Divide Between Character and Writing

One of the fics I keep track of, Inter Nos, has finally updated. I figure now and for the last time, to tackle a subject that niggles me every time I read it.

The general insistence on the perfection of the central protagonist (AU Fujino Shizuru).

More than once have I been greeted by other cast characters feeling some innate sense that Shizuru can do no wrong, and is flawlessly perfect. She's been likened to a Roman goddess, more than once (Justified by the setting). It's true for the most part. This Shizuru I read seems to always be one step ahead of a game in any topic that might be related to her. Finances, War Tactics, Politics... Shizuru does no wrong. She is always superior to her all of her peers or any foe she comes across.

Does this mean this story is terrible, and I'm reading a Mary Sue?

Now, that's the part I've been thinking about. Because if you've read earlier posts, Inter Nos is actually written very well. The author doesn't go out of his or her way of directly narrating the perfection of Shizuru, or get trapped by the usual pitfalls of poor characterization. Shizuru is actually, very well developed. The reader can get intimate with the personality and understand her, for the most part. Shizuru still seems human.

She just happens to be able to do no wrong. Then again, she doesn't always get her way either, since forces about her recently put a major wrench into her ambitions. But if I hear one more character expressing how innately, gut-feelingly Shizuru is lead to greatness...

(And I just remembered. Let's not get into the times characters describe Shizuru physically...)

So where's the boundary? Can good writing excuse a perfect character? Where does it count for a character to be considered "flawed realistically"? Which actions can never fail, and which actions, no matter how small, can fail, and still convince the reader the protagonist isn't perfect?

There have been works of fiction that have characters that work similarly, too, in past and present. For such characters, it wasn't on our part to worry too much for his health, but be entertained by him or her being awesome and getting out of binds awesomely.

On a specific level, I think of Donnie Yen's "Ip Man" that was recently made, which the hero's fist fights are never any trouble, he always wins.  As I put it, then the fight is his field of prowess, but the villains then circumvent the hero's skill to drag him through the mud. Here, the World War 2 Imperial Japanese, by force of GUNS AND BOOLETS, confiscate everything, and rule with an iron fist that the protagonist is tolerant enough to withstand, humiliations aside.

So for the audience, even if Ip Man is unbeatable in a fight, he still won't kick his way out of a jail cell and beat people up, even though we feel it's what he deserves. Thus, when he actually gets into a fight with the villains, and wins awesomely, we actually enjoy it, because it's the hero getting what he deserves, and using skills he's familiar with, after being mocked in other ways.

That's how a "flawless character" may work. As for Inter Nos, I'm still very confused, but I had to note it somewhere. I can't consider it a problem enough to bring it up in a real review, since... it's too multi-faceted to simply berate the author. It's still great writing, after all.

Personal Profiles

Making my 11th post for what should have just been a little school project. But I figured, I have this, so I might as well run with it a little more, while taking my lessons to heart.

Dunno what else I'll be sharing in the future, but this time, I'm gonna talk about something important:

How to present your Author's Page. Again, I assume we're using the basis of fanfiction.net. How one write's one's personal profile, while not directly related to writing well, tells a reader about your general writing capability. In ways, it's like a pitch, but instead of a single story, you're going to be pitching your general attitude towards stories.

It's of course, situational, given a person has to willfully access one's Author's Profile to begin with, but you'd have to agree that probably happens a lot, already.

So, to get to the gist of things. I believe the most important part of writing a Profile is that it's short and concise. A profile is only accessory to the stories you write, and only because it's another way of organizing stories. It's only by the general grace of the Admin that they decided to give you a little spot to blurb about yourself. This should not be abused.

We come a website like fanfiction.net to read about... fanfiction. Not about your personal life. There are authors profiles on the site that sometimes are miles long. They include things like their favorite pairings, anime, TV shows, opinions, quotes, daily life, games, Bios for Original Characters, etc.

And that's just horrible. I have to scroll through all that stuff I could care less about. Maybe I care about the notices about the future proposistions of your fiction, your progress, and even maybe how your life at home is, but only because it all relates to your level of writing progress. Cold, maybe, but it's consumerism like anything else. If we don't see your face, it does get harder for us to care.

That aside, it's not like it's not allowed for you to write your likes and dislikes, but if I have to scroll through more of your personal info than I do for your archive of stories, then I'm having to commit to scrolling through more than I asked for, clicking on your profile/archive. Why do I care about what music or games you like? Pairings, maybe, but that can just be easily said in an individual story's summary. There are things worth sharing, and things you need to consider, "Why would I share these types of interests to a buncha faceless people on the internet, who's gonna be around for maybe 5 seconds on my Author's Page?"

I hate to say this too, but sometimes, when I read an absurdly long author's profile, it gives me the mental age of the writer too, who's somewhere between 13-14, and absurdly absorbed in his own ego.

Long Story Short: If your personal information is even 50-50 to the length of your archives, you need to trim it down. Good Author's keep it short.

Super Skinny Profile

Average Profile

Getting a Bit Chubby Profile

"CAPTAIN! SHE'S CAPSIZING ON US!"

Epilogue?

Well, pretty much the last assigned post for this torrid series of posts, and I've pretty much imparted all my core knowledge for searching for a good story on fanfiction.net. I'll have to take a break for now, so I can recollect any new ideas I can sagely espouse in the future.

For the rest, it really requires the general love of reading, and reading enough of this stuff to eventually work out your own tastes and instinct for being able to tell what is good and what you're willing to read.

Writing as well, if you really want to write well, also requires a lot of practice. I myself, in the very beginning, wrote terribly, and pretty much broke all the rules I've set forth in the previous posts. So yeh, it's been many long years of writing crappily, copying writing styles, and eventually adding enough of myself into it that what I've ended up with is now different from what I started with.

I hope you enjoy the stories I sent to you over the course of these posts. I wanted to do my best to especially show potential readers there are things out there that are very good, and not to buy into the idea that quality exists only in certain sanctioned places. Reading and entertainment's other function beyond education is simply escapism and enjoyment. There are things out there that may not constantly measure up to the pantheon of "intellectual maturity", but as long as you genuinely enjoy it, what's the problem?

We're not here to read a deep treatise on philosophy of the human boundary. We're here to have a good time.

Reviews

I touched upon the subject in previous posts about community, but I decided to spent a short bit of extra time talking about the reviews itself.

Like I said before, being able to get a lot of reviews is the reward all authors would like to get with their stories. Merely getting hits isn't as good, because it's just numbers, many of which may be just a browsing going in, and then leaving. But a review, that shows that the reader liked your story enough to actually congratulate you for the job well done.

Since it feels so good, the natural conclusion is that the more reviews you get, the better.

The writing style of the reviews in themselves, though, surprisingly can be used to tell a bit about the quality of the story they're commenting on. Technically, that is the function of the review, anyways, but since reviews often are so vague in an of themselves, it's simply to just read the tide by reading the writing style.

In general, the maturity and general intelligence infused in each review also reflects on the quality of the story in question as well, "Birds of a feather flock together". Reviews tend to come in about three flavors.

1. Overly Excited and Mediocre: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh omigodomgigod *Squeals and dies happily*, plz, plz update soon!", "lolz, funny", "love it! Update now!" Yeah. If there's a story that collects a lot of reviews that tend to come up with responses like that, first, it doesn't tell me much, second, it makes me wonder what kind of story it is that panders to this level of denomination. Naturally, I don't trust it much, and assume it's not very good.
   
   
2. Average, Readable: "Good stuff. (Commentary on current chapter here), well, I hope for the next update". This is the general threshold that a story should have to convince me that I should try reading it. The guys are smart enough to spell properly and all that.
   
   
3. Huge Essay Format: By which I mean, the moment the story has a review that's comprised of several paragraphs, that's a very good sign that the story has a lot of depth to it. While depth may mean "high quality", it can also mean "pretty damn long, to the point it warrants an unusually long review".

As usual, it's usually better for the quality of the writing to be more towards the higher-grade. Since you're glancing through reviews, it actually shouldn't be a problem if you get the aforementioned huge essays. Though you should keep in mind, again, what kind of reading you have in mind, length and otherwise.

Reviews, though, being opinionated and finicky, aren't as reliable as reading the tide via summaries and word/chapter count, though it makes a good supplement for a second opinion. There are loopholes, though.

Stories that are for certain questionable, are multi-chaptered, yet it seems all the reviews are all by one person, with one or two lines. That's not a very good sign for me to try reading it. If a story has a few dedicated readers that review per chapter, that's at least more believable.

Likewise, more reviews doesn't mean the story is better. It simply means it has more attention from the adoring masses. A story with a few reviews or even none might be good, too, but likewise, it's careful to wonder the quality of a story that has little to none in reviews, too. Either it's not popular, or it's not popular because it's not good.

In the end, reviews should be used in conjunction with all the previously mentioned techniques to gauge a story.

Romance.

Ah, Romance. Romantic Liasons. Pairings, couplings, slash, the works.

If it's true that the large portion of fan fiction writers are pre-teen girls working out their fantastic pairings, then obviously, many fics we'll come across in reading will have some romantic bent in some way.

However, I feel I should talk more about homosexual romance, which is something that fan fiction tends to be stereotyped about.

Thanks to the modern innovations of modern Japanese, stories concerning homosexual love between males is called "Shonen-ai", or the more popularly (reviled) "Yaoi". For females, it comes as "Shoujo-ai" or "Yuri".

(To be thorough, on summaries, usually they forewarn the romantic pairing with the names joined with an "x", a "/", or for the more fangirlish, making some portmanteau of the two)

It's a stereotype that we have more shonen-ai than anything. Not entirely true, fanfiction.net at least gets healthy portions of match-making of every kind. Still, it's a curious phenomenon, as to why fan fiction gets much more of the homosexual treatment than regular fiction.

What is it about the fans that they romanticize this notion so easily? Is there something that heterosexual romance lacks? Is it too plain, too vanilla, too typical? Is homosexual romance purely for physical reasons? Are there similar justifications for shonen-ai as there is shoujo-ai, or do the reasons for each differ entirely?

I hardly know all the reasons myself, though I offer my hypotheses. I have a niggling suspicion that homosexual romance, at least in the overly idealized minds of fan fiction authors, believe that it's somehow more "pure" or romantic than regular heterosexual romance. There is a logic to it, though. What with all these past generations of gender division, heterosexual romances may be bogged by the expectations of the male and the female. At the most presumptory, the male is a chauvinistic "Get in the Kitchen Womaaan" type, or the female is a whiny bitch.

Pairing off a guy to a guy, or a girl to a girl, disregarding the obvious reason that two attractive figures to the opposite sex together is essentially exponential multiplication of Hawtness, in doing so, you may seperate the physical aspect of romance from the emotional aspect of it. You can get to the tender and cute bits of romance, since "their love is so pure and true, they don't need to get to any of the hot, horizontal action".

(Isn't this the logic of Feudal Samurai class, Spartans, and Romans? Old, grizzled soldier, and young, pretty squire, sort of business... yeah.)

Of course, since we are human, and hormonal, its inevitable that the "true" love at some point will get some ribbing from the fans to go get to it.

While this cheesy, cute romance may be fun to read, even fun to read repeatedly, it still doesn't mean its written well. Couplings of all kinds is a very fan-driven thing, and being the easily led masses we are, these pairings end up being driven by the "Cuteness" of it.

Sure, I can read cute things. I'm guilty of reading lots of well written, cute things, even (Not of the shonen-ai kind, though, that'd be disturbing). But the problem is since the focus of this romance is so idealized, it ends up being isolated from reality. It's just fluff, to whet the appetites of supporters of the coupling, because it's cute.

Does that mean that all homosexual romance is doomed to be a sort of "pop-culture" thing for fan fiction? Not necessarily, but it is romance that has been removed from reality to degrees, so we can focus on the tender feelings and how goddamn smokin' hot they are, times two. Like any good story, if we want the romance, it's going to have to be treated evenly, as a part of life.

When a story is just about the two of them getting together and being cute, then... it's just a guilty pleasure to read.

As a proof of the fact that such a thing can work, I present Irasshaimase, Welcome, by Shella. I didn't go into this story expecting a romance. Not at all. It had a premise of an alternate universe, and I followed the character, and then suddenly one chapter, he said it.

Yeah, he said "I love you" to another guy. But before that, either I was stupid, or I simply read all the previous clues in the fic as friendship. But then he said it.

I had no choice but to accept that this was really happening. I wasn't expecting a romance, but the characters evolved so wonderfully I just had to accept it. For something that was so masterful and natural with the notions of romance, I had to put it into my Favorites. I just think it's that good.

Stories of the Shoujo-ai bent are a bit trickier. I've seen many, many good stories that are written superbly, but they still tend to have this certain aura of idealism that still reminds me this is coming through the mouth of an author who's already rooting for the pair in the background. I suppose Shella's story simply is one of those one-in-a-million works that pull it of just right.

DezoPenguin's recent stories in Nanoha and GrimGrimoire both pretty much are nothing but well written shoujo-ai, but also deals with certain issues that come with the romance. On the other hand, the Author still pulls through with some happy endings, so while the topics are broached honestly and earnestly, they still have some patronage of the resident god-author to back them up.

Inter nos, by enthewinter is a story I keep track of (it gets a bit raunchy in some later chapters, but doesn't take over the story), that combines romance with entertaining politics, bloodshed, and the politics of bloodshed. Again, though, the rules of the world seems to give way rather easily to allow for homosexuality. I don't say it's not unrealistic, but... it's still "shoujo-ai" rather than romance, I think is the only way to put it. I still have to actively suspend my disbelief at times, but again, it's written so well, and the story very well mixed with other elements to keep it interesting.

There's no easy answer to love, I suppose, in and out of real life. But I feel that I should say that for good stories, that though I am very much a romantic, and like to believe in the power of love, "Cute" is not one of the words used to adequately describe anything in real life, unless it concerns small, fuzzy animals.

(Biased Post-Script: If the romance in question involves vampires and/or werewolves Alternate Universes in a series that traditionally lacks it, it's immediately bad. Believe me, fangirls moved from unicorns and ponies to "darker and edgier" vampires and werewolves for their fascinations, including those homo-erotic, and they're rarely, if ever well written or interesting.)

Let Me Hold Your Hand: Expectations of knowing Backstory beforehand

Now when I read or write, there is a question that I ponder to myself at times.

Is the reader expected to have to learn everything about the original plot before reading? Or is it the author's responsibility to inform the reader while going through the story?

There are answers that go either way, though this depends again on whether the quality of fan fiction should be treated like any other story, or whether it should be treated separately, to different rules.

Most authors tend to take the stance that the reader should already know the backstory, or at least do his own homework. Understandable, fan fiction is fan fiction, after all, and it comes with a general conclusion that the person reading would be one who's already informed, after all, why would one read a story from a series they know nothing about? Thus, most stories are going to be written with little or to no attention given to background.

(Unless it's a story specifically about Alternate Universes or Time Travel. But it gets more complicated if we go in that direction.)

There are still some authors who do write with some detailing on previous events, but not very often. I suppose it takes time away from the main plot, and feels a bit redudnant, perhaps even pratronizng that the author is reiterating details like the readers are unaware. Though of course, there are readers who are going to be unaware.

So does that mean all fan fiction is impossible to read unless we force ourselves into devoting our time and money, playing the pre-requisite video games and watching the pre-requisite shows? Is it impossible to go into a fan fiction essentially "blind", and still get a good story out of it?

Well, yes, and no. It's actually quite possible to browse most sections with at least a passing knowledge of the series in question, but there has to be some. I believe the answer is not purely just knowledge of events, but also the emotional investment.

In today's online age, it's ridiculously easy to get a plot synopsis anywhere, if you have the patience to search for it. Wikipedia is full of plot synopsis for all kinds of series, and Youtube is crammed full of clips of shows and walkthroughs of entire games, so you can watch to your heart's delight. Not only do you learn of the plot, but you even get to immerse yourself into the "feel" of the series, and all this so easily.

But even if you watched the series in question, if you don't feel the investment in the world and characters enough to read more about them, then you're probably not going to feel a great urge to try and read.

Some shows, I felt were complete, and ended satisfactorily, and thus I couldn't bring myself to either read fan fiction continuing the plot or changing it, nor could I do it myself. Likewise, there are some series I've only learned through research, some of which included very good fan fiction, and in a perpetuating cycle, good fan fiction is what gets me interested in the series at all, and informs me on the happenings of the series. Irony, huh?

But the series I enjoy the most in looking at fan fiction still tend to be ones I have personally experienced for myself, and actively sought as a fan. I kinda get them in "phases". For a while, I get all crazy of this one series, and actively research every detail, and so I really get invested in the series for the time being, until my interest finally implodes on itself, and I move onto the next excellent thing. But that's how it works, I guess.

Perhaps I spoil myself in the process, but I guess I'm weird in the head. I'm very interested in reading good fan fiction. Fan fiction for its own sake, rather than the sake of the series.

Either way, I suppose it is the right of the author to reveal or not reveal as much as they like of back story, and it usually isn't very much. Thus, it will more often than not have to be up to the reader to learn these kinds of things his or herself. But in this online era, it's not required to have to be a crazy diehard fan to know enough to start reading a series enough to enjoy the related fan fiction.

The important thing is whether you'll care enough about the series.

Original Characters

Admittedly, probably my favorite past time when it comes to fan fiction. Not only conceiving of plot threads, but also conceiving of completely new characters to participate in it. When I talk about these new characters, I don't just mean random extra doods used to populate the world and fill it out as secondaries, I mean actual OCs that are supposed the join the cast as part of the focus.

Original Characters is one of those things that's apparently even irksome among general fanfiction. Understandably, we're here to read about people we're already familiar with, not all these other doods.

Beyond that, if poorly applied, OCs tend to come of more as the Author's raging ego, as they intrude on even their own plot to show off. Sure, you get the horror stories of those infamous "Mary Sues", but that's probably most extreme cases. Otherwise, they're merely largely obnoxious characters that showboat flagrantly.

Bad OCs tend to come hand in hand with mediocre stories, too, so the bad characterization gets compounded with atrocious spelling and grammar, too. The thing ends up compounding each other, etc.

Bad OCs tend to also be often found or derivative of series or sections that tend to be full of rampant fanboyism or fangirlism. If there's some attractive character, you also find authors who are churning out the OCs to hook up with him/her. Otherwise, if there some "error", or even an open cast space, you'll find OCs there, ready to "fix the problem".

I've come across more bad male OCs in my time, so I'll share what I know about them. But typically, ridiculous powers aside, you can easily how "egotistical" an OC is from two things.

1. The name. I tend to read more in the anime or game sections. But if there's a series that has a lot of characters with Japanese names, you'd normally expect that the author would take the care to use the same nomenclature. But instead, more often than not, I find all these male OCs with Alex, or Luke, Zack, Ryan... or Alex. I come across alot of Alexes for some reason. English names, anyways. These really typical English names.
2. 
   Description. There's description that's a fair amount, and description that's as obnoxious as the OC that's being used. It's alright to go in some detail about the clothes, but I sometimes end up reading some very random crap, like "the guy had red sneakers with blue soles on them, and he was wearing this red t-shirt with this black cross design on it", etc, etc. That's... kinda going a bit far.
3. 
   (A minor third: Sometimes, if there's a story with some military elements in it, an OC of questionable quality tends to be some kind of US Marine. I don't know why, but it just happens. Some guy out of "Nam", or out of Iraq. Not only that, the American has to be unbearably holier-than-thou, and just becomes a mouthpiece for the Author himself. Ends up tasting a lot like AAAAH AMERICA POWAER, WE ARE SO SIVILIZED!)

Well, of course, this is just my personal experience with the thing. There's nothing saying that having an Alex is going to be instantly terrible, but making an OC requires a lot more forethought about how the world and series works. When it comes to making and OC, this is something I'd say do your homework on the series in question first.

There's no real exact science to making a good OC, though, other than treating them realistically and fairly.

Sometimes people insist, when creating a character,  you have to fill out this chart detailing ALL this kinda crap about interests, or motives, or why they're here. Maybe that's important, but I've managed to go fine for the better part of 8 years not using it. I've pretty much had an interest in making OCs for every fic I practically write, so I guess I would know.

Developing a really well rounded character takes a while, sure, but creating one at all with a coherent backstory isn't as hard as you think.

Myself, perhaps very irreverantly, I admit that none of my characters are 100% original. I just make sure to watch lots of shows, and keep in mind of lots of neat designs or anything else. Eventually, all the ideas will end up being retooled, reworked, changed via puns or wordplay, all mashed together at points, perhaps consciously, perhaps unconsciously.

Am I a shameless thief? It depends. Nothing's new under the sun, after all, so the important thing is presentation. Things are borrowed after all, but for me, it's important that I feel the my design has now become my own, shamelessly based off and reworked, perhaps but not outright stolen.

Otherwise, that's like a crossover. Which I suppose I do as often, but I'm probably a bit more intentional on that part.

Being honest, I tend to build the character's abilities or appearance first, then ask myself "What's the backstory that results in or leads to this ability?", this in turn, tends to inform the kind of personality the character has. Or if the character already has a set personality in mind, it helps clarify exactly how the character will be lead to act.

It doesn't have to be too complicated. Some people's lives are simple, after all, and some are not.

It's important that they're not perfect. Some author's don't catch onto this very well, and their OCs "flaws" end up just shouting in caps and being irreverant, but not making a huge effect on the plot itself. Not sure if I've follow this, myself, but I think I try.

A sign of a good character perhaps may be that the actions the character takes can invoke as much disdain as it might sympathy. Such a character doesn't play to the crowds, but simply is itself.

Life Goes On, by Sheo Darren, part away into the story, start paying attention to the Rolito character. He's a likable fellow, with some flaws, with some talents, and surprisingly... human. Though the assigned antagonist, you follow his introspection enough that you find someone with a lot of depth.

Mai-HiME: Fresco, by Akuma-sama. The OC here is a police cop kinda character. He's more "traditional" I say, in that he's probably been developed in a method not like mine. He's got no powers, and he's not hugely quirky or anything like that. But he comes through with excellent all around writing, with a talented author that does all aspects well.

The Handsome Men, by Person With Many Aliases (Yours Truly). Essentially a series of individual character studies. Probably all of them save, the main antagonist, are all reworked personalities and concepts, and all with certain quirks. The question is whether they come off as copies or not. I believe not. The main antagonist is a bit more complicated, because I've had his design for a while and put him into a lot of stories. He's been slowly cultured, adjusted, and modified across time, so his origins are pretty mute by now, though they were there.

I probably haven't explained myself very well... but if you have any questions, I can always try to answer them in more depth. I hope I helped a little bit, at least.