Boy, the one time I actually have an opportunity to 'hire' a writer, I don't know who to ask. (I put hire in quotes because it's a typical budgetless indie project, although a manga, not a computer game.) The project is something like Naruto or Bleach, more their romantic comedy moments and less their drama/angst/villain of the week stuff. Also it will actually end, not go on and on. The reason I don't know who to ask is, I specifically need a writer who can write a lesbian romance. That's the only unfilled slot in the cast, we are missing a pair of female characters, and at least one of them needs to be a fighter who thinks fighting is fun. So, anyone know any good yuri (lesbian romance) writers who would like to work on a fantasy combat manga?

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
Boy, the one time I actually have an opportunity to 'hire' a writer, I don't know who to ask. (I put hire in quotes because it's a typical budgetless indie project, although a manga, not a computer game.) The project is something like Naruto or Bleach, more their romantic comedy moments and less their drama/angst/villain of the week stuff. Also it will actually end, not go on and on.

The reason I don't know who to ask is, I specifically need a writer who can write a lesbian romance. That's the only unfilled slot in the cast, we are missing a pair of female characters, and at least one of them needs to be a fighter who thinks fighting is fun. So, anyone know any good yuri (lesbian romance) writers who would like to work on a fantasy combat manga?

A good writer can write any character well. It's not as if there are "dragon specialist" writers out there writing all those fantasy novels. Hell, last time I looked, Tolkien wasn't even an elf!

On the contrary, I would totally disagree. I'd be awful if somebody told me to write horror or action, because all my practice and interest has been aimed at science fiction, fantasy, and romance. You especially can't write well a genre you've never read. And I all the time hear other writers talk about how this story was an experiment with this plot element, and that story was an experiment with that character archetype, and some experiments turn out well and some don't.

It's the same with drawing; an artist can be great at people and awful at landscapes, or vice versa. Animals and machines alse take quite different sets of skills. And it's a general trait of people that no one is great at doing something they've never done before.

Quote: Original post by sunandshadow
On the contrary, I would totally disagree. I'd be awful if somebody told me to write horror or action, because all my practice and interest has been aimed at science fiction, fantasy, and romance.

I've argued -- in the British Science Fiction Association's own magazine no less -- that "Science Fiction" and "Fantasy" are not "genres". They're settings. Pointlessly vague ones at that.

Anne McCaffrey writes love stories that happen to be set in the future.

Karen Traviss writes political novels about armed conflicts set in either the future, or in the Star Wars "universe".

Chalk. Cheese. Both, however, are, for some inexplicable reason, displayed on the "Science Fiction / Fantasy" bookshelf in my local bookstore. (I use "bookstore" in its loosest possible sense in this case.)

Isaac Asimov wrote mystery stories (and many outright logic puzzles) that were set in the future and revolved around the application of science and reason. His contemporaries also wrote similar stories, although many liked to use the setting to satirise (e.g. George Orwell, H. G. Wells, Robert Heinlein, Philip K. Dick and Harry Harrison.)

Tolkien wrote fairy stories in an attempt to create a new, "British", mythology. (Read "Tree & Leaf" if you haven't done so.) These were action / adventure stories following a mythic quest structure.

Basically: "SF" and "Fantasy" are meaningless bilge. Nobody refers to Peter Ellis' "Brother Cadfael" novels as "History Fiction": they are -- quite rightly -- filed under "Murder / Mystery".

Quote: You especially can't write well a genre you've never read. And I all the time hear other writers talk about how this story was an experiment with this plot element, and that story was an experiment with that character archetype, and some experiments turn out well and some don't.

So practice! Stretch yourself! How can you grow as a writer if you never leave your comfort zone?

Quote: It's the same with drawing; an artist can be great at people and awful at landscapes, or vice versa. Animals and machines alse take quite different sets of skills. And it's a general trait of people that no one is great at doing something they've never done before.

Today's civil engineer knew sweet Fanny Adams when he was born. Same for everyone else: none of us were born knowing how to program, how to read and write, how to play an instrument, etc. We had to learn it.

The great artists studied their craft first. Want to draw people? Study anatomy. Want to paint flowers? Study botany.

Composers and musicians study music: its notation; the modes (like Phrygian, Doric and Mixolydian); the many forms it has taken through history; its production -- from traditional folk instrumentals through musique concrète (e.g. the original "Doctor Who" theme music) right up to modern computer-based sequencers and audio workstations.

And writers have to study their craft too. Study the forms and genres. Read widely -- not just fiction, but about the writers themselves, so you can see the context they work in. Read books on world mythologies and get together with other writers. Practice your craft. Test it.


Yes, you'll fall off that bike the first time you ride it, but you'll get better at it with practice.

Craft is learnable. Only talent is innate.

As I see it, it's not that science fiction and fantasy are pointlessly vague as genres, it's that the term genre is used in an (almost) pointlessly vague way, to refer to two different ways of classifying fiction. I say 'almost' because it's undeniable that current genres, no matter how inconsistently defined, are valid functional descriptions of things that will consistently appeal to the taste of one individual or group and not appeal to the taste of another individual or group. You may think that there's some inherent virtue to writing all genres like a renaissance man, I may disagree and say that it's better to become a master of one or two genres like a high-paid specialist, but both of our opinions are mostly irrelevant because writers are a small special case compared to the vast number of readers and other types of audiences. It's a statistical fact that audiences identify themselves as fans of one or a few particular genres and subgenres, and when they look for new entertainment to consume they look within those categories for pieces similar to those they have already enjoyed.

This does not happen just because people prefer the familiar - it happens because the type of entertainment one consumes (and produces) is both shaped by, and contributing to the continual reshaping of, one's identity. A nice metaphor for this is that genres are ecological niches, and both individuals and audiences have a species based on what they eat. Some species are omnivores, some are as specific as koalas or pandas which only eat a single type of plant. And that niche in turn shapes the species - animals that eat meat evolve teeth especially good at tearing meat but bad at grinding plants, animals that eat plants do the opposite, and omnivores develop teeth that are fairly good at everything but not great at any one thing. In terms of writing, this is what I mean when I say that all writers are bad at what they haven't read or practiced - it's not just that they are ignorant of a genre's conventions and existing body of work, it's that their writing instincts have been attuned to what they usually read and write, and instincts that are good for one genre are bad for another, and vice versa. Bringing this back to the topic of science fiction and fantasy, you can really see this when a writer who hasn't grown up reading science fiction and fantasy tries to write it, and it's terrible - not terrible because it's structurally unsound or low quality writing, but terrible because it doesn't really grasp the purpose of the genre or use the genre's unique tools in an affective way or to an end that that genre's audience will agree with.

I said that genre definitions are inconsistent and actually refers to two different factors. Those factors are plot type (as you are getting at when you mention logic puzzle stories, and mysteries or love stories which merely happen to be set in the future or a fantasy world), and theme/atmosphere, which tends to be mistaken for setting because it usually corresponds with setting. Science fiction and fantasy tend to differ in their thematic position on what kind of 'sense' they need to make: whether the universe operates on magic and mythic 'dream logic' or some variety of science and regular logic. But the two genres are grouped together into speculative fiction, which as a whole takes the thematic position that it is good and useful to imagine alternate worlds; this is opposed to practically all other genres of fiction which instead think it is better and more useful to imagine instances of the real world.

That's only one way of dividing the genres up. An equally valid way is to combine science fiction, speculative fiction, and historical fiction as milieu fiction, which is characterized by the setting contributing a unique slant to the characters and plot. Milieu fiction could then be opposed on the one hand to character study fiction, which focus on aspects of human nature that are the same in any setting, and on the other hand to plot-driven fiction, which focuses on events that have their own kind of universal identity independent of what individual characters experience them or what setting they occur in.

At any rate, back to the issue of me specifically wanting a writer who is already experienced in writing lesbian romance - it's great if people want to experiment and grow as writers, but they can do it on their own time, for this project I need someone who already knows what they are doing.

As for myself, I want to point out that there are lots of other and probably better ways for me to experiment and grow as a writer than trying to write a genre I dislike and am not a reader of. Of course I agree that writers have to study their craft by reading, and I would go so far as to say that a writer who isn't always trying something new might as well be a zombie, personal evolution is an essential part of being an artist. But there's no justification for you to demand everyone try writing every genre. If you're talking about teenagers, that kind of broad experimentation can be useful for figuring out what your talents and interests are. But no one can reach adulthood in our media-saturated culture without having already been exposed to several examples of every genre of fiction; what would it accomplish for them to become more familiar with something they already know enough about to know they aren't interested in it? It's just not a very productive use of the writer's time and effort. Becoming deeply familiar with one genre and producing masterful works in that genre is just a lot more useful than becoming shallowly familiar with all genres and producing one or two mediocre works in each of them.

If I wrote in manner similar to the content of the books that I read, either the world would have gone crazy, or my style would differ greatly. For beyond what it is that you are writing, or writing about, no matter if it is a neolithic romance or a far future blood bath, you still have perspective. More than just first, second, or third person, perspective is a factor that defines all books.

Lets use an example of over-hyped, well known literature, Harry Potter. Over the course of the series, it was taken from the perspective of one character, Harry Potter, in third person, referring to his thoughts, but not generally stating them, nor allowing the character to narrate. In addition, the perspective was such that it allowed the third-person narrator to allude towards future events. Would the series of differed greatly if that perspective was different? The answer is a resounding yes.

If it was in first person, or third person with less 'narration' and followed multiple characters, or was more detail than event driven, it would be vastly different. As would any other book, novel, or script whose total perspective shifts from one to another; it is the paint upon the canvas that is the plot and setting. As such, if you already have the plot and setting in mind, and it is merely a matter of creating the right perspective for which you hire, perhaps you should ask yourself how it is that you wish this romance to be perceived.

How I wish the romance to be perceived? Well, I could certainly describe in detail what I imagine this lesbian romance would be like. For example it would have to have either a happy romantic ending or a comic ending, because tragedy is incompatible with the project's overall genre of romantic action with a side of comedy. But, defining what I want more and more narrowly would only help if I actually had multiple candidates interested in writing it. In actuality I had 3 people say they'd investigate the project and decide if they were interested, but after that I didn't hear anything back from any of them. So I pretty much have to decide whether to do without a lesbian couple or convert one of my male characters to a female and attempt to write it myself. I thought about creating an additional pair of characters but, I already have 4 major characters, that's about all my brain can cope with, particularly since it's not the only writing project I'm working on. (I have actual fans clamoring for another chapter of an original story for once, I need to get off my butt and write it before they get bored and wander away lol.)

You could try looking for visual novel writers. There's a community here with several relatively experienced writers that might be interested. Although it's focused on visual novels and dating sims, it's probably the closest you'll get to a "yuri game writers" forum.

Thanks, I'll have a look there. :)