Chris and writing
While Chris has not shown his mastery at composing titillating pieces of literature as often as he has astounded us with his artistic skill, he has nevertheless shown what he has been capable of writing through his outlandish webcomic, several ill-guided blogging attempts and multiple short pieces of fiction and poetry.
General problems
Exposition
| “ | Fifteen minutes of dialogue, and transformation, later... | ” |
| Chris, not even trying anymore | ||
One of the big problems that plagues Chris's writing is that he relies too much on exposition rather than implications from the actions and dialogue. Chris drops us a bunch of information, and assumes that is all that needs to be told. Part of this is just due to his inexperience as a writer and a reader, but part of it definitely comes from his autism: sticking to bare facts and not considering the fact that people need different kinds of information that pique their interests.
The High School Story is extremely exposition-heavy; indeed, it's a piece that has nothing but exposition. In this story, Chris is telling a tale like he would be telling about something that happened in real life (which, incidentally, is not very far from the truth) — the whole story could be used as an illustration of the "show, don't tell" rule.
When confronted with sentences like "Now, Terrah was a Great Artist, as she was well-known and well-praised in the number of Art Classes she took at Menchi-Nasu High", your average reader will probably ask "yes, but what was that artwork really like? How exactly was she praised, and who praised her? This story doesn't tell that!" As is often demonstrated, Chris doesn't like to elaborate on things, and assumes everyone gets the whole picture from a single statement of fact.
We don't hear of examples of Terrah's masterful brushwork or competent scene composition in her paintings, or hear of her painstaking attention to detail as she worked the clay, sweat on her brow, barely aware of the passage of time, in the eerie, slightly flickering glow of the fluorescent lights in the art classroom in the basement of the aging public school — a grossly underfunded institution that was barely equipped to let her reach her full potential. We don't hear of the supressed tears of her classmates as they gaze upon the artwork that is utterly and totally full of Win. We don't hear of her teacher discussing the latest works of the little prodigy with other teachers over coffee. Because that would be showing.
Furthermore, Terra's artistic skill is not introduced into the story until it becomes a plot point, when she feels she should win an award based on it. If she is as artistically-inclined as Chris intends, this trait should be introduced much earlier in the story, as it is certainly far more plot-relevant than, say, the character's homophobia.
When answering a letter in his mailbag, Chris shows that he's under the impression that this level of exposition is normal in mainstream comics. Also, he lets us know that he's just being cheap, since he can save money on markers by just writing down what happened, instead of having to illustrate it.
This isn't to say that using only exposition would be always bad. "How the Pokémon Came into Our PokéBalls" is an example to the contrary, because many myths are told in highly expository manner, as a recounting of events that happened long ago. For example, when people read about God creating the light in Genesis 1:3-4, they usually don't ask what "it was good" really means; no one, aside of a few enthusiastic theologians, immediately asks what was God's motivation in creating light, or how He might have really felt that day. Readers can't expect answers to those questions, because the events happened long before they were written.
Plot construction and tension
In any story, the best part about the story is the plot itself. It's what moves the story and what draws readers' attention to it. It could be said that coming up with interesting things that could happen, coming up with interesting characters and telling how those characters interact and either make things happen or hinder the progress are some of the basic construction materials of any stories. If the story lacks any sort of interesting little hooks, readers will not give a damn about the story, and stop reading and turn away. Sadly, when Chris builds plots, there's no drive or feel to it, thus making it seem like everything's there. Many times, it is that way.
While Chris does have a few good ideas (derivative or otherwise), he tends to pull it through as quickly as possible, with very little real suspense. Chris has built a cast of recolored characters, and he has come up with some sort of events that these characters must go through. Sadly, though, he puts zero effort in making characters interact in any plausible manner. Chris's characters never have to actually prove to the reader that they're able to advance the plot: we know they'll do it, because they're Chris's characters who can't fail.
In competently-put-together stories, heroes would need to prove to the readers that they're able to conquer the challenge ("It's not impossible: I used to bull's-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home; they're not much bigger than two meters"), or show that the heroes are learning to be able to conquer the challenge ("They say The User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out"). Sarah Connor eventually figures out that weeping and cowering won't work and kicking Terminator ass is perfectly doable once she figures out how. Neo must first blow his frigging mind to become the One and destroy the Matrix. Frodo must face the fact that he's just a plain ol' hobbit (and hence saving the world is a little bit out of his league) and that the One Ring is messing with everyone's head, including his.
In Chris's stories, good guys win by default. Many, if not all, of the battles in his series seem to be utterly one-sided and boring. Most of the time, this is caused by Sonichu or Chris having a power that is needed right then and there without any explanation. A good example of this is the battle between Sonichu and "IBAChandler" in Sonichu 9. IBA shows up for a grand total of one page before getting curb stomped. In a way, it shows that only one Chris can exist, but at the same time, that fact that Sonichu defeated the person without even breaking a sweat shows that Chris has no real patience for thinking what kind of characters IBA and Sonichu are, and if they ended up in a fight, what kind of battle would it be. Sonichu is a hero, hence he must win; IBA is a villain, hence he must fall. No further explanation is required in Chris's mind, and the one-page confrontation is just a courtesy for the reader.
Drama is also a hard thing for Chris to do. In well-written stories, characters usually have to jump hurdles after hurdles to reach their goal. At times, they have to make certain choices that could either help them, or bite them in the ass in the future. Chris, being Chris, believes in the saying that they should "have their cake and eat it, too." Going back to Sonichu 9, Sonichu is confronted with a choice: let Reldnahc take over CWCVille or Rosechu dies. If Sonichu really were the Sonic ripoff he was, he'd probably attempt to save Rosechu and somehow be stopped in the process, then given the ultimatum again. Instead, Chris forgoes it and has Bionic and Darkbind save the day not even a page later. A competently-written hero usually will be able to save both the love interest and society at large, but it will take that much more drive, courage, ingenuity, and skill. If the character is going to completely win, then the audience expects a little extra effort to justify this, and a deus ex machina will not satisfy. A particularly blatant example of this is the cover art for Christian Weston Chandler's Adult Chronicles, which depicts Chris having already beaten his various enemies, thus diffusing any possible tension.
Another thing that Chris has no drive to prolong is the need for love interests. In many series, potential love interests, upon meeting, either hate each other's guts, are oblivious to one's feelings, or start out as good friends and work their way to being lovers. Ongoing comics tend to wait years for character A to finally fall in love with character B. Series centered around romance, especially shoujo anime, tend to wait until the very end of the series for the characters to announce their true feelings, whereupon they "all live happily ever after".
Because of Chris's need to have true and loving couples, virtually every Sonichu and Rosechu has been hooked up with the exception of Magi-Chan and Silvana (and you know that they're going to be somehow). Even worse, there's no build-up to these moments — they meet, hook up and screw all right there, often through the cop-out plot device of "love at first sight". Just read the past comics again — can you find the precise motivations Blake and Bubbles had when they got together? What did they like about each other? How about all those new lovehog couples who were unveiled in Sonichu 9? Chris likes to ramble about true love and respecting people's personalities, but the inter-personal chemistries of his characters remain mysteries to us.
Let's put this into context:
- It took Superman sixty years to marry Lois Lane.
- It took Spider-Man twenty years to marry Mary Jane Watson and another twenty to have it retconned.
- It took Sonic the Hedgehog ten years to admit his feelings to Princess Sally in the comics, and another year to break them apart.
- It took Sailor Moon two seasons to be able to have a happy moment with Tuxedo Kamen without something screwing it up for them.
- It takes Chris less than one episode to pair people up and have hanky-panky!
As one can see, Chris doesn't like buildup or suspense, thus he bluntly goes into something full-force, expecting his readers to accept it.
Chris as a poet and lyricist
- See also: Chris and music
| “ | I’d lay her down caress her gently tickle her fancy; have her tickle my fancy, and give it to her with the learned lonely experience I’ve endured. | ” |
| Chris, expertly stirring feelings of both mild disgust and confusion[citation needed] | ||
Chris's lyrics vary from acceptable for the sort of cheesy tie-in music (used with certain franchises of which he is a fan) usually written by D-list hack writers, to hilariously awful and full of painful rhymes, giving us lines such as "if no girl comes, I'll break my arm."
His poetry, however, is far worse: it's simply abysmal, consisting in one assault after another on the English language. Painful rhymes are even more present than in his songs; other times, he breaks the mood of the poem to throw in some of his trademark random-access humor. Chris also tends to use rather dated language in his poetry, not unlike in his written messages to his fanbase; however, it is not "how do I love thee" dated, which is generally acceptable (though a tad cliched sometimes), but the sort of mushy language used in Valentine's Day cards like the ones kids hand out in elementary school, or perhaps the dialogue on many old television shows. This is especially evident in his poems "Valentine's Day Hymn" (which is not a hymn, or any sort of song at all, as it lacks both a discernible tune and any sort of rhyme or meter scheme) and "Saddest Heart in the World."
Chris and short fiction
Chris shows the same amount of skill when concocting prose as he does when crafting poetry. Earlier works, like "How the Pokémon Came into Our PokéBalls" and "Sonichu & Rosechu… The Genesis of the Lovehogs", show a slightly juvenile, simple writing style. Like many elementary school kids, Chris frequently pauses the action to describe exactly what a character is wearing and expound upon trivial aspects of characters in unnecessary detail. This is counterbalanced by frequent glossing over things that may have relevance at some point. But overall, these pieces have certainly childlike charm, and would be moderately impressive if done by a 4th grader.
Until you realize Chris was fucking eighteen years old.
| “ | Needing to hit the monster in the same manner, Super Sonic rushed again at such a speed. And once again, he ran in and came out the mouth. | ” |
| Chris, proving the devil is in the details. | ||
Recently an impressive new work has emerged along with the CWCipedia. Dealing with yet another female adaptation of Chris, "The High School Story" is another fascinating and vaguely creepy look at Chris's literary process. While the narrative and sense of drama have been amped up considerably, confusing grammatical and syntax problems are far more present. Whereas most pieces of fiction utilize the rules of the English language to better express their story, Chris made the bold move to screw the rules entirely.
| “ | She felt angry when she heard "Lesbian"; when called that, she would leave the bully an intimidating glare with a purple glow from her green eyes. Then soon after, a Strong, Straight Homophobe would attack that bully with No Mercy; beat the crap out of that person. | ” |
| Chris, momentarily forgetting the story in order to encourage gay bashing | ||
This story in particular displays Chris's inability to immerse himself in a character that is not simply some strangely conceived version of himself.
Chris as a comic writer
- See also: Chris and art, Sonichu (comic)
Lack of cohesive script
Like all forms of narrative art, a comic needs a script. No one who writes serious comics keeps the scripts in their heads; most comics are scripted either in very rough sketch form, or textually, or both. When discussing the video game plans, he said his game ideas are in his head, and he'd probably say the same about the comic. If Chris has a grand plan for the comic, he's using the same "pure gold on first try" mentality as in everywhere else.
Textwalls and unreadable bubble layouts
As far as dialogue writing goes, aside from the lack of proofreading and editing, Chris's biggest sin is textwalling. Characters just can't shut up at times, and this leads to him forgetting that comics are meant to show the readers things, and not turn into inconveniently typeset novels without any of the requisite bits of narration and scene-setting. He has absolutely no organization to his speech bubbles, sometimes forcing readers' eyes to jump all over a page to try and put together what he was trying to say, including using numbers to disclaim the flow of a conversation. There are several free or cheap software packages specifically designed for easy comic and speech bubble layout, and they are easy enough for even rank amateurs to comprehend. Chris also has Photoshop, which can be used to create speech bubbles with minor effort, provided one invests some time in learning how to do that. (Learning, of course, is not really in Chris's alley.) He also appears to draw his pages in one go, hand-writing the speech bubbles first and later replacing them with computer lettering; this approach leaves precious little leeway if you don't plan things perfectly on the first try. Most comic artists write their script first, draw the images while leaving some space for speech bubbles, and composite the whole thing together in a graphics app — this allows for more flexibility and opportunities to tweak the artwork. In Mailbag 19, Chris says the reason he does things this way is because "[He] feel preference to elaborate, because some people rarely get visual references. Look it up in most other Comic Books; they have loads of dialogue, plus I.M.H.O., with [his] dialogue pages, it saves marker ink in comparison to most pages."
In other words, he's a lazy fuck who doesn't want to draw everything, so he takes the easy way out. In actuality, most western comics nowadays tend to let the pictures do the talking and not the characters themselves. If there is a load of dialogue, it's because the character is describing something and is doing it through multiple panels, not just one huge one. Manga may be like this, but this is only because of translations as a simple few characters in one panel is usually expanded on when translated into English or other languages.
When Chris draws his comic pages, he draws them while attempting to squish everything onto the page. He leaves nothing to the imagination, trying to show everything that has happened on one page. One of the earliest examples of this can be seen with Sonichu 0 with the Pikachu running into action at the same time Sonic turns into Super Sonic and attacks Perfect Chaos. Where most comics tend to have six panels of action at most, Chris crams a whopping ten panels onto the page. The result of trying to cram as much action as he can is an amazing mess, making readers completely unable to tell what is going on. Such manhandling of the material once again shows an utter lack of planning, preparation and refining-based approach.
Kudzu plot
Newer issues, written under increasing troll pressure, also introduce one big problem: Chris likes to put in tributes to "fans," and those plotlines never go anywhere. As a result, people who are not aware of the goings-on in trolling are boundlessly confused by all these developments, and people who do have some sense of how Chris is being trolled have no idea how he can fix this quagmire of tangled plotlines he's gotten into. People can see he's trying to yank a root; we know that root has been rigged with deadly explosives, and Chris won't believe it if we tell him.
Leaving loose strands was a problem with Chris's work earlier (Just what the hell happened to the Metal Sonichu, anyway?) but it has really worsened in the recent works. Sometimes, he realizes his plot is getting weird and out sync with all of those brilliant plans in his mind, and trims the kudzu plot with a giant machete. Chris has no energy or creativity to fix hastily introduced characters properly, and when he does fix them, it's not pretty.
Jiggliami and Blanca appear in Sonichu 8, but they serve very little purpose besides making a quick appearance, although Jiggliami's discovery helps the good guys defeat the bad guys' plans. In real life, Chris had been betrayed by the evil troll, and in the fateful September 11th video, claimed Jiggliami as his character. After Jiggliami and Blanca had made their appearance, Chris shooed them off the comic. That is not passive neglect of the characters: he literally said that Jiggliami went away and had a successful career elsewhere.
Indeed, if there's a literary equivalent of rape, this is as close as it will ever get. After Chris's and Blanca's "break-up," Chris used her character just to spite Blanca and then tossed Jiggliami on the wayside. He could have used his "original" characters in this episode with no harm done to anyone, but he insisted on using Jiggliami in this comic. If this had been a parody of Jiggliami and the evil troll Blanca (as was done to Jimmy Hill in the Sonichu 10 preview), this might have been appropriate too. A regular comic writer might have said "goddamn it, I've been trolled, I can't use any of this rubbish that the trolls made." But not Chris; he claimed Jiggliami and Blanca as his own characters and used them in a comic like he would have used any of his own characters, then threw them away in cold blood.
In another ghoulish example of fixing up tangled trolling plots, Ivy was introduced in the Date Ed episode of Sonichu 9, while she was still Chris's girlfriend. No doubt this was intended as a major plotline, but not at all surprisingly, it never came to fruition. After a romantic start, in which Ivy and Chris meet within their minds, across a gap in time and space (or something along those lines; Chris is trapped in the mirror and Ivy is in the Dating Ed class), Ivy was never mentioned in the following episode at all, except for a brief mention that she died off-page in a gruesome elevator accident while the city was being destroyed.
This order of events is what the people will see when they read the Sonichu 9 in the order it's in CWCipedia. Yet, readers who are aware of news from the troll front were aware of Ivy's situation long before Chris killed Ivy-the-character in an elevator and knew Chris had to fix this somehow. Things became even more muddled, because Chris had leaked several other comics with Ivy (Wedding Comic and Giant Penis Comic) in which Chris is together with Ivy in CWCville and they even go so far as to get married — while in official comic timeline, Chris and Ivy never met physically! Chris can leave the Time Void at will to taunt people (canonically shown in Sonichu 8 elevator scene!), but can he get out of the time void to get hanky-panky from various women, too?
Something similar happens in Sonichu Special 4 where Chris (again, somehow free of the never-ending void of time and space that has consumed him) shoots Liquid in the knees to save Kacey for some reason that is never explained. Notably, Chris is unfased by the death of his wife and moves straight on to Kacey through the Sonichu Specials, not even showing an ounce of written emotion for his dearly departed Ivy by the time Sonichu Special 4 rolls around. What's more, Liquid has no plausible reason to exist within the comic; his canonical appearance in Sonichu 9 is utterly unexplained. He just appears and gets beaten for no reason. Granted, it could be an in-joke, but still, with the plot as tangled as it is...
The worst offender of this ends up being the final fate of Crystal Weston Chandler and the rest of Chris's characters. As of the end of Sonichu 9, Chris has decided that he was going to remove himself and anyone connected to his misadventures in trying to find a sweetheart. In doing so, he left the incident with Crystal hanging, as well as leaving the strange plot point of Count Graduon wanting to see Slaweel dead.
Chris as a journalist
Chris has had a few journalistic aspirations in the past, as easily evidenced by Sonichu's News Dash and the Homemade Nintendo Power magazine. Of course, to say any of these publications would be up to some journalistic standard is just false — the Nintendo Power magazine is complete and utter fabrication (if only wishful fabrication) from cover to the, er, nonexistent back cover.
To Chris's credit, the homemade magazine is likely not a legitimate attempt at journalism, and is merely an attempt to make himself look like a True and Honest fan of Nintendo Power, and to express his wish that the new games he described would be produced and published. Everyone who looks at the magazine will immediately see it as a piece of wish-fulfillment fan work — a "future issue" of Nintendo Power where all of his dreams come true. He's not trying to pull a Spax3-esque "Mega Man 9 was published for NES too, gamerfannns" stunt.
The News Dash follows the same formula as his blogging later on: self-centered rambling on what happened to him and what kind of not-very-exciting developments he has in store for the comic. And, of course, there's the most important part of the newsletter: the dating ad.
Chris as a blogger
Chris's blogging is a continuation of his "News Dash" mentioned above. In a way, Chris's first and most frequently updated blog was his web page, in which he posted "updates" about his goings-on. The site, however, was not in what most people would consider a blog format: entries posted in chronological order. Instead, Chris stuck new updates where the heck he could find new space that day, resulting a rather Time Cube-like appearance.
He has also experimented with conventional blog formats, and the results are only marginally easier to read.
To this date Chris has had several actual blogs:
- PSN Blogs
- The OFFICIAL Sonichu & Rosechu Blog
- A small MySpace Blog
- CWC Blog, his current blog.
The location may change, but the style is consistent and unmistakable. This may be linked to Chris not knowing exactly the 'purpose' of a blog. Ideally, you're publishing your opinions and experiences in a group setting, allowing constant meaningful communication. While Chris has no problems sharing intimate details about his life, he doesn't seem to get the communicative part. Blogs are just another place for him to spew truth and honesty.
Another, arguably more important fault is that Chris's blogs are fucking boring. Most bloggers realize that if you have to spew about your pathetic life, you'd better make it interesting. While Chris does release the occasional laugh, most are outright annoying.
Arguably the most notable blog ever made by Chris was the infamous Adam Stackhouse blog. Seething with anger, Chris shows that — just like with Wikipedia — he doesn't want to contribute, but enforce his beliefs on anyone who will listen.
| “ | In any case, I LOATHE Adam and his Sister for STEALING my one chance at taking my Sweet Gal-Friend to Seattle; it would have been terriffic. I might have even been able to change her outlook on not planning on having children (she and I are both virgins; although I am a FRUSTRATED, High-Functionally AUTISTIC, 25-YEAR OLD VIRGIN. And I LOATHE Surybuchwald and Aprelewsky as well, because their MUSIC probably landed those JERKS in 2nd and 3rd. | ” |
| Chris, demonstrating his able skills as net citizen | ||
The CWC Blog is Chris's most recent blog, where he shouts his authoritarian decrees to his True and Loyal Fanbase. Given that it's run by our glorious leader, and entirely insulated from slanderous trolls telling him to get a job, Chris will probably be ranting for a long, long time.
Tl;dr
Chris has no concept of a consistent plot, cannot write coherent dialogue or poetry, and he has never been able to pull an original character with a consistent personality out of his ass. In short, he can't write for shit.
See also
| Chris and... |
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