be lumped together on plot terms. What they share is the "anime"
elements I listed in the OP, but not all of those are present in every story, nor are those what define the stories. What defines them is plot and characters, those listed elements are part of the stories but are in no way their core. If you want more info on plot, characters ect... I can give it but you have to specific as to what you want to here as there is just too much content for a single forum post if you don't get specific.

That's generally either a thin excuse or a sign of an inexperienced writer.

You don't need to give us the entire story. Just give us a summary of the premise. Or give us a few sentences to wrap up a main characters most defining traits. Or some important political idea the setting revolves around.


As well, if your ideas really are that varied and many, and at the same time every single one of them draws mainly on anime, it shows you probably need to branch out and watch more non-anime stuff, or else live real life experiences to draw upon. Anime is great, and having some influence is fine, but for it to be so overwhelming as to be a problem on the scale you seem to be implying suggests you're being too singular at the personal level and just giving writing tips might not solve things.

[Nameless Ghost]

Keep in mind 'anime' is a very broad medium and quite meaningless as a descriptor on its own. You might as well be saying 'live action TV-esque' for all the huge variety of different genres and styles it potentially covers.

While I haven't personally read any, quite a few anime/manga series have novelised adaptations (or that they are adaptations of) that might be worth looking into for inspiration, although the ones I know of off-hand don't feature elements like spiky green hair and giant flying robots with beam sabres.


Every other point I was going to make has been effectively ninja'd.

[erikun]

I can't help but think that we've had this topic before - recently.

I also can't help but think that, if your biggest problem is spikey hair and bishie-like villians, you'll do a great job on your stories. :smallsmile: I mean, you are discussing mainly stylistic decisions there, something relatively minor and which could likely be removed with a good editor. I mean, how many times has "his hair is shaped like a starfish" really been a plot point? In anything?

The rest you have mentioned sound like they would be fine in a book. Japanese mythology, high magic and high tech, mecha, animal people, and dynamic combat all sound like interesting things to put into a story. Your biggest concern should probably be writing it well, and possibly producing it, rather than if it is "too anime" or not. If nothing else, being thought of as "anime" might get people to read it in the first place.

Have you considered publishing it as an eBook? I'm not sure about the cost or requirements, but I'm sure that producing something on Nook/Kindle would be far cheaper to do (no publishing costs), and could be sold for less.

[MLai]

The OP sounds like an inexperienced writer.

When you're starting out, you can't think about the top immediately. You have to work your way up. You seem to think that you're a spectacular writer and your only problem is that "my influences are too anime." But chances are you still have many things to learn before you're ready to write fiction for profit.

There are many online writing communities. My recommendation is to start writing and then uploading them to those sites, and then ask for (and actually listen to) feedback from other writers.

[Darklord Bright]

My sister used to read the Broken Sky series of novels (not to be confused with an entirely unrelated movie) by Chris Wooding, which is heavily anime-inspired, to my memory. It was a sort of young-adult anime novel series written back in 1999 by a westerner.

I don't remember them being particularly remarkable, but I do remember that they had anime covers and a cast of characters page between chapters that was drawn in an anime style. The bad-guy was even a dude with long silver hair.

[MLai]

Being curious, I checked out the wiki of Broken Sky. Here's what seems to make it "like anime."

(1) Anime style covers and book illustrations. Their presence and their artistic style are entirely optional for a novel.
(2) Japanese and Engrish names for characters and things. Their presence and word choice are also entirely optional.

Other than that, Broken Sky's synopsis basically sounds like an epic non-AD&D high fantasy with cyberpunk or sci-fi elements. That doesn't make it anime or Japanese.

Even if you use Eastern philosophies or religions as inspiration, if you converted them to your own thing it still won't seem anime or Japanese. See Star Wars.

Practically the only way you can possibly make it look anime/Japanese is if you include all the above things, AND giant robots. Just giant robots alone isn't enough to make it anime/Japanese, even. See Pacific Rim.

[Giegue]

Ok, thanks for all the help everybody. Also, I will have to check out broken skies. It looks like it may fit what I am looking for...Anyway. If anybody still wants summaries I can give them. Though with all the posting that's been going on and help I've been getting I'm not sure that's necessary. Also, I've joined a writing community but never posted much on there because I had convinced myself that my stories are just "too anime" to have any kind of place....so I kinda just stopped posting on there and never reached the requite number of posts required to post up my work. I really am self-defeating in many, many ways. Maybe I should go back there?

[Avilan the Grey]

I loathe all things Anime.

HOWEVER, please go for it. Seriously, this sounds like something you need to do. Follow your dreams and all that. And I mean it sincerely.

[Nekura]

Being too anime wouldn’t be a problem. There is after all a good market for anime. There was even a thread here before about people reading fan fiction that was novel length. Anime is very varied. I don’t personally remember reading a book that had mecha in it but the other aspects aren’t that odd. World of Warcraft isn’t an anime but anime being so varied there are some like it and it has novels about it.

The problem with fan fiction is it draws on existing work. Chances are people have watched the anime or read the manga so they already have the visuals and plot details in the back of their mind. People enjoy anime elements and wouldn’t mind reading about it without visuals to back it up. The only problem in making your own original work is that you have to be a good enough writer to build your own world, to flesh out your characters, to have a well developed plot. You won’t have the existing popularity of whatever anime, manga, game etc. to bring people to your work.

I don’t know how easy it is too get published. I have heard it tends to be hard no matter what you are writing about. But if your story is well written there will be a market for it. Being too anime isn’t a problem. If you market it about having characters with large oddly colored hair, or cat girls, or giant mecha or any other “anime” elements then yes there will be some people who hate anime who won’t want to read it. But there are many people who like anime and won’t turn away from it just because of that. However I wouldn’t read it just because you have those things. The plot is what’s important. I am sure a publishing company wouldn’t try to market it purely on any anime elements and you shouldn’t have that be the basis you try to sell your idea to them to get it published.

[Tengu_temp]

I loathe all things Anime.

Considering that anime covers a very range variety of genres and story types, you're basically saying "I hate fiction".

[Avilan the Grey]

Considering that anime covers a very range variety of genres and story types, you're basically saying "I hate fiction".

You and I have had this discussion before.
Seriously, there are enough thing that are unique to Japanese culture that I can loathe those things, and that means 99% of all anime is loathsome to me.

Let's not go another round.

[Mx.Silver]

I can't help but think that we've had this topic before - recently.

Yeah, I'm getting a really strong sense of deja vu about this thread.


Anyway, yeah a lot of the important things have already been said (i.e. it's mostly stylistic; you really need to get you story, setting and characters down first before you start worrying about how it might be recieved). Still, just to chime in anyway, this is really not the sort of question you should be asking yourself. Your main concern is whether or not you think it's going to be worth reading - regardless of superficial elements - and actually putting the work in to write it. There's no point worrying about marketing and whether or not some people might be put off by some surface details until you actually have it written, which you don't.

On the subject of the 'anime elements' the fact is the reason why you probably won't find much in novels is they aren't a visual medium. How a literary character actually looks is only as important as the book makes it, and consequently most of them will seldom be physically described more than once. By contrast, the main reason anime characters often have unusual hair colours is because that's an simple way to distinguish them.

[otakuryoga]

high magic and high tech

hello, have you been introduced to Shadowrun at any point?

[Terraoblivion]

You and I have had this discussion before.
Seriously, there are enough thing that are unique to Japanese culture that I can loathe those things, and that means 99% of all anime is loathsome to me.

Let's not go another round.

That doesn't mean there was any reason for you to bring up your loathing here, you know. Especially since if I remember correctly it was for rather petty matters of taste and not things like racism, sexism or something else that a reasonable person would loathe. A more reasonable approach would be to keep quiet and let others enjoy what they do.

Also, if I were you I'd ask myself if I wanted to be the kind of person to call the culture of 130 million people loathsome or not. Or maybe you're alright with being a bigot.

[Soras Teva Gee]

I can't help but think that we've had this topic before - recently.


Yeah, I'm getting a really strong sense of deja vu about this thread.

That's because we have (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=259825).

[Eldan]

Others have said it, but, there's two things here. The tropes you name should be separated, probably.

Oddly coloured and coiffed hair as a visual trope come more from animation limitation than from any in-setting reason. Sure they can show up in the book, they do in real life. But I want an explanation for it. If its a weird fashion statement, people will react to it. If I went out tomorrow and bought two bottles of hairgel and a can of pink spray-paint to do my hair, I'd get weird looks everywhere.

I've seen plenty of integration of magic and technology. That's just a story trope. Mechs and mons? Question of implementation in the setting. Moving on, we talked about that in the last thread.

However, you go on to mention long-haired villains and people with cat ears. Fine, sure. But here's the thing: explain why. An anime series is, what. 20-odd 20 minute episodes? That's 400 minutes, or about six hours. Subtract some for intros and outros, too. They probably don't spend much time explaining.

But in a novel? You explicitely will have the sentence "And she had cat ears". If you don't explain why, I'll call it bad writing. Is it plastic surgery? Why the hell would someone do that? Is it a genetic mutation? How do they cope with that unique deformation in their everyday live, and how did it shape their psychology? Are they a different race? How does humanity react to a second highly sapient, almost entirely humanoid race? And why weren't they eliminted millenia ago through crossbreeding like the Neanderthals?

IN a novel you have the space to explain things like that. Why characters look the way they do. In anime, I can accept them as cosmetic things. In a novel, I'd want a paragraph or two saying why.

[Gavinfoxx]

She's a transhuman who chose to have cat ears and a tail, duh. It's En Vogue.

[Avilan the Grey]

That doesn't mean there was any reason for you to bring up your loathing here, you know.

My point was that he should just go for it, despite some of us having different tastes. Write it and try to get it published. As is!

(as for the rest, I see your point, but I am seriously beyond irritated that the Anime / Manga style is creeping in everywhere... It seems 99,9% of all new webcomics are drawn in this style, which I cannot stand. I am just fed up with it).

[GloatingSwine]

She's a transhuman who chose to have cat ears and a tail, duh. It's En Vogue.

Unless it's being used to convey something about the character or the culture the character is part of, it's padding.

It's not enough to say that it's the current vogue in the setting, you have to say why, and consider what it shows about the character that they choose to follow that vogue, are they a trend setter? A follower of fashion? A conformist? An iconoclast? Is the main character considered a weirdo stick-in-the-mud because she has cat ears and everyone else has gone full-on furry?

That's the interesting character stuff, cat ears is not.

If you want a specifically anime in novel form version, there's a book called Saturn's Children by Charles Stross, wherein everyone in the book is actually a robot (humans have gone extinct) and so less constrained by physical form. The predominant fashion is to be anime chibi characters because they are less massive (it's a hardish-sf book set in space, trucking mass around is costly, so smaller=better), and so it's considered strange for the main character to be a "normal" human size and this reveals something about her as a character.


(ps. Saturn's Children proves the OP wrong, the book he's talking about already exists, soon it will exist twice because the sequel comes out sometime this year).

[Eldan]

A lot of transhumanist fiction has that. Changed body plans for cosmetic reasons. Reynolds had a zebra-woman.

[Soras Teva Gee]

A lot of transhumanist fiction has that. Changed body plans for cosmetic reasons. Reynolds had a zebra-woman.

Which if the fluidity of the "human" form is a running broad cultural theme can work and work well.

We're still talking about a fairly limited scope of things though.

[Kitten Champion]

Animal/human hybrids are common enough in mythologies, modern fantasy, and science fiction that it's hardly worth noting at this point.

When specified to anime/manga tropes -- unless used as a costume motif for cosplaying characters -- it's usually a simple means of communicating to the audience that character's personality (and abilities) through easy association in the visual medium. Cementing capriciousness, vindictiveness, or easy sexuality into the characterization.

It's been said before here, but most anime-related tropes are just a prevalent means of communicating necessary information to the audience at a single glance, which is necessary due to the relative limitations of the medium.

Rather than worrying about anime, read as many Japanese light novels as you can get your mitts on and take notes. I have no idea why you're dismissing them so offhandedly when those who be willing to read them would inevitably be your primary audience. Spice and Wolf, A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Sword Art Online, Miniskirt Space Pirates, Crest of the Stars, Suzumiya Haruhi, and so many more -- learn the style, pick your likes and dislikes, and then go your own direction using your interests and experience as a guide.

[Avilan the Grey]

Unless it's being used to convey something about the character or the culture the character is part of, it's padding.

It's not enough to say that it's the current vogue in the setting, you have to say why

Why? Seriously, it's all part of a valid character description to me. The "spiky hair in weird colors" bit feels a little more like padding to me, but this seems like a valid piece of information if only to both flesh out the character AND to make the setting feel more "Science-Fictiony". It shows a setting where the medical (or magical?) science has gone as far as allowing people to alter their appearence way beyond piercings and tattoos.

Now it is possible that the OP is only doing this to have her identifiable as a "happy tease" kind of young girl but I hope not.

[GloatingSwine]

Why? Seriously, it's all part of a valid character description to me. The "spiky hair in weird colors" bit feels a little more like padding to me, but this seems like a valid piece of information if only to both flesh out the character AND to make the setting feel more "Science-Fictiony". It shows a setting where the medical (or magical?) science has gone as far as allowing people to alter their appearence way beyond piercings and tattoos.


The trouble is that visual description actually doesn't flesh out a character unless it gives us some insight into why the character looks the way they do.

It's a common trait of bad writing to confuse who a person is with what they look like, and spend a lot of time telling us about the latter because they haven't put effort into the former. Any time you see a detailed physical description of a character and nothing in the description is imminently relevant to plot or personality, suspect hack writing.

[Nerd-o-rama]

That said, not giving any physical description at all is also bad writing and makes your characters feel interchangeable. You should put thought and care into what your characters look like, then describe it - don't just do neither and call it good, unless you're writing under some kind of wordcount restriction.

Also I would point out that several parts of Joss Whedon's TV oeuvre have parallels to anime (probably mostly unintentional), and he is at least successful among nerds. Many aspects of anime are also shared with non-animated and therefore more mainstream-respected artistic traditions like Wuxia (which is, of course, not just for Chinese films - see Kill Bill and The Matrix for five highly successful Hollywood Wuxia films). We've also seen live-action, non-Japanese films branch out into things you typically associate with anime or other extremely niche (in America) fandoms quite successfully lately: 80's nostalgia films like Michael Bay's Transformers trilogy, space opera epics which also haven't been big in the US since the 80's, Del Toro's upcoming giant robots film, and even Marvel's hit parade of comic book adaptations, while they come from an American source, have enough similarities and surprisingness to their success to parallel anime-inspired works.

That said, whatever you make? It's about 99% guaranteed not to be profitable or find an audience at all. At first. As an artist, you need practice and feedback way more than anything else, so I would say write whatever the hell you want and just throw it up on the internet for free. Post it here if you want to. Practice, see if anyone's interested, practice, get some free editing, practice, and practice. That's the only way anyone will read what you write, is if you work at it and practice until you've got something worthy of maybe tossing at a publisher. Who will then reject it, you will re-edit it, and send it to another one. Who will probably also reject it. Repeat until you get published or have to find a real job.

That's just how the creative business works.

[GloatingSwine]

That said, not giving any physical description at all is also bad writing and makes your characters feel interchangeable. You should put thought and care into what your characters look like, then describe it - don't just do neither and call it good, unless you're writing under some kind of wordcount restriction.

Everyone is writing under a wordcount restriction, and people who aren't should write as if they are because it will make them think about why they are including the things they are including.

Physical description of characters should never be included for its own sake, it should be included if it tells us something about the character being described as a person, about how the character being described fits into the setting they are in, or about the character observing them in how they react to the character being described.

Just telling the reader what someone looks like, without giving them anything to do with that information, is padding your wordcount and increasing the likelyhood that people will lose interest.

[Foeofthelance]

Just off the top of my head? Quantum Connection by Travis Taylor actually has a fight scene that the narrator describes as, "looking like something out of Dragonball Z." Claws that Catch by John Ringo also has a couple of scenes where the main characters actually get turned into anime characters, followed by a discussion of archetypes and the similarities to the missions they undertake.

[Tvtyrant]

Everyone is writing under a wordcount restriction, and people who aren't should write as if they are because it will make them think about why they are including the things they are including.

Physical description of characters should never be included for its own sake, it should be included if it tells us something about the character being described as a person, about how the character being described fits into the setting they are in, or about the character observing them in how they react to the character being described.

Just telling the reader what someone looks like, without giving them anything to do with that information, is padding your wordcount and increasing the likelyhood that people will lose interest.

On the other hand there is always the goal of having the reader see the world as the writer does. Extraneous details are a major part of life, and the absence of them to make the plot move faster does not feel inherently beneficial to me.

[Delusion]

Legend of Eli Monpress is pretty much Anime. The author said so herself.

[Das Platyvark]

My best advice?
Focus on writing something really good. Think about setting and style, but mostly think about your people, what they want, etc. I tend to find that I enjoy reading speculative fiction best when rather than being all about the world building, it's a bunch of characters who feel real, and who use the weirdness of the setting just as we'd use our own world and technology.
Good writing and character doesn't have to mean 'infidelity and garden parties', but it's always good to place the characters above their own superficial characteristics (see: cat ears.).

[Soras Teva Gee]

Everyone is writing under a wordcount restriction, and people who aren't should write as if they are because it will make them think about why they are including the things they are including.

Physical description of characters should never be included for its own sake, it should be included if it tells us something about the character being described as a person, about how the character being described fits into the setting they are in, or about the character observing them in how they react to the character being described.

Just telling the reader what someone looks like, without giving them anything to do with that information, is padding your wordcount and increasing the likelyhood that people will lose interest.

I should point out that while I can almost agree with what you are saying here... it doesn't nessecarily produce anything practical unless you write so strictly everything becomes a major Chekov's Gun sitting above the mantle.

And I think even Anton Chekov could get away without some nominally extraneous details. Sure its all well and good to only put the gun on the mantle in act one if its going off in act three but in a text if you don't pad out your description with something about the room its not going to leave your readers lost without some way to visualize the setting around the gun.

And from there even "a lavish sitting room with a gun on the mantle" isn't automatically better. Do you want everybody with half a brain guess someone is getting shot in act three? If not then obfuscating the gun within a detailed description of the room's layout and style can serve a distinct purpose, but isn't giving your readers anything to do with that information.

Except of course the broadest purpose of all in trying to set a certain ambiance just so and/or providing characters and place with the idea that they have purpose beyond the single scene/story and are part of a living world where there sometimes are secondary and tertiary details of no particular importance to the events.

[Coidzor]

I should point out that while I can almost agree with what you are saying here... it doesn't nessecarily produce anything practical unless you write so strictly everything becomes a major Chekov's Gun sitting above the mantle.

And I think even Anton Chekov could get away without some nominally extraneous details. Sure its all well and good to only put the gun on the mantle in act one if its going off in act three but in a text if you don't pad out your description with something about the room its not going to leave your readers lost without some way to visualize the setting around the gun.

And from there even "a lavish sitting room with a gun on the mantle" isn't automatically better. Do you want everybody with half a brain guess someone is getting shot in act three? If not then obfuscating the gun within a detailed description of the room's layout and style can serve a distinct purpose, but isn't giving your readers anything to do with that information.

Except of course the broadest purpose of all in trying to set a certain ambiance just so and/or providing characters and place with the idea that they have purpose beyond the single scene/story and are part of a living world where there sometimes are secondary and tertiary details of no particular importance to the events.

Well, yeah, that's not description for its own sake though. You seem to be arguing against economy of words and making sure your words are doing something by pointing out that your readers need some framework to hold them up and lead their imaginations for suspension of disbelief and proper reading. :smallconfused:

[Soras Teva Gee]

Well, yeah, that's not description for its own sake though. You seem to be arguing against economy of words and making sure your words are doing something by pointing out that your readers need some framework to hold them up and lead their imaginations for suspension of disbelief and proper reading. :smallconfused:

I think I'm pointing out that "for its own sake" is a very slippery and arbitrary descriptor.

I'd actually be a little surprised if many writers consciously do that complete sort of consideration to all levels when detailing every scene... but since the effect is the same I don't think that matters.

Though we're somewhat drifting from topic here as its a separate consideration for certain anime style elements. Lavish or spare details too odd to fall within the arbitrary normal need a certain level of support in the writing to work.

[Avilan the Grey]

The trouble is that visual description actually doesn't flesh out a character unless it gives us some insight into why the character looks the way they do.

It's a common trait of bad writing to confuse who a person is with what they look like, and spend a lot of time telling us about the latter because they haven't put effort into the former. Any time you see a detailed physical description of a character and nothing in the description is imminently relevant to plot or personality, suspect hack writing.

And I disagree, unless it goes to excess, because I want to know what characters look like. To only describe things that has a "why" connected to it seems overly restricting and quite frankly makes the setting and charcters dull.

If we are going to follow your advice, most charactes would have no real description at all, since hair color, eye color, voice, skin tone many many times don't have any "why" connected to them. They would just be faceless manequins.

You might be a fan of minimalistic writing, but I am not. I prefer a flowery language. You also ignored my main point above... the description helps fleshing out the setting, if not the character.

[Psyborg]

They do exist, and have been successful.

Stormdancer, by Jay Kristoff, is one of the most recent and most blatant examples.

Although not intended as such, Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) seems very anime-styled to me (I think there's a lot of overlap both in content and style between sci-fi anime and Western cyberpunk in general).

Australian author Kylie Chan's work draws on Chinese culture rather than Japanese, but the Oriental supernatural martial-arts themes are at least broadly similar from the Westerner's point of view, though the writing style isn't really anime-ish. (Dark Heavens trilogy: White Tiger, Red Phoenix, Blue Dragon; Journey to Wudang trilogy: Earth to Hell, Hell to Heaven, Heaven to Wudang.)

Jane Lindskold's Land of Smoke and Sacrifice series (so far: Thirteen Orphans, Nine Gates, Five Odd Honors) is another Chinese-mythology-inspired work, and from what I remember- it's been years since I read any of them- the writing is less blatantly traditionally Western in style than Chan's.

[Prime32]

Although not intended as such, Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) seems very anime-styled to me (I think there's a lot of overlap both in content and style between sci-fi anime and Western cyberpunk in general).The Matrix was based on Ghost in the Shell, which was based on Blade Runner (aka Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?).

[Nerd-o-rama]

They do exist, and have been successful.

Stormdancer, by Jay Kristoff, is one of the most recent and most blatant examples.

Although not intended as such, Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) seems very anime-styled to me (I think there's a lot of overlap both in content and style between sci-fi anime and Western cyberpunk in general).


I think that's a combination of Stephenson's (and other cyberpunk authors') Japanophilia and the fact that the entire anime cyberpunk genre - like everything else cyberpunk - was inspired by Neuromancer by way of Snow Crash; Snow Crash being the flashier and more over the top take on the idea.

[GoblinArchmage]

As a result, I have been utterly afraid to put any of my stories to pen because they would never find an audience.

The problem is not that you use anime conventions in your stories; it is that you aren't actually writing. If you want to write something, then stop making excuses and do it.


Most of my plots are very complex and feature highly involved settings that would take a monstrous wall of text to describe in-full.

That's all well and good, but if you don't start writing then it means absolutely nothing.

[Joran]

The problem is not that you use anime conventions in your stories; it is that you aren't actually writing. If you want to write something, then stop making excuses and do it.

That's all well and good, but if you don't start writing then it means absolutely nothing.

Neil Gaiman agrees:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/a8bb25ac7c00c345b80bda56f44bba94/tumblr_mfpq2mRIlK1rkh53fo1_400.jpg

[Avilan the Grey]

The problem is not that you use anime conventions in your stories; it is that you aren't actually writing. If you want to write something, then stop making excuses and do it.

This. It was my original point: I am generally not interested in Japanese popular culture. But for the love of (deity) please PLEASE start writing. The more artists and writers there are, the better!

[Salbazier]

Well, there is these things called light novels, which can be described as 'anime in written medium'. Some of them has been translated and published in English. So, there is indeed a market for such things.

This is likely echoing other posts, but unless you plan to include illustrations (as light novels would do, and no, you don't have to draw it yourself) spiky hair, bishonen, ect hardly matters. There are ways to describe those elements without necessarily invoking anime-imagery and if you cut them out, unlikely to affect the plot much. For that matter, out of all (translated) japanese written materials I've ever read, none I remember ever described its characters with those rainbow hair, even if the illustration depict them in every sort of weird colors. Silver hair or japanese with brown hair is about the worst I've ever found. Fanfics (written in english) are about the only places where I've ever found people being described as having blue hair.

Other stuffs you mentioned, while may affect the plot deeper, don't necessarily come out to the readers as anime-esque either even if you write them with anime in mind.