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Sharing a giggle!
Aug. 16th, 2007 12:33 pmI love my friend Matt. He is a really funny guy. His description of Pauline Hanson had me chortling.
Aug. 16th, 2007
I love fic. I love pairing up characters in fic. It's a joy for me to put two characters together and see them bounce off each other. There's traps, however, that people fall into whenever they try to pair characters in fandom. Here are a few of them!
- One Twu Wuv: If the lead character has had many past loves, the newest one is the only one they've ever truly loved, or is the best sex they've ever had. Just because you have a new love doesn't mean that the old ones aren't important or fade in comparison. If writing down the previous relationships is the only way you can make the current pairing look good, then you need to really think about the characters and build some actual interactions and development.
- Rough Angsty Sex: Very few pairings can get away with this. Please use with discretion.
- Building up a StrawMan Rival Love Interest: You make this character for the explicit purpose of making one of the pairing jealous and the other think that they know what they want only to realise they want what they had all along. SRLI usually ends up evil/shallow/psycho. Here's a tip - real love doesn't work that way. Everyone, even bad people, have complex, interesting characters. There's nothing wrong with making a character in a pairing distracted with a new love interest if you're plotting for that character to end up with the lead or whatever. But if you have your ingénue or whatever fall head over heels for one character, then flip back to the other, her love wont seem genuine or lasting. It'll undermine the ENTIRE fic.
- Sudden Sex Without Motive: People don't do anything without a reason, including sex. Character A is not going to up and shag Character B if they've not shown the slightest bit of interest in doing that, ever. It's just not believable.
- Fixing Up the Flaws: Fixing the flaws of a character in a monologue. This is a huge one for me, I fucking HATE it. Look, characters are flawed. Wolverine is a gruff bastard, the Doctor is rude and not ginger, Spike is a jerk, Draco Malfoy hates Harry Potter, House is a sarcastic prick, Joxer is a terrible dork... there are certain characters that have a very distinct set of shortcomings that make them who they are! A sudden case of the CuntStruck/Cockstruck is not going to make them magically lose these flaws that might annoy you or make it difficult to pair two characters together. The pairing should work *with* those flaws. If you can't write them with the flaws intact, then you may as well forget about it. Love will NOT make it all okay. When the character falls in love, they will not suddenly confess to the other character of interest why they have been behaving a certain way and how oh my GOD their love has FREED them! Like I said before - it doesn't work that way!
- The Cinderella Cliche. God, I am SO SICK of this one. You know what I'm talking about. The character wears something different, looks fabulous and suddenly the other character in the pairing realises how utterly beautiful they are. No. Just no. If I have to tell you why this is wrong, there's no hope for you.
- Post-Coital Personality Transplant: This is related to the "Fixing Up the Flaws". After the sex, the relationship of the pairing suddenly changes. Sex does not fix or change the way people relate to each other. Not in a huge way, at any rate. I love a bit of fluff like anyone but for Gawd's sakes, don't make a character suddenly happy to talk about their feelings if they've never done that before, or suddenly awesome and heroic when they've always been a bit of a klutz... you get the picture.
These cliches are like Lego pieces. They can combine together quite easily and they build upon each other.
So - are there any that bother you? Lemme know, we can discuss!
- One Twu Wuv: If the lead character has had many past loves, the newest one is the only one they've ever truly loved, or is the best sex they've ever had. Just because you have a new love doesn't mean that the old ones aren't important or fade in comparison. If writing down the previous relationships is the only way you can make the current pairing look good, then you need to really think about the characters and build some actual interactions and development.
- Rough Angsty Sex: Very few pairings can get away with this. Please use with discretion.
- Building up a StrawMan Rival Love Interest: You make this character for the explicit purpose of making one of the pairing jealous and the other think that they know what they want only to realise they want what they had all along. SRLI usually ends up evil/shallow/psycho. Here's a tip - real love doesn't work that way. Everyone, even bad people, have complex, interesting characters. There's nothing wrong with making a character in a pairing distracted with a new love interest if you're plotting for that character to end up with the lead or whatever. But if you have your ingénue or whatever fall head over heels for one character, then flip back to the other, her love wont seem genuine or lasting. It'll undermine the ENTIRE fic.
- Sudden Sex Without Motive: People don't do anything without a reason, including sex. Character A is not going to up and shag Character B if they've not shown the slightest bit of interest in doing that, ever. It's just not believable.
- Fixing Up the Flaws: Fixing the flaws of a character in a monologue. This is a huge one for me, I fucking HATE it. Look, characters are flawed. Wolverine is a gruff bastard, the Doctor is rude and not ginger, Spike is a jerk, Draco Malfoy hates Harry Potter, House is a sarcastic prick, Joxer is a terrible dork... there are certain characters that have a very distinct set of shortcomings that make them who they are! A sudden case of the CuntStruck/Cockstruck is not going to make them magically lose these flaws that might annoy you or make it difficult to pair two characters together. The pairing should work *with* those flaws. If you can't write them with the flaws intact, then you may as well forget about it. Love will NOT make it all okay. When the character falls in love, they will not suddenly confess to the other character of interest why they have been behaving a certain way and how oh my GOD their love has FREED them! Like I said before - it doesn't work that way!
- The Cinderella Cliche. God, I am SO SICK of this one. You know what I'm talking about. The character wears something different, looks fabulous and suddenly the other character in the pairing realises how utterly beautiful they are. No. Just no. If I have to tell you why this is wrong, there's no hope for you.
- Post-Coital Personality Transplant: This is related to the "Fixing Up the Flaws". After the sex, the relationship of the pairing suddenly changes. Sex does not fix or change the way people relate to each other. Not in a huge way, at any rate. I love a bit of fluff like anyone but for Gawd's sakes, don't make a character suddenly happy to talk about their feelings if they've never done that before, or suddenly awesome and heroic when they've always been a bit of a klutz... you get the picture.
These cliches are like Lego pieces. They can combine together quite easily and they build upon each other.
So - are there any that bother you? Lemme know, we can discuss!
