I have plans to write stories about a zombie who drives around Britain in a double-decker bus with monster-truck wheels...
I'm fairly certain it's interesting.
I'm fairly certain it's interesting.
"I could write better characters than this!" You think so?
- Thread starter Amethyst Wind
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Yes, this is exactly what I feel! I think that whatever I do when I write, the character's voices have an aspect of my personality or voice in them. For example, they phrase their lines just as I would. *scratches head* I feel their voices become silly when I try to change their diction, too, for some reason... I agree that it seems like a common theme, a recurring one, but it seems that some writers in the media are able to change the, say, diction of their characters to sound different from themselves or other characters, but I do not know the technique for doing that. Do you have any way of making them sound different, or have them not sound like different aspects of you, or does it happen regardless of what you do?Serenegoose said:I think this might be a common theme, probably something to do with the fact that it's you that wrote them. Do you feel that all of them have an aspect of 'your' voice in there? That's what I feel, that like it or not, all my characters sound like aspects of me, whether or not this turns out to be the case is almost irrelevant.Sorafrosty said:I am a writer too, and even though people who read what I write seem to like my characters, and like how they develop, I am never sure how if they are alright even so. This is usually because I feel that every single one of my characters have the same voice, sort of, when they speak... Even though I give them different traits and faults, I feel they sound the same... Sometimes, I read over what I have written, and I wonder how I could ever write in this style or that, and then I go editingThen again, I do feel that my characters have developed somewhat, and I am happy that my skills are getting better too...
I suffered from the writer's block thing. Eventually got around it by having a side project. In the side project you literally just don't worry about anything. Just write something stupid but keep writing. Don't edit, don't spellcheck, just keep writing.hittite said:
You will end up with something that will be much better than you thought it would be and it gets your brain into the correct way of thinking when it is time to write.
NaNoWriMo is coming up. Try entering that as an external deadline gets you going as well. I admit it is a flimsy deadline in that it doesn't matter but it does help.
I couldn't do any better.
Writing a character is extremely challenging. All too often they either sound the same, or hold over the top stereotypes as seen on TV. Stereotypes are exactly what makes a seemingly real character come off as lazily/poorly written.
Expressing subtle differences that make up people while keeping it interesting has proven too difficult for me as I'm way too over critical of my own attempts.
Bottom line is if this sort of thing were truly that easy, we would at least see far better characters created in some forms of media.
Writing a character is extremely challenging. All too often they either sound the same, or hold over the top stereotypes as seen on TV. Stereotypes are exactly what makes a seemingly real character come off as lazily/poorly written.
Expressing subtle differences that make up people while keeping it interesting has proven too difficult for me as I'm way too over critical of my own attempts.
Bottom line is if this sort of thing were truly that easy, we would at least see far better characters created in some forms of media.
The cop-out-yet-unfortunately-true-answer is that it's down to practice. however, I found that having someone else's voice in my head when I wrote helped. For example, if I have a friend who's very boisterous and enthusiastic, then if I want a character like that, I imagine things how she would say it, and because she's a friend, it's a little easier for me to know what she'd say, and write it naturally, than to write 'me as boisterous' if you get me. We all write what we know, there's no way around that. One of the characters in my book I deliberately read in the voice of Flemeth from Dragon Age of all people, to kind of grab that sense of old-yet-absurd that I found she encapsulated. It wasn't by any means the entirety of the character, but I found the more I exercised that kind of ability to force myself to read from another perspective, the more I could simply come up with these perspectives without basing it on another character from fiction, allowing these characters to grow more on their own. It's like in drawing - you might want to practice on someone's face first, but eventually you'll have enough of a knack for eyes, noses, mouths, hairlines, that you can come up with your own. I also find that whilst at first that whole 'force yourself to write in a way that isn't your own' feels unnatural and stilted, eventually it starts to come naturally. As you learn more about the character you're creating, you know what they'd say and how they'd say it.Sorafrosty said:
It all takes time, but that's the way with all creative effort.
well, first, you must remember that tropes are not bad. if you dont know what that means... its not really important.Amethyst Wind said:
and I think my characters definitely beat out some others in terms of quality.
I wrote a 5,000+ word thread that was devoted to being the best and most compact quick-reference guide for writers who felt like they wanted to get a little cleaner on the various aspects of writing. (EDIT, found here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.111856-NewClassics-Writing-Theory] for those who want it.) I drew from years of non-professional experience, and the only thing I learned in the process is that writing characters is difficult to do because the term "cliche" is often unearned because the cliches about which people complain are often just any trait a human can be used through which to be relevant to the reader/audience.
Which kind of sucks, if you think about it, but that can't always be helped.
Beyond that, idea osmosis is one of those things I contend with rather constantly. I read a lot of books, which means that if I ever sit down to write something, ideas begin to filter in from just about any source I've ever read from. I can't think of wizards without a little Tolkien [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien], a little Butcher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Butcher], and just a bit Stoker [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker] and Hamilton [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurell_K._Hamilton] when the vampires and such come into play. Children all begin to squeak just a little Rowling [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.K._Rowling], and nearly any sci-fi elements are either Dietz [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Dietz] or Adams [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams] flavored.
The only thing I can complain about is a lot of games tend to pen characters for scenarios, rather than building a character within a game. There is, in my opinion, a good reason for this, but still can be frustrating from the narrative position. Part of a character's depth is how well they fit into the world, and how well the world works with or without the character. Often times, it's hard to get the feel of day-to-day life from the NPCs and the towns as they seem to hold little relevance other than to the protagonist. It makes the entire town, and everyone in it, rather one-dimensional. The problem is that in fleshing out the town and NPCs within, you're writing narrative the player will likely never see or experience. The end result is about twice as much work for very little to no gameplay changes at all. It's a lot of work for a writer, so developers take the intelligent route and don't do it. Not to mention having a narrative going on behind the players' backs can sometimes be alienating. Especially when every character recognizes a city/character/event, but the player doesn't. Or has a group of friends that they get along with, that the player has never met.
I've made plenty of games of the type, and have done the same thing. It's really, really difficult to do that much coding, and it has relatively minimal effects. To point, the game I can think of readily that did this task in full is Shenmue, a game whose budget was $70 million. It's a huge expense, and not one that should be taken lightly, especially since the end result was remarkably minimal in the grand scheme of the game. It was incredibly cool, but still minimal.
As a result, when I see a world that manages to imply goings-on unrelated to the player, and they manage to pull it off well without having to do something huge, I can appreciate it. In particular, Tri-Ace manages to pull it off fairly well for how little is actually done compared to other games in similar genres. The other way to do it is to go big, and code primarily functional AI or daily schedules for games, as seen in Animal Crossing and Shenmue.
But now I'm rambling...
To bring this back on-point, writing characters in general is hard to avoid cliches because a majority of the "stock" characteristics we've seen are that way because they're accurate to human nature and they work. Not to mention that its hard not to do the same thing someone else has done somewhere at some time. There are way too many other games/books/stories/etc. out there for something not to be similar to something else. Inevitably, there's going to be some overlap.
I'm fairly certain I could write unique characters that are mainly different from those we see otherwise in games, but I'm also completely certain that developers should never take me up on that, as that would drive the development time, cost of project, and delayed release dates for very little to no return. And they'd have to pay me to do it.
Honestly, I think it's just fine as it is, and can respect those that do so well given every other limitation out there. I don't think I could do as well as they do given the invisible restraints we don't see as gamers.
Which kind of sucks, if you think about it, but that can't always be helped.
Beyond that, idea osmosis is one of those things I contend with rather constantly. I read a lot of books, which means that if I ever sit down to write something, ideas begin to filter in from just about any source I've ever read from. I can't think of wizards without a little Tolkien [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien], a little Butcher [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Butcher], and just a bit Stoker [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Stoker] and Hamilton [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurell_K._Hamilton] when the vampires and such come into play. Children all begin to squeak just a little Rowling [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.K._Rowling], and nearly any sci-fi elements are either Dietz [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Dietz] or Adams [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams] flavored.
The only thing I can complain about is a lot of games tend to pen characters for scenarios, rather than building a character within a game. There is, in my opinion, a good reason for this, but still can be frustrating from the narrative position. Part of a character's depth is how well they fit into the world, and how well the world works with or without the character. Often times, it's hard to get the feel of day-to-day life from the NPCs and the towns as they seem to hold little relevance other than to the protagonist. It makes the entire town, and everyone in it, rather one-dimensional. The problem is that in fleshing out the town and NPCs within, you're writing narrative the player will likely never see or experience. The end result is about twice as much work for very little to no gameplay changes at all. It's a lot of work for a writer, so developers take the intelligent route and don't do it. Not to mention having a narrative going on behind the players' backs can sometimes be alienating. Especially when every character recognizes a city/character/event, but the player doesn't. Or has a group of friends that they get along with, that the player has never met.
I've made plenty of games of the type, and have done the same thing. It's really, really difficult to do that much coding, and it has relatively minimal effects. To point, the game I can think of readily that did this task in full is Shenmue, a game whose budget was $70 million. It's a huge expense, and not one that should be taken lightly, especially since the end result was remarkably minimal in the grand scheme of the game. It was incredibly cool, but still minimal.
As a result, when I see a world that manages to imply goings-on unrelated to the player, and they manage to pull it off well without having to do something huge, I can appreciate it. In particular, Tri-Ace manages to pull it off fairly well for how little is actually done compared to other games in similar genres. The other way to do it is to go big, and code primarily functional AI or daily schedules for games, as seen in Animal Crossing and Shenmue.
But now I'm rambling...
To bring this back on-point, writing characters in general is hard to avoid cliches because a majority of the "stock" characteristics we've seen are that way because they're accurate to human nature and they work. Not to mention that its hard not to do the same thing someone else has done somewhere at some time. There are way too many other games/books/stories/etc. out there for something not to be similar to something else. Inevitably, there's going to be some overlap.
I'm fairly certain I could write unique characters that are mainly different from those we see otherwise in games, but I'm also completely certain that developers should never take me up on that, as that would drive the development time, cost of project, and delayed release dates for very little to no return. And they'd have to pay me to do it.
Honestly, I think it's just fine as it is, and can respect those that do so well given every other limitation out there. I don't think I could do as well as they do given the invisible restraints we don't see as gamers.
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I would be very grateful if you could post a link to this 5000+ essay thread you wrote, I would like to have a look at it to help me with a roleplay I'm currently taking part in. ThanksNewClassic said:
To the OP: Kudos on your self-assessment capabilities. Most writers I've dealt with treat their characters like their children -- any indictment of them is an indictment of their 'parent.'
More on topic: People say things like that because they enjoy using hyperbole. The unspoken implication to go with that is 'I, who has no skill at writing, could write better than the writers of this game.' Ergo, this is their way of stating 'These guys are really bad at their job' by overstating said sentiment.
More on topic: People say things like that because they enjoy using hyperbole. The unspoken implication to go with that is 'I, who has no skill at writing, could write better than the writers of this game.' Ergo, this is their way of stating 'These guys are really bad at their job' by overstating said sentiment.
My characters tend to feel that they're the same after a while, but only a bit. They all come from me, therefore they'll all have a hint of my personality, which I need more practice on changing.
Writing a character is hard for me, but writing lore, creating worlds, and describing points in the story come easier.
I'll never say that I can write better than someone unless I'm positive. All that can be done is practice and try harder each time.
Writing a character is hard for me, but writing lore, creating worlds, and describing points in the story come easier.
I'll never say that I can write better than someone unless I'm positive. All that can be done is practice and try harder each time.
True. But it dosen't mean that anything he wrote at said age was any good. Having potential and being skilled are two different things.Nickolai77 said:
I believe King himself wrote something similar in the foreword to the "The Gunslinger" (re-release).
Sure thing, you can find it here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.111856-NewClassics-Writing-Theory]. I'll also edit the original post to link it as well.JoJoDeathunter said:
You give yourself a bum rap, RAK. I've never really had issue with your characters, and if anything, I think you handled them rather well. In fact, my only quibble with your writing was often the very technical nature of it. Even given that, it was a very minor complaint, and nothing that would stop me from reading your writing. It's a shame to see you've stopped with your fiction. I quite liked it.RAKtheUndead said:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TVTropesWillRuinYourLifeCzargent Sane said:
Probably not too many on this site who don't know what that means.
Danzaivar said:
Thanks for reminding me of that awesome song.
Anyway, I'm okay at writing characters, but they often end up similar.
I get this all the fucking time. I think, "Hey, maybe I'm doing alright now! Maybe my characters are good and well thought-out, and my storyline is looking good too!"
Then I watch something like Firefly or Crash and just give up on life. Some writers are just born to do what they do, it's looking as if I'm not one of those writers. Still, I'm young and all the big writers I know are into their 30's. I guess I still got time to take it easy and think on some ideas.
No. You can't.
Then I watch something like Firefly or Crash and just give up on life. Some writers are just born to do what they do, it's looking as if I'm not one of those writers. Still, I'm young and all the big writers I know are into their 30's. I guess I still got time to take it easy and think on some ideas.
Now, I'm saying this in the nicest way possible:Pirate Kitty said:
No. You can't.
I can see that you're cocky - that's pretty obvious. And by the simple fact that you ARE cocky, I can safely assume you think you're much better than you are. That doesn't mean you're not good, I'm not saying that. What I am saying however is that the chances of you being the best writer out of 1000 people? I reckon that'd be a feat too far. I'd go with a safer number, like 80%.Pirate Kitty said:
