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 ]

[Zana Bonanza]

Burning_Star_IV

((Random, unrelated question: can I have a link to the Mary Sue test?))

((Random, unrelated answer: Yes.))

[Budgie_820]

Kisuko-chan

Budgie_820

Star~Trail

Budgie_820

In sci-fi, you must have robots...no cyborgs.
And of course these cyborgs are hot sex toys, and never get infected with computer viruses or suffer breakdowns, like a normal computer would.
And of course said sexy cyborg is drop dead HOTT!!!
((Wee, my robot suffering Multiple Personalites got a -3 on the Mary sue test.))

((My psychotic female-acting-male cyborg got -14 on the Mary-Sue test. whee .))

Oh, and every single cyborg better have hair and sex organs! Don't forget that they have to have a no-pants-dance with the main character. And let the main character rescue them from deactivation or something right at a good dramatic moment. It makes love more interesting.

And said robot will be an assassin. They'll never have a job like screwing on lugnuts on tires, you know, stuff that we use robots for now...
((Hehe, I kinda like that idea, hmm.))

And they'll begin to angst about their state as a killing machine, despite the fact they were programmed against it.

The robot will also angst about its parents being killed by assassins, which she is now working undercover for. Yes, robots have biological parents despite the fact they have no biological features. Though if you're feeling slightly realistic a creator can be used in place of the parents.

[[One.Life]]

Budgie_820

Kisuko-chan

Budgie_820

Star~Trail

Budgie_820

In sci-fi, you must have robots...no cyborgs.
And of course these cyborgs are hot sex toys, and never get infected with computer viruses or suffer breakdowns, like a normal computer would.
And of course said sexy cyborg is drop dead HOTT!!!
((Wee, my robot suffering Multiple Personalites got a -3 on the Mary sue test.))

((My psychotic female-acting-male cyborg got -14 on the Mary-Sue test. whee .))

Oh, and every single cyborg better have hair and sex organs! Don't forget that they have to have a no-pants-dance with the main character. And let the main character rescue them from deactivation or something right at a good dramatic moment. It makes love more interesting.

And said robot will be an assassin. They'll never have a job like screwing on lugnuts on tires, you know, stuff that we use robots for now...
((Hehe, I kinda like that idea, hmm.))

And they'll begin to angst about their state as a killing machine, despite the fact they were programmed against it.

The robot will also angst about its parents being killed by assassins, which she is now working undercover for. Yes, robots have biological parents despite the fact they have no biological features. Though if you're feeling slightly realistic a creator can be used in place of the parents.

And when it finds out, one of its creators will try comforting it, realizing they were wrong, while the others were like, "It was what you were built for."

[Rid V]

the hidden ghost

When reading someone elses work, if they take too long to update, tell them that if they don't update it, you will, and that you'll do a much better job on it as well.

((You know, that's just what I've been thinking about the book series I'm reading. Not that the books are coming out too slow, but that I could write them better. A whole lot better. That's sad.))

Whenever the main character(s) realize that this particular attack/disaster is not about to hit them, but their friends/colleagues/supporters/allies (a group of minor characters), them must always be in the middle of relaying the news when the disaster strikes, killing the whole group of minor characters. The main characters can never warn them in time for even one minor character to escape.

The best ending a story can have is a heartrending farewell scene, where some of the main characters leave the world/dimension/universe forever, leaving the others behind. Best if you can imply that this parting really is for all time. Even if there is such a thing as an afterlife in your story, they’ll still manage to be apart. Best of all is if the characters had the opportunity to stay altogether, but one group of characters opts to leave (or, more likely, stay behind) for some purely selfless (and if you’re really good, pointless) reason.

[KiwiOfDestruction]

Popular people aren't as charismatic, pretty, kind, or smart as your Maria Suzanne. As a matter of fact, they get Fs, they make everyone they meet instinctively mistrust them, they're actually quite ugly but they wear a lot of makeup, and they are absolutely horrid bitches. Why are they popular, you may ask? Why, they're rich! Rich people are always popular and soul-crushingly conformist. No, don't listen to all those real-life rich people who are unpopular or eccentric. They're just jealous.

And they have no depth. Absolutely none at all. Because as we all know, it is impossible to be extroverted and deep at the same time.

[the hidden ghost]

Rid V

the hidden ghost

When reading someone elses work, if they take too long to update, tell them that if they don't update it, you will, and that you'll do a much better job on it as well.

((You know, that's just what I've been thinking about the book series I'm reading. Not that the books are coming out too slow, but that I could write them better. A whole lot better. That's sad.))

((The example I'm thinking of, the person threatening to finish someone else's fanfiction was saying how perfect it was, and how great everything was, and then, just turned nasty when it didn't get updated, and threatened to steal the story. I don't know if the original author's style was good or bad, having never actually read the fanfic in question, but it's kind of scary to thing a rabid fangirl of your work could turn into a living nightmare like that, and so quickly.))

[the hidden ghost]

Ugly people have no charisma.

[SkeletonRobots]

Never research anything for writing, it's unrealistic to trust doctors and professors!

If you want your character to become blind, just have someone punch him in the nose really hard, or get his/her back broken by hitting them in the knee-caps!

[[One.Life]]

Star~Trail

Never research anything for writing, it's unrealistic to trust doctors and professors!

If you want your character to become blind, just have someone punch him in the nose really hard, or get his/her back broken by hitting them in the knee-caps!

And, of course a character can become a cripple if their arm's blown off!

[[One.Life]]

They're, there, and their are interchangable.

[[One.Life]]

Love must always be forbidden.

[Aldorel]

More is more.

This applies to unnesessary adverbs, letters in a word, exclamation points, lines beofre starting a new paragraph (we looove big test blocks), and, of course, the Almighty Angst.

[borderline_mary]

Main characters do not fail. At anything. Or, if you're in the mood to be creative, they fail at everything -- except the really important stuff. No character should ever screw up so badly that their friends/family/loved ones are killed or maimed or otherwise inconvenienced, with the exception of events that occurred in said character's childhood (with the goal of giving them something to angst about).

It's perfectly acceptable to say they were inept at a young age, but now? They're so capable and smart that they ought to be given the Nobel Peace Prize in every category, right now, before some lame-o scientist gets the credit for their ideas -- because only they can possibly be intelligent enough to invent anything of value or use.

This is because scientists are bit characters. Bit characters can't be smarter than the hero. If there are any scientists in your story, you should probably kill them off fairly quickly in some kind of horrible laboratory disaster that causes a plague or a nuclear holocaust, just to get them out of the way. Make sure your main character knows exactly how to stop/reverse/put an ecological band-aid on the aforementioned disaster, however, before you arrange it. Then put a bunch of evil badguys with guns and ninja masks in your hero's way, because it wouldn't be dramatic for them to solve it all at once, even though they know how. They have to sword fight/kung fu fight their way into some heavily guarded installation in order to fix everything.

How else would they have time to angst, have sex, or make impassioned political speeches?

[moonfox6]

If you're writing sci fi, just rip an idea off P K D. No one will notice.

If you're writing fantasy, it's Tolkien you need. No one will care.

[[One.Life]]

Chapters can be as short as posts such as this.