Life's a Pain: Her Royal Highness

Hi! I'm somewhat new to this website and the romance section seeing as how I'm only in high school... graduating in June though! :faint: Anyways, seeing as such I don't have very much experience in the romance field but I'm very much into that kind of stuff... so I have this story I titled "Life's a Pain: Her Royal Highness" weird name yeah I know It's about a princess named Erina who lives in the year 2020's or so but her parents are those traditional King and Queen who thinks she needs to marry a Prince! She then meets Char, whom is very different from her.

She's a paranoid teenager who's very shy and always worries. He's an upbeat, cheerful and outgoing guy. I have a picture that I had to keep re-sizing for you to see of them, yes I drew it. This story may very well turn out to be a manga, a Japanese comic book since I love to draw AND write. However, the people who make manga (manga-ka's) have to live in Japan or something, not sure on the details but I've never heard of an American manga-ka...yet Uh hope I remembered everything, I'll post the story somewhere in the future since it's unfinished and not typed on the computer yet. Now, please leave a comment for me or I shall you and bug you about it!

Oh yeah, almost forgot :Smack: ... story idea and picture is Copyright ©2003 - 2005 to me

Susan Gable said:

Hi, Lady!

First of all, I have to let you know that ideas are not copyrightable. I mean, the concept you've told us - shy, fretful Princess meets cheerful, outgoing guy - is very basic. We could ALL take that basic premise and we'd all come up with very different stories - which is why ideas are not copyrightable. (For an easy example, several years ago - you were probably in elementary school! <G> - there were two summer movies out that both involved an astroid hitting the earth. Same basic idea, two very different stories, and neither set of writers "copied" off the others.)

Susan G.

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It isn't just an idea, I've already written some of the story... wouldn't that count as being able to copyright it..?

Susan Gable said:

Magna is very hot in terms of the market right now. There was just a discussion on a group I belong to about Harlequin's magna romances in Japan. (They're reprinting some of their books as magna.) From what I hear, this format is making in-roads in the US. I'm sorry I don't have any solid information for you about it but I'll keep my ears open and if I hear anything, I'll report back here.

Young adult is also getting a big kick these days from publishers, so keep looking. There may very well be a market for your magna soon. Finish it!

Good luck!

Susan G.

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I don't mean to be um a nitpicker or whatever you call it, but you keep mispelling "manga" it's not "magna" I almost had 4 heart attacks, I'm not trying to be rude or anything, I just wanted you to know in the future so very very very VERY loyal manga readers do not jump on you Thank you very much for the advise, I'll continue working on my stories.

Susan Gable said:

You have a copyright on your excution of the idea - the words and pictures you've created. And the copyright exists as soon as you create the "product" - so in essence, your actual creation is already protected. But the "concept" - the premise - isn't copyrightable. So if next year I had a book out that featured a teenage princess and cheerful guy, well, that's not plagerism.

Susan G.

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Aha, ok! Thank you! I meant more like, the characters are copyrighted I guess, since I don't want people stealing them, it takes me a good deal of time to think of GOOD names and storylines that have a different zing to it that has more to it than a teenage princess and cheerful guy Thanks for letting me know!

Susan Gable said:

Oh, thank you! That's not being nit-picky - that's instructing me. Manga. Manga. I have no idea why i thought it was magNA, but I'm very glad you corrected me. I don't like to get things wrong, so I appreciate you pointing it out, and I'm sorry I gave you four heart attacks.

Manga. There's the word MAN in it, and that should be easy enough to remember since you can't have a romance without a man. (Ummm...well, you can, but I don't write those kinds of romances. )

Thanks again!

Susan G.

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Ah you're welcome, I too am like that, I appreciate when people point out to me a mistake! I hate getting things wrong I had four heart attacks since you spelt manga like "magna" four time hehe LOL! Yeah I see hehe, no problem

jackie106 said:

Hi Lady Ryuu,

When you get to college, consider taking a class in copyright law for non-lawyers. Usually the class is offered through the communications department. The more you know about copyright law, the better you will be able to protect yourself.

Jackie

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Hmm thanks for letting me know I'll see if I can get one tomorrow Sorry for the lateness of this reply, I don't check this site very often

batgirl said:

Hi Lady Ryuu - apologies if I'm telling you what you already know, but there is a thriving subculture of self-published manga called doujinshi (also spelled dojinshi), some of it fanfic and some of it original. It sounds as if that might be what you're considering.

The wikipedia article is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doujinshi with links to sites for e-publishing or selling work - it notes that the primary market for selling doujinshi is eBay, which is where I came across it first. If you haven't seen the article, the sites mentioned may be useful for you, at least for trading ideas with other manga fans and hopeful writers.
Many doujinshi, like manga, are erotic or gory, so be careful browsing (this is the mother-side of me taking over for a moment).

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Yes I'm considering manga That's what most of my stories are based on, although I did write a story with "life-like" characters Hehe ok thanks a lot for the link! I'll be sure to look into it Sorry for the late reply!