Making Your Characters Realistic

Yes but the fact that they are so used (and overused) wouldn't show that characters like that are realistic ?

Lovesick.:

Yes but the fact that they are so used (and overused) wouldn't show that characters like that are realistic ?

I think it just means that the cliches are overused and that lots of people don't bother with originality anymore. They don't even attempt to add something to a commonly used character. That can make all the difference. They're cookie cutter characters, down the same brand of butter used in the cookie dough. It's quite sad really.

at the risk of sounding narcisisstic, i think this and it's sequel are meaningful abuse-fics.

it actually really squicks me out when people throw in 'rape' and 'abuse' as character add-ons, or to pad out their backstory, without attaching any real weight to the IMMENSE delicacy of the subjects. these things affect millions of people worldwide, and here we are, using them for 'entertiainment'.

my family are foster carers, and when you've had to live with a fourteen year old boy who still wets the bed from the nightmares about what his parents did to him when he was a child, or had to go out at 3.00am to curb-crawl the seedy parts of the city because your 13 year old foster child has run away to whore herself to make some cash so she can buy that new MCR CD all her friends are talking about... THEN you'll want to attach some real respect and depth of emotion to these horrific subjects.

Seventh:

at the risk of sounding narcisisstic, i think this and it's sequel are meaningful abuse-fics.

it actually really squicks me out when people throw in 'rape' and 'abuse' as character add-ons, or to pad out their backstory, without attaching any real weight to the IMMENSE delicacy of the subjects. these things affect millions of people worldwide, and here we are, using them for 'entertiainment'.

my family are foster carers, and when you've had to live with a fourteen year old boy who still wets the bed from the nightmares about what his parents did to him when he was a child, or had to go out at 3.00am to curb-crawl the seedy parts of the city because your 13 year old foster child has run away to whore herself to make some cash so she can buy that new MCR CD all her friends are talking about... THEN you'll want to attach some real respect and depth of emotion to these horrific subjects.

I have a story (not on here, too badly written) that I think portrays rape well. It's about a girl who basically creates a new person. She won't think of the 'old her', and eventually she very literally goes insane from repressing all those memories.

I can't say I've had experience with any of that, but I absolutely hate it when people just use abuse and rape lightly. Even I know that it doesn't work like that, to be able to get over it easily without help ('Cuz heaven knows she can't go to a counselor).

I'm, like, oddly attracted to writing rapefics. I have this sort of unspoken rule that it's not my new fandom until I've written rape. I think it's one of the darkest acts of the human soul and it always intrigues me to write it. One girl read one of my stories and said it gave her hope that one day her brother would stop raping her. I was terrified.

yeah - see, a comment like that: you've given someone hope. which means you must have done a good job in the fic. so YES, it's shocking to hear, but you can congratulate yourelf on a tricky subject, well-handled.

i once had an email from someone who'd read a version of the fic i linked above^^ in a writer's magazine - he told me the story had given him the push to go to the police and finally stop his step-father filming himself abusing his autistic brother to sell online. that was pretty fucking grounding. we're still in touch.

[btw, just to clarify myself: i woud never try to tell someone what they CAN or CANNOT write - i just want to highlight the horrible reality behind these subjects and remind people not to use them lightly as 'entertainment'.]

Mrs. Melting Crayons:

SnowXwhite:

I totally agree with you scenager. It's all so unrealistic, Gerard Way isn't going to see you in the crowd and fall in love with you. I'm also annoyed with the stories where everything is wrong with the main character. She's raped, abused, depressed, bullied, and so much more. I regretfuly wrote one of those sob stories for a hp fanfic. It was my first story, and then a year later I wrote a wonderful chapter about the deppression but of course my computer is a but head so it deleted it. The best writing in my life and it's all gone *sob*.

Actually, I've seen a few stories pulled off where the main character is raped, abused, bullied and depressed. It all depends on how it's written.

Yeah it depends on how you write it. Like I said I made a chapter on the same story and I pulled it off, but of course I lost it!! It's a cliche that most people can't pull off. They don't really put any emotion in it. Ex. I was raped, abused, bullied and much more and I'm very sad. Most of the time they don't really elaborate and just use it as something to break up a relationship. It definitly depends on the writer and how they put it into a story and how they write it.

druscilla; sees red.:

I think there's actually an overabundance of male abuse stories on Mibba. The problem is they just suck. There's no realism. It's like "my boyfriend hits me but I love him blahblahblah" or "I got raped at a party and now I'm going to cut myself forever blahblahblah".

I've actually written both those stories, but I think I managed to pull it off. If you don't have talent, you shouldn't tackle something that's so deep.

Agreed entirely. That also sort of goes back to the 'Oh, he's not emo enough. Let's throw in a rape! :cute:' mentality.

As far as I'm concerned, it should be avoided altogether, unless people know exactly how serious and triggering a subject they're dealing with.

I rarely read rape stories these days, simply because most of these girls have no idea what they're writing. It's demeaning, almost, to victims.

That, however, is different, in that not only are you a brilliant author, but you have some substance behind what you write. Talent is important, but so is understanding the severity of the concepts one is exploring. They can't hope to write a realistic rape story if they can't fully understand the psyche not only of a victim, but of a predator.

Maybe its just me but I get tired of fanfictions that don't even bother to make the band members seem like themselves. If you are going to write something fictional about someone that is real and especially if you are serious about it.[because when you're just kidding around this stuff isn't quite as important] then you need to make them act decently like they would if really faced with the fictional scenarios in which they find themselves.
...Not that I'm any kind of expert...I don't even know if that rant made sense, I hope it did... I just get tired of always seeing the same issues in fiction and especially in fan-fiction.

This.Useless.Heart.:

Maybe its just me but I get tired of fanfictions that don't even bother to make the band members seem like themselves. If you are going to write something fictional about someone that is real and especially if you are serious about it.[because when you're just kidding around this stuff isn't quite as important] then you need to make them act decently like they would if really faced with the fictional scenarios in which they find themselves.
...Not that I'm any kind of expert...I don't even know if that rant made sense, I hope it did... I just get tired of always seeing the same issues in fiction and especially in fan-fiction.

I agree. Unless it's extreme AU, of course. Then it's okay, even though it's nice to try and retain something. I mean, I wrote a story where Mike Dirnt was pretty much a World War III Nazi soldier, so it's kind of hard to see how he would react in those situations, but I know what you mean. If your character isn't going to act the way we would normally expect him to, you better have a damn good reasons explained in the story.

That being said, it's not a terrible thing when the fanfiction characters act differently that we would expect if it's written well with a good reason. Like if the badass is crying and you have a good reason that's executed well, it's a nice change sometimes. Or if the goody-two-shoes is drinking and shooting up, but you have a good reasons that's written well, it's sort of refreshing.

But not even bothering with reasons or execution makes it quite shitty. I completely agree.

I hate it when people make their characters either butt ugly or really beautiful. What? Is there no happy medium? I also hate generic beauty: like the glamorous diva or dark vampiress.

I've honestly even made a chick completely albino wether that's posible or not...

Heartless:

I hate it when people make their characters either butt ugly or really beautiful. What? Is there no happy medium? I also hate generic beauty: like the glamorous diva or dark vampiress.

I've honestly even made a chick completely albino wether that's posible or not...

I like it when characters are described as something like "pretty but not beautiful". It's nice.

druscilla; adlestrop:

Heartless:

I hate it when people make their characters either butt ugly or really beautiful. What? Is there no happy medium? I also hate generic beauty: like the glamorous diva or dark vampiress.

I've honestly even made a chick completely albino wether that's posible or not...

I like it when characters are described as something like "pretty but not beautiful". It's nice.

Yeah, I mean just looking around you at a mall, no one's a goddess really, but they're not all disgusting.

Heartless:

I've honestly even made a chick completely albino wether that's posible or not...

<random info>
if she was albino, she'd have been partially sighted. FACT.

albinism is an eye disorder, and the hair colour is a side effect often seen with it.
so you can have albinism and not have pale hair, but you can NEVER have the pale hair without the eye problems, no matter what Hollywood tries to show you.

</random info>

I've worked as an assistant at a College for the Blind for 5 years, so if anyone has any blind-related stuff, or Braille questions, drop me a line and i'll try my best to answer you.

it annoys me when people use blindness or deafness as a 'character flaw'.
being unable to see has NOTHING to do with personality! believe me, a LOT of blind people are complete bastards, BEFORE they went blind, as well as after.
martyring the 'poor blind girl' just gives them a huge ego and makes them difficult to live with, hehe.

same for any disability. being unable to walk or whatever, is NOT a 'character flaw'. it might have huge significance on why they respond to situations inthe way that they do - but in itself, it's not an excuse to create a Mary-Sue-in-a-wheelchair, who copes SO well with this TERRIBLE affliction... *rollseyes*

Waycest that basically consists of 'Gerard loves Mikey. He knows it's wrong. But he makes a move and finds out Mikey loves him too. The world is against them. The end.'

I think Waycest is one of the most fragile and beautiful pairings if handled well. I mean, it just annoys me that it's summarized like that, without effort into making it more emotional and real.

Real characters aren't always so uninhibited. A lot of slashes [usually Frerards ==] have conversations like this:

F: So, d'you have a girlfriend?
G: Why?
F: No reason. Just asking.
G: No.
F: ORLY?
G: Actually, I'm gay.
F: Omg, so am I!

Real characters don't admit that sort of stuff to people they just met. Well, not from what I know. It's just irritating.

Seventh:

Heartless:

I've honestly even made a chick completely albino wether that's posible or not...

<random info>
if she was albino, she'd have been partially sighted. FACT.

albinism is an eye disorder, and the hair colour is a side effect often seen with it.
so you can have albinism and not have pale hair, but you can NEVER have the pale hair without the eye problems, no matter what Hollywood tries to show you.

</random info>

I actually knew that :mrgreen:

The Waycest:

Waycest that basically consists of 'Gerard loves Mikey. He knows it's wrong. But he makes a move and finds out Mikey loves him too. The world is against them. The end.'

I think Waycest is one of the most fragile and beautiful pairings if handled well. I mean, it just annoys me that it's summarized like that, without effort into making it more emotional and real.

I completely agree with that. Plus, that’s so painfully boring and a plot that overused (the same story, same kind of feelings, same reactions, no twists whatsoever) seriously gives me a headache if I even try to read it.

loser.:

Real characters aren't always so uninhibited. A lot of slashes [usually Frerards ==] have conversations like this:

F: So, d'you have a girlfriend?
G: Why?
F: No reason. Just asking.
G: No.
F: ORLY?
G: Actually, I'm gay.
F: Omg, so am I!

Real characters don't admit that sort of stuff to people they just met. Well, not from what I know. It's just irritating.

Well, sometimes it's incredibly easy to admit a deep secret to a stranger, far easier than to a friend. But honestly, they know they're going to see each other again, it's not the same.

i dislike when people write things along the lines of
"I think i love you!"
"Oh god, me too! i've wanted to fuck you since the day i saw you!"
"Oh wow! me TOO! shall we do it?"
"Yeah! fuck me! fuck me now!"

it's just... people DON'T talk like pornstars in real life. REAL confessional conversations are full of stuttering and pauses and NOT ACTUALLY SAYING ANYTHING.

like:

"I, uh... I have something to tell you. Um."
"Are you okay? Is something wrong?"
"Yeah, yeah, i'm fine, everything's fine. it's just..."
"hmn?"
"Um. okay, this is kinda tough to say so... so... okay. Um. I... I think that... i might... uh, y'know... I mean - i really like you, you know? and uh... well - the thing is, I... I think i might..."
"You might....? oh god."
"Shit. shit i'm sorry, i...."
"No! no! because... because I... um... it's just crazy because i... i think i might... y'know... too. i never thought that... I guess i didn't think you would ever... either, y'know?"

yes, it looks messy, but admit it: it's MUCH more likely that that is how the conversation would actually take place!