# Two Things That I Need Your Help With



## Victor Anderson (Jan 18, 2015)

Ok, so I don't have to make two posts about ruffly the same thing, I'll ask both questions here:

So, I just started working on my first writing with anthropomorphic characters... and one thing made itself clear. That things is, maybe this is just me, but it's a bit awkward to switch from human to furry characters. I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it's an odd transition for me. So, I'd like to ask any furry writers if you have any pointers for someone just starting to write fandom related things.

The second thing I would like to ask for help with, is a small problem I can foresee having with the story I'm working on. Later on, there is a calm period in witch the main character doesn't really do much... can you guys suggest a good way to do a time skip? Like, a fairly large time skip that goes from around 1701 to 2014...?


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## Half-Note (Jan 18, 2015)

I just started writing a fan-fic about WW2 with furries, which is me very first story with anthro-characters, which I'll upload on the main page sooner or later. Transition shouldn't be too much of a problem, really. You just replace words like kids with cubs, hand with paw, and other general human terms with their animal-counterpart. So for example "He held my hand as he led me towards his bed." becomes "He held my paw as he led me towards his sleeping pillow.", and "Drill Sergeant Johnny was screaming at the reruits." becomes "Drill Sergeant Biscuit was barking at the recruits.". Should be more simple to do this once you've written more anthro-stories. I suggest you start out simple with short stories, or maybe even poems.

Second issue: Will the story's protagonist be alive then? If yes, throw him into cryo-sleep and have them take him out of the refrigerator when you want, or even better, let the protagonist die at the end of the action-y part, and let a new protagonist take over exploring from their point of view. New character, new background, new way to explain links to the primary protagonist. Perhaps they were related? Does the secondary protagonist come over something related to the primary one?

I wish you luck in your story-writing, and feel free to message me or ask me here if you need some more help.


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## RedSavage (Jan 18, 2015)

1: Unless the furryness has somethin to do with it, just stick with human characters. 

But if you're gonna go Redwall style, Id suggest...well, reading a Redwall book. What do you read currently? 

2: Make it a flash back. Just notate some change in time. Use a paragraph break.


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## Victor Anderson (Jan 18, 2015)

Dog-likeDenis said:


> I just started writing a fan-fic about WW2 with furries, which is me very first story with anthro-characters, which I'll upload on the main page sooner or later. Transition shouldn't be too much of a problem, really. You just replace words like kids with cubs, hand with paw, and other general human terms with their animal-counterpart. So for example "He held my hand as he led me towards his bed." becomes "He held my paw as he led me towards his sleeping pillow.", and "Drill Sergeant Johnny was screaming at the reruits." becomes "Drill Sergeant Biscuit was barking at the recruits.". Should be more simple to do this once you've written more anthro-stories. I suggest you start out simple with short stories, or maybe even poems.
> 
> Second issue: Will the story's protagonist be alive then? If yes, throw him into cryo-sleep and have them take him out of the refrigerator when you want, or even better, let the protagonist die at the end of the action-y part, and let a new protagonist take over exploring from their point of view. New character, new background, new way to explain links to the primary protagonist. Perhaps they were related? Does the secondary protagonist come over something related to the primary one?
> 
> I wish you luck in your story-writing, and feel free to message me or ask me here if you need some more help.



It's just... I said awkward, but thats not really correct. Anyways... I'll take your advice and run.

As for the time skip: The character is immortal (Well, he can be killed, but he doesn't die of age.)... I have a few things planned for what may happen, but nothing much.


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## Chicory (Jan 18, 2015)

I think the time break depends on how you plan to format this story. I read a piece from a woman named Kij Johnson who told the story in seasons of spring, summer, fall, and winter, but most people don't approach it as part of the story itself. Either way, I really would suggest skipping over that time period somehow if he doesn't do much. There's nothing worse than filler in most cases.

Novels I read look best when they have something like parts I, II, and III as major sections of the story when there's also a major time skip. Other people use chapters, or simply note that time has passed. In short stories there are sometimes three asterisks to show that there's a scene break, which can also be a time break. Like these:

***​


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## Victor Anderson (Jan 18, 2015)

RedSavage said:


> 1: Unless the furryness has somethin to do with it, just stick with human characters.
> 
> But if you're gonna go Redwall style, Id suggest...well, reading a Redwall book. What do you read currently?
> 
> 2: Make it a flash back. Just notate some change in time. Use a paragraph break.



I'm using furry characters for a change of scenery.
I'll look into redwall... thanks!


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## Conker (Jan 18, 2015)

For furry stuff, I"d strongly advise not going with jargon. If your characters are holding instruments like a person would, then they have hands and not paws. 

I found the change strange too, going from people to talking animals. Once you play around with it for a chapter or so, it should hopefully sort itself out and feel more natural. They are, afterall, characters like you'd find in any other story, just with a different aesthetic.

I do second reading Redwall stuff though. Jacques is a great author, and while all of those novels are kids books, they're charming and fun. I grew up with them, but i reread about four as I wrote my dumb novel comprised of talking animal people. 

What was hard was not using words like "man" "woman" or "people" since those all have connotations with humans. Jacques uses "beasts" in place of people, though I went with "creature." The Tooth and Claw comic series also uses "creature." 

As to your time skip, without knowing your formatting, it's hard to say. As someone said, a big ol section break or just going "part two" should suffice.

I can hopefully better help if you want to get more specific with what you're having issues with, both working with furry stuff and the time skip.


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## Victor Anderson (Jan 19, 2015)

Conker said:


> For furry stuff, I"d strongly advise not going with jargon. If your characters are holding instruments like a person would, then they have hands and not paws.
> 
> I found the change strange too, going from people to talking animals. Once you play around with it for a chapter or so, it should hopefully sort itself out and feel more natural. They are, afterall, characters like you'd find in any other story, just with a different aesthetic.
> 
> ...



When it comes to working with furries, I think it's just me getting used to creating a new type of character. Don't get me wrong, it's a good change... lovely change of scenery, but I'll have to get used to it's connotations.

As for the time skip... My problem is that I am not satisfied with doing the "Section break" or "Part two" things. I'm trying to find a way to put in filler style stuff, all while making it not seem like filler, as much as another section to the story. I guessing you mean context when you say format? If so - and I'm not slightly drunk, witch I am. - the main character serves a demon man for a couple hundred years, and then is released from that service... the time skip is from when he is released (1701), to modern day.


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## Conker (Jan 19, 2015)

Well for one thing, you don't ever want "filler" in a story. Ever. The big part of editing is actually cutting down on everything you don't actually need (in my case it was like 30k words worth of shit). If you really don't have anything interesting to put in that timeskip, then it would probably be best to just start a new section.

Barring that, you could maybe do a series of journal entries by your character. Jump ahead in dates by a good margin. Keep them short and to the point, but that might allow you something more easy to digest than "PART TWO" If you did em right, they'd also serve as character development, showing his change from slave to not slave over a long period of time.


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## Zeitzbach (Jan 19, 2015)

Moving from human char to a furry char, unless it's a feral, is just the same as writing human stuffs with some trait added like "Gotta keep in mind his sense of smell since he's a canine and that he probably hate eating Chocolate because that kills the real world dogs"

For time skip, if you don't want to go poof from one point to another then just go like "Blah blah blah then attacked and attacked and finlaly. war was over. In 1850, Seeing hat blah blah, did balh blah. But 40 years after that, blah blah blah blah. "


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## KrysleQuinsen (Jan 19, 2015)

For the first, you could make your character undergo some kind of transformation, if you insist on being anthro. As you pointed out of being immortality, could this be linked to it?

For second, I don't remember a story with that huge time skip while protagonist is still alive though, I think I'd seen about 1-2 years most. And with that 300 years things could change like culture and technology, unless everything is in recovery state after some destruction?


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## Victor Anderson (Jan 20, 2015)

KrysleQuinsen said:


> For the first, you could make your character undergo some kind of transformation, if you insist on being anthro. As you pointed out of being immortality, could this be linked to it?
> 
> For second, I don't remember a story with that huge time skip while protagonist is still alive though, I think I'd seen about 1-2 years most. And with that 300 years things could change like culture and technology, unless everything is in recovery state after some destruction?



Nah... I try to leave history alone. Except for the start of the story... I kinda give history the finger then.


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## Fopfox (Jan 21, 2015)

Victor Anderson said:


> Ok, so I don't have to make two posts about ruffly the same thing, I'll ask both questions here:
> 
> So, I just started working on my first writing with anthropomorphic characters... and one thing made itself clear. That things is, maybe this is just me, but it's a bit awkward to switch from human to furry characters. I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it's an odd transition for me. So, I'd like to ask any furry writers if you have any pointers for someone just starting to write fandom related things.
> 
> The second thing I would like to ask for help with, is a small problem I can foresee having with the story I'm working on. Later on, there is a calm period in witch the main character doesn't really do much... can you guys suggest a good way to do a time skip? Like, a fairly large time skip that goes from around 1701 to 2014...?



You're uncertain about writing furries coming from writing humans. Congratulations! You understand that there's a disconnect between writing furries and humans, this is a good thing and means you're trying to avoid humans in fur coats. No kidding, a lot of furry writers write without thinking too much about the different mentality and/or physiology a furry might have compared to a human and that ones that do...well, the focus is mostly on certain anatomical parts. As for how to adapt to this, consider how things might be different for the character, if your character is a wolf, include more scent-based descriptions from his perspective, it will be a lot of work considering humans are sight-based animals, but that is part of the challenge, yes?

For me, I usually do humans as the protagonists though, so I'm a bit weak in this regard.

For the time skip, hint towards something that will happen during the time-skip, do the time-skip, and fill in the details later. If that time serving the demon was traumatizing, start sometime later with the character holding in some deep issues, but don't address them until later. This creates an initial hook, "What will happen?" and after the time-skip, "What happened?" keeping your readers interested.


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