Fiction Writing (Come back later, I don't got anything good up yet)

Untitled (ongoing) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Absolute Truth Detective Agency (stalled) 1

Enslavers (ongoing) 1 2

Unlikely Companions (dead) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (Side Interlude 1 2 3 4 ) 11 12 13 14

All You Ranmas (dead) 1 2 3 4




I like to read good novels. Unfortunately, most of the hyped ones, I really don't like all that much. Well, if you want something done right, do it yourself. I started writi ng back in about 2002, starting with fanfics for the anime series "Ranma 1/2," which is a very strange and funny comic by Rumiko Takahashi about a boy martial artist who turns into a girl when splashed with cold water. My very first stories is titled "All You Ranmas," which was supposed to be a science fiction/mystery. I got in about 4 chapters (ab out 15 pages each), but then lost interest, because it lost a fundamental element of Ranma 1/2.. humor. So, despite the decent feedback I was getting, I iced that story and st arted over.

I next started planning for and writing a behemoth epic fantasy/science fiction story which I tentatively titled "Chess Pieces." Well, planning it was a lot of fun, writing ou t all of the character concepts for something like twenty main characters, and organizing all 100+ chapters of plot. Then I realized I was never going to finish something like this, and that I should start smaller because I'll improve as I go.

So then (around late 2003) I turned back to fanfiction, and wrote a Sailor Moon/Ranma 1/2/Marmalade Boy/Urusei Yatsura crossover I called "Unlikely Companions." Unfortunately, I had more or less lost my following in the Ranma 1/2 fanfic community by then, and was left with only one online reader to provide C&C. I had fun practicing writing humor. But around the end of the first arc (14 chapters), I picked up reading mangas by Mitsiru Adachi, and he quickly became my favorite manga author, because his works had humor lac ed at just the right concentration that it didn't prevent the formation of a cohorent, non-slaptick plot.

In the Spring of 2004, I got depressed for various reasons, and started my hand at writing an original fiction novel set in ancient China. Arthurian legends and Greek mytholog y have captured substantial mainstream interest (and more recently, Japanese history), but never any ancient Chinese stories. Why? I wondered that, and decided there were two main reasons: First, because no Chinese-American really has sat down to write an entertaining story (Joy Luck Club and related are a bit too serious to be enjoyed by the mass es), and second, because Chinese names, places, and history is too obscure. What was needed was someone like me who knew lots about ancient Chinese tales of adventure, who had a knack for writing in English, and was willing to bastardize the contents to some extent to achieve popular appeal. I spent something like 2 months doing nothing but writing 11 chapters (again, about 15 pages each) of this story, which I have still yet to name.

Around this time, my mood picked back up, and I started doing more research. I've been busy with that for from Fall 2004 to now (Summer 2006), so my fiction writing skills hav e probably degraded a bit. I've started a few other stories in the meantime, but haven't gotten out more than 1 chapter for any of them. But I do want to finish some works at some point in my life.