Frank Aiden Ryan

I second Comsie. Sometimes you DO get what you want. Seriously though, stories in our genre tend to be uplifting. That's just the way it is. I think the hope factor is really important. Most teens clamor for something to cheer them up, and there are guys out there that really DO feel lonely. This is escapism, but it's also a way of encouragement. I've yet to see someone write a story about gay love between two boys who are NOT attractive, but there are so many cute guys out there with great personalities, looks and bodies that are too insecure to move out of the corner that it baffles me. Personally speaking as a writer, I detest writing like it's all sugar and honey and bliss. My characters have insecurities of their own, problems and shortcomings of their own. Crap does happen in their lives and they deal with it. Period. That's the fun of it. Here's a question for some of those who are familiar with my work: Ever notice how GETTING love in my main story was never really an issue? There's never any doubt about Robbie's love for Jason. It's a given fact. Jason feels the same, they're nuts about eachother and that's it. Still, I was able to fill 12 chapters, with more than 12 still planned, on working with that love and dealing with it. It's never a question of FINDING... Jace found it in chapter one. That's where I start. The rest of the story is about KEEPING it. Living with it, enjoying it, playing with it, being with it. Let's put it this way: Jason was never lonely till he met Robbie. After he met Robbie, a void inside of him was filled that he didn't even know he had. Still, those out there who have trouble finding love should stop LOOKING for it. It just happens, as long as you take that chance, kick fate's ass, go for it. Feel lonely? Get away from that keyboard and do something about it. Talk to people. Be everything you wanted to be. I'm sure there's a Tyler Durden in every one of you self proclaimed lonely people out there. As for my stories... My boyfriend accuses me sometimes of writing about my own life before it actually happens. he's much like Robbie. my best friend's just like Vince. there's been another person in my life a couple of months that caused the same friction as Scott did. Honestly, think I'm making up that stuff I write about? No way. I'm writing about stuff that has really happened to me, spiced up a bit for romance. It's NOT perfect. It never will be. But oh, is it ever fun.

Well, speaking as a writer, I'd certainly say that the main way to attract a reader, unless you're doing fantasy settings, is REALISM. I agree with the folks above, those impossible names belong in a fantasy setting. Original names are one thing, I'm all for it in fact... but there are other ways to personalise your characters without calling them odd-sounding names. Here's one technique I always tend to use. LAST names. I'm certain there are no people here in our western style world that go without last names. So my characters are going to have last names. Baddies in my stories are going to have last names. In fact, baddies are usually referred to by their last names alone, to give the dialogue an extra feel of dislike. Last names add realism. What also works for realism is attention to detail. If YOU, the writer, don't see it in front of you, your audience won't see a thing either. It's the little things that do it. Even in a situation that does not require a lot of describing still gets that treatment from my main character, simply because it provides my character a chance to speak his mind about a certain situation and how he feels about it. Not everything has to be a monologue of doom, but a few sentences help. Add some detail to your average situation and things will go great. Second thing for added realism: Dialogue. Dialogue is my trade mark. I use so much dialogue that my story time line hardly progresses at all. However, the details in the dialogie tell you something about the character as well. It's been said about my characters that readers are able to gauge who's saying what simply by the way he speaks. That's a big compliment, but I also do it on purpose. Jason always has that subtle hint of sarcasm. Robbie has that boyish, gentle, polite demeanor. Vince drops the occasional crude modifier, and usually sounds like he's certainly not enjoying himself. Scott - he's just the motormouth, his sentences bounce like he does. This sort of recipe for your main characters is essential if you want to make your dialogue sound believable, and works absolute magic for your characters. They seem like real persons that way. Don't make them sound alike! (I'm looking at you too here, Com.) Also, remember that your plot works for your characters, not vice versa. The characters do NOT exist to advance the plot. No! The plot is there to advance the characters. Think about that. I dunno, I get lost easily in my own rants. The point is: Realism draws readers. At least, it'll sell your characters way better than a good adventurous plot or an extremely perfect looking boy with the most exotic name there is. In our genre, the characters matter. It's them we fall in love with while reading. Like any soap on TV, it's the characters you care for, the reasons why you come back next time. People like Tom Clancy and Stephen King worry over plot. In this genre, your characters MUST be good, well rounded, thought out, characterised. They don't call it characterised for nothing. Once you hook the readers, they'll be back. Just make sure they have a character to care for.

Hey guys!!! It's been an awful long time, but seeing as I now have a website again and am eager to pull in new readers, I decided to add some pressure to my writing and finished off the next chapter of First Impressions. It's a direct continuation of the series. If you read all the previous stuff first it'll be like I never left! Anyway, go check it out on my site. I'm hosted right here at gayauthors. And please, I wanna know if I still 'have' it. Feedback is very much requested and appreciated at my e-mail frankaidenryan@hotmail.com, or just leave comments here. Enjoy reading!!! There's more to come!! love, Frank

I'm all for it too. Comsie, any chance of you putting in a good word for me to that artist that did yours? (I can't FIND any of them though....) Other than that, any talented manga/yaoi artists out there who would like to get their work published online and get credit for it?

Okay, it looks like the votes so far are against character pics. I sort of suspected they would be. I had certain reservations about using them as well and since I got a new site to play around with, I had a choice. I think I won't go with it. Even when I still *had* the character pics up and I posted all the pics I had collected in my Yahoo group (called frank-aiden-ryan if you're interested) I can detect a growing disliking for them when I wrote this a few months ago: When I was first discussing putting up character photos with my friend and writer buddy Jason Trower, I was totally against it. I felt none of the character photos did any justice to the characters I imagined, simply because these guys were celebs. We know who Devon Sawa is. I only chose his photo because he - somewhat - resembles Robbie Mayflower there. But nothing more than that. In my mind's eye (and probably in yours, too) the characters just look a bit different. Devon Sawa as Robbbie is perhaps the closest hit. Though as I imagined Robbie, the eyes are certainly bluer. The hair is a bit different. The jawline just doesn't fit. Stuff like that gives me nightmares just looking at that pic. Plus, I don't want Robbie Mayflower growing into that prick we saw in that Eminem video. Good acting on Devon's part, but c'mon - That's not Robbie. Scott Fremont was initially based on Vincent Kartheiser and I'm still quite happy with that picture of him. I've got a bunch more, but none of them really CAPTURE Scott Fremont. Vincent is just too cutesy in that pic. Too huggable for a Fremonster. Plus, I've recently learned that Vincent Kartheiser will star in the Buffy spin-off Angel as Angel's son. I assume Vincent is about my age nowadays, a bit younger perhaps, so there's always a risk of him becoming decidely less attractive than I imagined him to be. Think what happened to Devon Sawa. There's always the risk that, as a writer, you stop describing what you had imagined, but start describing what you see in the picture. If there are any comic book fans out there, compare the X-men before and after the movie. The difference in looks. See how Wolverine now looks like Hugh Jackman? On a positive note, can anyone imagine Gandalf nowadays without thinking of Sir Ian McKellen? I've therefore deliberately chosen not to go with character pics for Jamie's Seven Wishes. I've included the map with candidates I had collected for Kevin for you guys to see - by the way, two of those guys are models that pose naked. How cool is that.- and by the time you receive this, I will have uploaded a rough sketch I did of Gaea's Tear to that very folder. Since that thing is as much a character in the story, I thought it deserved a picture. The precise look of it is also a little hard to imagine - it took me close to a dozen sketches - so I think it will help a lot. That said, I only regret not having the wonderful photoshop merge of Jonathan Jackson, a young Devon Sawa and german singer Gil Ofarim posing in a group shot as Jason, Robbie and Scott. It's a wonderful picture and even sort of captures the feel of First Impressions, so I think I'm going to leave that on the front page of my Yahoo group as it is. On the other hand, I would *love* to have Manga/Yaoi esque pics of my characters. That style is pretty nondescript in depicting characters as it is - the only thing you can really do with it is capture hair style, clothing style and eye colors - but it always makes the characters inherently adorable. And being so typical in look, it still allows for the reader to create their own mental picture. Which is a good thing too. I remember reading that Comsie based New Kid's Ryan on a guy that looked like James van der Beek. I happen to share Randy's absolute crush on Ryan, but I can't imagine him looking like James van der Eek! there, because I find him staggeringly unattractive. No offense, James. You're just no Ryan *grinz* Any more opinions?

Hey guys, Here's something I've been wondering while I was contemplating all the possibilities for my new site. On my old site, I used to have character pictures up. Basically, I chose certain pictures that I deemed looked like, or at least approximated the general look and feel of my characters. I couple of my colleague writers in this genre does it as well. Still do, probably. Comsie here, for instance, never did. I'm not sure if that was out of necessity rather than desire, but it worked fine. Now he has so many characters that finding suitable pics for them would be a nightmare. My dillemma: I HAVE character pics already. They're pics of celebrities that I didn't know when I started writimg, but who have careers now and are pretty household names, like Devon Sawa and Vincent kartheiser. So what do you guys think? Are character pics a plus? Are the characters better left to the imagination? Do you like it if an author uses them, or do they distract you rather? Even if the descriptions given by the author are more or less spot-on? Discuss! I'm curious!

Sounds pretty good to me, Wep! Still, has anyone done some reading yet? My site hits have been pretty good so far, like 220 in three to four days....back when I had my own site at tripod I had around 50,000 hits in a year or three...which was okay, but nothing like Comsie. Of course, he has the popular forum that counts. Feedback has been a bit slow, though. C'mon, are there no new readers out there??

Thanks for the hosting space, guys! I'm bloodsuckingly pleased to have a site once again, with likeminded guys no less, who aren't going to worry or bitch about my content. The site's still young but it's going to grow, no doubts there....and I'm sure you'll all enjoy it. In the mean time, those of you eager for more stories can check my site out. I've got three series in the running, including my main series, First Impressions, which is already at chapter 11 and counting. It's been around for a few years, but that shouldn't stop you! There's more to come and reading up on events is always a good idea, hehehe!! And of course, if you're unfamiliar with my stuff....you're missing out on something cool! So go and check it out, guys, I'm right here at Gayauthors! Oh, and please let me know what you thought! Post replies right here, or e-mail me at frankaidenryan@hotmail.com. I'm always interested to get to know more likeminded people! See ya later! Frank Aiden Ryan

Oh, I love getting feedback. I can still remember waking up after publishing a story online and at Nifty, and having around thirty new e-mails in my inbox, hehehe! Still though, the majority of feedback, however positive, isn't all that constructive. Most would simply say they loved the story and ask when the next one would come out. An understandable reaction, sure, but for me, it's like the reward of a long time of working, and I sort of want to revel in it. So I'm not exactly thinking of the next part *just yet* Sometimes, though, I receive a lengthy and very sincere email thanking me for a wonderful story. I usually mail back instantly and ask what in particular they liked, because as an author I'm more interested in very particular feedback, not really general impressions, although those are okay. I much more value feedback that says what DID work and why, or WHAT was likeable (what scene, character) etcetera. That is the sort of feedback that reall makes me smille. Since I try to write with a sense of humor, I also try to ask readers what jokes they can remember and so on. If you're doing standup comedy, you can hear people laugh. Here, it's hard to gauge. If a person says the jokes were funny, that's good, but I'd still want to know which ones in particular I've had many wonderful e-mail conversations with intelligent and kind persons who I'd always single out for proofreading or playtesting my stories, and the feedback I got from them was the feedback I most valued. I also used to converse with a fellow writer friend of mine (who's no longer active) what worked and what not, and we were able to really help eachother that way. For me, feedback is unmissable, and if I were to publish a story and would not get a single or too little replies, I'd consider it a failure and it would probably discourage me very quickly. I always left my e-mail addy at the end of a story, and would just ask my readers for feedback. Since I don't receive any compensation for the stories I write, getting feedback is the only reward.

Hey everyone, bestest of New Year's wishes from me too. My New Year's party has been quite fun, although the hangover was decidedly less entertaining *ouch* If you crash into a table with enough alcohol in your body you won't feel it till two days after it So, hands off the left ribcage area, please :wacko:

Well, I have to agree with Comsie there, the moments you make up in the spur of a moment, or usually things that happen when I just sit down and type. Most of the things I've written for 'First Impressions' have happened without having been storyboarded, so to speak, and have turned out to be some of the best, or humorous, passages from the series. They just sort of take shape in my fantasy and when I'm writing as it is, I can immediately write them down as part of the story. Still though, when I ask people about what they thought was the most memorable about my stories, the answer I get the most is : "your characters" I guess for me, my style of writing tends to dictate that my characters get all the exposition and characterization they need. As a result, my characters almost feel like real persons. The fact that I tend to use extreme amounts of dialogue (dialogue overkill) The personalities of the characters show through in a way that a reader would be able to determine which character is speaking, just by the way he'd say something. I've been told many times that this is something that really works magic for the stories I write, because if a character feels real, special, remarkable, rounded and just set apart from the rest of the characters, they tend to be very memorable. The more exceptional the character, the best he works. Be careful not to go into stereotyping, though. Rounding your characters with ALL human emotions possible is a good thing. I'm even in favor of letting the plot work for your characters, instead of the characters work for the plot. A character HAS to be more than just a name on a HTML page. I've criticised Comsie there before that in his more earlier stories, he was basically using the same characters with different names and a slightly different setting *grinz*, but he's improved over time, so respect to you, my man Still though, Scott Fremont from First Impressions used to have his own fanclub. Try and beat that

Hey guys! My name's Frank Aiden Ryan. I did a couple of stories that were very popular a while back, but my life sort of got in the way and I've only recently tried to pick up writing again. I seriously want to get published some day, but I think I'm gonna need a little more practice till that happens. I'm 25 years old, and I live in the Netherlands, Europe. I can be found at Nifty with three titles, namely my large series First Impressions, the spin-off Detention Dream and a newer project named Jamie's Seven Wishes in the sci-fi section of Nifty. I trust you all know your way around there. My stories are currently 'homeless' since my last site was deleted by it's host. I'm looking for a new space of my own.

Guess who also joined? *grinz* This looks like fun. I'll stop by more often.