How to: Not write like Tara Gilesbie (author of My Immortal)!~
No offense to any uber goffik Quibblonians who find this post
I bet I know what you're thinking: not another one of those stuck up kids writing a guide on how to write well! Well, that's exactly what this is. However, I think you should stay because you've probably never read one of these rants from the perspective of an angry cat-obsessed Quibblonian!
1. Don't flipping do another one of those tacky "character profiles"
You've probably heard this a million times. Well, this is your millionth one time, and I'm saying it because SOME PEOPLE STILL DO IT. Holy cheese sticks, keep it to yourself! Why is it that some of you feel the need to paste it right there in the first chapter, to ruin my reading experience? Do you really hate me that much?
Describe your character as the story goes, don't just be a lazy bum and stick that thing right at the beginning. I hate how most of the time, you read one of those character bios and bam- you already know how the whole story goes. I'll give you an example with one of my stories (shameless self-promotion for the win!):
Name: Sandra Young
Age: 15
Looks: yada yada insert here I don't feel like doing this today
Background: So she's been out of school for two years and her mum's trying to get her to go back, but she only gets worse and one day her older sister has the guts to put her in her old school and she basically gives her to a demon guy and basically sacrifices her little sister to the devil yeah enjoy the story!
CHEESUS.
Regarding the character profiles...
2. WATCH OUT! YOUR CHARACTER IS A MARY SUE!
Does your character profile look something like this?
Name: Alexandria Wednesday Raven Way-Biersack
Looks: Long, ebony black hair that goes all the way to her butt with red cheetah print and light blue highlights and a spot that looks like the flag of the United States. Pale, flawless skin and icy blue eyes that tumblr girls would sacrifice puppies for. Tall- like a model, not like a basketball player (lol!)- skinnier than an anorexic, boobs the size of basketballs and a butt the size of ihateVEGETABLES's hands (but don't worry, it doesn't look nasty bc somehow gravity doesn't work oh her and everything's perfectly rounded and she doesn't have stretch marks).
Background: her dad disappeared ages ago, her mum hates her and is always drinking. She has to work to take care of her 26 younger siblings and she loves each and every one of them. She has this one guy best friend who follows her around like a puppy but lol-he DEFIANTLY DOESN'T LIKE HER, NOPE NEVER! And like every guy in school likes her, even the hot guy she likes but he has a girlfriend who acts all nice around him but is a total flapgrannycakes around her.
Personality: shy but outgoing, introverted, genius, nicer than the Virgin Mary, innocent and doesn't even cuss when a piano falls on her head-wow, humble, insecure and thinks she's ugly even though she's a bombshell.
or this?
Name: Jake Damien Alex Smith Dark'ness
Looks: Dark, long, silky perfect hair, light-coloured eyes that mess with teenage girl hormones, skinny but muscular, over six feet tall (preferably 6'2"), sexbang body in general (sorryforthelanguagenotsorry), perfect smile, tan skin.
Background: He lives alone, God knows what happened to his parents, who abused him when they were in the picture. Possibly has a sister who becomes the main character's "bff" pukes a little or a brother who's like his partner in crime. Rebel who dropped out of school or barely cares about it.
Personality: mysterious (I will personally make sure to r8pe you if you add this to your character profile), dark past, highly intelligent too, rebel, overly protective about the main character- if I'm about to r8pe her because she's a Mary Sure, he would cut me and save her magically, nice, quiet bc he's so mysterious !1!1! (r8pe), brave and strong
DO YOU SEE THAT?! I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY! YOU HAVE ME ALL FIRED UP! STOP MAKING MARY-SUE CHARACTERS!
Okay, my point is not that you can't have hot characters or people with messed up pasts, or introverted geniuses-just make sure they have flaws.
Young me: Oh, oh, Mrs. FerSure! Mrs. FerSure! Does a bad past count as a flaw?
Oh, young me, this is why everyone hated you.
A bad past is NOT a flaw! No, a flaw is something like 'pessimistic' or 'arrogant' or even 'not very physically attractive'. Try not to make your characters too perfect. Try basing them on people you know in real life, real people with real flaws.
That's all for update one~
You've probably heard this a million times. Well, this is your millionth one time, and I'm saying it because SOME PEOPLE STILL DO IT. Holy cheese sticks, keep it to yourself! Why is it that some of you feel the need to paste it right there in the first chapter, to ruin my reading experience? Do you really hate me that much?
Describe your character as the story goes, don't just be a lazy bum and stick that thing right at the beginning. I hate how most of the time, you read one of those character bios and bam- you already know how the whole story goes. I'll give you an example with one of my stories (shameless self-promotion for the win!):
Name: Sandra Young
Age: 15
Looks: yada yada insert here I don't feel like doing this today
Background: So she's been out of school for two years and her mum's trying to get her to go back, but she only gets worse and one day her older sister has the guts to put her in her old school and she basically gives her to a demon guy and basically sacrifices her little sister to the devil yeah enjoy the story!
CHEESUS.
Regarding the character profiles...
2. WATCH OUT! YOUR CHARACTER IS A MARY SUE!
Does your character profile look something like this?
Name: Alexandria Wednesday Raven Way-Biersack
Looks: Long, ebony black hair that goes all the way to her butt with red cheetah print and light blue highlights and a spot that looks like the flag of the United States. Pale, flawless skin and icy blue eyes that tumblr girls would sacrifice puppies for. Tall- like a model, not like a basketball player (lol!)- skinnier than an anorexic, boobs the size of basketballs and a butt the size of ihateVEGETABLES's hands (but don't worry, it doesn't look nasty bc somehow gravity doesn't work oh her and everything's perfectly rounded and she doesn't have stretch marks).
Background: her dad disappeared ages ago, her mum hates her and is always drinking. She has to work to take care of her 26 younger siblings and she loves each and every one of them. She has this one guy best friend who follows her around like a puppy but lol-he DEFIANTLY DOESN'T LIKE HER, NOPE NEVER! And like every guy in school likes her, even the hot guy she likes but he has a girlfriend who acts all nice around him but is a total flapgrannycakes around her.
Personality: shy but outgoing, introverted, genius, nicer than the Virgin Mary, innocent and doesn't even cuss when a piano falls on her head-wow, humble, insecure and thinks she's ugly even though she's a bombshell.
or this?
Name: Jake Damien Alex Smith Dark'ness
Looks: Dark, long, silky perfect hair, light-coloured eyes that mess with teenage girl hormones, skinny but muscular, over six feet tall (preferably 6'2"), sexbang body in general (sorryforthelanguagenotsorry), perfect smile, tan skin.
Background: He lives alone, God knows what happened to his parents, who abused him when they were in the picture. Possibly has a sister who becomes the main character's "bff" pukes a little or a brother who's like his partner in crime. Rebel who dropped out of school or barely cares about it.
Personality: mysterious (I will personally make sure to r8pe you if you add this to your character profile), dark past, highly intelligent too, rebel, overly protective about the main character- if I'm about to r8pe her because she's a Mary Sure, he would cut me and save her magically, nice, quiet bc he's so mysterious !1!1! (r8pe), brave and strong
DO YOU SEE THAT?! I HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY! YOU HAVE ME ALL FIRED UP! STOP MAKING MARY-SUE CHARACTERS!
Okay, my point is not that you can't have hot characters or people with messed up pasts, or introverted geniuses-just make sure they have flaws.
Young me: Oh, oh, Mrs. FerSure! Mrs. FerSure! Does a bad past count as a flaw?
Oh, young me, this is why everyone hated you.
A bad past is NOT a flaw! No, a flaw is something like 'pessimistic' or 'arrogant' or even 'not very physically attractive'. Try not to make your characters too perfect. Try basing them on people you know in real life, real people with real flaws.
That's all for update one~
uibblo Membership is FREE!
36 Comments
Please login or register to submit your comment.
Oh my god....
I just read the story... it's.... HORRIFYING.
"MASTABATED (c is dat speld rong)"
Even though it was a terrible story, it was hilarious whenever she mentions stupid stuff, like when Dumbledore was wearing an Avril Lavigne cloak or when Loopin was masticating (surprised she got that word right) on a broom (which is an image I'll never get out of my head o.o).
Remember, when hearing of a poorly written fanfic, always search up the dramatic readings of them to save your brain cells. XD
I can't honestly say I've done this in my writing, but I'm glad you've said it in such a way that makes sense to a new writer, or to someone who's never thought about it. The baby thing usually comes off as trashy to me honestly, they always make the underage character act like it happens all the time! And they're never self conscious about it either! I totally would be. I definitely like how to emphasize realism.
Unfortunately, I've done many of the things I mention here (save for the baby thing) and it's precisely why I decided to talk about them. Thank you, for reading and commenting! And about the baby thing, you took the words right out of my mouth! Haha, people who write about experiences like that clearly do not know anything about the real world. Teen mothers face a lot of stigma and abuse from society/ family members/ partners. New writers also tend to forget that abortion exists...
Amazing tips, Cecé! I totally agree with all of them and I'm glad you included Twilight and FSOG as bad literature xD
I learned from the best points at you ^-^
Haha, thank you so much xD By the way, I really want to give a slap in the face of anyone doing character profiles before the story. Don't you just wanna skip the story whenever you see one?
Seeing a story with a character profile is just like seeing food with hair in it: instant nope.
You! I had to look up Tara Gilesbie because of YOU. sobs She's the queen of Mary Sue and her grammar is so horrible i crie evrytim - I have no words. To ease the pain, I had to look up dramatic readings of her story and it made it funnier.
"SNAKE AND LOOPIN WERE DOING IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE GREAT HALLWAY........AND DOBBY WAS WATCHING!!" XD (seriously snake is not a typo, random people reading this)
Anyway, glad you updated this story. :3
Where do I find them? And who would want to be a follower of Tara? O.o
Omg i so do jst frick of, prep!1!1!1!
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5eUIc1dTWY
Oh, that one. I thought you meant something else for some reason. Yes I have watched that earlier this month and I loved it. XD
gasp! Gasp! (random people reading this, Tara gasps all the time so get used to it) then sticks out my middle finger, knowing that ur a prep!1!
THIS IS SUPER OFFENSIVE WOW OH MY GOD HOW DARE YOU YOU'RE TARGETING ME!!!1!!1!!1111111!!!!
Figured this story needed one of those... xD
BUT HONESTLY I LOVE THIS THANK YOU FOR CREATING THIS!
No, thank you so much for commenting! And thanks for adding that little touch XP
so that character example in chapter one, what story is that from?? id love to read it. [=
... I actually can't remember XP I'll try to look it up (I've written a ton of stories, and this one was probably written 1-2 years ago)
pity, it does sound interesting. Love what you're doing with the story as well, by the way. quite an interesting read.
R8ped by me for being a Mary-Sue.
Wow Mrs. FerSure. Wow. XD
You have a great sense of humor! It's great advice wrapped in beautiful sarcasm. Well done!
This story is a perfect example of why I love you- funny, logical, and plain perfect! I'm looking forward to future chapters! :D
Hah hah... Sorry lord potato. Bows.
Indeed, I grew outta that phase though, and now have little to no trouble creating characters who aren't MS's, mostly because I use people I know as a template.
Lol, how so? XD