The Anti-Guide

How do you try to improve your writing?

I try to avoid old, stupid things.	17.5%	[ 2292 ]
I add new things.	14.9%	[ 1951 ]
A combination of both (if one more than the other, pick it).	67.6%	[ 8852 ]
Total Votes:			[ 13095 ]

[Mystic Kiwi]

Make an all anime based story and pair up the characters that would never be together. Make sure that the characters have some kind of magic or are elves or fairies or some kind of anthro characters. Make all the characters talk to exactly same was. Don't bother explaining ANY major details that make the story make sense.

[Rid V]

Having the numbers 555 for the first three letters of a phone number is not a precaution to keep real phone numbers from being phoned. It's a stupid thing that should be avoided at all cost!

((I saw the 555 thing in a list of movie cliches somewhere, and I thought: 'that's not a cliche, it's a simple precaution.'))

Surnames always carry through generations, be the one or one-thousand-two-hundred-and-forty-two. This means your main character, who is the descendant of some ancient character, will share their ancestor's last name. This rule holds true even if the ancestor was a human female, despite the intesting question that would raise.

[Senye]

Remember, kids, plots are NOTHING without good, fun pornagraphic scenes. Put the entire story on hold as MANY TIMES AS YOU CAN to have your main characters get their umph on. smile

[Gwynnia]

Every character must have some tragedy in their life. No one can have a normal and happy childhood.

[La Azure]

Never, never, never, actually use the word "evil" in your writing.
One's audience must know that a character is a villian, not be told so.

[Senye]

Readers love, love, LOVE hard to figure out thoughts and sentences. The. more fragments the. Better! aint like dey wil care if yu use fonetik spellins, tew...

[Tentacoo Wape]

Remember, kiddos, demons and angels LOVE to get it on and impregnate each other. They're enemies most of the time, of course, but when it comes to sex- WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA'AM!

Also something to note: Their child will always have black or white hair. ALWAYS. They will also be torn up and angst over what race fits them more. Dedicate pages upon pages of story to describing their raging mental struggle with their identity crisis, and always describe their tears as "crystalline."

Last but not least, they must ALWAYS have wings. Wings are pretty and will automatically give a sense of uniqueness to your character.

[Flying Donut]

>> All your characters must be immortal. Even if your main character starts out human - get the elixir of life in there sometime! No one likes when a character actually dies.

Oh the the boys ALWAYS fall for the main girl. They like that whiny, perfect personality of her's. Always.

[mattbojangles]

Most of my work tends to circle around itself.

My site has comics that have worse continuity then DC had in the 80s.

[Rid V]

mattbojangles

Most of my work tends to circle around itself.

My site has comics that have worse continuity then DC had in the 80s.

((Interesting, but I question the relevance to the subject at hand.))

Any character and/or creature without a definite gender may be referred to with male pronouns if a) you are even the tiniest bit uncomfortable with "it", or b) you just find the word "it" is getting too monotonous, and you want to throw in a little variety.

Remember that describing a character as "not actually evil" means that you want people to understand your villain or villains are not the standard, cardboard cut-out villains, without bothering to deviate from the standard, cardboard cut-out villain formula to any substantial degree.

((Don't get me wrong, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett have both used some approximation of the phrase to describe their villains, and they are, of course, two very good authors. It's just that writers seem to use the phrase to allow people understand a facet of their character's personality, it doesn't seem to affect their actions to any substantial degree.))

[Astarael--Banisher]

Tentacoo Wape

Remember, kiddos, demons and angels LOVE to get it on and impregnate each other. They're enemies most of the time, of course, but when it comes to sex- WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA'AM!

Also something to note: Their child will always have black or white hair. ALWAYS. They will also be torn up and angst over what race fits them more. Dedicate pages upon pages of story to describing their raging mental struggle with their identity crisis, and always describe their tears as "crystalline."

Last but not least, they must ALWAYS have wings. Wings are pretty and will automatically give a sense of uniqueness to your character.

On a related note, the angels never catch any STDs from the demons.

This led me to the conclusion that angels are full of STDs, and it is the demons who catch STDs from the angels. surprised Is there a side to heaven no one told me about?

[Astarael--Banisher]

Gwynnia

Every character must have some tragedy in their life. No one can have a normal and happy childhood.

((Actually, normal childhoods are full of 'tragedies' (you know, divorce, someone dies, the kid flunks a class, etc.): except, in real life, people get over it. In fiction, of course, this tragedy (which is exaggerated and intensified to the point of silliness) would be the reason your character becomes a vampire, dons leather pants that ought to seriously impede fighting but somehow don't, and goes out on some freaky sort of revenge.l

So much for college education after high-school. confused ))

[Astarael--Banisher]

Rid V

Having the numbers 555 for the first three letters of a phone number is not a precaution to keep real phone numbers from being phoned. It's a stupid thing that should be avoided at all cost!

((I saw the 555 thing in a list of movie cliches somewhere, and I thought: 'that's not a cliche, it's a simple precaution.'))

Surnames always carry through generations, be the one or one-thousand-two-hundred-and-forty-two. This means your main character, who is the descendant of some ancient character, will share their ancestor's last name. This rule holds true even if the ancestor was a human female, despite the intesting question that would raise.

((That part about the surname is... so true. And yet so stupid. I wonder why so many people do it.))

[Rid V]

Astarael--Banisher

Rid V

Surnames always carry through generations, be the one or one-thousand-two-hundred-and-forty-two. This means your main character, who is the descendant of some ancient character, will share their ancestor's last name. This rule holds true even if the ancestor was a human female, despite the intesting question that would raise.

((That part about the surname is... so true. And yet so stupid. I wonder why so many people do it.))

((It's so that they don't have to waste energy having the characters find out that one character his some other important character's descendant. They share the same last name, after all, probably the same first name, and the same exact features, almost as if they were being played by the same actor, or something.))

Outside of your main character's immediate sphere of reference, the term "happy families" is an oxymoron. Pick any one person who's family comes into the story at all, and if that character is ready to murder or otherwise contrive the death/s of one or all of their family members, for their family member's money/position/similar, then they are potential victims for murder on those very grounds. And everyone knows that over ninety-eight percent of marriages among secondary characters are held together by Klatchian mist. ((I believe the correct term would be Scottish mist, but I like the Discworld version better, it has a nicer ring to it.))

And I cannot emphasize the importance of this next point enough, even though I've probably said something close to it many times. Any character who is in any way antagonistic, toward your main character or just everyone in general, must turn out to be evil in the end, or to at least do something extremely detrimental to your main character's cause for no better reason than say, spite. No one ever has a good reason for being antagonistic, (not towards your main character, anyway) and they never leave it at just antagonistic. They must be evil!

[Astarael--Banisher]

Yesh, pure evilness is a great excuse for everything. It's like some horrible disease that infects your mind and makes you go crazy! *froths at mouth* Blargie!

((I remember a Peanuts comic, where Lucy and Linus were playing Cops and Robbers or something, and Linus was mostly good, and Lucy was mostly bad. See, Linus was a little bad, and Lucy was a little good, but only a little. Charlie Brown got exasperated at them, and Lucy commented that there went a person who saw things only in black and white!

Okay, so I probably horribly misquoted it, but that's pretty much what happens. I can't remember the exact phrases, but who could? ...Don't answer that question.))