Vault101s guide to writing awsome storys!
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Every brooding antihero, or any character with a scar, must have a long and tragic backstory behind the reason why he?s so ?grimdark?.
Also, rape and excessively gory violence immediately makes any story MATURE and HARDCORE (as does sad violin tracks and epic hero sacrifices).
If the villain is gay/bisexual/transsexual, they must make the protagonist feel as uncomfortable as sexually possible because?well, we?re either meant to hate sexually fluid people like that, or it?s kinky as fuck!
Also, rape and excessively gory violence immediately makes any story MATURE and HARDCORE (as does sad violin tracks and epic hero sacrifices).
If the villain is gay/bisexual/transsexual, they must make the protagonist feel as uncomfortable as sexually possible because?well, we?re either meant to hate sexually fluid people like that, or it?s kinky as fuck!
Remember, if you're writing fantasy, all bad people dress in black spiky armor, live in an active volcano, and want to destroy/take over the world because because. These bad guys have caused every single war that has ever happened. Once these bad guys are defeated, all good people live can in harmony in their glossy white cities with their working plumbing until the next wave of bad guys crawl out of the pits of hell. It's just how the world works, okay?
And there i thought my story about a nebbish painter, a porn actress, an aging B-movie director and an internet comedian discovering a government conspiracy in a futuristic world was dumb enough already...
*sighing sadly* I'm almost certain they do. You remember the Twilight crazy that was in full swing a few years ago? I seriously had roughly 500 clones of that book/series cross my desk in the span of eighteen months and of that about 500 around 200 saw publication even after the whole department I work in warned against publishing on the ground that; "It is a fad, a bubble and it will burst in the next two to five years" but alas my name has an editor credit on more than one of these very same clones. Mostly because no one wanted to put their name on them but more so because I ended up doing said editing, against my best judgement.Alandoril said:
(real figures and company name not disclosed on grounds I fear for my job irrationally)
I raise you Canada's Worst Driver meets Ace Combat... Which would be the most awesome catastrophe ever!Kalezian said:
Also
Setting: Polluted Wasteland
Plot: Beauty Pageant
Narrative Device: Video Wills
Hero: The Ace
Villain: Evil Old Folks
Character As Device: Buttmonkey
Characterization Device: Suicide Pact
A group of beautiful young girls in a post-apocalyptic earth ravaged by chemical pollution are culled into a beauty pageant held every four years at the only clean safe haven left. A hot shot young girl who has gained many skills through surviving the wastelands decides to turn the tables on the geriatric organizers of the pageant by getting the other girls to enter a suicide pact with her, each of them killing themselves after being eliminated and keeping video diaries to show to the masses to get them to sympathize with their plight and realize how unjust the old people are.
I smell a dark comedy
... Crap I forgot the Buttmonkey part... Oh well.
OT:
How about this:
Technology
Are computers, technology, and/or hackers involved in the plot? Don't know anything about any of those things? Don't worry, the audience is full of idiots! Just throw around words like GUI, interface, mainframe, IP address, Visual Basic, and overclock; you'll definitely look like you know what you're talking about! And don't forget; two people using the same keyboard is the best way to stop a hacker!
Just write the url for Tv Tropes in the middle of your 2000 page tome in 3 point font and then leave all the other pages blank. It's deep as shit! It's a metaphor for cliches and writing and how there's nothing new under the sun and also an allegory and and analogy and a simile and a syllogism to JESUS! Also, it represents consumerism. Pro-tip; Everything can be construed so as to be a metaphor for consumerism, capitalism, communism, or all three. Get out your berets, cos it's time to buy some pretention with all of your
[HEADING=3]BuCkEtS oF cAsH!!!!!!!11!11!!!!!!11!!11!!!![/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]BuCkEtS oF cAsH!!!!!!!11!11!!!!!!11!!11!!!![/HEADING]
Um... Include a jet pack...
No Triggr, you're slipping.
Make all your main character's best friends hypocritical assholes and/or moronically incompotent.
Someone must die at the end, doesn't matter who. Your audience needs to know things are serious.
No Triggr, you're slipping.
Make all your main character's best friends hypocritical assholes and/or moronically incompotent.
Someone must die at the end, doesn't matter who. Your audience needs to know things are serious.
This is weird timing. I'm actually writing an academic essay for my English course about literary and genre fiction, and how their isn't such a massive difference between the two other than critical elitism.
But anyway, back to un-serious things.
One important thing is that the protagonist must always have lost their entire family in a massacre and be the only survivor, which leads to their being a total angsty badass. It's a must for any kickass protagonist.
But anyway, back to un-serious things.
One important thing is that the protagonist must always have lost their entire family in a massacre and be the only survivor, which leads to their being a total angsty badass. It's a must for any kickass protagonist.
You almost had me fooled, good sir.
Nice try.
Also, my contribution:
Self-inserts: You should write what you know, and what do you know better than yourself! So just put yourself into your story exactly as you are but minus the flaws because flaws are for pussies and you're not a pussy, right? In fact, give yourself super powers better than everyone else in the story and make sure you get the girl easily at the end. Oh, man, you're gonna make a bestseller and get like...a billion views!
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(Note: I don't think self inserts are ALWAYS bad. Using yourself or your friends for inspiration isn't a bad thing. BUT it has to just be inspiration. You can't just plonk yourself into a story or it will SUCK, trust me. You can take traits from yourself or friends and use them when making characters, but they cannot MAKE the entire character character.
For example, the game project my friends and I are making began 6 years ago with self-insert characters. Now? Pretty much completely unrecognizable. The characters might have one main trait that comes from a person we know (Insane determination, Loyalty, insecurity, etc), but everything else about them and how those traits affect them are different. We looked at how those traits could be twisted into new and interesting ideas, and did so. Now they are no longer boring mary sues, but actual CHARACTERS.)
Nice try.
Also, my contribution:
Self-inserts: You should write what you know, and what do you know better than yourself! So just put yourself into your story exactly as you are but minus the flaws because flaws are for pussies and you're not a pussy, right? In fact, give yourself super powers better than everyone else in the story and make sure you get the girl easily at the end. Oh, man, you're gonna make a bestseller and get like...a billion views!
-
(Note: I don't think self inserts are ALWAYS bad. Using yourself or your friends for inspiration isn't a bad thing. BUT it has to just be inspiration. You can't just plonk yourself into a story or it will SUCK, trust me. You can take traits from yourself or friends and use them when making characters, but they cannot MAKE the entire character character.
For example, the game project my friends and I are making began 6 years ago with self-insert characters. Now? Pretty much completely unrecognizable. The characters might have one main trait that comes from a person we know (Insane determination, Loyalty, insecurity, etc), but everything else about them and how those traits affect them are different. We looked at how those traits could be twisted into new and interesting ideas, and did so. Now they are no longer boring mary sues, but actual CHARACTERS.)
Awesome: My novel is going to be a best seller in no time.
1. Male Protagonist
2. Bratty kid to Angsty Teenager to a Cynical Adult
3. He's actually an anthropomorphic wolf (Everyone loves animals)
4. He sexes all the ladies
5. He hates authority
6. Obligatory reason #6
Now that I got that out of my system... only #1 and #3 are true. The book is semi-autobiographical. (I'm not an anthropomorphic wolf, obviously.) It's more or less a way to vent about my past and how I felt as alienated as my character is and how he copes with the issues I did in school and life. Also a LOT of the situations are going to be blown up so that they are interesting.
1. Male Protagonist
2. Bratty kid to Angsty Teenager to a Cynical Adult
3. He's actually an anthropomorphic wolf (Everyone loves animals)
4. He sexes all the ladies
5. He hates authority
6. Obligatory reason #6
Now that I got that out of my system... only #1 and #3 are true. The book is semi-autobiographical. (I'm not an anthropomorphic wolf, obviously.) It's more or less a way to vent about my past and how I felt as alienated as my character is and how he copes with the issues I did in school and life. Also a LOT of the situations are going to be blown up so that they are interesting.
I became fast friends with this girl. I'll call her Shauna for now. Basically she was in a failing engagement and we were hanging out to help each other relax. We were going to see a movie, but she came over a few hours early(They apparently were fighting). Long story short, we end up in a tickle fight and it ends with me on top of her, and her asking "If you could do anything you wanted to to me, what would you do?" In reality I said nothing, and just kind of let her figure it out in the awkward silence. (Hint: There was some sexual tension between us). In the book my character leans forward and kisses her, and they end up having sex right there. The end result is still the same. She breaks of the engagement and stops talking to me, blaming me for splitting them up. In reality, I wasn't at fault, but just helped it along in a way. In the book it IS the character's fault.
Cynicism alone doesn't get us anywhere, cynicism plus initiative can get you all kinds of things, like a new ending for ME3 or a popular web series on a certain web based magazine that really isn't a magazine but still calls itself one in its URL.Sir Thomas Sean Connery said:
Edit: Also, complacency towards bad writing in video games gets us no closer to the next Chrono Trigger and does nothing to help foster video games as either an artistic medium or a form of entertainment. Competition drives this world, and everything in it. If we just lower the bar, it'll just make everything worse for all of us.
Are you out of your mind, Vault? Women are the easiest to write; you simply stick them in the refrigerator and forget about them. Or failing that, just chop them up in throw them in a shoulder bag. The ones worth killing should be light enough to carry with one arm, freeing the other up for things like closing the door behind you and opening the trunk of your kick-ass muscle car. Men are much harder to right like this because you have to use both arms or sling them over your back, or maybe just drag them around. And then you've got to work in lumbar pain. Who wants to read about a character with lumbar pain??