NaNoWriBlo: There Went Nothing

It's almost the end of November and, thus, NaNoWriMo. I can't say I didn't try, but trying doesn't equal succeeding. I could say I didn't make it because I didn't have the time, but I did. I could have used the breaks at work, or the weekends... there's tons of opportunities I could have used.

The truth is, I got sick of the plot and my writing in this. I'm going to keep the setting and the characters, but I'm most likely going to ditch the plot, or at least rewrite it. The general setting stays, but it needs some tweaking to make it actually look like something other than generic somethingsomething.

To Drop

I'm definitely not going to keep every aspect of the plot. It might just be me, but it feels too safe and cozy. I don't feel like anyone's life was actually at stake at any point. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it, though.

The writing itself, aside from a few parts, has to go, too. It's horrible, full of padding and drips with clichés. I think that mostly happened because I was trying to :words: my way through the whole thing without knowing what I should really do.

To Keep

I feel like keeping Betsev-4 as part of the setting, but I should expand more on the main character's home planet. Damn, it doesn't even have a name, yet. I should also expand more on the characters there before actually going to Betsev-4. Maybe I'll introduce a few new locations.

I'll also keep the general aesthetics, but I'll change some things. Flying traffic in the city might be cool, but doesn't work if you don't have protection for the buildings. Suburbs are most likely not full of two digit floor skyscrapers. There's going to be a difference between inner city traffic (it's still going to be hover cars, though) and things that go off planet. These are all just examples of things I realized I should change. But the setting itself is okay.

I'll try to keep the characters, too. I'm not sure I can give all of them a role, because that largely depends on where I go with the plot. But Zackory and Ron, as well as Zackory's brother and his girlfriend stay. Yuka stays too, and her presence is one reason why I think the home planet deserves more screentime. She just drops off the screen when the story goes to Betsev-4.

And I'm definitely keeping the vampires, because vampires need to be cool again.

And Finally...

I thought I had enough of a plot, but I don't think I actually did. I made things up as I went, but I made the mistake of rushing through my existing ideas too fast. That left me with meandering scenes of people talking about the same thing over and over again, basically moving in circles. But well, lessons learned, setting gained, characters gained. In a way, it's still a win, even though it's around 25k words short.

NaNoWriBlo: Oh God, Not The Backstory!

Also known as "this thing happened, but I don't want the plot to revolve around it." Also known as balancing story, setting and backstory. Yes, I talked about this before.

But first, time for some NaNoWriMo history on my end:

For my first NaNo, I didn't actually plan that much. I had a setting and some characters and I knew the specific plot twist I wanted. Then again, it was set in a world I had already established years ago, so no big deal there. This is actually the one I like the most, even though it gets weird.

My second NaNo was set in a whole new world (insert reference here). I did lots of planning for the setting, and I had that huge list of things I didn't want to turn into huge plot points because that's been done and I felt it was kinda ugh. I struggled to get my 50k and padded with all main characters watching the key scene of the ending.

My third NaNo was me trying to write by the seat of my pants and I failed horribly. I restarted after ~5 days, but couldn't catch up any more.

So I had varying degrees of story, backstory and setting, and I'm still not sure what the right combination is. But I have learned from my past mistakes, so, in order of the NaNos that taught me that, here's my list of things I'm trying not to do this time:

I won't let specific aspects of the setting take over everything.
I won't try to desperately exclude facets of the setting/parts of the backstory.
I won't drop all story planning because I think I can pants this.

Let's see how fast everything derails this time.

The Big Event

Right now, there's basically one big event that's defined in the setting's history, and that's the attack on the mining colony town Betsev-4. People died, people were injured, the town was damaged, but most importantly, it was an incredibly bold move. Even twenty years after it happened, this event is still present in the minds of people. You could say it changed the world. Not just Betsev itself, but the whole network it's part of.

My first idea was to go "but this is not what the novel is about". Problem is that it is. The main character was present when it happened, so of course there's got to be an influence.

That doesn't mean it's the main plot. Twenty years is a long time. Just because something influences a character, that doesn't mean it's all there is to them. In this case, sure, Betsev-4 is going to come up, and it's going to play a role, but it's just that. I wish I could draw landscapes, because then you'd get concept art.

Inventory

Words: 0 (Still not november.)
Current status: I'm fighting the urge to make Yuka more popular. Also, I think I worked out how Betsev-4 fits into the plot, but it's still kinda vague. I'm also not sure what Yuka's and Ron common backstory will be. If there is any. (And I still fail to draw Yuka.) There's also going to be a space pirate clan leader, maybe the one who lead the clan when the attack happened, or her heir. I think I have to think about space pirates more.

NaNoWriBlo: The Lead Guys

I promised a blog post, so here it is. Since I talked about the veeery basics of my novel last time, this time I'll start throwing around details. Character details. There'll be some general blah about the setting, too, but that's unavoidable because characters can't always stand alone. Also, be warned, here there be bad art.

Who Are You?

So far, I have two main characters, and a few minor ones.

This is Zackory. He's in his early to mid twenties, but not always feeling his age. When he was five, pirates attacked his home town (more on that in another post), which cost him both his parents and his eyes. Zackory was adopted by a lower/middle class family, who cared for him, but did not have the money to provide the high tech prostetics required to still follow his dream to become a pilot.

Despite all that happened, Zackory's not supposed to be a dark and gritty serious business character. Sure, the attack left its mark on him, but he's not defined by it. Also, he did not have a shitty orphanage childhood. That trope can die in a fire, along with "you're not my real dad!" and its annoying relatives.

This is Ron. He's ~35-40 years old and used to work as a cargo pilot for a delivery company. They went bankrupt and, among many others, Ron was let go. He's generally a nice guy, but he wouldn't shy away from saying his opinion, even if that means he has to be rude.

Ron's supposed to be a foil to Zackory, but I have no idea how their dynamic will really play out. I don't have much set for him, as I feel that his personality will change and adapt a lot to what the story needs.

Aside from these two, I do have a few vague ideas about my supporting cast.

Yuka: Yuka runs a small bar near Zackory's home. She's a wiry woman who looks like she's constantly hungover. Most of that comes from being a vampire, but running a bar takes its toll on her too. She's got long, black hair, which mostly hangs down over half her face, giving people the idea that she can't see them properly. Spoiler: She can. The hair's basically her version of sunglasses.

She's always got an open ear for drunk and desperate patrons, and even though she sounds bored and disinterested, her advice is helpful after all.

Zackory's Brother: Here things are getting vague. I only know he's two years older, stayed in contact with his brother and joined the military. But he exists, he will probably show up and... I don't know... he exists? Ask me later.

And that's it for characters so far. It's not much, but I'm not someone who can plan characters. They happen while I write.

Inventory

Words: 0 (Blog posts don't count.)
Current status: It's basically the same amount of stuff as last time, plus a huge even in the story's past, which will have an influence on the plot. I even mentioned it here.

NaNoWriBlo: So I'm doing this, and I'm planning on winning.

Yes, I'm still alive, I'm just working a lot.

Also, in ~2 months November is coming up and with that comes NaNoWriMo. I've already talked about how novels conceived during NaNoWriMo are first/zeroth drafts at best, and how you really shouldn't think you wrote a novel you can publish.

This year, I decided to also write about me writing. How meta. But yeah, I think this will help me focus/stay on track, and if you people like to read rants/ramblings anyways, I'm happy to provide some more.

But it's September!

I know. But if I look at last year, I also know that I'm not one to write by the seat of my pants. I need a certain amount of planning and a certain amount of pre-NaNo time to make up my mind about what I want to write and where I want to go with it.

Inventory

Words: 0 (Duh.)
Current status: I've got my two main characters set up, as well as a side character. I've got a very general idea what the setting is, and no, I'm not going to reveal that yet. Also, I think I have a general idea for where the plot should go. And I'm getting a wallpaper for motivation. I'll link that one too.

That's it so far. More on November 1st. Whee~

So Perfect it's a Curse

No, this is not a Mary Sue rant. I did that already, remember? Actually, I'm going to talk about the main thing the Mary Sue character is lacking: Flaws. And yes, I think I've actually seen the title used as a character flaw.

The Flaw in Flawless

There's one major problem with flawless characters: They're boring. They don't screw up, so there's no tension in watching them. For them, there's no trying, there's only accomplishing.

While there's a certain probability that the good guys win, you never know how often they stumble on their way. That makes watching characters' journeys (literal or metaphorical) worth following. Working around flaws, having them exploited and learning from the experience... all that is character growth. No flaws mean no learning, no growth and no change, and that ultimately makes a character less deep than you'd want them to be.

When is a Flaw a Flaw?

We already established that flawless characters are kind of... meh. That's why the writers of these characters are often told to add flaws to make their character less flat. This is when pseudo-flaws come in.

Rule of thumb: If a flaw doesn't bring your character in trouble/cause inconvienience/isn't treated as one in-story, it doesn't count.

This means that many things that sound like flaws aren't, but on the other hand, everything can be turned into a flaw. I'll just throw in a list with my favorites.

Clumsy

This one is too easy. Just have your character stumble a few times and hah, a flawed character.

Not a flaw, because... this mostly serves to make the character endearing. Also, they can stumble in their one true love's arms and deer-eye them.

Make it a flaw: Turning clumsiness into a flaw is really easy. Have the character stumble while carrying something important. Have people be angry at them for spilling something. Clumsy kids aren't considered endearing and cute by their peers, they're being laughed at.

Too Beautiful

Where do I even start? "Oh no, I'm so beautiful it's a curse!" Ergh.

Not a flaw, because... no matter how much the character whines about being too beautiful, nothing harmful ever comes of that.

Make it a flaw: Beauty is superficial and thus attracts superficial people. It's coupled with expectations in both men and women. There's jealousy from others. I still wouldn't call this the main flaw of any character.

Too Helpful

Yes, that exists, too.

Not a flaw, because... being helpful is kind of a good thing. And these "too helpful" characters are often just a decent amount of helpful, not really too.

Make it a flaw: Where there are helpful people, there are also jerks who abuse that. But it's not just others that can cause trouble for the overly helpful character. If they really want to help everyone, they can easily overburden themselves or feel guilty for failing people in need.

I could continue this list for a while, but the bottom line is that many pseudo-flaws can be turned into real flaws by adding consequences.

Too Many Flaws

Flaws don't replace believable writing. If you just pile up flaws on your character, you'll risk making them unrelatable the same way you do when you add none at all. Also, failing at everything, if it's not in a slapstick comedy, isn't all that entertaining.

So, as with everything, try to find a middle ground between squeaky clean perfect and oh god how can this guy even survive a day. And, to quote a Mary Sue Test on this, if you ever describe your character as too perfect, douse yourself in cold water now.

The Murder Mystery: Black Box and White Box

Another post? Well, I found my inspiration again. Turns out it was laying on dust under my bed... nah, actually, lying around in a hospital bed with nothing to do gives you a lot of time to get bored. Also, reading all the crime novels and thrillers got me thinking about my own ideas. This, in turn, got me thinking about the very thing I kept getting stuck on: The murder mystery itself. Who did it, why did they do it, and how the hell do the cops find them?

This post is about two basic ways of finding that out.

Thinking in Boxes

The terms I use here are something I unabashedly pulled from software testing. There, a White Box test refers to testing the product with knowledge of its inner working and free look at the source code itself. A Black Box test, on the other hand, gives you none of that, leaving you to test it under the same conditions as the eventual user. The same principle can be applied to the murder mystery.

Definitions

White Box Plot

As with the software testing example above, you have all the information. You have plans on who did it, why they did it, who lies and who tells the truth. You follow the murderer, so you know where the evidence is, why they did it, and so on and so forth.

Black Box Plot

The Black Box Plot is best described as "follow the cops". You start out with just the things the cops see at the crime scene and basically do the same thing in your story planning as the cops do in their investigation.

Pro/Con/Black/White

Of course, both Black and White Box have their advantages and disadvantages. Also, not everybody can pull off both things equally well.

White Box Plot

The biggest pro of the White Box Plot is that you start out knowing who did it in the end. You don't pull things out of thin air as you go along, since you already have a fixed set of characters, pieces of evidence and other things where you want to end up. It's hard to get stuck when you already know something that's going to happen.

The biggest con of the White Box Plot is actually the downside of its biggest pro. You know who did it. It's easy to have your investigators jump to conclusions that sound a bit farfetched or have them find things by accident a few times too often. It's possible to ignore that extra knowledge you have, but it's harder than it seems.

Black Box Plot
The Black Box Plot basically writes your story for you. As I wrote above, you follow the cops, who are most likely going to be your main point of view characters. Sure, there's enough stories that include the culprit's point of view, too, but the main focus is still on solving the crime. So you're basically swimming with the stream here.
And again, looking at this from the other side reveals the problems. Following the cops will lead you the same problems as them. You'll find yourself endlessly meandering until you figure out what your next step is. Sometimes, you need to take leaps of faith and see if the story works out the way you want it to.

Plot and Story

Up until now, I've always talked about a something something plot. That was because I was talking about the raw "what is going on" of the story, not necessarily what is written down. Just because you develop the plot white box, that doesn't mean that you have any culprit POV segments in it, and vice versa. Because once you have your plot, you can write your story around it, and that doesn't need to have the same structure as your internal plot notes.
Of course, I'm not telling anyone how to make their murder mysteries, but I think I've done a decent job outlining black/white box differences for writing here. Because I'm preeetty sure you can apply this to other types of plots, too. Make of that what you will.

Writing Icebergs

Yes, I'm still alive. I spent my time working, in hospital and forcibly not doing anything (in that order). During the second period, my only source of entertainment was books. I found out that there seems to be an upper limit as to how much Jack Reacher someone can take, but luckily, my grandma brought me another book from the family crime novel stash (Yes, that's totally a thing.). That book did a few things wrong, mostly with its characters. One of these things is where my inspiration for this post comes from.

Oh god, I'm rambling again.

Iceberg ahead!

Icebergs (I love loanwords) are funny things. The reason I'm using them as a metaphor here is the way they swim. The largest part of an iceberg is, invisible to the common Titanic passenger, hidden under water. But it can still influence its surroundings, as the common Titanic passenger had to realize.

 Yes, and?

And now let's apply this to writing. Many concepts in storytelling should, if done well, be icebergs. How exactly that looks depends on the element, though.

Worldbuilding
One of the most common mistakes I've seen with people who want to present their game idea to the common public is way too much worldbuilding in the pitch. I already talked about plot in relation to the setting, so go read that post for more details. The bottom line is that the plot is what drives things forward, not the world it's set in.
Sure, you shouldn't completely ignore your setting. It exists for a reason, and not referencing it at all makes it interchangeable. But the other extreme, endlessly wallowing in the setting with hardly any plot, isn't much better. Make the setting matter, show things that need explaining, but don't cram every detail you have into it.

Characters
This is where my original inspiration for this post comes in. The book I read almost constantly threw its main characters' backstory at me, to the point where I started identifying them by what happened before the plot. As with the world, having actual backgrounds for your characters is a good thing. The things that happened in a character's past influence their decisions in the present. But that doesn't mean that these things should be elaborated every time they influence that character. Also, backstory is not an excuse for everything and characters should have at least some development over the course of the story.

Plot
Yes, even the plot can be iceberged to an extent. This refers mostly to overly detailed subplots that don't really add that much to the grand scheme of things. Alternatively, there's people who want to tell you every little thing that happens between important scene A and B, no matter how insignificant or matter-of-fact it is. This is like toilets in video games. Just because they're not in the game that doesn't mean that nobody poops. It's just not shown because it's irrelevant.

The Bottom Line

It all comes down to, well, paring down the things that are visible. I have the feeling that too many people feel that their audiences are morons and will not get things if they're not waved in front of their faces. Things can be left out. Things can be abstracted. We don't need to know that Bobby McJohnson's dislike of the color pink comes from the embarrassing hat he wore at his first day of school.

Also, this is one of these topics that's a highly uneducated opinion, so if I'm talking garbage, feel free to tell me. But include the non-garbage interpretation, too. Now, if you're looking for me, I'm in my tomato shelter.

Putting the Crime in the Novel

I'm writing a crime novel. Well, I'm trying. There's still research to be done, details to be figured out and all that. But I'm doing this, and it got me thinking. The cases in these novels have something special. I've singled out a few things I kept stumbling across and thought about them. And since this blog is here for me to ramble, here it comes.

By the way, I'm focusing on police procedural, since that's what I'm intending to write.

The Serial Killer

I swear, I can hear you groan from over there. From the future. Serial killer plots have been done to death and back a few times. They were also the first kind of common plot to come to mind when I started thinking about this. Because even though they're ooold, they still work.
Why does it work? The serial killer is the ultimate clock. After you've found your second victim killed in the same way, with details no one outside the police could know, you know you've got yourself a serial killer. You know they'll strike again, somewhere, some when. While you wish that no more people get killed, each new crime scene could give you the little hint you need to nudge the investigation in the right direction.

The Dead VIP

It's just one victim, but damn if this victim wasn't somehow (in)famous. It doesn't matter if it's a pop star, a local politician or a bank director. The murder itself has most likely been committed out of personal reasons.
Why does it work? Again, there's the clock. This time it's not from the killer, but from outside. It's the higher ups, trying to keep things under the cover, the press, trying to get to the big scandal and the dead person's affiliates. Take too long and the killer's gone forever, and you're up to your head in dirty laundry.

The Controversial Murder

This is a variation on the dead VIP. Again, the focus is on one victim, but this time we're going the hate crime direction.
Why does it work? Like with the dead VIP, the clock is everyone around you. There's going to be debates, double standards and even more dirty laundry. I'm not sure how I should feel about this plot, since it's easy to get into exploitation territory. Also, if you touch on issues, you'd better do your research.

It's Personal

It doesn't matter if it's a serial killer or a regular murderer, but something about this case is linked to the main investigator character. Some share their secret involvement with their colleagues, some don't and do incredibly stupid things.
Why does it work? This time, it's not about a clock. This time it's about stakes. In the examples before, the stakes were vague and purely those of the police force as a whole. In a personal case, there's much more at stake for the main character than the others. That means that your main character needs to be especially compelling. Still, please refrain from throwing reality out of the window. The last time that happened, the investigator kept his relationship to the suspect (his brother, who's also a serial killer at large) and stuck to that decision. I wanted to punch him through the pages for being that stupid.

Besides The Plot

While I'm sure there's enough variations on the aforementioned plot, as well as plots I haven't thought about, there's no completely new plot. Sure, your protagonists are cops, and most of the time, they play by rules. Still, since there's only a bunch of different plots, the biggest difference between all of them is the characters. I only speak for myself here, but I can say that while I remember a few distinct police procedural plots, I've read about more interesting characters than I think I could remember. They're important too, since they're the people we're going to spend a whole book with. Having good characters also makes it possible to turn single books into series. In the end, it's all about the execution. As usual.

Publishing And NaNoWriMo Novels

It's still more than half a year until November and until NaNoWriMo. If you don't know it, it's a self-imposed challenge of writing a 50k words long novel. In a month. If you make it, you win. If you don't, you don't. If you cheat, you're only cheating yourself.

There's also people who can't stand NaNoWriMo because of those who think that what they wrote during it is ready for publishing. There's also talking about how publishers and agents are flooded with NaNovel queries in December. Since I'm neither, I don't know how true that is, but that's more of a problem with the writers. Because, and here comes the topic for this post:

Your NaNovel is not publishable.

I hear the sounds of bubbles being burst, but it is very, very, very unlikely that your NaNovel, as it is, is publishable. To those of you who point at Water for Elephants or any of the other titles that came from NaNoWriMo, I highly doubt that any of them were sent out the way they were. And even if one of them was, that's one (1) book, of who knows how many.

I'm not saying it's impossible, but there's a number of things in NaNovels that just don't work for publishing.

50,000 Words

Sure, there's longer ones, but the minimum for a winner NaNovel is 50,000 words. That's Middle Grade/Young Adult length. The shortest I've heard as the starting point for adult novels is 60k for mundane settings, and even more for Sci-Fi and Fantasy. Yes, that's a whopping 10,000 words more than you have. So from 1666.6... words per day, you go up to at least 2000. Or 2500, better.

:words:

NaNovels are full of :words: (or , as Something Awful puts it). They are what happens when it's 10 o'clock and you've still got a three-digit amount of words to write. You start to pad the thing like there was no tomorrow. :words: are the first thing that has to go in December editing. They don't do anything, except for said padding.

Word Count Tricks

Aside from just :words:ing around, there's a whole number of word count tricks. There is avoiding contractions, giving things overly long names and writing them out every single time, writing out things that are abbreviated in any other situation (like the Federal Bureau of Investigations), having characters talk in a really unnatural and stilted way, and also having them address other characters with their full overly long names. None of this is in any way good writing. It is just another way of padding and belongs to the thing you should edit out or, even better, leave out entirely.

In(s)anity

NaNoWriMo likes to take Chandler's Law and turn it up to eleven. When in doubt, use ninjas. When in doubt, have the Traveling Shovel of Death show up. Throw in a new subplot. Do this, do that. While some of these techniques are relatively tame, some (NINJAS!) really aren't. If you attempt to write a publishable novel during NaNoWriMo, stay the hell away from these in(s)anities. Because while you can always edit out pointless side plots and happenings later on, these things are bigger. You might just end up cutting a lot and end up with even less useful plot.

The First Draft of Everything is Crap

I think Hemmingway said that. At least people say he did. And that's what your NaNovel is. A first draft. If it's clean enough to be sent out... uh, congratulations? Writing instantly usable first drafts does not get you anything other than time. Everything you do to your novel before you send it out doesn't matter. What matters is the thing you eventually do send out. Being able to write good stuff from the get-go is just as valid as being able to turn mediocre stuff into good stuff through editing.

Sometimes, it's Just Crap

Not everything can be turned into a great book that people will love. Some things just don't work. That doesn't mean you should give up immediately, but sometimes... yeah. Some things just don't get better. It's up to you to figure out if that's the case.

Be a Rebel

If you can't get past your 50,000 words a month quote, start earlier. Or stop earlier. NaNo means 50,000 words, written in a month, to form a lengthy work of fiction. No one hates you for being a rebel. They even have their own forums for that kind of thing, so why not try that?

After All That's Said...

Even though I said a lot of negative things about the novel you're going to write during November, I'm not saying you shouldn't try. A daily deadline is a great motivator. But remember that the things we write during NaNoWriMo are often less than stellar. Your job for December is to fix that.

A Special Kind of Evil

Warning: This post is about rape and how it's handled in fiction.

Help, my Fiction's Unrealistic!

Once upon a time, I wanted to write a blog post. But then I forgot about the thing I wanted to write about in the first time and let it be. Today, however, I stumbled, through some weird mental leaps, over something I keep hearing.

"Science Fiction is Bull!"

Now, I get that not everybody likes every genre. I like science fiction, but romance just doesn't appeal to me. So if you tell me that you're just not into sci-fi because, yeah, it's not your thing, I'm okay with it. But if you tell me that you don't like it because it's so unrealistic, I'll call counter-bull on you. Because I'm pretty sure that the books you like have their fair share of unrealistic stuff too. Going back to romance here, I'm pretty sure that, if you look at the plausibility of the things happening in their respective settings, I'm sure that both have things in it that are not likely to happen.

Now, I said sci-fi here, but I'm sure that pretty much every genre gets this from one side or another. And I have to agree. In some sense, all fiction is unrealistic. Because it's fiction. If you want your things to be all real, there's such a thing as non-fiction.

"It's Fantasy, it Doesn't Need to Make Sense!"

Hey, hey, just because I said that all fiction's unrealistic to some degree, that doesn't mean that it shouldn't make sense. One thing that really helps or hinders immersion is how well it fits together and if it makes sense. If your story constantly breaks its own rules, I'm going to call bull. If your story runs by the rules of our world and breaks them later on, I'm going to call bull too. But I'm not going to call bull on something because it has dragons. Mostly because dragons are cool.

Again, that's for all genres. But having a genre that's often called unrealistic does not mean that it shouldn't have its own logic. Have it and stick to it. If you want to break the rules, think about it. If it's worth it, go for it, but you have to be sure it is.

Logic vs. Realism

Both of the above statements deal with this. When they say that something's unrealistic, what many people mean is that it's illogical. Because, as I said above, fiction's not reality, and can take a few breaks from it. It's based on the fact that people can suspend their disbelief. They can believe that a man can fly, so to say, even if it's just for the duration of the story. Especially in genres like science fiction and fantasy, the world the stories are set in is not ours. It might be based on ours, but there are differences. The key is to have it all make sense.

Okay, I'm not saying that you can't point out how silly a concept is. But you have to look at the context too? Does it work? Does it fit into the world? Is it just so goddamn stupid you're laughing at it whenever it's mentioned? Well, most of that is subjective. If you can't get over faster than light travel, soft sci-fi's just not your thing. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't make sense in context.

Characters as People

Since I love segues when I can get them, let's talk about the Mary Sue Litmus Test. Not the one I talked about in that post, however, but the one you're more likely to find if you ask Google about it. And no, this is not another nit-picky look at the test. This time, I'm just talking about one question.

Do you view your characters more like tools than friends/children?

Yes, I did that test before. Yes, I took it with a shaker of salt and did it for the same reason many people read newspaper horoscopes (that reason being lulz). And no, I never, ever checked this. As a writer, I feel a bit offended by this.

You're just overly attached to your characters!

Because yes, this is, presumably, the reason this question is in there. I'm still not going to check this box, because it asks me if I do something I do not. And no, I don't see my characters as my friends/children (even though I'd want to hang out with some of them if they were actually around). I see them as people, and that's closer to 'friends/children' than it's to 'tools'. Also, just to poke around on this some more, most side characters to Mary Sues are actually tools for the author. Ha!

So no, I'm not overly attached to my characters. I just see them as people. Because that's what you should do, as a writer. And I warn you, this post might just be a bit angrier than my usual ones.

But you're the author!

Also known as "they're your characters, so they should do what you want them to do." This comes up again and again, both as something non-writers have told writers, and also from people who do write. I don't remember where I read it, but someone claimed that not having total control over your characters means that you're not a good writer.

Do not tell me this when I'm in a bad mood. Your characters should have their own mind. When placed in a situation, they should not do what you want them to do, they should do what they would do. It's a good thing if you can't bring yourself to make a character do something they wouldn't do. It's a sign that your character is actually a character. If you can make your characters do anything you want, they're not their own characters. They're stand-ins/mouthpieces for you. If a character develops in a direction you didn't plan, let them do so. Don't force them in directions that don't flow.

Those Crazy People Talking to Their Characters

That's another thing I noticed. People talking to their characters and people calling these people crazy. Okay, stop right now. Before you say anything, if you literally hear voices when you don't actively try to imagine them, you should probably see a doctor. But honestly, I don't think that the people mentioning this on the forums do not literally hear voices. That's called imagination and it's something you should have as a writer.

But I'm a bit confused by the "talking to" part of the whole thing. You shouldn't talk to your characters. You should listen to them, watch them and dump them in situations to see how they react. As the author, you're your characters' creepy, invisible stalker. (No, seriously, if you'd keep that amount of notes on a real person, you should probably stop.)

Character Creation vs. Development

Now, I talked about how you should just let your character be your character and follow them around with a notepad all the time. But at some point you have to define that character. I'm not a big fan of over-defining characters, so I start with a basic concept with a few character traits. Everything from then on is observing. I look at the character and their interaction with their environment. I look at all their traits and wonder where, in-universe, these come from.

Sure, that's my method, but it works. It allows characters to just be themselves and develop as a reaction to things happening. When I write, I don't think "my character needs to do x." I think "what would my character do?" From time to time, I find myself unable to write things because I just can't see that character doing this particular thing. And that's good.

The Original Fiction Mary Sue Litmus Test, with a shaker of salt

Back in my rant on Mary Sues, I mentioned the Mary Sue Litmus Test, and that one shouldn't listen to it blindly. Now, this is a follow-up to that part, wherein I take a look at the Original Fiction Mary Sue Litmus Test (OFMSLT or just the Test). I'll go by this version, since you can see exactly where the points come from there. I might omit a few points that really don't matter that much, though.

Name

This category features a bunch of questions about the character's name, mostly focusing on whether or not it's unusual or something any sane person would call their child.

Is the character named after you (this includes your first, middle, and last names, and any nicknames or online names you use)?

Points: 20

Why it's in there: How many of you have wished to have adventures like the characters of your favorite TV show/book/comic when you were kids? Or, any adventures, really. That's why you'll find a metric f-ton of self insert fanfics all over the fanfiction websites. Sure, they can be done well, but most often the authors of said fanfics don't have the experience to do so.
Buuut: I've seen quite a few people who named their accounts after their main character. I don't think that the reason for this is always that the character's a self insert. Maybe they like the name, or they couldn't come up with an account name that wasn't their real name or their favorite Dragonball Z character. So, remember, it's "named after you." Not the other way 'round. And self inserts can be done well, too.

Does the character have a name you really, really like?
Is it Raven?
Is it a variation of Raven?
Is it Hunter?

Points: 1, 3, 1, 5 respectively
Why it's in there: Aside from Raven being on my buzzword list for "dark" and "mature" stories, this can be explained by the fact that this test was, in fact, based on a Mary Sue test for Gargoyles. Both Raven and Hunter are characters from that show and, just a wild guess, they're known for being all aloof and cool. And awesome.
Buuut: Even for someone who has never watched that show, names like Raven and Hunter should stick out as being highly unusual. But I don't think that these warrant any more Sue points than they would already get from the test.

Appearance

This category deals with the character's appearance, as well as the other characters' reactions to it. Here we have the classic improbable hair, eyes and stature things. This is also the first category that allows you to add less points under certain circumstances, such as an immortal character looking way younger than they are. I'm okay with this category, but there's one thing that sounds a bit weird.

[Subtract 3 points if the character is over 20 and appears much older than she/he really is.]

I have no idea where this comes from. Especially if you have a character that's ~21 and looks like 60. And no one ever thinks it's weird. Honestly, I have no idea where this line comes from.

Character

Here we've got the, well... other stuff about the character. This is one of the things where I'll quote more, because it's a catch-all category.

Does the character have a clone or identical twin?

Points: 7, 1 if "there are a large number of clones in your story, and your character is neither the original nor above average in prowess."
Why it's in there: Oh come on, if a having a clone doesn't make you speshul, what does? I agree on the mitigating circumstances too, but...
Buuut: The second part sounds an awful lot like the clone saga. In order to get the one point, your character needs to be three things: Not the original, not significantly better than the other one and one of many clones. I don't like your usage of and here. It sounds like the author wasn't really sure on how to handle the clone issue.

In general, this category contains many of these traits that work alone, but become less and less plausible the more you pile them up. And then there's the subtraction part:

 [Subtract 2 points if the character is a protagonist but ever freely, willingly, and knowingly worked for the villain/evil regime.]

I mention this because it shows what this test was not made to work with: Villain protagonists. Characters who're clearly not on the good guy side.

More on Character

Why is this a category? Well, this is more of the same. Character traits that, if not all in one character, are just character traits. There's a few things that are oddly specific, though.

[Subtract 3 points if the character has ever fairly lost in any kind of duel, fight, or competition against someone of equal or lesser ability, and the winner was not the character's rival.]

Read: Is your character the protagonist of a shounen series? I'm not sure what the point of this is. Maybe it's to show that your character isn't unbeatable. Or has humility. Also, most ways of losing against someone who's actually worse than you are not really that fair, since they depend on luck, you not being in shape, you not being prepared...

 [Subtract 1 point if the character is a smoker.]

Huh? Did I miss something? Because the last time I checked, smoking was still used as a shorthand to convey badassery, douchebag behavior and impossible coolness. Smoking is "the thing the cool kids do." Sure, a smoking character can go both ways, but on the other hand, smoking can also be used as one of these fake flaws that actually give you points.

[Subtract 2 points if the character has a dependency or addiction that is or would be very hard to break (e.g. alcoholism, drugs, gambling, sex addiction, etc.)]
           [Subtract another point if the character never overcomes this vice.]

Again, this depends on the way it's handled more than anything else. It can, just as well, be used as a fake flaw. So I can get a total of four points out of this.

Does the character have wings (this counts even if she/he is an angel, only has wings sometimes, can't fly, etc.)

Points: 10
Why it's in there: Yet another thing that makes your character unique and special. It's not a bad thing, though, but gratuituous wings are kind of a thing in Mary Sues, though. Mostly for symbolism and, maybe, an episode on fantastic racism.
Buuut: "Even if she/he is an angel." The test's handing out redundant points here, as there's a category on nonhuman characters, which gives you another point for your character being an angel. Also, that etc there. It basically means NO EXCEPTIONS. Even if your character's a member of a race that has wings, even if the story's set in a world where everyone has wings, even if [enter argument here], you get these points. You see where this is going, right?

[Subtract 1 point for each of the following that applies to the character:
           She/he remains in a committed relationship for the full duration of your story.
           She/he has a child or children for the greater part of your story.
           She/he does not learn from major mistakes.
           She/he has very little or no empathy for other people.
           She/he is selfishly manipulative or sadistic (e.g. threatens self-harm, lies, blackmails, etc. in order to get her/his way).]

The first two are okay. Giving your character a family rounds them out and helps to stop them from hogging all the spotlight. Then the test loses me. Not learning from mistakes, not giving a crap about others and being a general asshole sounds like 90% of the self-absorbent Mary Sue self inserts out there.
Update: For the first two, I assumed that they're reasonable characters. If these characters are just decoration or just as sparkly as Mary Sue herself, that's another thing.

Work and Play

This category is mostly about the character's skills and will, in general, net you a lot of points if you're testing a self insert. I don't really have anything to say there, since this will get you points depending on how many skills you're piling up on your character. Even though, if said character's immortal, that might just be justified, because what else are you going to do in all these years?

Immortals, Gods, Fay, etc.

Talking about immortal... this category is the first non-mandatory category, and is only for characters that are immortal or not human. There's questions about your character's involvement in history, such as being the Mona Lisa, or dumping an apple on Newton's head, which I like, since "oh look I'm notable" is something that's really tempting to do with immortal characters. And here we also find the question about your character being an angel. Yay for redundancy!

High School

Non-mandatory category number two, only for characters in high school (duh). The main points are, again, being good, being troubled and what feels like all the cliches in the book. Also, Japanese seems to have been the epitome of cool things when this test was made.

Does the character talk about anime frequently or have lots of anime clothes, collectibles, etc.?
Does the character have a pet named after an anime character?
Does the character draw really well in the anime style?

Points: 1 each
Why it's in there: Yes, I see the point, all these pseudo-Japanese anime lovers with no real idea of how Japan works, blah, blah... But if a character likes anime, they like anime. And hell, who'd blame a Sailor Moon fan for calling their cat Luna? It would be weirder if they didn't. Bottom line: I see where this comes from, but come on, these are really just character traits.

The Plot

Ah, yes. The plot, and how the character fits into it. Here are the various questions on the character interacting with others, how the character interacts with the plot... In general, this part checks for various degrees of wish-fulfillment. Also, this:

Have you ever written a fight scene in which you described with needless extravagence everything your character did?
Was this scene inspired by a movie, show, or game?
Did you actually reference the movie, show, or game (e.g. "He jumped up and hung in the air, like Neo in The Matrix"?

Points: 2, 2, 15
Why it's in there: I'm not really sure since...
Buuut: This is a writing thing. Not being able to describe fight scenes without directly referencing them should not be worth fifteen points in a character test. After what I've seen, I can imagine people writing it like this on purpose, but that would still be "nspired by a movie, show, or game." The rest is writing.

Your Character and You

This category is about you, the writer. It's about your ability to take criticism. The points you get here are for being too involved with your character, to the point of not being objective about them. Again, there's points for the character being wish-fulfillment for you, but that doesn't necessarily need to be the case.

Some Words on the Test

First of all, even the test states that you should take it with a grain of salt. Characters that have gone a long way to where they are now are bound to have accumulated things that are on that list. Your goal shouldn't be to just cut parts of that character, but to check if said parts have a reason to be there and that their consequences are handled well. On the other hand, I've seen at least one fanfiction author who used a low test score to claim that their character was well-written.

The other thing I'd like to say is that this test is better than the other, more fanfiction specific test. Sure, it's a bit biased against things of Japanese origin and it has a few things that give you quite a lot of points. But on the other hand, it handles the Your Character and You part way better than that other test I've seen floating around on the internet. Especially since it actually goes into detail. But that's for the next article.

The bottom line is that these tests are to be taken with a shaker of salt. They can help you, but if you don't know why these questions are on there, they're just half as useful.

Our heroes!

I "just" (read: yesterday evening) finished watching the final part of a Let's Play of a little German indie game. What's so special about it? Well, it features what the LPer called the least sympathetic protagonist he has ever seen. I'm not sure he is, but it's hard for me to think of a protagonist I wanted to punch in his fake French face more than this one.

What I think is, that the creator of this game wanted to go for an anti-hero as a protagonist. What he got was a douchebag, a jerk, a [expletive].

Anti-hero? Like, villain?

Most of you have probably heard about anti-heroes already. And no, they're not villains. They're still the good guys. Anti-heroes are pretty much the answer to characters like Superman, or Micky Mouse, who are squeaky clean and nice and just overall good.

There are various degrees of anti-heroism. It starts with protagonists that aren't always politically correct, not afraid to swear if they feel the situation calls for it and might just have a more ambiguous set of morals. Some of them can be villains, pushed in heroic positions by circumstances. Or they live in a world where everyone's an asshole and are really the good guys by comparison.

The fine line

Back to Douchebag Protagonist (DP). As before, I won't name the game, because most of you don't know it, and those who do will recognize it anyways. Retelling the whole game would be too much and would also delve into the other departments it's lacking in, so I'll just list my "favorite" douchebag facts. The only thing you need to know for now is that the game is set in a parallel world, and ~300 years in the past.

#4: DP is culturally insensitive. So he's ~300 years in the past. Time paradoxes, keeping the past intact, or even talking in a way similar to the locals? Why should he? He's the hero, dammit! Sure, this can be done well.

#3: During his travels in the past, DP and his Native American companion accidentally free an evil arch king. But all they care for is why there are French soldiers in a parallel world and where they can find a portal back. In the end, DP even admits that he just did it for the portal.

#2: DP is a (mad) scientist. For sheer lulz, he and his team built a time portal, powered by the bodies of children. Later on he uses one of his colleagues, and when things go awry, he uses a Russian farmer's family.


If powering your private time machine with people isn't #1, then what?

#1: Being a prick about #2. Big spoiler, in the end, both DP and his companion need to prove they're pure in heart, or else they can't proceed... Now remove your palm from your forehead and/or clean your screens. And yes. Our "heroes" (more like one jerk and his gullible friend) actually pass. Even though DP lied and basically downplayed/ignored his past actions, he was found to be pure of heart. Okay, maybe pure evil counts too. Also, he lied to a powerful creature and guardian of the underworld. Right in the face. Without batting an eye.

Now let me take a deep breath. *breathes in*

Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen and others!

Make it better!

Can do. I think that characters like DP come into existence when their creators forget the "hero" part of anti-hero. Even though your hero is a douchebag, you should be able to root for them. They should be, in their own way, likable.

The lesser evil: The so-called hero might be a selfish jerk, but if you look around, they're still the best choice. They might have higher moral standards, or just be on the side you want to win. They're not good, just better in comparison.

Redeeming moments: This is hard to pull off. You might think that just giving your anti-hero a scene or two where they do something nice count as redeeming moments. No. They're token redeeming moments. If they're just slapped in, the audience will see that they're a last ditch effort to make the hero less of a jerk.

Actually nice: Sure, your anti-hero is gruff, rude and pragmatic. But other than that, they're a perfectly okay person. If you don't mind the snide remarks, you can hang around with them and even have fun.

Call them out: One of the worst things you can do to your anti-hero is to paint them as anything nicer than they are. If someone's a jerk, people should react like they react to someone being a jerk. Just because your anti-hero has hero in their role, that doesn't mean that everyone's going to cheer at everything they do.

There. Your anti-hero.

Why is that so important?

Sure, you always want a protagonist the audience can root for. If the audience can't feel involved, it can't be interested. But the importance of an acceptable protagonist is higher in interactive fiction. Why? Because while in a TV series or a book, or an other non-interactive medium, you watch that guy. In a game, you are the guy. But if the protagonist is thoroughly unsympathetic, you don't want to be them. And why would you want them to succeed? Why would you want them to win their battles? And, most of all, why would you want to commit their acts of douchebaggery?

Squeaky clean heroes can be boring, but that's no reason to overdo it with the edgy qualities. And remember, kids, at the end of the day, your anti-hero should still be a hero. I can't believe I went there...

Plot, not Setting

It's time to talk about my favorite writing pitfall! Yay! And no, I don't mean favorite to talk about, I mean favorite to fall victim to.

As you should know already...

I'm going to assume that you people know what plot and setting are in terms of writing. I'll still reiterate it here, just for the sake of being on equal terms.

Plot: In general, the plot is the what. What happens, what's at stake? What the fudgesicle are you two doing in my closet? Plot is what the audience invests in.

Setting: In contrast to that, the setting is our where. Where, in this case, is not necessarily a place. Where encompasses time and deviations from reality as well. I think the Relativity Theory should cover some of that.

Then what's the deal?

I'll highlight a sentence from the above definitions again.

Plot is what the audience invests in.

Plot is our important thing, but what are we going to do with the setting? This isn't such a big deal if you're in Anytown, USA. People should know that already. But what do you do if you're in space colony 15 alpha? There's a whole new setting that you can't just ignore, mostly because you most likely made it up on your own. And it has all these spiffy details you want others to know about. Who needs plot when you have space lasers? Well, your story does, because, uhm... I tried. You need that red string and the personal ties to make your reader care. But that doesn't mean you should leave out the part with the space lasers. They're still awesome.

Setting Stability

Wait, weren't you just talking about how we need plot? Well, yes, but the stability of the setting says a lot about how we get our plot in there, instead of tacking it onto it.

Stable settings: In stable settings, nothing really happens. When you hear the fire sirens, it's probably a kitten on a tree. If you want it grittier, you're in a dystopian future where people just live on their dystopian lives. Still, if a zombie staggers into town, it's probably just Tuesday again. As is, nothing's going on, so your characters need to do something. Maybe they go out and have adventures, plan on doing stuff, suddenly, a new guy's in town or the zombies learned to breakdance and challenge everyone to a battle.

Unstable settings: What do you think? Yes, this is the exact opposite. Things are going on. Disaster warnings, revolutions, war... (except for the western front, where all's quiet). Unstable settings are more dynamic and may have the occasional plot pop up on their own, some of which might even pop up in your story.

Once more, I'm going back to the game I used as an example a few times already. In the release notes, the developer stated that he wanted to step away from Save The World plots. Instead, he wanted to create a world that was in no need of saving, and wanted to make you want to change it. So there was a stable setting and characters that, in the end, would bring on change. Right? Right? Err, no. First, "change," in that scenario, pretty much equaled "saving." Second, no. This setting has never been stable. Things had started escalating with the event that kicked a) off the actual game and b) the protagonist in his man parts. From then on, things had been escalating on a large scale, and in the end you had a big bad who wanted to, you guessed it, take over the world. I'm calling the setting unstable because all these events were caused by things outside the hero party. They were on a large scale. The protagonists might have influenced things, but that escalation would have happened anyways.

Uh, where was I?

Setting As A Plot

Ah, yes, there's my point. What the developer did there, even if he thought he'd avoid it, was to create a Setting As A Plot. That means exactly what it says here, namely that the setting basically is the plot. For that, you need, of course, an unstable setting, which already throws plots at you.

This principle is full of pitfalls, though. You can't just throw random characters at your plot and force them to become involved. They still need reasons to do all these things. If Earth was suddenly invaded by aliens, I'm sure that not everyone would instantly grab a gun and shoot them to chunky salsa. On the other hand, you have to be careful to have your characters stay proactive. No one wants to read about a protagonist that just has things happen to them. Also, as I said before, you don't need to use all the plots your setting throws at you. Use them as B plots, or just have them cross paths with the main story from time to time.

But...

I'm not telling you what to do. I'm not telling you how to write your story, how to create your system or that you should include space lasers at any cost. I'm just telling you what I stumbled across, and what I'm thinking of it. Personally speaking, I'm better at creating settings than at creating plots, but I've eyed both things hard enough to have an opinion on them. An uneducated one, but have you looked at the blog name lately? If you're looking for me, I'm most likely not in my tomato-safe bunker.

Stakes

After a stray piece of inspiration hit me, I decided to talk about stakes this time.

Steaks? Yay!

Nope, not these. I'm glad I can make random Asian...ish food without burning off my taste buds.Now, stakes can mean two things. There's A) the things you impale vampires with and B) the things that are at stake. I'm talking about B, unless it's in the context of vampires, where the presence of A can easily lead to B. The stakes are, in a nutshell, what matters in a story.

Why should I care?

You should care about stakes because they are what make you care about the story. And by story, in the context of this post, I mean anything that's a plot. I'm talking books, comics, games, movies... all that has a story, and that story has to have stakes.

Stake Facts

Stakes are, first and foremost, things that matter. They are where excrements go down or hit the fan. They are the reason why you stick to the story. But you can't just throw something at your audience, tell them that that's your stakes and expect them to actually be invested. There a few big things that make your stakes interesting.

It's personal.
That's, in my opinion, the most important thing. Your story's stakes should have a connection to the protagonist. Before you point me to any of these rescue the world/country/universe stories and tell me how they work despite the goal being unpersonal or how these stakes are personal because the protagonist lives in the world/country/universe... stop. That's not how it works. Now, think of any recent catastrophe. Sure, it sucks. You might find what happened to be abhorrent, sad and even terrifying. But still, it's something that happened somewhere. Now what if, say, your best friend/significant other was involved in said catastrophe. Suddenly, you care for it on a whole new level. Because it just got personal.
I have a great example here, and that's Batman. Gotham is a craphole. But if you asked little Bruce Wayne about it, he'd say that his parents are rich and can afford the security to live there. Then his parents were killed by a random goon. That's when Gotham's criminals became a personal issue to him and he became Batman. Even though his motivation, and ultimately the thing at stake, is safety in Gotham, he has a personal connection to it.

Who cares?
Now we have personal stakes, but why should I care about Bruce Wayne's problems if I don't care about Bruce Wayne? That's the second important thing. The audience needs to care about the character who's got things at stake. I know I might just be abusing this word horribly, but I'm going to call this character the stakeholder. If you want the audience to be invested in your stakes and, thus, your story, you need to make them be invested in your stakeholder. Writing compelling characters is, however, not the topic of this post.
Here's the part where I'll pull the second comic book character out of my hat. Tony Stark, also known as Iron Man. His backstory has definitely got the personal stakes down. The reason I'm listing it here instead of up there with Batman is that Tony Stark was designed to be a bit of a douchebag. Look at this fantastically awesome review by Linkara *cough* for more information. He may be a rich douchebag, but we still care for him, and we care for his story and what's at stake for him.

Stake Special: Interactive Stories

Interactive stories, aka game plots, act a bit differently in the game of stakes. The reason is just that: They're interactive. Let's assume you care about the stakeholder and their stakes. In a non-interactive story you now follow them as they fight for their stakes. In an interactive story, you are them as they fight for their stakes. That means that there's one more thing the audience needs to care for, and that's the stakeholder's environment. Why would you want to save the world if you, the player, don't care for it? Sure, Bruce Wayne cared about his parents, but why should you? They're not yours. Or, a better example, the often-used doomed hometown. You spend what, five minutes in that town, then go out to do stuff and when you return, everybody's dead. Sad music plays, rain falls, the stakeholder breaks down in the dirt and bawls their eyes out. You, the player, just sit there and wonder why the hell you should care about these people you didn't know. And that's the point. As soon as the story becomes interactive, the audience becomes a stakeholder. This, in turn, leads to the aforementioned most important thing: The stakes need to be personal to the stakeholder. Making these stakes personal to the audience is another topic, which I won't talk about here, because this post is going to be long enough as it is.

And now?

Stakes need to be important, yet personal. Designing them is easier than making them believable, and getting high stakes that aren't too detached from the characters takes work. On the other hand, low stakes might not be stakes at all. If your romance plot is happy and perfect, then maybe it shouldn't be the focus, but rather a background thing that runs along.

Inspirational credits go to the Query Shark. Chew away, Ms. Shark. Chew away.

Dark and Edgy

Okay, this is going to be difficult. First of all, the reason I'm ranting about this is that I'm on Twitter. I follow comic fans on Twitter. I see these comic fans talk about how various companies turn their beloved heroes into grim and gritty versions of themselves. And that makes me want to punch a wall, presumably while stating that I am a man (which I'm not). Also, keep your rotten tomatoes ready, because I'm gonna talk about things as I see them and may spout some BS

Dark? Edgy? What?

First, what's dark and edgy? There's not a fine line between dark and edgy and... bright and round? Dunno, but it's more of a scale of idealism versus cynicism. And I get why not everything needs to be sugar and sunshine. A well-written anti-hero in a dystopian city can be fun to read too.
But on the other hand, dark and edgy is a dangerous tool of storytelling.

The Dangers of Dark and Edgy

There's a few many misconceptions and dangers with dark and edgy settings/versions of things. Most of the times, it's what good dark and edgy writing is or isn't.
Dark and edgy is...

• ...always relative. When you darken and edgify (?) a setting, be aware of the initial brightness. I think that, for example, it's perfectly possible to write a dark and edgy My Little Pony story. The thing is that, since it's f-ing My Little Pony, it will still be lighter than, for example, dark and edgy Power Rangers. Or really, pretty much any other dark and edgy thing. It's talking ponies, ffs!
• ...not guaranteeing that it's cool. Yeah, we all love these people in black longcoats shooting each other in a city that doesn't seem to pay its electricity bills. But just because something's dark and edgy, it doesn't mean that it has that cool feeling. Badly-done dark and edgy settings are often just drab and unpleasant. They make you cringe and throw the medium of choice onto the ground in disgust. Sure, there's a market for that, too. On the other hand, cool things can also be light-hearted and funny.
• ...not necessarily realistic. To hell with you, generic first person shooters! Reality is not brown. Or gray. It's green, blue, sometimes beige or maybe hot pink. Sure, brown and gray do exist, but damn, don't overdo it with the gray. And like that, while dark and edgy exist in our world, there's also idealism. Not everything sucks. So, if you're writing dark and edgy, you might end up being worse than the world as it is. That's okay, if it benefits the story. Just... please, be aware of it.
• ...not about gore. Urgh. Also, no Al Gore joke here, sorry. I just hate it how, very often, darker and edgier settings are also bloodier. No. No no no. You can be dark and edgy without throwing blood like it's going out of style. (Which I hope it does.) Blood is like f-bombs. You're not looking more mature or more edgy just because your characters' vocabulary consists of (m)f, a, s, c and similar things. The same goes for dismembering characters. Just because Tarantino could make it look cool, that doesn't mean you can.
• ...full of clichés. That's true for original settings as well as... well, non-original ones. There's tons of pits you can fall into when writing dark and edgy. For an original setting, there's enough stock characters to fill a city with. For dark and edgy versions of existing settings, people either follow common stereotypes for the characters and environment (how often have we seen mushroom-abusing Mario now?!), or, in an attempt to defy that path, derail the setting until it's barely recognizable any more. Do I even have to say why that's bad?
• ...difficult. Hell yes. Writing an independent dark and edgy setting is hard enough. Too less and it's not convincing, too much and it's ridiculous. But darkening and edgifying (!) an existent setting is hard. Even when sticking to the aforementioned things, you can end up messing it up because you started from the wrong end.

The Obligatory Paragraph Where I tell you that I don't hate Dark and Edgy

Because that's always there. And no, I don't hate good dark and edgy. If well done, it's an interesting take on existing settings. As for original ones, Cyberpunk is mostly dystopian, and I like it. Fun fact, even Cyberpunk has undergone a certain darkening and edgifying (!!!) process. I read William Gibson's Neuromancer trilogy (it's awesome), and it wasn't nearly as dark and edgy as I would have expected. Sure, it was, but damn, that shows that even things that are already dark and edgy can become even darker and edgier.

Last but not Least

What do I want to say with this? Simple: Don't think that dark and edgy is generally more awesome/mature because it's dark and edgy. You still need to write things well, and there are things that just don't work when they're darkened and edgified (:D) beyond a certain point. And I'm sure we all have someone to death glare at right now.

Mary Sues

I'm going to admit, this one isn't as uneducated as the others, but I do have my opinions on Mary Sues as characters, the term itself and its (ab)use.

Mary Sue, who are you?

I'm pretty sure someone else used that one before.

Mary Sue is, essentially, a term for a certain kind of badly written character. And while it is female (as it was named after a female parody character), I'll apply it to characters of all genders. Because, surprise surprise, male Sues do exist. They're also called Gary Stu, Marty Stu or whatever pun on Mary Sue you can find.

The Mary Sue is, shortly, too perfect. They can do anything. Everybody likes them, except for the bad guys, who want to tie them to a railroad track. But they won't succeed, because the Mary Sue is their opponent, and Mary Sue has to win. They're also good lucking and going to get their love interest of choice, after some painfully contrived misunderstandings and drama.

Okay, I may have exaggerated that, and not each of these elements always happens, but as said, they come in all varieties.

Sues and Gender

The term Mary Sue is female. This could lead to the conclusion that all Sues are female, which is just not true. Characters of all genders can be Sues.

That whole female thing also leads to people calling the term sexist. And people to use it in a way that's really sexist. So before I start rambling on about this, one thing: Just because a character is female, that doesn't make her a Sue.

Another point, where people actually have a point, is a certain double standard. Before I get to that, however, let me introduce to the number one killer argument:

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly.  They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

This paragraph is then followed by a statement like "what a Sue, right," only to reveal that it's a description of genderflipped Batman. Okay, yes, this sounds like a pretty huge Sue. Now let's "re-genderflip" it and read it again.

So, there’s this guy. He’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every girl he meets falls in love with him, but in between torrid romances he rejects them all because he dedicated to what is Pure and Good. He has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. He is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes girls want him more. He has no superhuman abilities, yet he is more competent than his superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. He has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact he treats them pretty badly.  They fear and respect him, and defer to his orders. Everyone is obsessed with him, even him enemies are attracted to him. He can plan ahead for anything and he’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy him are inevitably wrong.

It still sounds like a pretty huge Sue. You know, the thing that keeps characters like Batman or Sherlock Holmes from being blatant Sues is the fact that they have depth and are well-written. Sure, their characters include many things that are also classic Sue traits, but they use them better than your average Sue. You know, I'll go on a tangent here and explain why Batman works, based on this.

Why Batman works

Batman has gathered a fair amount of Sue traits. I admit that. But the above paragraph isn't really Batman. It's Batman, as seen by someone who either does not care about the inner workings of Batman, or someone who wants Batman to be zomfgawesome. Let's pick this apart, and please don't whack me with rolled-up comic books if I get something wrong.

He’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet.

Ah, yeah, a tragic backstory. Sue trait number one.

How is this a Sue trait? Tragic backstories in Sues basically spit in the face of everyone who has been through similar events. The two main reactions Sues show to traumatic events are to either shrug it off or to shove it in everyone's face.
Why does it work here? Traumatic events like, in this case, the murder of Bruce's parents by a criminal, change people. They have to learn how to cope with these things. Bruce Wayne coped with it by being Batman. He did a lot to become Batman, and even now, that event is influencing him. The fact that he doesn't use guns is one of these influences.

Being rich can also be seen as a Sue trait, but I'll let it slip because it makes sense with the rest of his character, including all the nice toys.

How is this a Sue trait? As seen here, being rich is an enabler. A rich character already has the money and doesn't need to work for it, hence they have more free time on their hands for wacky antics.
Why does it work here? Okay, Batman's totally guilty of that. He inherited his money/company from his father. Still, in this case it's kind of a necessary trait, and makes the tons of gadgets more plausible. It's kind of neutral here.

He has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks.

Ah, yeah. A classic super genius.
How is this a Sue trait? Being a genius is often used as an excuse to have a teenager do what adults do, and shove them into a group they're too young for, just because they're smart. Not to mention that it's not enough to have your super brain, you also need to fill it. There's no super physics without knowing physics first.
Why does it work here? While technically also a Sue trait, I'll shove that one into the same category as the money: It justifies some other aspects, like how he could learn all that stuff and come up with his plans. Also, Batman's intellect is basically his superpower. If we can believe that a man can fly, we can believe that a man can be really smart.

Of course, Batman's super fit.
How is this a Sue trait? Similar to above average mental abilities, being harder better faster stronger than others is used to get the character in question where they really shouldn't be. And of course, Sues hardly train for their abilities. They just got them.

Why does it work here? It's not like he was born super strong. Batman worked for what he can do. Sure, it's a biiit much, but he has some sort of justification for being able to do all that stuff. Also, he has this goal of stopping crime and his parents' death probably gave him the determination to go through with it. Don't think he didn't do anything for it.

Okay, I think I've made my point. I'll stop here because every other trait I'd be picking apart would look like this:

Batman has a Sue trait.
How is this a Sue trait? Most Sues have this trait without really exploring the consequences.
Why does it work here? Batman explores the consequences and has it in a context that makes sense.

And that would be boring. In the hands of a competent writer, Batman's a deep and interesting character with his edges and flaws. If done wrong, however, he sparkles like a Twipire in sunlight.

The Mary Sue Litmus Test

If you google Mary Sue Litmus Test, you'll find a quiz with a whole bunch of checkboxes, asking you stuff about the character in question. You do the quiz, click the button and it tells you how much of a Sue the character is. Theoretically. However, the symptoms are not the illness. As I pointed out with Batman, Sue traits don't necessarily mean that a character is a Sue. I could probably go and tell you to which Sue traits all these questions allude. Most of these things are often carelessly applied to characters, without thinking them through. If you invest some time in thinking about the consequences of a character being like they are, you'll find out that these traits aren't inherently bad. So don't blindly trust the tests, and ask other people what they think of your characters... okay, don't blindly trust them either, but you get the point. Still, the litmus test is a good tool for outlining what has been accumulated in your character and how well thought out they are.

Personal Opinions on Sues

No, I'm not going to rant about how people dare to like Sues, or how people dare to criticize other people's power fantasies. If you want to write your personal power fantasy, remember that it's yours, and not everyone else's. While you might find it cool, special and interesting, other people might find it ugh, lame and boring. That's called opinion. If someone calls you out on your character being flat, and that someone actually gives constructive criticism, listen. Even if it's your personal fantasy, it can be written in a way that's interesting for other people.

The point

There was a point in there, right? Ah, yeah. The point is that Sue traits don't make the Sue, the writing does. Also, Sues are not automatically female. And, more important, female characters aren't automatically Sues. Same goes for characters who're somewhat outstanding. So, please think first before you call a character a Sue.

You may now throw the rotten tomatoes.