Hello, there friend! First of all, I wanted to tell you a big sorry for not buying your book even now. I'm having a bit of problem with my credit card and shit, but I'll buy it eventually so aye.
Thank you very much :)
It seems like most of my questions has already been answered but here are a few things I'd like to ask Lance the writer.
1) How do you generally like "writing down" your thoughts? Hand? Typewriter? Or Laptop?
My main method of writing down my thoughts is on a WordPad document on my PC. In fact, let me explain how I spend my time on my computer: When I turn on my computer, I first open a WordPad document, before opening Google Chrome (as well as Pokémon Showdown! and usually YouTube (for music) along with it), Pokémon Online, as well as any other places on which I usually idle. Whenever I have any conversation anywhere other than on Discord (on which all conversations are accessible at any time, no matter how long ago they were), in the Anything Goes room on Pokémon Showdown! (in which I can use /roomlog at any time to retrieve those conversations), or in private message on Pokémon Online (since such conversations are always automatically saved in a folder on my computer), I copy and paste them all in their entirety onto the WordPad document I have open. Aside from serving as a means of storing my conversations, the WordPad document also serves as a place on which I can write down any thoughts, quotes, philosophies or ideas (about my story or otherwise) as I think of them throughout the day. The WordPad document is also the place where I usually write any forum posts of mine other than the shortest of such, with every single post of mine in this thread, including this very one, being initially written on a WordPad document, before being copied and pasted to the message box at the bottom of this thread. I know that the Smogon forums have a memory system that saves my posts even in the event that my browser crashes, my computer shuts down, or I close my browser by accident (I have memorized most of the forum BB codes, as I have been using internet forums such as Neoseeker for many years now, so I can bold, italicize, use fonts of different colors, link to other pages, insert images, and stuff like that on my WordPad document without any problems whatsoever). However, doing this for the sake of security is a habit of mine which I developed when I used to write long posts on other forums in the past, in which this memory system did not exist, such as Neoseeker, GameFAQs, and my various clan forums throughout history. I also make a brand new WordPad document for this purpose every once in a while, as it takes too long to open and makes my computer lag if any of such WordPad documents ever becomes too big. In this way, you can view these WordPad documents of mine as diaries of some sort.
When I don't have a WordPad document in front of me, I tend to write down my ideas on a piece of paper. This usually happens when I am not at home (I always have a pen and paper with me when I am out, and back when I was in University, I would write this stuff down in the back of my exercise books), or when I am in bed after having turned off my computer but before I fall asleep (I tend to think of a surprisingly high number of things at that time).
2) What do you do when you are hit by writer's block?
My primary method involves pacing around my room and daydreaming about stuff/forming scenes in my mind while listening to music on YouTube. The music I listen to for this purpose is typically not songs with lyrics (although particularly epic songs with lyrics such as
The Lion From The North by Sabaton work sometimes), but rather, original soundtracks from Animé, video games or movies. However, listening to
any original soundtrack from such sources does not work for getting past writer's block - for that purpose, I need to listen to some intense soundtracks, generally those that play in epic fight scenes or boss battles, as only such soundtracks can really stimulate my mind and make me imagine cool stuff happening. For example, I had recently written a quite epic scene in my sequel to
Purity Before Existence, and I can honestly say that I could not have written that scene as well as I did had I not listened to
this theme from the Bleach Animé while doing so. For some reasons, while doing all of the aforementioned, I like to hold a 30cm ruler in my hand, throw it into the air, have it do a 360 degree spin in the air, before catching it again as it falls back down, and then repeating this process many times, as the repetition of this motion somehow really helps to stimulate my mind, enabling me to think more creatively (I have become so used to this motion that I don't even notice myself doing it).
If all of the above fail, I may go out for a walk while thinking about stuff, or maybe stop writing for a long time until inspiration returns. Another method I use to overcome writer's block is to completely stop thinking about the plot of the story I am currently writing, and instead, I go to my WordPad document and begin brainstorming ideas about new characters, as well as the appearances, personalities, powers, abilities and weapons of said characters. After creating some new characters, I think about how to incorporate such characters into my story, an act that sometimes remotivates me to write.
3) If Mega-Ray was to realistically use Draco Meteor on a place like Pacifidlog Town. What's gonna happen?
I have two answers to this question.
Firstly, if you would like to receive an immediate answer to the question, just picture a long and epic cutscene that often plays to the song you posted in this very message of yours. That is literally what I believe happens every time Mega Rayquaza uses Draco Meteor.
Secondly, if you would prefer a different answer to your question, which would take much longer to satisfy you, another very accurate description of what I believe may happen if Mega Rayquaza were to use Draco Meteor can be found somewhere in
Purity Before Existence itself. Read it :)
4) Have you ever played Final Fantasy? If so, what is your favorite part, character, Esper/summon, and ability? Explain in less than 500 words.
Final Fantasy VII is the only one I have ever played. My favorite part would be Sephiroth burning down Nibelheim, due to the sheer brutality of the scene, which highlights the cruelty and insanity of the character who carried out that act. My favorite character would be Sephiroth, due to the aforementioned character traits of his, combined with his cool-looking appearance, his awesome-looking weapon, as well as his incredibly flashy and destructive powers and abilities. My favorite Esper/summon is Bahamut... for reasons you can probably guess. My favorite ability would be Safer Sephiroth's Supernova, due to how grand and over-the-top it is, though my answer to this question would be Omnislash if we only count abilities usable by a player-controlled character. Two attacks used by two different characters in
Purity Before Existence are also inspired by this move, as well as some similar attacks I have seen in other games, such as Ike's Great Aether in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS/Wii U. Try to guess what those two attacks are after you read the book :)
5) Anything else you'd like to say to other fellow writers out there?
The best advice I can give is to simply go nuts. Do not allow yourself to be restricted by anything, such as the question of what
most people would like to read (as opposed to what you yourself truly want to write), or even the fundamental rules of grammar and the English language in general. For example, throughout this interview, you may have noticed that I had written some things in ways that aren't "proper" when looking at the way the English language is meant to be used, such as when I capitalize the words "Ultimate," "Greatest," and later on in this post, "Justice" in situations in which it would technically be incorrect to do so. But I do not care, because while it may be incorrect, it still looks cool to my eyes. After all, a piece of writing is a work of art, and there should not be any rules governing how art is made - all that should matter is that it's beautiful. I even know of someone who, at least in the past, never capitalized words like "English" and "French," and never started a new paragraph every time a new person began speaking. In fact, he would often write entire chapters of his stories, or in some cases entire stories without a single paragraph break, and in general, he only ever started a new paragraph whenever he cut to a different scene, with new paragraphs almost always starting with "Meanwhile,". Yet, despite the extremely unconventional methods by which he wrote, I still love going back to read many of his stories, even up to this very day.
Also, once your book becomes popular, it will only become natural that people will become attached to certain characters. But do not avoid killing off any characters in sequels, or doing anything that fans may not like just because doing so may upset down. Always stick to the story
you want to write. Backlash from fans should not prevent you from loving your life.
I am undeniably extremely proud of the way
Purity Before Existence turned out... but at the same time, I also have many regrets in terms of the way I had made my book... not in the initial writing stage, but rather, in the editing stage. After I had finished writing the first draft of my book, I began exploring many sources on the internet pertaining to what "good writing" is, including my editor, numerous websites I found via Google searches, as well as various people I talked to in Pokémon Showdown!'s Writing room. In the process of doing all of that, I began conforming significantly to that which I perceived to be "good writing" according to the aforementioned sources and the general consensus, and began editing my story in order to conform to those "ideals," since ultimately, I
really wanted my book to sell well, as I want to use it and its sequels as a means to being able to comfortably live a life in which I don't need to work. However, in the process of all of that conforming and pursuit of money, I began to lose sight of
why I loved writing fiction in the first place. Even all the way back in 2003, I had written long stories... despite knowing that I wasn't going to earn a single cent in doing so. I wrote stories for the sake of experiencing the thrill and excitement of battle scenes, the escapism that naturally comes from this activity, as well as a means of expressing my soul. It says a lot that, when writing the sequel to
Purity Before Existence, I had literally procrastinated for
months back when I used to tell myself that I was writing my book for the sake of impressing others... and yet, as soon as I told myself that I am writing my book ultimately for the sake of entertaining myself and pleasing my own sense of aesthetics, my motivation to write returned to me pretty much instantaneously, and I managed to write about four chapters within a week.
Here are some of the things I regret doing in writing
Purity Before Existence:
1. In my book, there are two scenes that each take place in a different throne room. In the first of those scenes, the throne room in question contains nine newly-introduced characters, with two more newly-introduced characters entering the throne room later on in the scene. And in the second of those scenes, the throne room contains thirteen newly-introduced characters. When I had written the first draft of my book, I had described the physical appearances of all eleven of the characters in the first scene immediately as they had appeared, and did the same for the thirteen characters who appeared in the second scene. This resulted in my editor saying the following to me when he gave me his feedback:
"These descriptions are far too long and detailed. This huge block of text will turn your readers off. They want to know why they are in this room and what will happen. Emphasise the action and minimise description. I have no idea whether any of these people are important to the action. If so, give us a brief description when they begin acting. This whole block of text has to go" - my editor in reference to my descriptions of the nine newly-introduced characters who were originally in the throne room in the first scene
"This is the action that readers want to read about. The last almost six pages just get in the way of the story and will cause your readers to put the book down and never read further." - my editor in reference to the point at which action began happening again in the chapter
"Similarly, if there is no strategic purpose for including these long and tedious descriptions then they should all be deleted. Five pages of description is too much. This huge amount of text acts as a block to the reader. It seems unnecessary and interferes with the flow of the story." - my editor in reference to my descriptions of the thirteen characters in the second throne room
"It is not appropriate when you describe people who are not major characters such as the group of people in [insert character whose name is removed to avoid spoilers]’s throne room. In this section you have the best part of six pages devoted to describing each character in minute detail. No reader wants to wade through six pages of detailed information about characters of minimal importance to the story. The only two who deserve any special attention at this time are [name removed] and [name removed]. If the other characters appear with a stronger role in a future book then that is when we need to know more about them. In this story they are not much more than audience members." - A general comment he made
After those comments, I edited my story, moving the descriptions of the nine characters originally in the first throne room to the points at which they began speaking or moving in the same chapter. And in the case of the scene with the second throne room, I retained the descriptions of only two of the thirteen newly-introduced characters there, as only those two characters performed any action or spoke any lines in that scene. As for the descriptions of the other eleven characters, I moved them to a much, much later chapter in the book, where those characters were seen again, and where they actually began performing actions or speaking lines.
I do not deny that my editor's comments made sense, and I do see where he is coming from. But for whatever reason, the way I had initially written these two scenes with the complete descriptions of all the characters introduced in them suits my sense of aesthetics way more, as the inclusion of such descriptions gives me a grand and awe-inspiring feeling similar to the one evoked by certain other scenes I've seen elsewhere before, such as the first Captain meeting scene in Bleach, the Espada meeting scene in the same series, as well as the scene that introduced all the S-Class Heroes in One Punch Man. By not immediately describing all the characters, I believe that I have detracted from the "feel" of both scenes (moreso the second one anyway), yet I chose to do so anyway as I thought my readers would greatly prefer things to be that way, and I thought doing so would increase the book's popularity and sales. However, ultimately, I still deeply regret this move, as I did not stay true to my own art.
2. Not staying true to the way I had traditionally used dialogue tags. By convention, dialogue tags are always omitted in conversations with only two participants, as it apparently becomes obvious who spoke. For example...
"Who are you?" asked John.
"I am... that I am," replied Bob.
"Is that so?"
"Indeed."
However, in the first draft of
Purity Before Existence, as well as literally
all the fanfictional stories or Add-on Story posts I had made before it, I never omitted dialogue tags, ever. In other words, I would have written the above conversation like this:
"Who are you?" asked John.
"I am... that I am," replied Bob.
"Is that so?" asked John.
"Indeed," said Bob.
One of my regrets is editing my book to conform with the conventional way of writing dialogue, instead of sticking with my own traditional way, which simply feels more natural to me. This is because I often add actions between dialogue in order to make my scenes feel more "alive." However, doing so only feels natural to me with dialogue tags, and I feel that I insert actions between dialogue so often that I may as well always use dialogue tags anyway. For example...
"Who are you?" asked John, narrowing his eyes as he looked at Bob curiously.
"I am..." said Bob, as he slowly closed his eyes and lowered his head slightly. "That I am," he continued, as he raised his head and reopened his eyes, displaying an evil smile on his face as he looked at John.
"Is that so?" asked John, lowering his head a bit, while using his right hand to grab the hilt of the katana sheathed at the left side of his waist.
"Indeed," said Bob, as he began radiating some powerful, invisible energy from his body, shaking the atmosphere all around, while gently blowing the nearby grass as well as the hair and clothes of both himself and John.
Note: Neither John nor Bob are actual characters in
Purity Before Existence. I just used these two characters in this post as examples to demonstrate my point, and these two characters were quickly made solely for the purpose of this post.
3. In my book, I never refer to a character by his or her name until after that character's name is revealed in-universe, most commonly through dialogue. For example, say my story has a green-haired man named John. After describing his physical appearance, I would always refer to him as simply "the green-haired man" up until the point at which something like this happens:
"If that's really all you've got... then I must say that you're even more pathetic than I thought... John," said Bob with an arrogant smile, as he looked down at the fallen green-haired man at the centre of the crater, while resting the blade of his longsword over his right shoulder and behind his head.
"Sh-Shut up!" said John, as he struggled to push himself back up to his feet, while blood rapidly dripped from his wound, painting the crater beneath him red.
In the first draft of my book, as well as all the stories I had written in the past, I would always, at all points at which I first refer to any given character by their name, include a part outside of dialogue that makes it explicitly clear which character a certain name refers to. For example, the above scene would include the following bolded part:
"If that's really all you've got... then I must say that you're even more pathetic than I thought... John," said Bob with an arrogant smile, as he looked down at the fallen green-haired man at the centre of the crater, while resting the blade of his longsword over his right shoulder and behind his head.
"Sh-Shut up!" said the green-haired man, known as John, as he struggled to push himself back up to his feet, while blood rapidly dripped from his wound, painting the crater beneath him red.
However, while the omission of this part that makes it explicitly clear which name refers to which character may make things look less clumsy, ultimately, I think it is better to use it anyway despite how unconventional it is, because in certain situations, it seriously makes things look less confusing. But I dismissed this feeling of mine for the sake of conformity.
4. Making many minor changes in many different places throughout my book, due to stuff I had read on the internet, or told to me by various people such as my editor, mostly in terms of cutting down on descriptions and therefore making them less vivid than I would have liked them to be.
With all of the above in mind, I am probably going to just revert to my most comfortable writing style in my second book, as well as all other sequels I will write in the years to come.
Also... another advice I would like to give is this: Contrary to what many other people and sources on the internet may say...
do not hire an editor. It is a complete waste of money in my opinion, and the way I see it, editors invariably destroy the soul of art. They love cutting out actions and descriptions, restructuring sentences and dialogue to the point where the original meaning and effect is lost, and they also tend to make many mistakes. For example, consider this piece of dialogue in my book:
‘But then again, the teleological argument can always be defended against by mentioning how just about anything is likely to exist given how big the universe is,
In the edited manuscript he returned to me, my editor somehow, in an attempt to "shorten" or "simplify" my book (since he noted that he thought it was too long), removed the word "against" in the above dialogue, changing its meaning completely.
Furthermore, if they happen to change or cut out some dialogue or important detail in your book, it is actually ridiculously easy for you to miss the fact that it was cut out when you proof-read their edited manuscript, especially if your book is very long. Editors are also human, being perfectly prone to making grammatical errors, many of which are ridiculously easy to miss when reading through a long manuscript. For example, "a powerful fiery aura surged
from of his body" was an error my editor made, and yet I did not notice it until literally
months after his edited manuscript was returned to me, as spotting something like that amidst such a huge manuscript is like spotting one specific fish amidst a vast ocean. The same thing applies to his removal of the word "against" in the above piece of dialogue. It says a lot that, despite having paid my editor a huge amount of money to do his job, I ultimately did not even
use the edited manuscript that he gave me, and instead stuck with my original manuscript, which was completely untouched by him, albeit I did edit it myself based on various tips I learned from him as well as various sources on the internet. Always remember that ultimately, what an editor wants is not the perfection of your book. What they really want is the money that you give them.
I will always tell myself from now on that I am the best writer in the world, and no one on Earth is worthy of being my editor or my critic. I would rather slam my keyboard repeatedly with my hands and call that text a work of art (in fact, there is even a certain scene in my book which discusses a concept
very similar to this, which further contributes to making me regret not following through with a principle explained by, ironically, none other than myself), than to call a story of mine that was butchered by someone else a work of art, even if that person may be a "professional" (exactly what meaning does the word "professional" hold before
my eyes anyway?). Art is not something that can be measured in mathematical terms, or against any rules or standards. Art is something that is experienced with the five (or six. Read one of my answers below for details) senses, and felt with the soul. Never forget
why you are creating art.
Great read. I did not know you prior to this and stumbled upon this thread almost on accident, and I'm really glad I did. Your persona is absolutely fascinating.
Thank you very much :)
Since we never interacted before I was hesitant on just coming up and asking this, but curiosity is getting the better of me. You said, and I quote, that you are "one of the very few, if not perhaps the only person who understands everything about morality", and you do bring up in multiple occasions the importance of being 'morally good'. Now, obviously I can't ask you to explain morality in its entirety since that would probably take a couple books to do properly, but what are in detail the most fundamental things in being 'morally good', in your opinion?
I looked at this question for a long time, and I know exactly how to answer it. However... I do not mean to offend or disappoint you, but for pragmatic reasons, I would prefer not to answer it publicly, for the same reason why sometime early last year, I had removed a certain piece of philosophical writing I had made regarding this exact topic. Private message me if you are still interested in the answer though. I have all the details you are looking for here.
And another thing - don't you kind of imply that morality is objective by saying that it is possible to completely understand morality? What makes you absolutely certain that your beliefs on morality are correct and objective? You seem to be quite confident in your superiority in this regard, so I'm really interested to hear your answer.
It is widely agreed that humans possess five senses - sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell, and they utilize these five senses to gather information about the world around them. If there is a tennis ball in front of you, you can confirm its existence by seeing and touching it, for example.
I believe that humans possess a sixth sense - that which is commonly referred to as the conscience, or the sense of Justice. I believe that objective moral values exist in the universe, and are absolutely real things, in a similar manner to
Platonic forms, and the conscience/sense of Justice is the sense that people use to detect the existence and nature of these moral values. Of course, you may bring up that everyone perceives moral values differently, but claiming that objective moral values do not exist as a result of that is to utilize the invalid
proto-argument from disagreement. A tree may have green leaves, but a color blind person would not necessarily see the leaves as green. You may utter a certain word, but a person with hearing problems would not necessarily hear the word you intended to say. The aforementioned color blind person would not be able to convince you that the leaves are not objectively green, simply because you see that they are green, and the previously-mentioned person with hearing problems would not be able to convince you that the word you uttered was objectively different than the one you had spoken. The same thing applies to disagreement about moral values.
If my conscience/sense of Justice tells me that they are a certain way, then I have no choice but to believe in my own sense. And while you may say that I have no way of confirming that my conscience/sense of Justice is superior to those of others,
the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Ultimately, it is in the nature of every living being to follow and trust what their own senses tell them. The fact that you do not see a pit on the ground in front of you may not serve as
absolute proof that there is no pit in front of you, since your eyes may be deceiving you... but this doubt does not prevent you from taking a step forward if you wish to. A being that does not trust its own senses has no choice but to not hold
any beliefs whatsoever, resulting in it not even holding the belief that it can walk by moving its leg muscles. Consequently, such a being would eventually starve to death, or be effortlessly eaten by a predator.
Here's another simple question. Why did you delete that long ass post on morality etc on your forums : ( that was the best thing to read. Probably your best post of all time
Thank you very much, though I would prefer to answer this question privately.