Writing in Anime Style?

[Lucky_Foot]

Greetings, true believers!

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on something. Have you ever experienced a burning desire to write your own anime light novel?

It's a fantastic feeling, isn't it? But I'm interested in knowing how you handle it. Do you act on your instincts and dive right into writing, or do you let the idea simmer for a while? I'd love to hear your thoughts or experiences.

[Bella_Artz]

I was a writer before I truly discovered what anime was and wanted to imitate it. The current novel I'm working on was a manga I was working on in my first year of highschool but dropped somewhere along the way because I didn't have means.

I kept writing other stories though but never really threw the ide away until I graduated and had nothing much to do before college. I'd learned a lot about writing then. Better grammar, the dos and don'ts of web novels, the difference in the standards to web novels and traditional novels, and many other things.

A lot of the light novel type books I encountered never followed the basic rules of writing, some of the had poor grammar and a lot of the plots were down right ridiculous but intriguing in their own way. All this kinds of stories got reads so I guess it's was encouraging to know I could step into a judgement free space.

But I never truly consider a light novel, it may have some anime-esque themes and set-up but the word count has already sailed over the lightnovel limit

Just be your own best fan and don't compare yourself to every story you com across. Focus on what you have to tell and not if someone else has told cause chances are you might be someone's first encounter. Learn good grammar and your readers will be thankful they are not stepping into a minefield. If you're doing a review swap, do so with someone in your niche most times because they'll understand what you're going for and advise accordingly, writers outside your niche may or may not get it.

I guess that's all I have to say, have fun with your work and there's nothing wrong in letting a story simmer so you can work out the kinks

[coco-ji]

I actually didn't know what light novels were until about a year ago. Up til then I had only read manga or watched anime. Had no idea idea that there was a solely text-based version. Still, since about 2017 I had been working on a multi-volume series where I just dumped all of the tropes and themes that I liked from some of my favorite manga/anime. So far, it's been very fun, but I'm not really following a webnovel or light novel structure.

Like you said, it started off as a burning desire to get all of these anime-flavored ideas that I had out in the open. To this day I'm still letting the story go where it wants based on my instincts and how the characters are developing/interacting. The story started out on wattpad where I do most of my writing, but eventually spread out to tapas and sites like scribblehub to reach more readers who are into webnovels.

[Kuma]

I think I get the most "anime" when I write battle scenes. Stuff like breaking the ground with the initial step of a dash, characters turning into blurs of motion and clashing blades or spells having over the top effects.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

As someone who once made a topic literally titled 'Anime is Killing my Writing' I may be a bit biased...but I have to say no, not anymore. ^^;
By now, I've learned my lesson...as much as I enjoy consuming anime tropes and archetypes in media, they're not good for me as a writer. I'm very bad at writing physical conflicts, horrendous at writing 'final boss battles'; romantic fluff is my kryptonite, and any 'power of hope/friendship' monologue I try to write will always ring hollow because I honestly just don't think that way. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I swear I'm not a wet blanket, I'm just a very 'earnest' person, and tbh following any stylistic set of tropes (outside of parody) will set me up for failure because I can't just take them at face value. I'll either deconstruct them to death and ruin the story, or find myself not wanting to write the story in the first place.

HOWEVER...there was one heavily anime-inspired novel that I actually wrote pretty well: https://tapas.io/series/Wheels-of-Life/info

And I think it worked because I put a spin on each tropey thing in a way that made it easier for me to write. The physical conflicts were against inanimate objects and mostly focused on parkour, the 'romantic fluff' was honestly just creepy abuse, and there were no inspirational monologues or final boss battles because the end of the story is actually a loss. ^^ At first it looks like the main characters are gearing up for a big battle to save the world, but it quickly becomes obvious that they're WAY outmatched and the final chapters concern them figuring out how to negotiate a retreat, so at least they can all survive together.

Unsurprisingly, the story kind of begs for a sequel, and if I can ever figure out how to write in 'anime-style-but-not-actually' again, I might consider giving it one. ^^

[AaronBloodgood]

I'm actually writing my own light novel called Marry X Princess right now here on Tapas. It is both heavily anime inspired, and a deconstruction of certain tropes in the medium. I love anime and getting to write this novel and have art created for it has been very fun for me. So I'd say yes, it is a pretty fantastic feeling