For Writers of Original Fiction

It's always interesting to see how characters overcome or find ways to work around their limitations. There's a reason underdog stories have remained so popular.

Edited Date: 2009-08-06 07:21 am (UTC)

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I like creating my characters - but not naming them. -_-

Physically, they tend to walk fully formed into my head and it takes time for my subconcious to find a way to fit them into the story. I won't lie. I don't have the strongest characters that run the show for me. But if I work out the plot and who goes where I can come come up with some interesting motivations!

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As long as the motivations are there and make sense, I don't think it matters what order they form before you start writing. I'm rather inconsistent as far as what order I create the plot and the characters in. Sometimes I even come up with the world setting first.

I've always liked naming characters. I usually use this (http://www.behindthename.com/) website to help me think up names because all else fails I can use the random name generator it has. The generator has all sorts of useful options such as the language you want the name to be from.

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For me, the world always comes first. Fantasy writer hazard! :D

And I love Behind the Name too, it's great for finding some older sounding names and meanings behind them! :)

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I love world building. It makes me sad I can never fit everything I've built into the story. I'm always afraid of overloading the story with things irrelevant to the plot.

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Hmm I like the idea of having a full world but not showing all of it - it's like there's something there just for you to enjoy.

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I often spend way too much time trying to come up with character names. And I love names from different cultures, so thanks for posting that.

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gnomenapper.livejournal.com

Bit of an indirectly related rant: (not directed toward the OP, but the term in general and those who over use it to the detriment of original fiction.)

The fan fiction term Mary Sue is thrown around so often I'm actually starting to hate it. Never mind the fact that the list linked is so extensive basically any character can fit as a Mary Sue.
I'm not saying there isn't crap characters written every day- but calling Mary Sue every two seconds is not helping. It's an insult with very little positive critique value. I don't write fanfic, but it's thrown around so often in regular writing circles on the internet that it's aggravating.
It's stifling creativity and making people self-conscious about their characters.
The criticism section of that wiki link gives a good overview as to why it's a ridiculous term. I really wish it term would stay in the fanfic communities (if it needs to exist at all), and not in the original fiction world. I've even heard people refer to celebrities babies as Mary-Sue. It's getting ridiculous. Real people are even Mary Sues now.
*head desk*

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I agree it's getting a bit over used and the definition getting a little too broad, but Mary Sue-like characters do occasionally appear in original fiction. Less common than in fanfics, but it still can happen. It's an easy mistake for younger and beginning writers to make. There currently isn't a different term for this in original fiction that I know of.

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gnomenapper.livejournal.com

I think because it's used as a catch-all term without any real precision. Is the character too one sided, too much of an ideal, unoriginal or unrealistic? How so? I think more specific critiques help writers a lot more. If you have a critique pinpoint it.
Poorly fleshed out characters exist in any writing community but the term Mary Sue does more harm than any real good. It's insulting, and doesn't help the writer improve.

Excuse my rant- I'm just so tired of that term.

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I never use the term when critiquing. It tends to make people defensive and less open to what you're saying, since everyone knows Sues as being horrible. Some people won't listen to you regardless when you tell them their character is unbalanced though. I think being unbalanced is a main part of the root of the problem with Sues.

Someone needs to invent new more specific terms.

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lady-fellshot.livejournal.com

It might help to think of the term "Mary sue" the same way you would think of "the flu" except there is no vaccine aside from author prevention. It's a collection of symptoms that when taken by themselves may not be noticeable, but when two or more are present and noticeable, there may be something of a problem with varying severity.

Alternatively, you could treat the "Mary Sue" the same way you would think about any other character cliche, be it "the badass" or "the damsel in distress." Is it truly that limiting to try to think around cliches and move towards something more specific and unique? I don't think so.

I find the idea that a character cliche can only be found in one section of the writing population patently absurd. There are at least a couple of published authors who have characters that fit the Mary Sue mold so well, it is both sad and frightening (need I mention Stephanie Meyers?). That certain cliches are more frequent among inexperienced authors than experienced ones should come as no surprise to anyone. Having people around to point out when characters start downward spirals into cliche always should be both helpful and specific.

Alright, I think I'm done with my mini rant. For now anyway. :p

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For my stories, I have to fall in love with my characters a little bit. Even with the "bad guys," I have to have characters who I love writing about. I don't create my characters, they just seem to live inside my head.

Another important thing to remember is that, when writing scenes/chapters, you can't force a character to do something. I've found that I may want a certain set of dialogue or actions in a scene, but as I'm writing it, my characters take it another way. And I've also found, that it usually ends up sounding better if I just leave it how they created it, instead of trying to force my initial ideas.

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I love my characters too, and in all the stories I've come up with about half have found a permanent home in my head.

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I'll be going about my everyday life, doing things that are completely un-related to my story, yet something will remind me of my characters, as if they were real people. Then, of course they play out -- in my head -- whatever situation I am in at the time.

I guess that's good though, at least then I know how my characters will play out various situations if I ever need to write those.

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I've found that even if you love your characters, you still have to be able to let bad things happen to them for the sake of the story, so they'll grow and change.

I love writing about my characters, but if I have to I can still hang the threat of a horrible splatter death over their heads to create drama.

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I agree. The good guy can't live in a perfect fantasy world. Naturally, I want my beloved characters to prevail, but that can't always be the case. And I've found that I really enjoy the emotions that come from reading about the heartbreak of one of my characters.

One of the most important aspects, I think, is to feel for the characters. There has to be some sort of emotion produced by reading about them, whether it's good or bad.

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magickeyboard.livejournal.com

thebonedawg's description matches how my characters are a lot. With few exceptions most of my stories have started with me picturing a specific character in a specific scene, reacting to a situation and then it going from there. And while my non writer friends tend to think I'm crazy when I say it the characters definitely can do things I wasn't planning or say things I hadn't expected. For me half the plot and character actions is planned and the other half just kind of flows as if the characters are real and are just using me to narrate the story. I hope I don't sound too insane now ;-)

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