Hello, writers. SensibleShoes is taking some fancy-pants test today, so you're stuck with me.
"What should I write about?" I asked her.
"Write what you know," she said.
So I started a diary about how to write bad, but it fell apart at the midpoint. I decided to try Bad Writing 2.0, instead: the '2.0' not because I've already written a diary about bad writing, but because there's a hep new vocabulary of literary criticism developed by groovy whippersnappers and wired young 'uns ... I think. Not really sure, but I found all these Things To Avoid at tvtropes.com:
First comes Mary Sue: A Mary Sue ('Marty Stu' for boys) is an idealized version of the author, basically. Perfect and powerful, beloved by all the other characters: she knows all the answers and her plans never backfire ... unless some nasty person who doesn't acknowledge her worth messes them up. If a Marty Stu has a flaw, it's that he's 'too good for this world'; too forgiving, too hard-working. One of those so-called flaws that job applicants trot out during interviews.
Then there's the Mary Suetopia, a danger mostly for speculative fiction types: a country in which everything is perfect and everyone is happy, thus proving the author's ideology. A perfect, 'good' country or federation or queendom (or organization, too, I'd say) in which smiling workers with excellent dental care all toil for the greater good. Internal threats and conflicts are impossible.
Here's one I like, and am guilty of: Concepts Are Cheap. That's when, instead of actually motivating a character to act in a certain way, a writer just has her or him strive for 'good,' or 'liberty,' or 'justice for all.' This is a problem with a lot of cop stories: the cop's just doing her job, which is pretty unsexy. I mean, if her job was a janitor, she'd ignore the serial killer and get back to mopping. The personal stakes aren't high. The solution, too often, is putting her child in jeopardy, or having the killer target her next, or whatnot. Which can work, but can also simply obscure the problem--that you're motivating your character via vaporous principle instead of felt urgency.
The Broken Aesopis when the ostensible message of a story is undermined by the story itself. Like a cop drama where the police break the law in order to uphold it, or women's fiction where the message is that a woman doesn't need a man--until she totally does. I don't have anything interesting to say, but I love the phrase: Broken Aesop. My son's lucky I don't change his name.
Rape Is the New Dead Parents is the use of a tragic backstory to provide instant sympathy and a shortcut to characterization. Apparently related to the Sympathetic Sue,a Mary Sue who exists to garner sympathy.
Another tempting one is Trapped By Mountain Lions, which refers to a subplot that seems to have torn adrift from the main plot. According to the link, this is named for "Kim Bauer and her escapades in season 2 of 24 where she is chased by her employer's homicidal husband, briefly detained after said employer's corpse is found in the trunk of her stolen car, caught in a bear trap and surrounded by mountain lions (thus the trope name), held prisoner by a lonely redneck, and becomes a hostage in a liquor store holdup, while her father was off trying to find and defuse a nuclear bomb."
Although all of that is, frankly, excellent.
The Faux Action Girl: "A supposedly modern heroine who, under closer scrutiny, doesn't live up to her reputation.... She's established from the very beginning as a powerful, capable hero... and never does anything heroic. She has a well-grounded reputation as a strong fighter in her field... and always fails in the line of battle. Her talents and skills are well known to fellow characters but rarely if ever seen by the viewers."
Narm. "A Narm is a moment that is supposed to be serious, but due to either over-sappiness, poor execution, excessive Melodrama, or the sheer absurdity of the situation, the drama is lost to the point of becoming unintentionally funny."
Named for a scene where the main character suffers a brain embolism, suddenly grabs his right arm and repeats "Numb arm!", but it quickly becomes "N'arm! N'arm!"
- "Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn.
- 'We're not going to use magic?' Ron ejaculated loudly.
- "Our Headmaster is taking a short break," said Professor McGonagall, pointing at the Snape-shaped hole in the window.
Well, except that last one was funny on purpose, right?
And here's another one (apparently) from Happy Rotter: The Agony of the Feet. A character is minding his own business when something heavy drops on his foot. "Or he's angry about something and kicks the source of his frustration... a little too hard. Or she's angered a cute kid and the kid kicks her in the shins or stomps on her toe. Whatever the situation, the result is the same. The character in question ends up hopping on one foot while clutching the other one, shouting in Angrish for a few seconds to indicate their pain."
Not exactly a fatal flaw, but gives me another opportunity to tease the potterheads.
Are you guilty of any of these? Any Mary Sues? Any Mountain Lions or New Dead Parents?
And a question for everyone, bolded to catch your wandering eye:
What is the most unfair rejection or review you ever got?
And now let us bow our heads in prayer that Sensible Shoes achieves a 2400 on her GED, not forgetting even for a moment the difference between a quadrinomial and a dromedary.
Write On! will be a regular Thursday feature (8 pm ET) until it isn't. Be sure to check out other great lit'ry diaries like:
sarahnity's books by kossacks on Tuesdays
plf515's What Are You Reading? on Wednesday mornings.
cfk's bookflurries on Wednesday nights.
Your happy writing links for the week:
Nathan Bransford introduces a new critiquing game. Also, crafting voice.
Nicola Morgan on taking risks and on the diff btwn an idea and a book.
If you were tryna sell a juvenile fantasy series right now (which I am) this could get you down.
But on the bright side, even writers are overpaid sometimes.
I'd never heard of the Bechdel test before. Not all my stuff passes it. YMMV.
The Intern reveals the truth about the Big Six publishers.
Never, ever sign anything with any agent or publisher whom you haven't checked out at Writer Beware or Preditors and Editors.