Determination 
Post by Plague on Aug 7, 2016 13:24:10 GMT
Welcome to how not to make a mary sue or a flat character.
The most common case of poor character making is creating a Mary sue.
But Kolora what's a mary sue? Well my child a mary sue is a character that is too perfect. (I.E Firestar) This is extremely hard to avoid when creating characters for beginners! Marry sues tend to be powerful, skilled, friendly and the center of attention they never mess up on their first training session and such. Although some Mary Sue's have flaws they are almost always; self doubt, dead parents or "inner depression", which only comes up in kind of cheesy scenes. Avoid having a Mary sue by maybe making them short tempered rude stubborn or have a disorder. for instance I'm pretty outgoing but I'm also ridiculously stubborn and easily stressed.
Still don't get it? maybe this will help
Okay Kolora I'm gonna make a villain and he's gonna be mean and violent and angry. Well hold up there. stay away from all bad revenge loving villains especially ones with common backstories. No cat is all bad! for instance plague is actually a compassionate good leader. But yes he's violent and short tempered. Possibly one of my favorite rp examples of a good "bad guy" is Pain on vww played by jay himself. Check him out --> virtualwarriorworld.proboards.com/user/15739 . Pain is bitter because of a interesting past and was basically left by everyone he loved. So try and make them bitter based on experience!
video 2
Hope this helped its a topic I'm super passionate about so if you want to discuss a character idea and get my input pm me! it will make my day!!
Now I'm here to add a bit about the avoiding make a mary sue. Like Kolora said, a mary sue is a character that's "too perfect." If they come across any problems, they get solved immediately and have no real impact on the character. This makes your character come out pretty boring. Mary sues usually come about because you're trying TOO hard to make a good character.
Now I believe you can have a classically angsty backstory if you can write it well! I for one have a secret weakness for epic tragic backstories filled with horrible things. But it needs to make sense and have a realistic impact on your character. For example,
A character wouldn't be driven insane from being denied apples.
Nor would they be perfectly fine if someone dear to their heart up and died.
Understand? Another thing is the flaws. Now you can likely pump a good trait to the extreme and make it horrible, but it's still a good trait really. It's still mostly a pro, and not really a con. You need a legitimate con. Like take my character Redfeather for example. Now she's crazy loyal. That's a pro. The con is that she has trust issues and can be pretty mean if she's mad. Her temper is short and unpredictable.
Now there's plenty of flaws you can have. A short temper, horrible and scary mood swings, or hyper-aggressive.
Oh yeah, also don't make your character good at everything. Like a prodigy in hunting, battle, and pretty much everything. Your character needs to be realistic in more than just personality.
Probably just pick one thing your cat is really good at and stick them at average level for the rest. Or perhaps you want to pick another that they really stink at. Maybe that can be your character building flaw.
And like Kolora, I'd be completely open to hearing any ideas or providing advice!
- Kira
The most common case of poor character making is creating a Mary sue.
But Kolora what's a mary sue? Well my child a mary sue is a character that is too perfect. (I.E Firestar) This is extremely hard to avoid when creating characters for beginners! Marry sues tend to be powerful, skilled, friendly and the center of attention they never mess up on their first training session and such. Although some Mary Sue's have flaws they are almost always; self doubt, dead parents or "inner depression", which only comes up in kind of cheesy scenes. Avoid having a Mary sue by maybe making them short tempered rude stubborn or have a disorder. for instance I'm pretty outgoing but I'm also ridiculously stubborn and easily stressed.
Still don't get it? maybe this will help
Okay Kolora I'm gonna make a villain and he's gonna be mean and violent and angry. Well hold up there. stay away from all bad revenge loving villains especially ones with common backstories. No cat is all bad! for instance plague is actually a compassionate good leader. But yes he's violent and short tempered. Possibly one of my favorite rp examples of a good "bad guy" is Pain on vww played by jay himself. Check him out --> virtualwarriorworld.proboards.com/user/15739 . Pain is bitter because of a interesting past and was basically left by everyone he loved. So try and make them bitter based on experience!
video 2
Hope this helped its a topic I'm super passionate about so if you want to discuss a character idea and get my input pm me! it will make my day!!
Now I'm here to add a bit about the avoiding make a mary sue. Like Kolora said, a mary sue is a character that's "too perfect." If they come across any problems, they get solved immediately and have no real impact on the character. This makes your character come out pretty boring. Mary sues usually come about because you're trying TOO hard to make a good character.
Now I believe you can have a classically angsty backstory if you can write it well! I for one have a secret weakness for epic tragic backstories filled with horrible things. But it needs to make sense and have a realistic impact on your character. For example,
A character wouldn't be driven insane from being denied apples.
Nor would they be perfectly fine if someone dear to their heart up and died.
Understand? Another thing is the flaws. Now you can likely pump a good trait to the extreme and make it horrible, but it's still a good trait really. It's still mostly a pro, and not really a con. You need a legitimate con. Like take my character Redfeather for example. Now she's crazy loyal. That's a pro. The con is that she has trust issues and can be pretty mean if she's mad. Her temper is short and unpredictable.
Now there's plenty of flaws you can have. A short temper, horrible and scary mood swings, or hyper-aggressive.
Oh yeah, also don't make your character good at everything. Like a prodigy in hunting, battle, and pretty much everything. Your character needs to be realistic in more than just personality.
Probably just pick one thing your cat is really good at and stick them at average level for the rest. Or perhaps you want to pick another that they really stink at. Maybe that can be your character building flaw.
And like Kolora, I'd be completely open to hearing any ideas or providing advice!
- Kira
