Author: This is my first fic under a new pen name. Writer's Wall is a concept I came up with that's a lot like Writer's Block (which I have a lot of experience with) except that it's much worse. Writer's Block you can get over in a few hours or couple of days. Writer's Wall will obstruct your creative ideas for weeks, sometimes months at a time. It's an experience I believe that ALL writers share. I decided to let Ron have a crack at it. Let's see how he fares, hm? Criticism is welcomed so long as it's professional, because I'll be honest with you, this is not my finest work.
Disclaimer: Kim Possible and Captain Constellation are properties of Disney. is my own.
Ron had been surfing the Net with nothing else to do when he came across the site. "Hey, Rufus, check this out."
His naked molerat companion joined him at the computer and after reading he turned to Ron. "Fanfiction," he said.
"It's a site where fans can write stories based on their favorite television shows, movies, comics and video games." Ron scrolled through some of the categories. "Scamper and Bitey? Space Quest? Whoa-ho! Captain Constellation! I'm in!"
Rufus watched his human begin the registration process. After accepting the Terms of Service he entered his e-mail and a personal password, he re-entered them both for confirmation, and now had to think of a pen name.
"Let's see here. What best describes the Ron Man. Oh!" He exclaimed.
"Uh-uh," Rufus said, already figuring what Ron was thinking.
"You're right, too last season." He thought about it. "I am a master of Tai Shing Pek Kwar so…" Ron typed in, "Kung-Fu-Monkey-Master. Now to click the button stating I'm over thirteen and…" CLICK. "Done. I'm officially registered baby!" After receiving the confirmation, Ron immediately brought up a Word Document.
"Time to let out my inner writer."
"Huh?" Rufus asked. As far back as he could remember, he'd never seen Ron pick up a book unless it was assigned to him, and as for writing the boy could barley write a letter without making it look like a child had done it.
"I can write way better stories than those idiots who screwed up the last Bricks of Fury movie. Time to show the fan writing world what the Stoppable-san's got in his head."
A scary thought, Rufus mused.
Ron's finger barley touched the keyboard when he stopped. "Um…."
"Problem?" Rufus asked.
"No problem. No problem. Just thinking about how to start. Every story's gotta have a good beginning." He took a moment to think a plot over in his head. The moment turned into five minutes until finally. "Ha! I've got it, here we go." And with that, Ron Stoppable began his first fanfic.
"Captain Constellation and the crew of the Solar Star had just come out of hyper space when…"
He paused. "Does this sentence strike you as a good opening liner?"
The molerat shrugged.
"Yeah I didn't think so either." Ron deleted it. He thought another moment (five minutes) and began writing again.
"The Solar Star speeded out of hyper space like a bat out of hell." That's good, he thought. "Entering the Hyborrelian Star System, the ship's alert systems went off as a pair of borgon dread ships appeared from out of nowhere and…"
"Wait. Captain Constellation and his crew wouldn't just fall into a trap like that." Ron deleted that entire passage. "Maybe it would be better if I came up with a title first. That ought to help get the creative juices flowin. I'll call it, 'Battle in the Hyborrelian Star System'!" Ron typed it in and centered it. "There. Now…" He sat ready to type but did absolutely nothing. "I've got nothing."
Rufus smacked his forehead.
"Ooh! Got it!"
"Aboard the Solar Star, Captain Constellation and his crew of misfits prepared themselves for a dangerous mission. They were to go and rescue the princess of Hyborrelia from the clutches of the evil borgon warlord…Krull…"
"Wasn't that the name of a fantasy flick?" He asked Rufus who nodded. "Dammit! I want to be original. I don't want to copy off of someone else."
Apparently Rufus was the only one of the two to realize the absurdity of that statement. Fanfiction was all about reproducing an existing work or franchise. You may add a few tweaks to it but at the end of the day the property does not belong to you. If Ron wanted to be original, he should write his own stories.
"Think of a name. Think of a name. Think of a name." He used this mantra over and over again. "Warhok!"
Rufus looked at him quizidly.
"Hey nobody knew his name but us. Ooh! I can have Captain Constellation fight the Lowardians instead. That's original." Ron edited his story.
"…clutches of the evil Lowardian warlord, Warhok. The Captain came up with a daring plan that called for a head-on strike against the enemy stronghold where he would then infiltrate Warhok's fortress and save the princess. The only problem was he did not know there was spy in his mist who was under orders to betray him when he received a secret message…that told…to betray…Captain Constellation…when he got the signal…"
"That doesn't make sense."
"You think?" Rufus asked, crossing his tiny arms.
"Constellation has a telepath with him. She'd know if somebody was a spy. Unless…I make her the spy and she…no that won't work. Her species is incapable of lying." Ron erased everything.
"Betrayed earlier, Captain Constellation was being held prisoner aboard a Lowardian ship heading for the fortress of the warlord, Warhok. Aboard this ship was the lovely Hyborrelian princess who had also been captured when her ship was ambushed and boarded by Warhok's forces over the desert planet of Tatine. The princess was stunned, but her android companions managed to escape and get a message out to Constellation to free her but…Wait a minute, this sounds familiar."
Rufus began humming the Star Wars theme.
"Dammit!" Ron erased the last passage. "Okay. Think, Ron, think."
Rufus yawned.
"Don't distract me, Rufus. I've got an idea – wait I lost it – Nope, there it is!" Ron began. "Betrayed by the princess he'd sworn to protect, Captain Constellation became a prisoner on a Lowardian prison ship bound for the fortress of his greatest enemy, Warhok, in the Hyborrelian Star System. The princess tricked the Captain with her beauty and managed to ensnare him with her sexy ways," Ron changed that last part. "…with her feminine charms and escaped with her prisoner to a ship she had on standby. When the crew found out about this, they charged after their captain but were ambushed and were now floating through space without any power. Hearing of this, the princess went to taunt Captain Constellation but he'd laid a trap for her. Springing from the cell, he cut down her robot guards and took her hostage this time. With his amazing fighting skills he single-handedly took over the ship and used it to find his crew. When he did he watched with fear as they were about to be sucked into a black hole."
Ron grew excited. "This is good stuff." He turned to Rufus. "Right?"
But the molerat wasn't so sure. "What?" Ron asked. "It has everything. Drama. Suspense. Action. What's not to like?"
"No back-story."
"Huh?"
Rufus waved his hands about. "Things happen. How?"
"Why?" Ron thought about it. "Oh you mean going into detail and stuff." Rufus nodded. "Shoot. Well I guess I'm going to have to start from scratch."
DELETE.
"Maybe my story's too epic. I need to make it more personal; concentrate on a couple of characters instead of a whole cast. That might work." He was going to start when, "I should change the title. That might help. I'll call it, 'Trapped in the Hyborrelian Star System'. And I'll give it a good back-story too. I'll start off with Captain Constellation and what he's doing and thinking and then I'll add another character to spice things up. But everything they say or do will be leading to something greater. There's a term for that: genius!"
Actually it's foreshadowing, but Rufus kept that to himself.
"Alone on the planet Hyborrelia, Captain Constellation looked up at the stars and asked, 'I wonder which one is Earth.' The space hero milled about his campsite which was dug into a large ravine in the desert where he used to escape the heat of the planet's sun. Now that it was night, he had a campfire going because it had gotten cold. Sighing because he was lonely, Constellation wondered what his crew was doing now. They had betrayed him when he trusted them most, leaving him stranded on this desert planet. Abandoned, the captain had no one to talk to, nothing to do except spend the days in his grief." This is deep.
"A noise sounded out and the captain pulled out his gun. Looking for the source, he spotted a lone figure at the edge of the firelight. 'Who goes there? Don't make any sudden moves. I'm pretty surgical with this thing.'" Witty dialogue, man I'm good. "The figure entered the light and to his surprise he found it was none other than the princess of the nearby kingdom he helped save. 'Princess! What are you doing here?' The princess smiled and said. 'When I heard what happened, I just had to find you. You helped me, Captain Constellation, now I want to help you.'"
"Name."
"What?"
Rufus looked at him. "Her name."
"Oh…um…Yori--na. Yorina."
"Huh?"
"'Princess Yorina,' he said to the Japanese woman. 'You're a sight for sore eyes. Sit with me by the fire.'"
"'I'd love to. But it isn't safe here. We must get out of the open.'"
"'And go where?'"
"'I have a ship nearby. If we take it we may be able to reach a spaceport and escape this planet. But we have to go now.'"
"'Say no more, I'll,' Just then the site was surrounded by buzzing noises. Giant, metal bees appeared all around them. Yorina gasped. 'I've been followed. Captain Constellation, I am so sorry,'"
"'Get behind me. I'll take care of them.' He removed two ray guns. 'With these. Eat plasma you flying cockroaches!'"
"Oi vey!"
"What? That's a great line."
"Uh-uh."
Ron grumbled. "I'm trying to add some excitement here. I can't have the characters just talking and talking or my readers will get bored. I've already set the mood, the setting, the characters, what more do you want?"
A story that coincides with the canon material and yet original enough to be plausible to what the creators had in mind for the show, would have been Rufus' reply if he could say that much.
"You want me to delete the whole thing and start over, don't you?"
The mammal nodded.
"Man." Ron did just that. "Who knew writing a good story could be so hard?"
Ron was trying too hard. A good story just flows, there's no need to have it all out in one setting. It takes time. Rufus would suggest he rest on it and try again later. It was getting late and he should get off his computer and get some rest.
But Ron didn't. He stayed up late, writing and re-writing the story about the same premise over and over again until the wee hours of the morning. Around six o'clock in the morning, Ron Stoppable was beat. On his desk, Rufus was asleep. He awoke sharply when Ron's exhausted head came smashing down on his keyboard from lack of sleep.
Gasping, the molerat looked at what he had written overnight. In the eight hours since he started writing his story, Ron had managed to complete three pages. Eight hours – three pages. Looking at Ron, Rufus feared he'd worked himself to death. Shaking Ron awake, Rufus was relieved to see that Ron was all right but his red eyes said otherwise. "Have…to…finish….so….tired….but…so….hard." He rasped.
Curious, Rufus read what Ron had written so far. To say it was terrible was an understatement. There were so many plot holes, OC's, meaningless dialogue, grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and too many situations resolved by dues ex machinas. In short, it was bad…just bad.
"Must finish." Ron dragged his body back up and looked at the screen. Like a zombie possessed he refused to give in for his inner writer screamed to get out. This was a story that must be told. It was his story, the story that would be better than anything the creators had originally designed.
But between the lack of sleep and his lack of creative juices, Ron could only look at the bad stuff he'd written and grab his hair in frustration. "Rufus this is so hard! How can this be so hard? I don't get it!"
The molerat sighed.
"Forget this." Ron deleted everything and to Rufus' surprise he typed in a few sentences and posted it on the site. "I'm going to bed. Night, Rufus." Stoppable loitered his way out of the chair and over to his bed where he collapsed. His snores soon followed.
Curious, Rufus checked the site for new stories. In the category of Captain Constellation, Rufus found a new story under the name of Kung-Fu-Monkey-Master. Clicking on it, Rufus read over the short passage Ron had typed and turned his head sideways.
Larry Possible, also known as Overlord482, had just sat down at his computer. Logging in to he checked his forums, his stats, and his polls before checking out the latest stories on the Captain Constellation category. He noticed a new writer, Kung-Fu-Monkey-Master, whose story was titled simply, "My First Fic", summary inside.
He clicked on the fic and waited for it to open. There were only three sentences:
"Captain Constellation fights bad guy. Captain Constellation beats bad guy. Captain Constellation goes home and sleeps."
Larry could not believe his eyes. "Well how about that?" He hit the REVIEW button and this is what he wrote.
"This story was short, too short. However, it made more sense than most of the long-winded, drama-induced, bizarre-concept, irregular-pairing, character-slashing, cross-over-loving, self-inserting, non-canon fics out there. If there's a category for the most to-the-point story in the next Fiction Awards then you have my vote. Keep writing and remember…
Rockets are go!
The end.
Yeah it's not good, but it's something I had to do.