User blog:Memai/Why I cannot take your OC seriously.

Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Alright, so guys, guys.

I think most everyone who does know me, knows by now that I'm pretty crazy on character development. Like, a potentially good story could be ruined for me entirely if I cannot stand the characters. I know what most of you may be thinking, but here's the thing:

A character in a story, especially the main character(s)? They're important. A character is used to drive the plot forward. A storyline could be at its most basic, but made all the more interesting with a well-written character. You know that saying, "It's not the destination that counts, but the journey"? Your character is taking you on that journey.

Say the story is about a magical boy wizard who has to save the world. The story would be different if the boy wizard was a kind, polite kid but a total coward. It'd also be a completely different story entirely if the boy wizard in question was an arrogant son-of-a-gun with an attitude problem.

Point I'm trying to get at here? And please try not to get too offended, but...

Hey man, your character sucks. Yeah, I'm talking to you. Your character sucks. Get used to hearing it, because I'm going to pepper that phrase rather liberally throughout this blog post.

Fact of the matter is, I'm hardly interested in the fanfictions here, OR on fanfiction.net, these days because oh my god you guys, why can't you write good characters?

I'm not without my own faults too. I spent years with sues of every shade of stupid imaginable, I've since learned though.

Wow, you're kind of a cunt.
Tell me something I don't know.

Let me be very honest with you guys here, since I'm going to take it upon myself to be the resident bitch (ala Coke Talk). Bully fascinated me, as a game, because of its strong character writing. Down to the most minor of characters, they had their own quirks and personality. Had their own speaking pattern, their own dialogue. The devs literally thought of everything.

There are roughly 30 or so students in Bullworth Academy, in game, through Jimmy's POV. That's not counting the Faculty, the Prefects, the Townsfolk (from the three diferrent areas), the drop outs and even the authority figures. I have trouble coming up with a cast of 5 diverse characters, Rockstar goes ahead and makes 50+.

Here's where it gets frustrating.

How does a universe with such unique character writing, earn a fandom that spits out the complete opposite?

Now, my brotato chip, Lini, and myself have wondered why we only ever see the following: The fact that I very nearly described the entire set of OCs here is what makes this all the more alarming. I'm looking at you, C-Money. Because what kind of name is that?
 * A headstrong, tough-as-nails white kid from the ghetto, usually originating from some city in GTA or some other Rockstar universe (why this even happens baffles the ever loving shit out of me). They're aloof, cool, spew out witty-one-liners suited for a 4Kids dub, know how to operate a gun or are amazing in knife fights. And look like they're 19 instead of 14.
 * If not, they're almost always some sort special snowflake girlie. She comes from some boring or other city, and was sent to Bullworth, but oh my god does she hate it. But oh man, wait! She catches the attention of Gary the sociopath, Johnny Vincent the strung-up-with-his-whore-of-a-girlfriend or Derby obviously-homosexual-man Harrington. Gary loses his sociopathy because she understands him. Johnny dumps Lola because he smartens up in time. Derby finally slums around. Babies may or may not happen for future!fics. Because babies = romance.
 * Almost always having some sort of tragic past. Abused in some way? Orphaned? Grew up around nonchalant parents? Drug abuse? Lived on the streets?
 * Bonus: Hot Topic Goth flavoring or Self-insert seasoning.

Why should we listen to you? If you don't like it, go home.
You don't have to listen to me. You have the choice to just hit the back button on your browser, just like how I do when reading your atrocious fics.

But let's face it, I like to torture myself and so do you.

The fact of the matter is, we've actually got a bunch of great writers here just TEEMING with potential. And I honest to god mean that. Here, we have a community of writers and roleplayers, set in an established universe that makes it easy to have all these zany adventures.

And all everyone ever chooses to write about is self-insert, wish-fulfillment, gunfighting bullshit. The circlejerking and asspatting going on in this community isn't helping none, either.

I'm going to save you the trouble of learning this the hard way, so I'm gonna give it to you straight; you aren't ever going to be a better writer if all you do is congratulate each other on banging out a few paragraphs of fantasy. You get better by critiques and honest commenting, something that is lacking in this community.

You aren't going to be better if you keep thinking, "It's just for fun." No, it isn't. Deep within your heart, you know it to be true.

Why else would you join these communities? Why do you toil away writing paragraph after paragraph? Because it's just for fun? If it were, you wouldn't have to publish it publicly on the internet.

And if you're doing it just to get readers, then please just... stop. Pull your head out of your ass, no one wants to read your shitty work. Really, no one does. They're just commenting because they want YOU to read their equally shallow work.

Obviously, you want to be better. You want your work validated. You want your work to be good.

It can't be if all that ever happens on this community is empty praises going on between users. I mean, seriously, how many of you actually read a story and thought that it was good? Most of the comments I've read here, if not ALL, are generic and don't target anything specific.

How long has that molestation bit in silverfaust's fic gone unnoticed? It was only brought up recently, and that blog post was dated last year.

How many of you, could honestly say, that you read and liked your friends' work?

Thought so.

What do you want us to about it?
I don't know, you're the geniuses here.

Guys, it isn't that hard.

I mean, for crying out loud, we have epics going on here, that is nothing but self-insert, wish-fulfillment, gun-fighting, goth-praising bullshit, and none of you level headed, rational folks called any of it out?

Sure, call it support for a friend. They need the encouragement right? Wrong.

Encourage them, by all means, but don't pat them on the ass, ever. Tell them what they did right, what they did amazing, what they should never do again, why was so-and-so plot point stupid. But then point out that this-and-that plot point was pretty clever too!

It's called giving critique. Something the community shies terribly away from. Which baffles me because oh my god you're all writers, you WANT critiques. You want people to really look into your work. You don't blindly praise them for writing sloppy characters until they write 40 chapters of absolute garbage and then make sequels for it 9_____9

If a friend of mine wrote a gothic, gunslinging schoolgirl who works for the CIA, quoting the Outsiders and put her in a story, said friend of mine would get an ear-blistering tongue-lashing.

Let's just promise each other this; you see a friend of yours doing something absolutely apeshit stupid in their story? Call them out on it. But on the flip side, if they did something absolutely genius? Comment on how spectacularly un-fail that was! Comments with meat! With actual thought put into it!

But please no more "cool story" or "good chapter" bullshit guys. You're not even trying to sound excited. Remember, it's the "comment/feedback" box, you're supposed to leave your COMMENTS, THOUGHTS! Even if they're bad! It's not called the "circlejerk" box.

Why mention this now?
Because I can only handled so much condensed stupid in one sitting.

I mention this now because it fucking breaks my little black heart seeing the fandom I hold dearly onto, devolve into a drivelling mass of Mary Sue fanfiction and circlejerk communities.

I remember when I would get honest-to-god critiques, I got pulled up for every stupid antic I did in my fics. I learned my lesson, and I think I write characters now who are LEAPS AND BOUNDS better. Nothing frustrates me more than seeing annoying Stus and Sues getting away with stupid bullshit, and getting attention for it, when legitimately good characters would be tossed by the wayside.

Not only do I encourage HONEST commentary on fanfiction entries here, but I'm also thinking of writing up, or at least putting together, articles/blogposts aimed to help better the writing community.

I love you guys, I love this community. I think it's a great idea! Getting all these fans together? Why hadn't it been done sooner?

But I can't watch something I love constantly running into the wall like a deranged trogdolyte. I want this community to be the best. I want this fandom to be the best.

Come on guys.