On Sat, 23 Aug 1997, Christopher Angel wrote:

There are several things you have to remember when writing original fiction
that you don't have to remember when writing anime.  First, you have to
realize that the reader has no background knowledge.  If I had never seen
Ranma 1/2, and you started talking about curses and stuff in a fiction, I
would have no idea what the hell you were talking about.  You have to take
this into account in an original fic, and give the reader the background he
wants in an entertaining way.  Second, you have to grab the reader's
attention, much more so than you would in a fanfiction.  Why is that?
Because if I'm reading a fanfic, I'm already interested.  I like the world,
I like the story I've seen, and I'm curious to see how you have explored
that worldset.  In an original fic, you have to start from scratch, it's
much more difficult.

All valid points; but they're also true of an anime or manga you've never
seen/read.

For example, if I'd never read Ranma 1/2 before, and I sat down to read
it, I wouldn't know what all these curses and whatnot were EITHER.  That's
what the first story arc is for; it explains these.  :)

The same is true of new fiction series; Katherine Kerr, a very good author
I know, wrote a wonderful series of books (still ongoing) called the
Deverry and the Westlands chronicals.  Now, when you first start reading
the series, you don't know anything about the past of Deverry, about the
nature of dweomer (magic in that land), or a heck of a lot about the
characters who we follow across several hundred years and multiple
reincarnations (except for one character who's cursed by a foolish promise
to the gods to never die until he sets all these people's lives right).
But by the end of the first book, Kit's managed to give us a lot more
info.  By the end of the 6th or 7th book, we know the characters as well
as we might know our favorite Ranma characters (better, probably.
Rumiko Takahashi can tell an amusing story, but Kit's better at giving
real character depth and motivation.  Helps that Deverry isn't a comedy,
too... ^_-).

Any 'original' work (e.g. not derivative of something that already exists) 
will face this same situation.  Sure, if you already know Ranma 1/2, it's
easy to fall into the flow of a story based on it; but if you only read
stories based on things you already knew, or only watched anime that were
continuations of existing series you saw, there's a lot of cool things
that'd be missed out on.

Just my $0.02 + state sales tax where applicable.

----[Loki]-----------------------------------------------------------------
Jeremy Blackman / Anime fan/fanfic author, Game Designer/Engineer
loki@maison-otaku.net (personal mail) / Maison Otaku Productions founder
loki@thekeep.org      (mailing lists) / Fanfic author / anime
jeremy@lith.com       (work)          / Monolith Productions