Friday, June 7, 2013

Fillers

The word fillers, if I'm not mistaken, originates from Japanese comics (manga) and how they were turned into cartoons (anime).

You see, both manga and anime of a series would be released simultaneously, once a week. But the thing was that a fourteen page comic couldn't be turned into an entire episode. So, the anime would usually catch up to the manga very quickly.

To resolve this problem, the anime makers would insert segments that weren't related to the manga, but provided entertaining backstory for a few weeks or some other mini-story. This allowed the manga to remain ahead of the anime.

But when I'm talking about fillers, I'm talking about stuff you might insert into your novel for no reason. Really. Many initial manuscripts have the fault that they have too much useless content/side stories. A lot of things that some people do is introduce a character, and then fill the next few chapters with backstory. Backstory should always be sprinkled very gently over the course of a few chapters.

And sometimes there are these scenes which have no use at all, but serve just because you might think that they showcase good writing. Please. No one wants to read a scene just because you think that you worked very hard on it. Also, I do admit that inserting some humorous scenes/mini stories at times might be necessary to entertain the reader, but please do it with moderation.

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