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[Carter-Orange]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading stories where the guys are way out of character?

If I'm enjoying the story then I wouldn't mind too much, it wouldn't stop me reading.  I like them to be in character as much as possible though.

[mare]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading stories where the guys are way out of character?

No, I do not lol

I'm kind of the opinion that if all you have in common with the BSB is the name, then it's not a BSB fanfic. I would probably classify it more as an OF and read it that way but it would probably annoy me the whole time lol

Little changes are okay. But when they are truly unrecognizable, no way.

[Pengi]

Brian/Howie = ...??

They're both sweet, nice guys, who are close to their families, and they can sing high.  That's all I got LOL.

Hahaha omg that list rules. That's so true. They're kind of the no man's land of the Backstreet fandom. Poor Howie/Brian. LOL I'm glad I wasn't the only one who saw that.

[mare]

Tonight's question:

Do you tend to include a lot of flashbacks or changes in points of view in your writing and if so, how do you go about letting the readers know it's happening?

[Pengi]

Tonight's question:

Do you tend to include a lot of flashbacks or changes in points of view in your writing and if so, how do you go about letting the readers know it's happening?

I've written stories with POV changes before. When I do, the POV change happens at the start of the chapter and it's denoted by a dek at the top with the narrator's name. Similarly, Jen and I use a dek to separate the halves of our collab chapters so people reading know when it's Nick (her writing) or Brian (my writing).

I do like doing flashbacks in my stories only because when I'm writing a first person narrative, I try my hardest to let the writing flow the way conscious thought would. I want the thought process to sound natural. So flashbacks are either indicated by italicized text or the way I book end the thought process leads to an obvious break between the narrator's train of thought and the flashback. For example, I'll have someone interrupt the person mid-thought, breaking the flashback or I'll have them "shake their heads" to clear the thoughts away, something like that.

The natural thought process is a lot of what gives my characters depth, I think, and is something I get comments on a lot (well its more people commenting on what the person was thinking than being like 'whoa awesome natural thought process', you know what I mean though right? lol).

[Rose]

Tonight's question:

Do you enjoy reading stories where the guys are way out of character?

Not if it's to the point where I can't recognize them. What's the point then? I mean you may as well call it an original fiction and move on. It's why I always make a point to write the Boys as true to life as I can while trying to keep my own spin on it.

Tonight's question:

Do you tend to include a lot of flashbacks or changes in points of view in your writing and if so, how do you go about letting the readers know it's happening?

Not a lot, no. I like to explain it in other ways. At times though, it's required so that you don't go about some weird way to show something.  Usually I either label the date of when it happened, and go down in italics to show that scene. That, or I have the character musing over the events in his head, in italics. I'm not obvious about it. My big pet peeve is people labeling the POV or going "FLASHBACK" or something. Ugh, it's supposed to be subtle. The reader should know without you basically announcing it lol.

[FrickingKaos]

It is a bit tricky for me since I write everything on my phone, but when I want to do a flashback I just space it out a bit from the paragraph and then throw a sentence in reminding the reader it is in the past. If I am switching POV, (usually in 3rd person) I do the same thing since I cannot italicize or use any different fonts.

[mare]

I try to use italics when I do a flashback or like Hannah, throw the flashback into a scene where the character can relay what happened and get pulled out of his thoughts. I'm not a fan of using the word flashback lol just like Rose said, the writing should be able to speak for itself. Just like a summary should be able to speak for itself without the use of a banner.

Points of view, I try to do the same as above but usually use the name of who is speaking at the top of the chapter.

[RokofAges75]

I'm not a big fan of flashbacks.  I've used them before, but I usually prefer to just tell the story in order and find other ways to work in the backstory.  When I do use flashbacks, I put them in  italics and separate them from the rest of the narrative with an extra line of space.  Like a lot of you have said, it drives me nuts when I see flashbacks labeled "~*~FLASHBACK~*~".  I prefer to think that my writing can stand on its own and that my readers are intelligent enough to infer that it's a flashback LOL.

As for point of view, most of my stories are written in third person limited point of view from one main character's perspective.  Some of them, like By My Side, Secrets of the Heart, and Song for the Undead, change which character the POV is limited to each chapter or scene.  In BMS, I didn't do anything special to signal that change because it was only between two characters.  In Secrets, as well as Curtain Call, I label the chapter title with which character's perspective it shows.  In Undead, we start each chapter with a journal entry written by that character (in first person), then go to the third person narrative showing that character's perspective.  Just like with the flashback thing, I'm not a fan of labeling each scene with "~*~Brian's POV~*~" and "~*~Nick's POV~*~" etc.  Especially when it happens multiple times in the same chapter.  Stop switching POVs already!! LOL

[Pengi]

It is a bit tricky for me since I write everything on my phone, but when I want to do a flashback I just space it out a bit from the paragraph and then throw a sentence in reminding the reader it is in the past. If I am switching POV, (usually in 3rd person) I do the same thing since I cannot italicize or use any different fonts.

You can use HTML tags to change the bold/italics of the text, even on your phone. To make a particular block of text italicized, use this tag <.i> before and <./i> after the block you want italicized. (Remove the . in those tags to make them work), switch out the i with a b to make bold.

[Sakabelle]

For flashbacks, I usually just switch to italics and give some sort of notion in the character's inner monologue that they're thinking about this scene that happened. Actually one of the stories I'm writing now relies heavily on the use of flashbacks and this is how I plan to utilize them throughout.

[FrickingKaos]

Thanks for the tip, Hannah! I also saw my blackberry has a Word doc app. Was thinking about just downloading it and using it.

[Pengi]

Thanks for the tip, Hannah! I also saw my blackberry has a Word doc app. Was thinking about just downloading it and using it.

No prob bob!

[Carter-Orange]

If I have flashbacks in my stories, I always use italics.  As for POV's I would maybe have the characters name at the beginning of the chapter, or separate the paragraphs within a chapter to make it clear.

[Sakabelle]

For different POVs I don't think that I've ever explicitly told the reader who's speaking, actually. One one story, it switches back and forth between Nick and the girl each chapter, so I think that one is fairly obvious, and in Running Up That Hill, the POV switch it just indicated by the "~~~" and the reader just has to figure it out. But in that one I'll try to make it obvious too. I'll reference one of their wives or where they are, and I try to make their voices each sound different too but I don't know how well I accomplish that lol