The Anti-Guide

How do you try to improve your writing?

I try to avoid old, stupid things.	17.5%	[ 2370 ]
I add new things.	14.7%	[ 1993 ]
A combination of both (if one more than the other, pick it).	67.8%	[ 9169 ]
Total Votes:			[ 13532 ]

[Triste Morningstar II]

Remember: Good guys are impossibly beautiful, bad guys are invariably ugly.

[Atreas]

Technology must NEVER have an underlying structure of use to work. It must never obey the laws of the universe (gravity) and can always be used under any cirucumstance.

"Nice massive battlecruiser you have there, Phil."

"Thanks."

"How do you...um...plan to get it off the ground?"

"With my anti-gravity generator, which is conveniently the size of my grandmother's little finger and must use a power source which will drain the entire planet of energy and kill millions. But we'll get it to fly, dammit."

[Arez-Kahn]

The laws of physics and common sense are under rated. Anybody who picked up a sword can go off and kill and army single handedly without any experience or teaching.

Heros also never get touched once by an enemy blade and are always right about everything.

[~Sunsetter~]

Everything is black and white. Good people are beautiful and happy and always win, they can do now wrong because Mary Sue and Gary are perfect, and Gary always gets the girl. Evil people are ugly and sad and never win, they never "get the girl".
i can rite a stori cuz i gots culture yo
Help me I'm a poor innocent girl and I can't do anything for myself. Help me! Help me!
You're a lesbian? Oh don't worry I'm a guy and I shall woo you with my manliness because all lesbians love men, and only ugly girls who can't get guys like other girls!
Plagerism is a beautiful thing.
Don't worry that bad stuff didn't really happen! It was just a bad bad dream and everything's perfect now!

[Minion Ripley]

Names are all-important. Never use ordinary, common names like "Lisa" and "Brandon". All of your characters must be named something exotic that describes who they are perfectly. Trust me, no one will notice that you're using almost-forgotten Gaelic names in a place such as far-western Russia and that there is no way that the parents will have predicted that their kid will be the savior of the world at age fifteen.

Feet shall never be mentioned beyond how smooth and beautiful so-and-so's are. And, no matter how many times they wear their shoes, their footwear and feet will smell like a lovely garden.

If your main character is female, she must be spunky, rebellious, and very lively. She should preferably hate men, too, on the basis that "they're all chauvinistic pigs".

If your main character is male, he must be dark, tall, and brooding about his past mistakes, no matter how insignificant they are. He should also wear lots of black and/or blue and be able to wield a sword or gun three times his size.

Every story needs an evil genius, no "if"s, "and"s, or "but"s about it. He should also make lots of weird, high-tech stuff all the time.

Time travel is actually quite simple and easy to explain. You just don't have time to, that's all.

If you ever encounter an illogical moment in your story, or any odd moment really, you should say that you know it's not supposed to happen, but you're going to make it happen anyhow. Bonus points if you put it in parentheses.

[Tavreynya]

The main character's uncle is always either impossibly good or impossibly evil. While it's true that there is no such thing as neutrality, this is doubly so for uncles.

[wingnut the improbable]

If you can't think of how to end a story, either "It was all just a bad dream," or "And then he got run over by an eighteen-wheeler," will do nicely. Extra cookies if you pull off something like "And then he got run over by an eighteen-wheeler but then he woke up and it was all just a bad dream."

(Once, I read a short story that actually ended with the main character getting run over by an eighteen-wheeler. And it was a serious story, too. There was no parody in it whatsoever.)

[BlackHawkGS]

... why even waste your time writing when you could be doing more important things, such as finding out whether the moon is really made of cheese?

[Veive]

If there is a kissing scene in your book, either both the characters are good at it or one of them is cutely embarassed until the other teaches them how.

If there is sex in your story, you must always, always remember the term 'crimson flower'.

In fact, everything is better with the word 'crimson'. The sun is setting? The sky is CRIMSON. The sun is rising? CRIMSON. Your hero's eyes? CRIMSON. The more you can cram this word into your story, the better.

Sexuality is not to be used as a weapon except by extremely sexy villainesses. And the hero must always a) resist her charms or b) get seduced and then go "WTF WAS I THINKING?!" and sulk around in shame and guilt until his true love opens her legs for him- when he can forget all, thanks to the healing powers of teh v****a.

Rape. Always include it in your stories, as a sordid past or simply as a reason for your female character to whine. Never forget that all women who are raped secretly just want to be held and loved by a man right after the event, and that, after a night of sweaty and passionate sex, with no confusion whatsoever, she will be completely healed. (gross).


Plaster as many mental disorders as you can onto your main characters. It makes them more interesting! Besides, who needs character development when you can just say "he's got borderline personality disorder"?

[Minion Ripley]

You should include complete bios of all of your characters in character sheet form, preferably at the very start of your story. It makes you look like a professional even more. *snerk*

[Tavreynya]

If the main character is in a committed relationship at the beginning of the story, the couple must break up and get back together before the end. Either that, or one or both should die.

If the main character is not in a committed relationship and is male, he is a total manwhore at the beginning of the story. We should meet him right after he has AMAZING sex with an attractive member of the desired gender, who is vapid and shallow. By the end of the story, he will have had MORE AMAZING sex with a MORE attractive member of the desired gender, who is NOT vapid and shallow, because they're your other main character.

Everyone is either a virgin or a total strumpet.

[[N]ever.[A]utumn.[M]other]

You will get ultra massive brownie points if, for no reason whatsoever, you switch topics in the middle of the story---

Say your hero and/or heroine are travelling with their party and slowly getting to know one another. Don't know what to have them say? Let the reader hear about what type of clothes your characters are wearing, with their insanely expensive Nikes and Ambacrobie and Fitch, even though those brand names shouldn't exist in the fantasy world.

Or better yet, just say 'Th4y goot 2 talkIn & prety sun theu new all sbout each ther.' You don't need character development.

(This Anti-Guide post was derived from an actual story Amilli just suffered through. -.- -twitch-)

[Tavreynya]

If you use the phrase "[I/we/he/she/it/they] could care less," I will certainly not stab you to death with a skillet. Nor will anyone else engage in violence against you in any way. So use it.

[Alybrylla]

Always switch from first person to third person and back. It makes things much more interresting xp

[spazzy cow]

(I apologize if any of these were used before.)

The male hero's girlfriend should always turn out to be the sexy vampire villian.

Character progression is wrong and over rated. If a character is a bubbly blonde idiotic cheerleader at the beginning of the story, she should be a bubbly blonde idiotic cheerleader until the second to the last page of the book. Then, she should immediately realize the meaning of life and kill herself in a bloody, dramatic fashion.

Run on sentences are a must. So are a bagillion commas on a page and not a single period in the entire book. Instead, substitute them with at least four exclamation marks.

Everything is more meaningful if it has a song to go with it.

Dragons and demons make everything more dramatic.

Never do research. If you don't take the time to do it, why would the readers?

Someone should always die or kill him/herself after realizing a very important fact.

Little boys always make things more angsty.

Changing tenses every other sentence makes everything more fun and insightful.


This thread is amusing... xd