I think the only "not like other girls" that I will accept is if that girl turns out to be a carnivous monster/alien posing as girl to lure prey and eat them.
The only "not like other girls" trope I like is where the girl is weird/different/has special powers but actually hates it because it's caused her a ton of issues or trauma and all she wants is to be is a "normal girl".
You know what gets me the most? That stupid trope where the female main character has to choose between the good guy best friend who's really sweet and a perfect match that treats her so well or choose the bad boy with the tragic past to who probably drives a motorcycle but is honestly kind of a jerk. I get it alright. You all think nice guys finish last. Move on
@@f.megawati idk, sometimes the dorky best friend is the only character with any diversity in the story (usually because he’s a nerd and not supposed to be desirable comparatively) but ofc he can never end up with her bc she’s the protagonist and she can’t date a black guy or an Indian guy 😭
The particular formulation of that that bothers me (which doesn't always necessarily have such a clear dichotomy between the characters) is when the narrative is obviously angling for an Official Couple, but in the absence of proper chemistry and character development, drama is created by having one of the couple start dating someone else, who there's absolutely nothing wrong with, but they still get cheated on anyway, but that's OK because Official Couple.
the whole “strong female character” trope annoys me the most but it’s also why I love Inej from six of crows so much. She’s 100% a bad ass, but she also has complex feelings and can be compassionate and emotional at times. She is not just physically strong, but emotionally strong as well. Her character shows that you can be kind and empathetic and still be a strong female character. She shows that having emotions doesn’t make you weak, which the strong female trope often perpetuates. Sorry for the long comment, I just had to get this out.
Okay, I know I'm really late...But this is so true...same with Nina..She is kind, funny, so strong and loyal to a fault. Both Nina and Inej manage to be all of that without having internal monologues about their superiority or skills (I'm looking at you, Nevernight!)...and yeah, they don't act like emotionless robots. They are strong in every sense of the word and I just love them so much!
Oh i get it now. That's why i couldn't like Jude from the cruel prince series. I see a lot of ppl admiring her or looking up to her but i just can't seem to like this character and part of it may have to do w the fact that she lacks so much emotional depth. She can fight and is a badass yes but i feel like the author traded a lot of her emotional maturity to overpower her so now she's just a strong warrior w/ the emotional depth of a kitchen sponge. It again plays into the overrated troupe of the 'strong female protagonist with no emotions'
@@sparkypikachu7776 Actually no. That's a common popular misinterpretation. Juliet was about to be forced into a bigamous marriage because her parents didn't know she was already married to Romeo and she was naturally afraid to tell them (I've taught the play in my secondary English classes recently; her parents were borderline abusive in addition to hating Romeo's family). So Friar Lawrence, who had married her and Romeo so he knew about it obviously, offered Juliet a drug that would make her appear dead for about a day (such drugs actually do exist although they don't last for that long in reality, I don't think). Then he wrote to Romeo, who'd been banished from Verona, to tell him about the plan and advise him to sneak back overnight so he and Juliet could run off and start a new life together - since she was believed to be dead and Romeo was legally banished, no one would have ever looked for them. But the letter was lost because of a plague outbreak stopping the messenger. And here's where Romeo gets a lot of grief. He decides to commit suicide. I've never been too comfortable with that development myself, especially in teaching high schoolers. But Shakespeare is noted for exploring intense and often dark subjects of the human connection; and here he was exploring WHY people choose to commit suicide and how they feel about it. Suicide was deeply stigmatized in Shakespeare's day, and he was exposing this stigma and offering a more sympathetic view to people struggling with suicidal feelings for any reason. Romeo isn't just killing himself over a girl - losing his new wife has just come on top of seeing his best friend murdered, being criminalized for avenging his death, and being banished from his home and family with no preparation for starting over elsewhere. He's in complete despair of life having any meaning left; and in his circumstances we can understand his struggles. He doesn't have any friends or therapy to get him through this - Friar Lawrence, who fills the role of his 'spiritual counsellor' which is similar, is unable to reach him. So Romeo buys the poison and goes to Juliet's tomb to say goodbye. She doesn't wake up until after he's already taken the poison. Now, she's already legally dead. I suppose her parents would have taken her back if she'd revealed her deception, but they'd just force her into another marriage again and she'd probably be ostracized by society for her 'foolish' first marriage. She can't leave Verona and live on her own with no means of support. So she sees her own life as over and stabs herself with Romeo's dagger. Friar Lawrence arrives too late to stop them, but he tells their families and the town rulers the truth, and they blame themselves for causing the young couple's deaths. It really is very sad, and the fact that the tragedy COULD have been avoided is what makes it sadder than ever. Just as so many real-life tragedies could have been avoided too.
When you called it Winx Club Syndrome I YELLED. Like, imagine being in that situation and all your friends are coupling up with people from that other group and the only person that is left is Bloom. IMAGINE BEING SKY. IMAGINE.
In their early twenties, my parents were actually part of a friend group where they all ended up pairing up and marrying each other and we still keep in touch with the other married couples, all happy to this day. Strange but true!
One of my worst pet peeves is when a character is just an irredeemable monster and then the writers shove in "my childhood was hard" and expect that alone to be their redemption
Yeah… I have that problem where I like to excuse characters behavior for bad childhoods An example was Lord Of The Flies Jack wanted to be the leader and he couldn’t have that. I thought it was because as a rich kid he couldn’t see his parents so his bad behavior was for attention and being the center of attention. But reading later I see why I like Jack and Roger and it’s because their mean for no real reason. The author didnt give us these backstory for either because he didn’t want an excuse for their behavior and that’s where the book shines is the characters are just people that had ok lives til they are forced to learn to survive and sadly lose themselves while doing so.
I like tragic backstories that make me sympathize /a little/ with a villain, and ones that show how the character came to be that way. But I like it to stay a little ambiguous and up for interpretation instead of just plain "bad things happened so this person was justified in everything they did after" Like it needs to be really clear that the villain made a CHOICE to be a villain. There is a reason that not everyone that grows up in a bad situation becomes a monster. It's just not right (or fun) to justify all the horrible things they've done. It IS fun, however, to see their backstory and mourn for what they lost, or what they could have been. WITHOUT attempting to make the reader think that a clearly evil person isn't really evil. Yes, we love our villains, and love to hate them. Because they ARE villains and should for the most part STAY villains. It's great when an author goes more in depth with that kind of character because they are arguably the most interesting. But unfortunately I find it's rarely done well...
Right, and they typically don't reveal this until they're losing/about to be defeated, and all of a sudden it's "I was born with glass bones and paper skin 😢" like dude idc how sad you're backstory is you've murdered thousands of people who had nothing to do with that,,,, hold this L
I think it's good to give those types of characters at least some tragedy in their childhood, because it makes the character more human, it gives them meaning. This doesn't excuse their actions, but it might give the character more depth. What makes it better is if this character then realizes their own flaws, and works towards fixing them. Maybe they aren't completely forgiven by other characters by the time the story ends, maybe even though they've done more to help they are still rejected. But it is good that they've changed, and have had development. They might find happiness somewhere else. It all rests on the character development though.
yeah like if you want to tell who these characters relationship are to each other then you can just write it like this: “Hey!” yelled . “Yeah, what, loser?” person two replied. Person two is (insert name for them), sister/brother to protag. This is not my best work since i just wrote this randomly, but nobody is gonna blink an eye. We’ll just move on because it’s not awkward in any way.
Depends on the situation you are writing about, you could use a question-answer dialogue to introduce the relationship between characters. Like, "who's that?" "My brother/sister/etc." But if it's just the siblings in a scene, it's a show don't tell challenge. I usually use nicknames which no one besides themselves have ever used.
I'm the exact opposite. I'm single and feel no shame in being single, but if you're going to have all these great characters, why not give them all the development that only happens in relationships? Unless they are actually aromantic, relationships are something everybody WANTS in their life, and a good author should want the best for their characters, in my opinion 🙂. It's not an insult to us single people, it gives us something to look forward to in life and dream about!
@@cmm5542 Honestly nah. I'm sure a lot of people do WANT relationships, but there's also people who are doing fine without one, and it can get pretty annoying to only ever see characters get into relationships. Being in a relationship is not a requirement to be happy and satisfied with your life. Like yes, relationships can come with extra development, and that's great but it doesn't have to be EVERY single character (it's already something you see so often, imo) and I personally just think it's getting kind of cliche.
@@cmm5542 Also this is kind of beside my point, but I don't think a good author "wants the best for their characters". Authors often put their characters through struggles - I mean, heck, a conflict is usually what makes a story interesting. They may have happy endings but I'm sure the journey to get there wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.
Princess who hates arranged marriages is one of my least favorite tropes too! I'm currently writing a noblewoman who is in an arranged marriage and is very excited about it. She's trained her whole life to be desirable. Her father knows she's intelligent and loves puzzles, so he arranges a path of riddles for her to follow and discover who he is (also there's murder)
One for me is what I like to call the 'Is it incest?' trope, where characters who have been set up as 'soulmates' either discover that they may be siblings or that they actually are siblings. This is disappointingly common in YA and I think it was popularized by The Mortal Instruments as a character hook. Can we please just agree to stop doing this? It's very creepy, especially when characters decide to carry on with the romantic relationship anyway.
Even worse in Mortal Instruments because her actual brother DID want to bang her 🤢 My friend and I went to go see the movie together and it stops when you don't know - and she asked me, 'so are they?' and I couldn't really answer since I had read the books - "Not exactly, but they do share some of the same blood and her biological dad did raise Jace and is the only father he's ever known. So... not in the exact, technical sense but kind of. Except then he's possessed by her actual brother who gets off on them getting off and.... um... ok yea this sounds even worse than I felt reading it."
@@rightsarentpolitical (spoilers for the Mortal Instruments) Yeah people always say Jace and Clary aren't related because they don't have the same parents, but they both have extra blood from Ithuriel. Also in City of Ashes the Seelie Queen calls him her 'brother', and faeries can't lie.... 💀
@@Andrea-id3pn cause apparently at the beginning they where supposed to actually BE siblings and the author changed it long the way... She also used to write fanfiction shipping siblings from different fandom (At least that's wat I finded out last week, I really hope that it's a fake news😳)
Almost all of my main characters are inspired by myself, but people assuming that means they're "flawless" is kind of mind-boggling. How do you base a character on yourself and make them flawless? I'm usually like... "Ok, two paragraphs of personality deficits. I need a positive trait now. Something. Please. Anywhere." I can't be the only one basing my characters on my flaws. XDDD
I think for a lot of self inserts particularly most people don't know themselves well enough to realize how to accurately portray their flaws or are too attached to them to do anything consequential I also try to base them off of my own flaws but I definitely have some i don't always want to address in my characters 😭
@@alabamaslammer3921 I ascribe to the Shameless Method. XDD So I'm like, "Do I dislike this about myself? Think of aaaall the ways this has made your life harder and screwed up your relationships. Good? Now add it on the profile and remember what a dumbass you are." //dead A lot of positive traits feel generic, so bad traits end up being more fun to think about. TTvTT
My characters have what I like to call the outside and the inside. I usually split up the traits into what goes on in their head and what they display. For example, one of my characters seems like a flawless, eccentric, alluringly charismatic individual. When the protagonist gets to know him, he's very emotionally insecure, self critical, and borderline nihilistic. He's respectful and considerate, but there's no point in his life. So, yeah, I feel that.
@@thescarletgentleman _Can I steal this "outside and inside" thing? Because omg, that sounds-_ _Yes. Please, that sounds like such an amazing thing to have._
That is my girl Shannon in a nutshell 😂 She definitely got both the good and the bad from me, with both amplified by a lot. She's a loving and very caring older sister and a very strong-willed person, but also has a nasty temper that regularly gets her in trouble, a massive inferiority complex that is masked by false confidence and a tendency to addictive behavior that has left her as a dry addict at the beginning of the novel, who relapses later on due to the stress she's under. (irl, I have a tendency to get sucked into new hobbies to the point where you could call it borderline addictive, and I am definitely emotionally dependant on caffeine.)
I personally like emotionless female characters, aka killing machines, but the problem is they're almost never consistent. The moment the love interest appears, boom, they start acting like a possessed teenager. I wouldn't mind if they developed emotions slowly, but I have yet to see that happen. Even the MC from a series I love, The Diabolic, develops feelings too quickly in my opinion. Murderbot is a great example, but the character is genderless so... Another character that comes to mind is Minya from Strange the Dreamer/Muse of Nightmares, who was actually misunderstood, and I loved that concept.
I love Murderbot! I especially think that the relationship between Mensah and the mc was handled really well. And the dynamic with ART was so wholesome in a way. I love robo transport
I also have zero problem with the chosen one trope, it's fun. And yeah the strong female character problem is not that women are written to be strong but it being superficial and only meaning physical strength, ability to fight and being assertive and "badass". While there's nothing wrong with this and there should be characters who have such traits, it's not the only kind of empowering female character.There are many different kinds of strength, as there are many different kind of women and girls.
They're always stone cold too and overtly masculine, projects the idea that "strength is all physical and emotional power is unimportant femininity is emotionally charged and masculinity is true power, I totally wanna see a girl character whos just _so emotional available for her own needs_, connected with her soul and she gets to be feminine masculine whatever she wants without it changing how she is at heart one bit, maybe shes spent so much time alone or in harm's way she learned to love herself. Or maybe a cold "strong" character who is proven wrong about their harsh emotionless worldview and they show some emotional vulnerability and thats part of their character arc??
THIS. So many YA novels featuring female MCs have them as assassins or warriors or hunters, usually holding a sword or crossbow on the cover and glaring at the reader. It's become so much of a trope that it's become rather tiresome. This often shows up in fairy-tale retellings (Little Red Riding Hood is now a WEREWOLF-SLAYER! Gretel is a WITCH-KILLER!). It's as if these books are saying a female character can't be strong unless she's a stone-cold killer. I'd really like to see more heroines that are strong in different ways and have their "superpowers" be intelligence, empathy, and such.
I agree, I also don‘t like it when rudeness and bad language is mistaken with “strong character”, you should be able to express character strength through other things. I got tired of characters who disagree to disagree all the time, I feel like they overdid it with the edgy character too
Another chosen one trope that was done well is katniss from hunger games. She was just trying to survive and then ended up becoming a symbol to destroy the Capitol. She was against being a symbol at first if i remember and then she started to accept it and take control.
In my opinion, a protagonist that doesn't change over the course of the story isn't necessarily bad. This is actually called the flat arc, the protagonist doesn't change because he has already overcome the "lie" and already knows the "truth", but he changes the characters he encounters in the story, making those characters have their own individual character arcs. If the protagonist has a flat arc but the characters he comes across doesn't change at all, then that would make a boring story due to the lack of internal and/or philosophical conflict.
Yeah, I think superman (when done right) is a great example of this. It's not about how they change, its about how they change the people and the world around them.
@@hogndog2339 everyone is the protagonist of their own life. His arc ended before the story and turned him for the better. That's why he's the father figure and mentor for Zuko
I feel like there’s always an exception to every rule with writing-there’s always at least one way to turn what is usually a bad trope or practice into something that actually makes a better or more interesting story.
"another thing that annoys me to death is when a character is wanted by everyone." me: "aw, my main character is constantly chased on because he has many enemies. I guess he needs a little more love-" "I don't like when a character is loved by everyone around them." me: "oh."
I like tragic backstories that make you sympathize a little and understand how the character came to be this way, but I like it to stay a little ambiguous and up for interpretation instead of just plain "bad things happened so this person was right in everything they did after" Especially with a villain's backstory. It's just not right (or fun) to justify all the horrible things they've done. It IS fun, however, to see their backstory and mourn for what they lost, or what they could have been. Without attempting to make the reader think that a clearly evil person isn't really evil.
I think it works in many cases, my favourite being Jason Todd but because I actually like how it changed his philosphy. He says it himself, everyone sees himself as a victim or a failure but he just sees it as doing what everyone else won't, which in a world with the Joker makes sense. A tragic past is a great writing tool if it is reflected in current reasoning and behaviour well. Essentially if there is a connection to past traumas and current behaviours. Jason being tortured and killed by a criminal and then being resurrected to see much to his anguish nothing changed after he died, Batman replaced him and Joker is still out there killing people. Not to mention prior to this criminals destroyed his family and left him out on the street till he became a pickpocket to survive. Seeing nothings changed combined with his suffering he makes the logical conclusion that Batman won't go far enough so he will take matters into his own hands. He isn't being violent just because of pain but his hatred to criminals actually is based on reasoning, yes caused by trauma but it serves a purpose.
LOVE THIS I hate one dimensional character flaws, mainly the "uwu they're too nice for their own good qwq" But wait~ There is a way that this flaw can be flipped in its head and become interesting~ How? They're too nice for their own good, right? They don't want to make anyone angry, right? Why don't they support the villain then? They just want to make everyone °•Happy•° So turn them into the puppet responsible for a mass destruction
Or even on a smaller level this trope can work well. A character like this can become conflicted if they have a friend group and two of their friends are fighting. They can either pick sides or try to resolve the conflict. But what if there's no win-win situation? Maybe the 'too nice' friend feels horrible for not being able to solve this problem. You can go into multiple directions with this trope
Or the character has a really specific and narrow set of morals for being nice, so if their friend hit back their bully or something they just put them down immediately in spite of the context
@@SethUnwell ??? Mo Dao Zu Shi is not fanfiction. It's an immensely popular Chinese novel. PS: Fanfiction can be absolutely brilliant as well as absolute trash. Just as there are published novels that can be either wonderful or horrible. It depends on the individual author, so let's not dismiss an entire medium of storywriting just because it's not officially published
I LOVE the chosen one trope, call me trash. A LOT of my favorite stories have it. I just love the idea of someone bopping around in their mundane life and then BOOM magic, science, superpowers, royalty, etc.
I HATE the plain Jane, woe is me cuz I’m not a striking beauty, but somehow everyone attracted to my gender is at least slightly attracted to me, but I’m so normal looking, blaaaahhhhhh!!!! Trope.
I have two younger sisters and two younger brothers and I understand a character like Katniss wanting to save her sister. Another good example of a well-done version of this trope is the Pevensie children when Ed gets taken in 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'.
in my opinion Louisa May Alcott perfectly created a strong female character, Joe March, who was not only one of the first few feminist characters written but also had flaws and questioned her beliefs at times and it was beautiful and inspiring to read about such a strong but still realistic character
I loved that whole series! For those of you who don't know, the movie Little Women is based off of the first of four books written by Louisa May Alcott. I've never seen other videos by Book Leo, but I think she should try branching out into other genres and books written during other periods of history. I guess I didn't come here expecting it to be only about current YA Fantasy, which I don't know much about.
I think what helps is that she based Jo around herself, A REAL PERSON, so everything about her seemed way more natural then the ✨femism✨, ✨strong girl✨, ✨tomboy✨, trope. I use real people for inspiration in my character ideas A LOT, and it definitely is a good way to make your characters more three-dimensional and realistic. Btw, LOVE Little Women!
8:09 To me I don't mind if the villains are evil "just because." Sometimes when people have a lot of money or power they tend to believe they can do what they want. What matters to me is if they're interesting to read while being a legit threat to the heroes. For example; the original Cruella. She's in charge of a fashion industry, likes fur, and thinks that a dalmatian coat would be fabulous to wear. That's it. That's her motivation and yet she's such an interesting villain to watch. 11:45 I actually really like the chosen one trope myself, one of my personal faves in fact (depending on how it's done, of course). 17:20: This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves where terrible behavior and actions are ignored or excused because of a "tragic past." Like, "I know I slaughtered millions of innocent people, but you have to understand; I had a bad childhood." Like, okay depending on what it was, I feel for you, but that doesn't make it okay for you to hurt others. In relation to this, I don't like the violently jealous, controlling, possessive bf trope. Those are not fun to read. Anyway, I like the video and hope you don't mind comments a year late.
I feel like your first example is different from a simple evil just because In your example I would find it perfectly reasonable, but there are many cases of characters that do evil things just because (a lot of these demon lord stupid stories, or even the glorified Reverend insanity, with the MC doing a couple of evil things for no reason)
Right, but when a character is evil because they've been corrupted by wealth and power, that's an actual reason for their evil behavior. That's very different to a character who does evil things Simply Because. Plausibly Evil Villain: I'm going to build a sweat shop to manufacture my line of luxury watches because decades of extreme wealth have corroded my ability to empathize with the poor and vulnerable. Implausibly Evil Villain: I'm going to build a rocket to blow up planet Earth because I'm Evil, and that's the kind of thing Evil People do.
I actually really agree with your first point. I especially like to compare it to people saying, “well why not?” I think people forget that some people aren’t as capable of empathy/compassion/guilt and don’t really have a moral compass. As someone who has low levels of all of that (and I’m not bragging it is a problem) the first thing that comes to mind is I need a reason not to. So I can see why these characters exist, and it’s very plausible to happen in reality imo.
I have an exception for the last one: Peril from Wings of Fire. ⚠️⚠️⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️⚠️⚠️ She was manipulated by Queen Scarlet from a VERY young age. Scarlet used Peril’s fire to kill her enemies in battle or even just for fun. For a long time, Peril had absolutely no idea that what she was doing is wrong. But after she met Clay, her perspective changed. She realized that she did not *have* to kill dragons just because the Queen wanted her to. This is where she starts changing a ton. A few books later, Peril helps save Scarlet, and feels very wrong for doing so. Still, in the end, she ends up saving Clay’s life. Flash forward another few books and BOOM she’s the protagonist. We get to find out that she really has changed. Even though she does get very angry when dragons make her mad, she tries her hardest not to hurt them, because “What would Clay think?”. Since Scarlet has made most of Peril’s decisions for her, it’s hard for her to make her own. That’s all I’m gonna say. If you haven’t read the books, please do, they’re amazing. Also, her actions were NOT excused because “she was manipulated😢😢😢” (keep in mind this is all I have read so far. I’m currently on book 10. also, I typed this really fast so if it doesn’t make sense that’s my bad)
I don't like when every character in a book is being questioned about something they want to hide, their answer is always "I dOn'T KnOw wHaT yOu ArE tAlKiNg aBoUt!" I'm fine if it's just one character and he/she is supposed to be a bad liar, but man, when this is the reaction of EVERY CHARACTER, it's just not good writing.
you know what the only way i love this trope is when it’s in a mocking way, like an “i don’t know what you are talking about” when it’s clear as day to both parties, and the other person is only denying to push buttons. It’s just so goddamn stupid when used otherwise esp on characters that are meant to be good liars.
Yeeeees. She mentioned Throne of Glass and in addition to the 'everyone falls in love with me' trope which was frustrating it was very much the 'characters don't communicate not because it makes sense within the story but because I want the AUDIENCE to not know what's going on'. There are much better ways to do this - let them either have a realistic reason to not tell each other the simple damn thing or let them actually communicate and that doesn't stop the problem. They still need to figure out how to solve it, they just don't need to add the added stupidity. It felt very "now you see me" where in the movie once you know the twist, there are scenes where the characters - who are in on it - are ALONE and somehow still 'acting' for... for who? For you, except you're not in world so it's just bad writing. There should be crumbs that maybe I can't see until the end but once I know suddenly everything fits into place and you're like "THAT'S why they did thing! THAT'S why they noticed this thing! THAT'S why they couldn't do this thing!"
Miscommunication is actually the bane of my existence (especially for romance) and I hate even attempting to write it because there are more logical ways the characters can go about stuff. Especially when they make more sense in reality than whatever miscommunication happened. Of course there are just some times when you have to have it, especially if you want to build up angst but I hate it when writers carry it on for so long without any show that the characters are working on that problem and then all of a sudden, yay, they made up. I feel like if miscommunication happens, I would only accept it if the characters show that they have actually communicated to resolve it and have come out better from it because a lot of the time when I see miscommunication, it tends to be ignored until it can be used as leverage for something bad which I know, I know it's to further the plot but, as I said. If there are more interesting ways to develop the plot than sacrificing the relationship of two characters, then do that instead.
Please do a favorite character traits/tropes video! Also, I think if a trope is done well, it's refreshing to see that trope in a new light while if it's done poorly it just feels like lazy writing. Sort of like the author couldn't be bothered to develop their character so they grabbed a trope. I think combining tropes in a new way is really refreshing especially if taken from different genres.
I still like the chosen character trope but I don’t like the part where just bc they are the chosen one doesn’t mean they won’t have to work or learn for anything. a good example of the chosen one trope done right is Aang from ATLA, he literally has to re-learn every element in each life-time.
6:35 As someone who has a younger brother I would actually love those stories. I deeply understand the need to protect your sibling and I would 100% drop everything to find my brother. I love him dearly and he's my best friend.
Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but I think the point in the video is about stories where "save the sibling" is simply used as a MacGuffin to get the plot going and you never get a sense of the actual relationship between the two characters.
@@erich6073I was worried about doing that in my story with a little brother, so instead I decided that I want to establish a very close relationship in the beginning between the main character and his little brother, 100% loving family, they do everything together, despite the fact that main character is a teenager and little brother is still just a kid. And then..... Little brother is murdered right in front of main character, and the main character has to carry his limp, cold, dead body back to their house and tell their parents what happened. And then the struggle with that becomes an internal conflict that serves as a subplot to the main story. Also plot twist, he later finds out that his brother died because the people who murdered his brother, meant to murder him, but they accidentally killed the wrong person. So then he blames himself and wishes that it was himself who died that day. And the subplots of the story will involve the main character going through all the stages of grief and stuff.
My problem with the "strong independent womanTM" character trope is that basically like Not Like Other Girls, as though having traditional masculine features is the only thing that makes a woman special, femininity is beautiful, softness is beautiful, emotions are beautiful like wtf that's what makes us HUMAN and often this trope makes the book very oh look how feminist I am and shove it in your face
I liked how in Mistborn 2, one of the characters about their love interest is like 'she's NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS' and the person he's talking to is like, 'the more women you get to know the more you'll find that statement applies to all of them' I literally outloud when reading it said "RIGHT?! Thank you!"
I just can't stand when there's no self-examination on the part of the author. There's not just something inherently ignorant about the appeal of "not like other girls" it's inherently ignorant to otherize people, and make a monolith out of them. Once I tried to imagine a "popular" character, the type of person that everyone likes, through the lense of a character who doesn't like them. Our popular character is virtually mobbed by people, but specifically detaches themselves from the usual frenzy, specifically to talk to the person who hates them. What they learn in this interaction is the one thing they have in common, they're both extremely lonely. The popular character thinks this other person doesn't care what others think, and has the freedom to be themselves, but being yourself against social expectations can be alienating. Our hater thinks everyone likes this person "and they don't even have to try." But they concede that they try very hard, actually, because they DO want people to like them, and it takes effort. The hater says "you're so fake," and it's met with an admission "I am fake a lot of the time." So the hater says "You're agreeing with me because you want me to like you!" and the response is "That's true. Why shouldn't I?" Culturally we have a sneaking suspicion that a person who hates someone who's popular is just jealous of them, that person rationalizes their jealousy by convincing themselves that anyone who wants to be popular must be shallow. And why not? A person who needs validation so badly that they would seek out more, even when they seem to have the most, likely feels like any amount they get will never be enough. But we know a popular person, a truly likeable person will notice when you're lonely, and single you out for attention. So when I think of these two lonely people, one staring in from outside, one staring out from a crowd, the ugly truth of their circumstance becomes meaningless, I want them to become *best* friends.
@@rightsarentpolitical I really like that Brandon Sanderson became better at writing characters because Sarene from Elantris in my honest opinion felt like a 'NLOG' character.
@@Sarah-yg3us Oh my yes. I was very concerned up to that point (and quite frankly sometimes a little after) because I was definitely getting that vibe, so I was glad it was called out. Terry Pratchett also had tendencies earlier in the Discworld novels and his writing absolutely became better as he began to address and confront what he realized were his own prejudices as well as society's. It does make my cynical heart warm when we see male writers check themselves, and grow.
On the topic of complex flawed characters: I loved "Secret History" by Donna Tartt, because even though everyone in that book was intellectual asshole, they also all had personality beyond what bounded them together. Look even at contrast between Bunny and Richard - Bunny made his friends pay for all of his expenses even when they couldn't afford to do so, while Richard was basically homeless over Christmas holidays because he didn't want to be burden for anyone and stay in their empty apartments. This character's parallel was excellent, and in a way what made me as a reader pick sides when author wanted us to do so.
Having just finished The Secret History: At the same time, Bunny is the only one who had any problems with the fact that his best friend killed a man, while Richard was already helping said friend plot his next murder. I've been amazed, looking at the fandom for this book, how well Donna Tartt writes an unreliable narrator - it doesn't matter whether Richard is moral or not because he's so persuasive to the reader. The reader picks sides because he tells us to.
I don't think anyone complains about "being normal" in reality either, it is always extremely frustrating to see in books which try to showcase it as relatable. It is usually about the goal of fitting in to appear normal rather than trying to stand out which, in some minds, may actually lead to loneliness 🤔
I think the people who don't like their base look generally customise their IRL avatar instead of complain :P I really want a fantasy character to go dye their hair blue with indigo instead of whinge that they're plain :P
Omggg, Winx Club syndrome! I had forgotten about that aspect of the show! I liked it as a child, but now I realize I didn't like several of the characters, both male and female, and the relationships did almost nothing for me 🤣
The "anti" Princess trope type was fantastic to see in the Ash Princess series. She actually WANTED to have a normal life as a normal Princess. If only she wasn't a prisoner of war...
another big thing that annoys me is when characters keep making dumb decisions and don‘t learn?? (even when it‘s written "well" i just get super frustrated lol) *cough* the poppy war *cough*
I mean I get that bad habits are hard to break, but show some progress or at least that they're wrestling with the flaw. There are also some characters who never learn, but those are usually either villains or side characters with a partially endearing flaw.
i LOVE chosen one trope but give me the struggle, the frustration, the “im not even good at it”, give me the emotional crisis in them. make fantasy book characters more realistic.
Really? I think that's one of my favorites. Because let's be real, the royal life is definitely NOT what Disney movies and such showed us. And if you look at the history of royalty, I wouldn't blame someone for being like, "Screw royalty and arranged marriages, I want to forge my own path."
@@carlycchapman - At the same time, though, Royalty DEFINITELY had it better than the commoners. So it’s just kind of obnoxious to hear the same, “I hate living in the lap of luxury” plot over and over. Now, I wouldn’t mind a story that starts out with a spoiled heir who hates their spousal arrangement, they escape and have their little adventure, and then they go back home with a new appreciation for the privileges they were born with.
@@KlutzyNinjaKitty I wrote that book. Not sure if it's good, but it exists. Not sure if it's okay to promote your own work on someone else's channel, but if you are interested I can tell you where to find it, and you can tell me how to do it better next time 🙂
I personally love chosen one plotlines where there's so much struggling, and hardship, and wanting to quit, but them finding a reason to keep going on with their mission. Those stories can make for really great motivation and reflection Also, while I do hate a lot of these character flaws, some of them are a guilty pleasure of just being plain dumb fun (though that's for me and my WIPs to sort out)
I was bored of the choosen one trope, but after I started reading the wheel of time, I think it can be done well and with something new (sorry about my english! Hi from Brazil :)
mmh. Interesting, in my case reading WoT convinced me that the chosen one trope is not for me, still a great read though. And Rand is, i admit, a great character, just not my type.
Old comment, I know, but maybe it worked because he wasn’t the only special one. There were reborn heroes, his two best friends got powers, and just about everyone was special somehow. He was chosen but the conflict felt like the whole world was involved in saving it.
When I write murder mysteries, I just let my characters take over the plot. Very often, the murder happens rather late on as the characters are simply not ready for it to take place.
Oh my goodness, I started a trilogy that was a strange sort of follow up to this kids book I loved when I was little, and it was meant to be that they were all grown up, and therefore the themes and writing just generally more mature. But the main character.. she literally made my skin crawl with how PERFECT she was !! Always knew the right thing to say, never lost her temper, loved by everyone, absolute patience, so clever, “not like the other girls” agh I couldn’t even finish it !! Please just give me FLAWS
Sometimes characters who are loved by everyone else can be okay, especially if they don't really care/ are preoccupied by other things /so cute and innocent that I really can't blame them. But a lot of the time it's really unrealistic and annoying (I totally agree with your take on Celaena)
Always enjoy a good rant video😋 My own pet peeve in stories (and, I’m specifically looking at you, “Arrow” TV show) is when character A knows something that character B does not but really needs to and A decides for no good reason not to tell them - you know that B will find out and be destructively pissed off at A for ages and ages after.
One that is not mentioned (well, because it's not exactly an annoyance) is: mandatory love story. I know that it is one way to add a "sidequest" or to add "depth" to a character or to the story but... no. I've never read a book where it made sense. The usual love story is either "ah yes, we run away from the Big Evil together so we're in love" or "ah yes, we talked about our Tragic Past -tm- and now i love here and now she's IN DANGER" (kind of an external motive, as you said.) Plus, it's always 1) straight and 2) the man has to save the woman. Ugh. The last good book I read was written by my best friend and she put NO love story in it and DAMN, that was so nice.
Ok what you just described sounds like the monsters of verity duology but w/o the mandatory love story. The two main characters do run away from monsters together and yes they do share their tragic past and the dude saves her life a couple of times & vice-versa but they *didn't* fall in love. I was genuinely surprised there were no romances, just two characters who completely understands each other and cares about each other in the most platonic sense. The two characters are so different yet lovable in their own way and ve Schwab is an amazing writer. I suggest u check out this book or her works if u haven't any
THANK YOU! GLAD I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO HATES THESE! it can happen with bad written gay stories as well, like Banana Fish where the male protagonist always saves his male love interest who gets in trouble every fucking episode.
I know! Love stories to further the plot are really annoying to read. I like reading things like fights or action sequences that ACTUALLY further the plot instead of obnoxious love stories that just feel forced.
Well! Here i was writing a YA- age novel with basically zero romance and wondering if that was just something wrong with me. I like a good romance, but... it's gotta good, othwerwise I just don't care. So I don't write them often.
I think static characters can be pretty interesting. A character sets out to do something and they do it. That’s not to say they didn’t undergo trials but they are the same when they face the end goal.
One of my least favorite more popular tropes is when enemies to lovers isn’t a slowburn. Like when they’re enemies but all of a sudden they’re forbidden lovers at the beginning of the book. I LOVE enemies to lovers when it’s slow and well done
Great video! I also hate the lone wolf trope where characters will learn CRITICAL INFORMATION but share it with no one, especially allies who are LOOKING for that information to help the plot! But the author decides it’s too early so we need to stretch the plot out and be dark and broody and keep it to themselves bc after repeatedly putting others in danger hero decides this time I don’t want to put them in danger or some nonsense
The miscommunication thing drives me up the wall as well! Something I really don't like either that ties in with that is when characters jump to conclusions and then base all of their actions on those assumptions. It's usually clearly a plot device, and I really don't like it, haha.
for the saving your sister thing. That is the person's left limb, their second brain, their closest friend, one of the most important people in their life, being taken into an entirely different place where she is likely not going to survive. If my younger brother was taken into an high fantasy world you bet your ass I'm running in there with a half thought through plan and barely enough supplies to keep me alive! Yes, I would love to see the relationships of siblings talked about and explored more in these stories, but I don't think there is an external motivation more personal than a sibling.
The main trope that is a big peeve is the forced happy ending it’s like you could have a really tragic story everyone is dead but it ends happily because Reasons
Please do tropes in books that you enjoy!! As an aspiring writer, these videos really help me understand what readers are looking for, and it's good for me to know what I should/shouldn't be putting in my story.
I hate "The Winx Club" Syndrom, but it can also be very good if its well-written. Like if they actually develop a stronger emotional bond with that certain character in the friend group, just like in Six of Crows. The relationships were also amazing slowburn and it was kinda defined since the beginning who could possibly make a couple so it doesn't really bother me lmao
Save the Sister Plots: They never get me. If I read a summary of a book and it starts with "has to save her sister/family member [...]" I just lose a major part of my interest for the story. I believe, that's because I do not know their family member - so why should I care? And I do have a sibling. But just because I have one, I don't care about whether a character I don't care about yet can save another character that gets abducted so early in the story that I don't even get to start caring about them. Like, make me care first before we go on a journey to save someone haha Princesses not wanting to marry: I'm fine with there being some plots like this, but it has somehow become so common, that we end up just having a bunch of rebellious princesses who don't want to take any responsibility and completely ditch everything they were taught since birth. How about a Princess that might not necessarily like it, but accepts it as her duty and works hard to become a responsible Queen instead of just a side-kick to the King? Like give me a couple that was arranged but puts in effort into their positions and their duties and therefore comes to mutually respect and admire each other, rely on each other. Isn't that so much more powerful than a rebellious princess who runs away and falls in love with the first commoner she meets?
The divorced empress, protahonist actually is about that you talk, but actually its the empereor who fall OUT of love of her and tries to replace her with a pauper. Its a webcomic, but damn. The protagonist its great, and its really a excelent empress, but her marital life sucks.
The only "save the sister" plot I remember reading is Caraval, which handles it very badly because A) we barely know the sister and what we DO know about her doesn't make us like her; and B) the protagonist spends 99% of her adventure wanting to smooch the love interest rather than exhibiting any demonstrable concern for her sister.
A save-the-sister plot I read was The Last Fallen Star. We actually do get to know the sister, Hattie, before she technically “dies,” and frankly she’s a wonderful person. The reason she dies is because she’s trying a last resort to help her sister achieve her one dream, and before that they were already making different plans that nearly worked. This means we actually get attached to Hattie thanks to her getting actual screen-time. The Last Fallen Star is a very good book, do try it out if you’re into modern fantasies.
This video is such an amazing resource for writers. Your explanation of flaws and pet peeves in writing has made me do so many double-takes on my own story - I've already changed two things because seeing from your reader perspective made me realize plot holes. Thank you so much!!!
A couple notes I’ve realized: For cartoony characters, a good way to avoid this is to see if you can fit every part of a character using one word descriptions. If you can, it’s probably too cartoony Also, for the “everyone loves the main character,” I think this trope can work if it’s not only romantic love! THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE PEOPLE! They can love them like a friend (or a BEST friend), a sibling, a parental figure, etc.
The self-sacrificial character can be done really well if the character is later revealed to be suicidal or be depressed. it can make the character more compelling and make readers more attached to that character.
That is insulting. Self-sacrifice is about loving others before yourself, courage and unselfishness. Running into danger doesn't help with dealing with depression; I know because I've had it. Being depressed made me (and many others I have known who struggled with it) behave more selfishly, not unselfishly. Learning again to help others and put others before myself helped me get OUT of depression, which is also a key facet of any Twelve-Step Programme if you look it up. If anything, self-sacrifice is a cure for depression, not a symptom of it! And what on earth would you consider love and humility, then? Being overly self-sacrificial CAN be a bit foolish or turn into showing off, but I thought we were supposed to prefer flawed characters? Really, this a very unkind accusation of caring people just because they don't share your own motivations and preferred flaws.
@@cmm5542 oof, I think you misunderstood me. My comment and yours are in agreement. I, myself, have chronic depression, anxiety, and several other conditions. What I meant in my comment was that I’m tired of authors giving characters symptoms of mental illness and calling those traits something else. They’ll have characters hate themselves and say that this is proof of how unselfish they are when instead of actually being unselfish the characters are actively hurting themselves or instead of making their characters thoughtful and kind they give their character symptoms of anxiety so they feel awful until they do something extra for another charyinstead of doing something nice just because they want to. I love representation of people with disabilities but I hate our struggles being shown off as something they are not. My BPD has helped me remember EXACTLY how to make those around me feel understood and cared for but that wasn’t compassion, that was manipulation and I did those things because I hated myself and it hurt me! I’ve learned how to act kindly just because I want to and I am a kind person but my trauma and self hatred aren’t what make me kind. Authors will steal the overwhelming emotions that people with BPD struggle with everyday but pick which ones to represent and say that these characters’ trauma made them naturally compassionate, selfless, blah blah blah and it sucks because trauma DOESN’T do that without the fuck-load of other symptoms and how fucking dare authors that don’t know the struggle steal my story and paint butterflies and hearts all over it when it caused multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations! Sorry, I feel passionately about this topic. Anyway, as writer I’m fixing this by writing accurate representation for us with mental illnesses and trauma. We deserve better and I think showing true kindness and compassion will help the world differentiate between symptoms illnesses and healthy love and how mentally I’ll people can do both.
@@cedarmoss7173 I'm so sorry I misunderstood your point. I misread it as all examples of self-sacrifice in books coming from a place of depression. You're completely right that passing off mental struggling as 'just being nice' is harmful; and I guess I get even more upset when some authors I read belittle mental health by comparing it to genuinely nice behaviour (like, I have OCD. When I hear or read someone saying being near and super organized or something else that's actually a pretty normal and even helpful quality is 'so OCD', I get really upset because they don't have any IDEA what difficulties OCD actually causes, and that it really does NOT make my life cleaner, safer, or more organized!) Thank you for explaining instead of getting annoyed at my response; that WAS genuinely kind of you 🙂 Hope all goes well for you, take care 💜
This was the one annoyance in my own book series. Writing from the perspective of those characters- who are not the protag- really helped reveal what was going on there. Now I'm making fixes so it's more apparent.
I find "not like other girls" trope to be somewhat inspiring when it is done the right way. And by the right way I mean the situation when a girl is excluded (or rather not even invited) from a circle of popular girls for reasons such as looks, family background, grades, etc. It's actually quite a common thing that occurs in middle and high school, and many of my female friends and me have experienced it. We wished to be like other girls, but other girls decided we were not. Now in teenage books and movies "not like other girls" girl is always conventionally attractive, witty, confident, wears fashionable clothes, etc., etc. It is a girl that would be 100% popular in real life but a medium presents her as an outcast for no logical reason. I also don't like when "not like other girl" becomes popular in the end. It rarely happens in real life. I'd prefer a story about a girl strengthening her friendship with her "also not popular" friends and exploring adult life beyond school social grading stereotypes
i’ve also seen many girls who are conventionally attractive but they’re also outcasts because they like being alone and are cold and off putting with a resting bitch face. They’re all dark and gloomy which makes them not seem approachable, so they have little to no friends and nothing to use to climb up the social ladder because people already see her as weird. At least that’s how i can see the “not like other girls but still pretty” done right. It’s not all about looks and all. I will say though that she would not dress fashionably, for instance she’d rather be in comfy clothes like sweats with the idea that fashion is pain. I can even see her being witty, but has no one to share that wit to because again, nobody speaks to her, but the biggest flaw i see is those books making her confident. Confidence is how you get friends, like you don’t even have to go and talk to them cause they will flock to you. I’ve transferred high schools like 3 times in the last 4 years and every single time it’s what i’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong, she can be confident around those close to her like that’s normal because you’re comfortable with those people, but don’t make her confident around strangers in class because then it’s making you wonder why she’s unpopular. Also the only way i can see the nlog become popular is if the story revolves around those popular kids changing and becoming more friendly towards her or sumn and then adopt her into the friend group. Imo it’s less ‘becoming popular’ and more of getting a good and reliable friend group. that’s just my two cents tho. I had so much thoughts about how this trope can be done better just so many times that it’s been stewing in my brain for like a decade.
I think the "not like other girls" trope is about putting down "traditional" girliness to elevate "not-like-other-girls-iness", if that makes sense. EG "I am better than all those vapid, unicorn-loving, boy-band-worshipping cheerleaders because I listen to Nine Inch Nails and read Edgar Allan Poe and research serial killers and actually have a brain in my head." It's supposedly a backlash against Mean Girl culture but is in fact equally judgmental, just in the opposite direction. It reduces all the female characters who are not the protagonist to straw men (so to speak) and only seeks to illustrate them as two-dimensional stereotypes to be ridiculed and looked down upon. It seeks to praise one mode of femininity at the expense of another (girls with ABC "conventional" characteristics are lame, girls with XYZ "alternative" characteristics are cooler, better, more worthwhile human beings). To me, a story about a group of girls who are excluded from the popular group is not necessary a "not like other girls" story; it's just a story about the universal struggle to fit in.
I don't know what does it say about the majority of books I read now, but Murderbot (android who gains free will) from Murderbot Diaries was the best character I've read in a while, while still being believably non-human. How talented the author should be to write a robot better than 90% of human characters I read in other books?!
i actually do like chosen one tropes when they’re done well. i especially love when the chosen one trope is inverted or deconstructed in some way as well
I have zero problems with the "chosen one" trope, because that's the basis of all fantasy stories dating back to the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Greeks. Think of all of the Greek tragedies and epics, they would have never happened if the character wasn't "the chosen one." As for the Princess who doesn't want an arranged marriage, I think that's one of my favorites. Because let's be real, the royal life is definitely NOT what Disney movies and such showed us. And if you look at the history of royalty, I wouldn't blame someone for being like, "Screw royalty and arranged marriages, I want to forge my own path."
I actually do like villains who are evil just for the hell of it. I think it’s really fun! But I usually only utilize this trope when they’re working with or against another villain who is 100% convinced what they’re doing is the right thing.
I just wanna say I love it when main characters fall in love but not within the same group like someone outside of the main cast like a not rarely mentioned side character but a side character that isn’t always there
A trope that I never see, which I WISH I could read at least once, is one where the main character is really normal but their best friend or sibling is the one who is all special and “chosen”. I want a book through the eyes of the normal character trying to support and help the special one, while also battling their own insecurities of being insignificant and boring. We always see the main character being all sparkly and different and the key to the whole plot, but we never get a main character to who ISNT in the spotlight.
One that recently has gotten on my nerves is the “I’m leaving you to find myself” trope, where one character ends a relationship to find themselves or go on a journey alone. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but when there’s almost zero reason for it to happen it’s just baffling! If you have something important to do, or want to see the world, what’s wrong with a couple doing it and growing together?
18:07 The only self sacrificing character that I love is Kim Dokja from ORV(Omniscient reader's viewpoint) since he does that not just cause he is the main character but because his whole life he was treated like he was worthless that when he actually found people who cared about him he didn't believe that they would be hurt by his suffering and he subconsciously wanted others to feel bad for him in order to feel worthy
i could see the self sacrificial thing working for a character if it was well established that the character genuinely thinks their life is worth less than those theyre saving, and that in itself becoming a conflict.
I really loved how the Wheel of Time used the chosen one trope. 14 massively long books where the chosen one is all set up to have a final battle against the big baddie but (spoiler) in the end, the chosen character points out how many people were actually involved in the fight, and how, even if he lost, those people would still keep fighting. That is a trope that can be very well done when written well, but an absolute disaster when it's abused.
I'm with you about wanting stories to have more of an internal focus of the literal journey of the 'character' rather than what may as well just be a plot oriented series of scenes with paper cut outs for people. That's usually my criteria for something that's maybe just for fun, and something I consider more serious reading. Not only that, but having a character with an external locus of control or identity, being carried around by the plot rather than character, makes them all the more less realistic, or at the very least, harder to empathize with.
The overuse of the bad boy trope is the reason why I have chosen to never write it. All male love interests coming from me will be sweet, understanding, and know how to cook. Beyond that, they'll all be different, each with their own struggles and failures and flaws. Also, yes, miscommunication stinks, but I'm currently writing about a character that feels compelled to keep a secret from someone she is currently living with (that would affect the person she is living with if it got out), and the guilt will drive her to the point of confession. Now, I don't hate keep-a-secret-driven plots, but I don't like it when someone discovers something on their own or through a third party, rather than finding out from the main character him/herself. I have yet to watch/read about an honest to goodness, sit down at the table, tears and yelling confession. So I'm doing it myself. There will be strife, and there will be forgiveness. Communication can get you forgiveness, and I don't see enough of it in media.
Thank you, Kylie for choosing to write healthy male interests. I hate the bad boy trope. We need better-written male characters, especially in romance. I hate the idea that a male character can be the epitome of a red flag but we are supposed to forgive his flaws because he has abs and money.
Honestly less so for love interest but I love edgy characters. Jason Todd is the best member of the Bat family. Mostly because he makes the logical conclusion that his family was destroyed by crime, then he joined Batman and was killed by a criminal THEN resurrected to see not only had nothing changed but that Batman had just replaced him. Reason dictates Batman isn't going far enough so to make a real change he chooses extreme measures. The Three Jokers comic does do an interesting idea about Barbara who was traumatised by the Joker too but healed better than he did trying to help him heal. He misreads this affection as romantic love. Or Elric of Melnibone arguably one of the most influential anti hero who would go on to inspire Geralt from the Witcher as well as a lot of its world, Game Of Thrones and Elden Ring by Martins own admission. Plus Warhammer ripped him off shamelessly. His is a tragic love story but told from the pov of the edgy character.
i’m an aspiring writer and this video is going to be very helpful for my future books (hopefully i actually end up finishing one lol). i am definitely behind you making another video for things you like in a character because that can also be super helpful!! thank you for making this video 💘💘
“When there’s no character arc…why…would you do that?” As a writer, I can tell you it’s hard! It takes a lot of foresight and planning that a lot of amateurs don’t do or don’t get!
I think the only "not like other girls" that I will accept is if that girl turns out to be a carnivous monster/alien posing as girl to lure prey and eat them.
Y e s
Ooh! I like it. You've got something here.
Or Maze from Lucifer.. since.. y’know… she’s a demon. So duh, she’s gonna be like that.
The only "not like other girls" trope I like is where the girl is weird/different/has special powers but actually hates it because it's caused her a ton of issues or trauma and all she wants is to be is a "normal girl".
"I'm not like the other crewmates"
You know what gets me the most? That stupid trope where the female main character has to choose between the good guy best friend who's really sweet and a perfect match that treats her so well or choose the bad boy with the tragic past to who probably drives a motorcycle but is honestly kind of a jerk. I get it alright. You all think nice guys finish last. Move on
I’m considering writing a book where a girl choose the good guy from the two, but plot twist the girl is a rock chick bad girl
yep yep yep and the funniest part is that they have two looks: boring caucasion blond boy and boring caucasian dark haired boy
@@f.megawati idk, sometimes the dorky best friend is the only character with any diversity in the story (usually because he’s a nerd and not supposed to be desirable comparatively) but ofc he can never end up with her bc she’s the protagonist and she can’t date a black guy or an Indian guy 😭
"you all?" You realise women write and women read this right? It's women's fantasy to get the bad guy...
The particular formulation of that that bothers me (which doesn't always necessarily have such a clear dichotomy between the characters) is when the narrative is obviously angling for an Official Couple, but in the absence of proper chemistry and character development, drama is created by having one of the couple start dating someone else, who there's absolutely nothing wrong with, but they still get cheated on anyway, but that's OK because Official Couple.
Riverdale fulfills every single one of these pet peeves. What an achievement!
GURLLL😭😭😭😭 but honestly the saddest thing about this is that it’s 100% true
Which is why i never watched it.
Not even the trailers. The pet peeves fumes come off the thumbnails in waves.
@@malikapollard3618 facts
Frrr, I wish I could get back the minutes I spent watching that show-😭
😂😂😂😂❤
the whole “strong female character” trope annoys me the most but it’s also why I love Inej from six of crows so much. She’s 100% a bad ass, but she also has complex feelings and can be compassionate and emotional at times. She is not just physically strong, but emotionally strong as well.
Her character shows that you can be kind and empathetic and still be a strong female character. She shows that having emotions doesn’t make you weak, which the strong female trope often perpetuates. Sorry for the long comment, I just had to get this out.
That’s so true, sometimes with ‘strong female characters’ are just emotionally dead.
Okaye from Black Panther was incredible because she was in a relationship, was really loyal and kind to her friends but could cut a bitch up
H Hy she is a queen I think I’m in love with her-
Okay, I know I'm really late...But this is so true...same with Nina..She is kind, funny, so strong and loyal to a fault. Both Nina and Inej manage to be all of that without having internal monologues about their superiority or skills (I'm looking at you, Nevernight!)...and yeah, they don't act like emotionless robots. They are strong in every sense of the word and I just love them so much!
Oh i get it now. That's why i couldn't like Jude from the cruel prince series. I see a lot of ppl admiring her or looking up to her but i just can't seem to like this character and part of it may have to do w the fact that she lacks so much emotional depth. She can fight and is a badass yes but i feel like the author traded a lot of her emotional maturity to overpower her so now she's just a strong warrior w/ the emotional depth of a kitchen sponge. It again plays into the overrated troupe of the 'strong female protagonist with no emotions'
To think that Romeo and Juliet would've been a romance instead of a tragedy if Friar Lawrence had just done his job and communicated with Romeo😂
He did - he sent Friar John with a letter to Romeo, but he was quarantined in Verona because of a plague outbreak so the letter never reached him...
@@kaybraywarriner7431 He should have just sent Romeo a text message.
@@kaybraywarriner7431 That's right, and why Shakespeare is a genius. Nothing was contrived; that was how the mail service REALLY worked back then.
I haven't seen/heard the story in a long time, but why did they poison each other?? Didn't it go something like that?
@@sparkypikachu7776 Actually no. That's a common popular misinterpretation. Juliet was about to be forced into a bigamous marriage because her parents didn't know she was already married to Romeo and she was naturally afraid to tell them (I've taught the play in my secondary English classes recently; her parents were borderline abusive in addition to hating Romeo's family). So Friar Lawrence, who had married her and Romeo so he knew about it obviously, offered Juliet a drug that would make her appear dead for about a day (such drugs actually do exist although they don't last for that long in reality, I don't think). Then he wrote to Romeo, who'd been banished from Verona, to tell him about the plan and advise him to sneak back overnight so he and Juliet could run off and start a new life together - since she was believed to be dead and Romeo was legally banished, no one would have ever looked for them. But the letter was lost because of a plague outbreak stopping the messenger.
And here's where Romeo gets a lot of grief. He decides to commit suicide. I've never been too comfortable with that development myself, especially in teaching high schoolers. But Shakespeare is noted for exploring intense and often dark subjects of the human connection; and here he was exploring WHY people choose to commit suicide and how they feel about it. Suicide was deeply stigmatized in Shakespeare's day, and he was exposing this stigma and offering a more sympathetic view to people struggling with suicidal feelings for any reason. Romeo isn't just killing himself over a girl - losing his new wife has just come on top of seeing his best friend murdered, being criminalized for avenging his death, and being banished from his home and family with no preparation for starting over elsewhere. He's in complete despair of life having any meaning left; and in his circumstances we can understand his struggles. He doesn't have any friends or therapy to get him through this - Friar Lawrence, who fills the role of his 'spiritual counsellor' which is similar, is unable to reach him. So Romeo buys the poison and goes to Juliet's tomb to say goodbye. She doesn't wake up until after he's already taken the poison. Now, she's already legally dead. I suppose her parents would have taken her back if she'd revealed her deception, but they'd just force her into another marriage again and she'd probably be ostracized by society for her 'foolish' first marriage. She can't leave Verona and live on her own with no means of support. So she sees her own life as over and stabs herself with Romeo's dagger. Friar Lawrence arrives too late to stop them, but he tells their families and the town rulers the truth, and they blame themselves for causing the young couple's deaths. It really is very sad, and the fact that the tragedy COULD have been avoided is what makes it sadder than ever. Just as so many real-life tragedies could have been avoided too.
When you called it Winx Club Syndrome I YELLED. Like, imagine being in that situation and all your friends are coupling up with people from that other group and the only person that is left is Bloom. IMAGINE BEING SKY. IMAGINE.
hahahahahaha poor sky
Okay I haven't watched this in maybe 10 years, someone explain to me what's wrong with Bloom?
@@drlc6051 it's been 2* years, have u figured out what's wrong with bloom yet
Throne of Glass series - you're either coupled up or you're dead
@@ettaetta439 maybe they did, but I'm still confused what's wrong with my girl bloom😔
In their early twenties, my parents were actually part of a friend group where they all ended up pairing up and marrying each other and we still keep in touch with the other married couples, all happy to this day. Strange but true!
That's actually really sweet
Cool! I’ve never heard of that happening before. Very unique! And quite sweet.
Honestly the same happened to my parents, me and the friends'kids grew up almost like sibilings
@@miriamiraci6167 at first I read this as your parents being in an orgy
We love the queen who spills the tea while spilling water on her plants👑
hahaha love that
This deserves an award-
Bravo 👏👏👏✨
@@TheBookLeoyou’re my best friend I really like you Leona ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤
@@TheBookLeoyou’re very pretty even more with glasses
One of my worst pet peeves is when a character is just an irredeemable monster and then the writers shove in "my childhood was hard" and expect that alone to be their redemption
Yeah… I have that problem where I like to excuse characters behavior for bad childhoods An example was Lord Of The Flies
Jack wanted to be the leader and he couldn’t have that. I thought it was because as a rich kid he couldn’t see his parents so his bad behavior was for attention and being the center of attention.
But reading later I see why I like Jack and Roger and it’s because their mean for no real reason. The author didnt give us these backstory for either because he didn’t want an excuse for their behavior and that’s where the book shines is the characters are just people that had ok lives til they are forced to learn to survive and sadly lose themselves while doing so.
I like tragic backstories that make me sympathize /a little/ with a villain, and ones that show how the character came to be that way. But I like it to stay a little ambiguous and up for interpretation instead of just plain "bad things happened so this person was justified in everything they did after"
Like it needs to be really clear that the villain made a CHOICE to be a villain. There is a reason that not everyone that grows up in a bad situation becomes a monster.
It's just not right (or fun) to justify all the horrible things they've done. It IS fun, however, to see their backstory and mourn for what they lost, or what they could have been. WITHOUT attempting to make the reader think that a clearly evil person isn't really evil.
Yes, we love our villains, and love to hate them. Because they ARE villains and should for the most part STAY villains. It's great when an author goes more in depth with that kind of character because they are arguably the most interesting. But unfortunately I find it's rarely done well...
Right, and they typically don't reveal this until they're losing/about to be defeated, and all of a sudden it's "I was born with glass bones and paper skin 😢" like dude idc how sad you're backstory is you've murdered thousands of people who had nothing to do with that,,,, hold this L
That is frustrating. It is an explanation of where they’re coming from but it’s never actually redeeming. They have to actively learn and change.
I think it's good to give those types of characters at least some tragedy in their childhood, because it makes the character more human, it gives them meaning. This doesn't excuse their actions, but it might give the character more depth. What makes it better is if this character then realizes their own flaws, and works towards fixing them. Maybe they aren't completely forgiven by other characters by the time the story ends, maybe even though they've done more to help they are still rejected. But it is good that they've changed, and have had development. They might find happiness somewhere else. It all rests on the character development though.
The unrealistic dialogue 💀
“Hey big bro!”
“Hey lil sis!”
yeah like if you want to tell who these characters relationship are to each other then you can just write it like this:
“Hey!” yelled .
“Yeah, what, loser?” person two replied.
Person two is (insert name for them), sister/brother to protag.
This is not my best work since i just wrote this randomly, but nobody is gonna blink an eye. We’ll just move on because it’s not awkward in any way.
"Love ya big bro" "Same lil sis, bye!" Said no one ever.
It would be more realistic if the siblings were cursing each other
@Scott's Precious Little Account yeah i call my sister a little bitch even on her bday and she knows its a joke and insults me back 💀
Depends on the situation you are writing about, you could use a question-answer dialogue to introduce the relationship between characters. Like, "who's that?" "My brother/sister/etc."
But if it's just the siblings in a scene, it's a show don't tell challenge. I usually use nicknames which no one besides themselves have ever used.
yesss, I hate when everyone gets together - so unrealistic, and it feels it is claiming it is not ok to be single
I thought I was the only who thought that. Why the need of three different romance subplots.
@@malwatcholene9988 right? one is enough and honestly doesn't need to be main plot either
I'm the exact opposite. I'm single and feel no shame in being single, but if you're going to have all these great characters, why not give them all the development that only happens in relationships? Unless they are actually aromantic, relationships are something everybody WANTS in their life, and a good author should want the best for their characters, in my opinion 🙂. It's not an insult to us single people, it gives us something to look forward to in life and dream about!
@@cmm5542 Honestly nah. I'm sure a lot of people do WANT relationships, but there's also people who are doing fine without one, and it can get pretty annoying to only ever see characters get into relationships. Being in a relationship is not a requirement to be happy and satisfied with your life.
Like yes, relationships can come with extra development, and that's great but it doesn't have to be EVERY single character (it's already something you see so often, imo) and I personally just think it's getting kind of cliche.
@@cmm5542 Also this is kind of beside my point, but I don't think a good author "wants the best for their characters". Authors often put their characters through struggles - I mean, heck, a conflict is usually what makes a story interesting. They may have happy endings but I'm sure the journey to get there wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.
Princess who hates arranged marriages is one of my least favorite tropes too! I'm currently writing a noblewoman who is in an arranged marriage and is very excited about it. She's trained her whole life to be desirable. Her father knows she's intelligent and loves puzzles, so he arranges a path of riddles for her to follow and discover who he is (also there's murder)
That seems very interesting!
@@Melissa-sx9vh Thanks!
Woah I’d love to hear more about this!! :D
Woah! That sounds like a geniuenly fun character that can hold the entire plot on her own - awesome idea
Please drop the title when you’re done! It sounds awesome!
One for me is what I like to call the 'Is it incest?' trope, where characters who have been set up as 'soulmates' either discover that they may be siblings or that they actually are siblings. This is disappointingly common in YA and I think it was popularized by The Mortal Instruments as a character hook.
Can we please just agree to stop doing this? It's very creepy, especially when characters decide to carry on with the romantic relationship anyway.
Yes!!! I never understood why would authors even consider it as a good plot twist. It’s so disgusting
Even worse in Mortal Instruments because her actual brother DID want to bang her 🤢
My friend and I went to go see the movie together and it stops when you don't know - and she asked me, 'so are they?' and I couldn't really answer since I had read the books -
"Not exactly, but they do share some of the same blood and her biological dad did raise Jace and is the only father he's ever known. So... not in the exact, technical sense but kind of. Except then he's possessed by her actual brother who gets off on them getting off and.... um... ok yea this sounds even worse than I felt reading it."
@@rightsarentpolitical (spoilers for the Mortal Instruments)
Yeah people always say Jace and Clary aren't related because they don't have the same parents, but they both have extra blood from Ithuriel. Also in City of Ashes the Seelie Queen calls him her 'brother', and faeries can't lie.... 💀
@@Andrea-id3pn cause apparently at the beginning they where supposed to actually BE siblings and the author changed it long the way...
She also used to write fanfiction shipping siblings from different fandom
(At least that's wat I finded out last week, I really hope that it's a fake news😳)
@@nyctoci3673 yeah I think one of her most popular ones was a Ron x Ginny fic
okay but, let's take a minute to appreciate that makeup. 😌✊🏻
thank you i was really happy with it today haha so this makes me happy to hear
@@TheBookLeo what's the lipstick shade? It looks really good on you and i have a similar skintone
Almost all of my main characters are inspired by myself, but people assuming that means they're "flawless" is kind of mind-boggling. How do you base a character on yourself and make them flawless? I'm usually like... "Ok, two paragraphs of personality deficits. I need a positive trait now. Something. Please. Anywhere."
I can't be the only one basing my characters on my flaws. XDDD
I think for a lot of self inserts particularly most people don't know themselves well enough to realize how to accurately portray their flaws or are too attached to them to do anything consequential
I also try to base them off of my own flaws but I definitely have some i don't always want to address in my characters 😭
@@alabamaslammer3921 I ascribe to the Shameless Method. XDD So I'm like, "Do I dislike this about myself? Think of aaaall the ways this has made your life harder and screwed up your relationships. Good? Now add it on the profile and remember what a dumbass you are." //dead
A lot of positive traits feel generic, so bad traits end up being more fun to think about. TTvTT
My characters have what I like to call the outside and the inside. I usually split up the traits into what goes on in their head and what they display. For example, one of my characters seems like a flawless, eccentric, alluringly charismatic individual. When the protagonist gets to know him, he's very emotionally insecure, self critical, and borderline nihilistic. He's respectful and considerate, but there's no point in his life. So, yeah, I feel that.
@@thescarletgentleman _Can I steal this "outside and inside" thing? Because omg, that sounds-_
_Yes. Please, that sounds like such an amazing thing to have._
That is my girl Shannon in a nutshell 😂 She definitely got both the good and the bad from me, with both amplified by a lot. She's a loving and very caring older sister and a very strong-willed person, but also has a nasty temper that regularly gets her in trouble, a massive inferiority complex that is masked by false confidence and a tendency to addictive behavior that has left her as a dry addict at the beginning of the novel, who relapses later on due to the stress she's under. (irl, I have a tendency to get sucked into new hobbies to the point where you could call it borderline addictive, and I am definitely emotionally dependant on caffeine.)
I personally like emotionless female characters, aka killing machines, but the problem is they're almost never consistent. The moment the love interest appears, boom, they start acting like a possessed teenager.
I wouldn't mind if they developed emotions slowly, but I have yet to see that happen. Even the MC from a series I love, The Diabolic, develops feelings too quickly in my opinion. Murderbot is a great example, but the character is genderless so... Another character that comes to mind is Minya from Strange the Dreamer/Muse of Nightmares, who was actually misunderstood, and I loved that concept.
Yess don’t create a deadly character just to have her swoon and “let down her defences” at the first handsome man she sees ://
I love Murderbot! I especially think that the relationship between Mensah and the mc was handled really well. And the dynamic with ART was so wholesome in a way. I love robo transport
By any chance did you find a book that executed this well?
I also have zero problem with the chosen one trope, it's fun.
And yeah the strong female character problem is not that women are written to be strong but it being superficial and only meaning physical strength, ability to fight and being assertive and "badass". While there's nothing wrong with this and there should be characters who have such traits, it's not the only kind of empowering female character.There are many different kinds of strength, as there are many different kind of women and girls.
They're always stone cold too and overtly masculine, projects the idea that "strength is all physical and emotional power is unimportant femininity is emotionally charged and masculinity is true power, I totally wanna see a girl character whos just _so emotional available for her own needs_, connected with her soul and she gets to be feminine masculine whatever she wants without it changing how she is at heart one bit, maybe shes spent so much time alone or in harm's way she learned to love herself. Or maybe a cold "strong" character who is proven wrong about their harsh emotionless worldview and they show some emotional vulnerability and thats part of their character arc??
i wish they actually had some empathy for others instead of just beinng insensitive
THIS. So many YA novels featuring female MCs have them as assassins or warriors or hunters, usually holding a sword or crossbow on the cover and glaring at the reader. It's become so much of a trope that it's become rather tiresome. This often shows up in fairy-tale retellings (Little Red Riding Hood is now a WEREWOLF-SLAYER! Gretel is a WITCH-KILLER!). It's as if these books are saying a female character can't be strong unless she's a stone-cold killer. I'd really like to see more heroines that are strong in different ways and have their "superpowers" be intelligence, empathy, and such.
And honestly, giving room for men to also be those things is good too
I agree, I also don‘t like it when rudeness and bad language is mistaken with “strong character”, you should be able to express character strength through other things. I got tired of characters who disagree to disagree all the time, I feel like they overdid it with the edgy character too
The best "chosen one" trope had to be aang from ATLA. It was sooo well done!
The reincarnation thing is what made being the avatar so much better as a chosen one trope
@@alexf0723 fr
That one is great though personally I love Paul's chosen one arc in Dune a little more
Another chosen one trope that was done well is katniss from hunger games. She was just trying to survive and then ended up becoming a symbol to destroy the Capitol. She was against being a symbol at first if i remember and then she started to accept it and take control.
In my opinion, a protagonist that doesn't change over the course of the story isn't necessarily bad. This is actually called the flat arc, the protagonist doesn't change because he has already overcome the "lie" and already knows the "truth", but he changes the characters he encounters in the story, making those characters have their own individual character arcs.
If the protagonist has a flat arc but the characters he comes across doesn't change at all, then that would make a boring story due to the lack of internal and/or philosophical conflict.
Yeah, I think superman (when done right) is a great example of this. It's not about how they change, its about how they change the people and the world around them.
Uncle Iroh from The last airbender is a good example
@@misterec5834 I wouldn’t count uncle iroh, he’s not really a protagonist
@@hogndog2339 everyone is the protagonist of their own life. His arc ended before the story and turned him for the better. That's why he's the father figure and mentor for Zuko
I feel like there’s always an exception to every rule with writing-there’s always at least one way to turn what is usually a bad trope or practice into something that actually makes a better or more interesting story.
"another thing that annoys me to death is when a character is wanted by everyone."
me: "aw, my main character is constantly chased on because he has many enemies. I guess he needs a little more love-"
"I don't like when a character is loved by everyone around them."
me: "oh."
Felt thatttt
Yeah, it feels like we're writing on a tightrope sometimes.
don't worry, i think it's rare for someone wants to see an unlovable MC so u can go ahead and give him more love :o
I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong as long as it’s relevant to the plot
I also hate the ‘tragic backstory justifying everything’. It’s my biggest pet peeve atm
I like tragic backstories that make you sympathize a little and understand how the character came to be this way, but I like it to stay a little ambiguous and up for interpretation instead of just plain "bad things happened so this person was right in everything they did after"
Especially with a villain's backstory. It's just not right (or fun) to justify all the horrible things they've done. It IS fun, however, to see their backstory and mourn for what they lost, or what they could have been. Without attempting to make the reader think that a clearly evil person isn't really evil.
I think it works in many cases, my favourite being Jason Todd but because I actually like how it changed his philosphy. He says it himself, everyone sees himself as a victim or a failure but he just sees it as doing what everyone else won't, which in a world with the Joker makes sense. A tragic past is a great writing tool if it is reflected in current reasoning and behaviour well. Essentially if there is a connection to past traumas and current behaviours. Jason being tortured and killed by a criminal and then being resurrected to see much to his anguish nothing changed after he died, Batman replaced him and Joker is still out there killing people. Not to mention prior to this criminals destroyed his family and left him out on the street till he became a pickpocket to survive. Seeing nothings changed combined with his suffering he makes the logical conclusion that Batman won't go far enough so he will take matters into his own hands. He isn't being violent just because of pain but his hatred to criminals actually is based on reasoning, yes caused by trauma but it serves a purpose.
LOVE THIS
I hate one dimensional character flaws, mainly the "uwu they're too nice for their own good qwq"
But wait~
There is a way that this flaw can be flipped in its head and become interesting~
How?
They're too nice for their own good, right? They don't want to make anyone angry, right?
Why don't they support the villain then? They just want to make everyone °•Happy•°
So turn them into the puppet responsible for a mass destruction
Or even on a smaller level this trope can work well. A character like this can become conflicted if they have a friend group and two of their friends are fighting. They can either pick sides or try to resolve the conflict. But what if there's no win-win situation? Maybe the 'too nice' friend feels horrible for not being able to solve this problem. You can go into multiple directions with this trope
Or the character has a really specific and narrow set of morals for being nice, so if their friend hit back their bully or something they just put them down immediately in spite of the context
This kind of happens with Lan Xichen in Mo Dao Zu Shi
@@Ru136 Fanfiction isn't that good nor anything I'd ever read
@@SethUnwell ??? Mo Dao Zu Shi is not fanfiction. It's an immensely popular Chinese novel.
PS: Fanfiction can be absolutely brilliant as well as absolute trash. Just as there are published novels that can be either wonderful or horrible. It depends on the individual author, so let's not dismiss an entire medium of storywriting just because it's not officially published
I LOVE the chosen one trope, call me trash. A LOT of my favorite stories have it. I just love the idea of someone bopping around in their mundane life and then BOOM magic, science, superpowers, royalty, etc.
I HATE the plain Jane, woe is me cuz I’m not a striking beauty, but somehow everyone attracted to my gender is at least slightly attracted to me, but I’m so normal looking, blaaaahhhhhh!!!! Trope.
I have two younger sisters and two younger brothers and I understand a character like Katniss wanting to save her sister. Another good example of a well-done version of this trope is the Pevensie children when Ed gets taken in 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe'.
Omg finally someone knows the lion, the witch and the wardrobe!!
@@nanqros3 do people not know Narnia...
@@AK-rx8gp idk lol imagine giving away your siblings for Turkish delights
@@nanqros3 i mean.. i do like Turkish delight...
@@AK-rx8gp 😰😰😰
"You know what else needs nurturing so they can grow?"
"Cha-'
"CARROTS!"
"Characters!"
"Oh... Yeah, that makes sense."
I did the same thing!
in my opinion Louisa May Alcott perfectly created a strong female character, Joe March, who was not only one of the first few feminist characters written but also had flaws and questioned her beliefs at times and it was beautiful and inspiring to read about such a strong but still realistic character
book?
@@arishachoudhury_ Little Women
*Jo
But it’s true :)
I loved that whole series! For those of you who don't know, the movie Little Women is based off of the first of four books written by Louisa May Alcott.
I've never seen other videos by Book Leo, but I think she should try branching out into other genres and books written during other periods of history. I guess I didn't come here expecting it to be only about current YA Fantasy, which I don't know much about.
I think what helps is that she based Jo around herself, A REAL PERSON, so everything about her seemed way more natural then the ✨femism✨, ✨strong girl✨, ✨tomboy✨, trope. I use real people for inspiration in my character ideas A LOT, and it definitely is a good way to make your characters more three-dimensional and realistic.
Btw, LOVE Little Women!
8:09 To me I don't mind if the villains are evil "just because." Sometimes when people have a lot of money or power they tend to believe they can do what they want. What matters to me is if they're interesting to read while being a legit threat to the heroes. For example; the original Cruella. She's in charge of a fashion industry, likes fur, and thinks that a dalmatian coat would be fabulous to wear. That's it. That's her motivation and yet she's such an interesting villain to watch.
11:45 I actually really like the chosen one trope myself, one of my personal faves in fact (depending on how it's done, of course).
17:20: This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves where terrible behavior and actions are ignored or excused because of a "tragic past." Like, "I know I slaughtered millions of innocent people, but you have to understand; I had a bad childhood." Like, okay depending on what it was, I feel for you, but that doesn't make it okay for you to hurt others.
In relation to this, I don't like the violently jealous, controlling, possessive bf trope. Those are not fun to read.
Anyway, I like the video and hope you don't mind comments a year late.
I feel like your first example is different from a simple evil just because
In your example I would find it perfectly reasonable, but there are many cases of characters that do evil things just because (a lot of these demon lord stupid stories, or even the glorified Reverend insanity, with the MC doing a couple of evil things for no reason)
the bf one is PAINFUL
Right, but when a character is evil because they've been corrupted by wealth and power, that's an actual reason for their evil behavior. That's very different to a character who does evil things Simply Because.
Plausibly Evil Villain: I'm going to build a sweat shop to manufacture my line of luxury watches because decades of extreme wealth have corroded my ability to empathize with the poor and vulnerable.
Implausibly Evil Villain: I'm going to build a rocket to blow up planet Earth because I'm Evil, and that's the kind of thing Evil People do.
I actually really agree with your first point. I especially like to compare it to people saying, “well why not?” I think people forget that some people aren’t as capable of empathy/compassion/guilt and don’t really have a moral compass. As someone who has low levels of all of that (and I’m not bragging it is a problem) the first thing that comes to mind is I need a reason not to. So I can see why these characters exist, and it’s very plausible to happen in reality imo.
I have an exception for the last one: Peril from Wings of Fire.
⚠️⚠️⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD⚠️⚠️⚠️
She was manipulated by Queen Scarlet from a VERY young age. Scarlet used Peril’s fire to kill her enemies in battle or even just for fun. For a long time, Peril had absolutely no idea that what she was doing is wrong. But after she met Clay, her perspective changed. She realized that she did not *have* to kill dragons just because the Queen wanted her to. This is where she starts changing a ton. A few books later, Peril helps save Scarlet, and feels very wrong for doing so. Still, in the end, she ends up saving Clay’s life. Flash forward another few books and BOOM she’s the protagonist. We get to find out that she really has changed. Even though she does get very angry when dragons make her mad, she tries her hardest not to hurt them, because “What would Clay think?”. Since Scarlet has made most of Peril’s decisions for her, it’s hard for her to make her own. That’s all I’m gonna say. If you haven’t read the books, please do, they’re amazing. Also, her actions were NOT excused because “she was manipulated😢😢😢” (keep in mind this is all I have read so far. I’m currently on book 10. also, I typed this really fast so if it doesn’t make sense that’s my bad)
I don't like when every character in a book is being questioned about something they want to hide, their answer is always "I dOn'T KnOw wHaT yOu ArE tAlKiNg aBoUt!"
I'm fine if it's just one character and he/she is supposed to be a bad liar, but man, when this is the reaction of EVERY CHARACTER, it's just not good writing.
you know what the only way i love this trope is when it’s in a mocking way, like an “i don’t know what you are talking about” when it’s clear as day to both parties, and the other person is only denying to push buttons. It’s just so goddamn stupid when used otherwise esp on characters that are meant to be good liars.
Yessss miscommunication is SO ANNOYING 😭 this video was brilliant!!
Yeeeees. She mentioned Throne of Glass and in addition to the 'everyone falls in love with me' trope which was frustrating it was very much the 'characters don't communicate not because it makes sense within the story but because I want the AUDIENCE to not know what's going on'. There are much better ways to do this - let them either have a realistic reason to not tell each other the simple damn thing or let them actually communicate and that doesn't stop the problem. They still need to figure out how to solve it, they just don't need to add the added stupidity. It felt very "now you see me" where in the movie once you know the twist, there are scenes where the characters - who are in on it - are ALONE and somehow still 'acting' for... for who? For you, except you're not in world so it's just bad writing. There should be crumbs that maybe I can't see until the end but once I know suddenly everything fits into place and you're like "THAT'S why they did thing! THAT'S why they noticed this thing! THAT'S why they couldn't do this thing!"
Miscommunication is actually the bane of my existence (especially for romance) and I hate even attempting to write it because there are more logical ways the characters can go about stuff. Especially when they make more sense in reality than whatever miscommunication happened. Of course there are just some times when you have to have it, especially if you want to build up angst but I hate it when writers carry it on for so long without any show that the characters are working on that problem and then all of a sudden, yay, they made up. I feel like if miscommunication happens, I would only accept it if the characters show that they have actually communicated to resolve it and have come out better from it because a lot of the time when I see miscommunication, it tends to be ignored until it can be used as leverage for something bad which I know, I know it's to further the plot but, as I said. If there are more interesting ways to develop the plot than sacrificing the relationship of two characters, then do that instead.
Please do a favorite character traits/tropes video!
Also, I think if a trope is done well, it's refreshing to see that trope in a new light while if it's done poorly it just feels like lazy writing. Sort of like the author couldn't be bothered to develop their character so they grabbed a trope. I think combining tropes in a new way is really refreshing especially if taken from different genres.
Yes that would be an awesome video!
This is not related to the video but you literally look like autumn personified and so pretty
I still like the chosen character trope but I don’t like the part where just bc they are the chosen one doesn’t mean they won’t have to work or learn for anything. a good example of the chosen one trope done right is Aang from ATLA, he literally has to re-learn every element in each life-time.
Percy Jackson series
Both these comments just activated my fangirl
6:35 As someone who has a younger brother I would actually love those stories. I deeply understand the need to protect your sibling and I would 100% drop everything to find my brother.
I love him dearly and he's my best friend.
Agreed. It’s definitely more of a preference than an objective detriment.
Maybe I'm being presumptuous, but I think the point in the video is about stories where "save the sibling" is simply used as a MacGuffin to get the plot going and you never get a sense of the actual relationship between the two characters.
@@erich6073 Fair enough.
@@erich6073I was worried about doing that in my story with a little brother, so instead I decided that I want to establish a very close relationship in the beginning between the main character and his little brother, 100% loving family, they do everything together, despite the fact that main character is a teenager and little brother is still just a kid. And then..... Little brother is murdered right in front of main character, and the main character has to carry his limp, cold, dead body back to their house and tell their parents what happened. And then the struggle with that becomes an internal conflict that serves as a subplot to the main story. Also plot twist, he later finds out that his brother died because the people who murdered his brother, meant to murder him, but they accidentally killed the wrong person. So then he blames himself and wishes that it was himself who died that day. And the subplots of the story will involve the main character going through all the stages of grief and stuff.
My problem with the "strong independent womanTM" character trope is that basically like Not Like Other Girls, as though having traditional masculine features is the only thing that makes a woman special, femininity is beautiful, softness is beautiful, emotions are beautiful like wtf that's what makes us HUMAN and often this trope makes the book very oh look how feminist I am and shove it in your face
I liked how in Mistborn 2, one of the characters about their love interest is like 'she's NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS' and the person he's talking to is like, 'the more women you get to know the more you'll find that statement applies to all of them'
I literally outloud when reading it said "RIGHT?! Thank you!"
I just can't stand when there's no self-examination on the part of the author. There's not just something inherently ignorant about the appeal of "not like other girls" it's inherently ignorant to otherize people, and make a monolith out of them.
Once I tried to imagine a "popular" character, the type of person that everyone likes, through the lense of a character who doesn't like them. Our popular character is virtually mobbed by people, but specifically detaches themselves from the usual frenzy, specifically to talk to the person who hates them. What they learn in this interaction is the one thing they have in common, they're both extremely lonely. The popular character thinks this other person doesn't care what others think, and has the freedom to be themselves, but being yourself against social expectations can be alienating. Our hater thinks everyone likes this person "and they don't even have to try." But they concede that they try very hard, actually, because they DO want people to like them, and it takes effort. The hater says "you're so fake," and it's met with an admission "I am fake a lot of the time." So the hater says "You're agreeing with me because you want me to like you!" and the response is "That's true. Why shouldn't I?"
Culturally we have a sneaking suspicion that a person who hates someone who's popular is just jealous of them, that person rationalizes their jealousy by convincing themselves that anyone who wants to be popular must be shallow. And why not? A person who needs validation so badly that they would seek out more, even when they seem to have the most, likely feels like any amount they get will never be enough. But we know a popular person, a truly likeable person will notice when you're lonely, and single you out for attention. So when I think of these two lonely people, one staring in from outside, one staring out from a crowd, the ugly truth of their circumstance becomes meaningless, I want them to become *best* friends.
@@futurestoryteller That was really poignant 💔
@@rightsarentpolitical I really like that Brandon Sanderson became better at writing characters because Sarene from Elantris in my honest opinion felt like a 'NLOG' character.
@@Sarah-yg3us Oh my yes. I was very concerned up to that point (and quite frankly sometimes a little after) because I was definitely getting that vibe, so I was glad it was called out.
Terry Pratchett also had tendencies earlier in the Discworld novels and his writing absolutely became better as he began to address and confront what he realized were his own prejudices as well as society's.
It does make my cynical heart warm when we see male writers check themselves, and grow.
On the topic of complex flawed characters: I loved "Secret History" by Donna Tartt, because even though everyone in that book was intellectual asshole, they also all had personality beyond what bounded them together. Look even at contrast between Bunny and Richard - Bunny made his friends pay for all of his expenses even when they couldn't afford to do so, while Richard was basically homeless over Christmas holidays because he didn't want to be burden for anyone and stay in their empty apartments. This character's parallel was excellent, and in a way what made me as a reader pick sides when author wanted us to do so.
Having just finished The Secret History: At the same time, Bunny is the only one who had any problems with the fact that his best friend killed a man, while Richard was already helping said friend plot his next murder. I've been amazed, looking at the fandom for this book, how well Donna Tartt writes an unreliable narrator - it doesn't matter whether Richard is moral or not because he's so persuasive to the reader. The reader picks sides because he tells us to.
I don't think anyone complains about "being normal" in reality either, it is always extremely frustrating to see in books which try to showcase it as relatable. It is usually about the goal of fitting in to appear normal rather than trying to stand out which, in some minds, may actually lead to loneliness 🤔
I actually know some people who complains about being normal, including me. But I dont think it is “that” common to be relatable.
I think the people who don't like their base look generally customise their IRL avatar instead of complain :P I really want a fantasy character to go dye their hair blue with indigo instead of whinge that they're plain :P
Omggg, Winx Club syndrome! I had forgotten about that aspect of the show! I liked it as a child, but now I realize I didn't like several of the characters, both male and female, and the relationships did almost nothing for me 🤣
The "anti" Princess trope type was fantastic to see in the Ash Princess series.
She actually WANTED to have a normal life as a normal Princess. If only she wasn't a prisoner of war...
another big thing that annoys me is when characters keep making dumb decisions and don‘t learn?? (even when it‘s written "well" i just get super frustrated lol) *cough* the poppy war *cough*
And so many movies and TV shows. My family has to tell me to shut up while watching them lol.
I mean I get that bad habits are hard to break, but show some progress or at least that they're wrestling with the flaw. There are also some characters who never learn, but those are usually either villains or side characters with a partially endearing flaw.
Wait I’m reading poppy war rn WHATS GONNA HAPPEN
i LOVE chosen one trope but give me the struggle, the frustration, the “im not even good at it”, give me the emotional crisis in them. make fantasy book characters more realistic.
Read the school for good and evil! Or watch the film lol
Yes, the "Princess who doesn't want to be royalty/get married" trope annoys me so much!
Really? I think that's one of my favorites. Because let's be real, the royal life is definitely NOT what Disney movies and such showed us. And if you look at the history of royalty, I wouldn't blame someone for being like, "Screw royalty and arranged marriages, I want to forge my own path."
@@carlycchapman same
@@carlycchapman - At the same time, though, Royalty DEFINITELY had it better than the commoners. So it’s just kind of obnoxious to hear the same, “I hate living in the lap of luxury” plot over and over.
Now, I wouldn’t mind a story that starts out with a spoiled heir who hates their spousal arrangement, they escape and have their little adventure, and then they go back home with a new appreciation for the privileges they were born with.
@@KlutzyNinjaKitty I wrote that book. Not sure if it's good, but it exists. Not sure if it's okay to promote your own work on someone else's channel, but if you are interested I can tell you where to find it, and you can tell me how to do it better next time 🙂
@@cmm5542 Please do show
I personally love chosen one plotlines where there's so much struggling, and hardship, and wanting to quit, but them finding a reason to keep going on with their mission. Those stories can make for really great motivation and reflection
Also, while I do hate a lot of these character flaws, some of them are a guilty pleasure of just being plain dumb fun (though that's for me and my WIPs to sort out)
I was bored of the choosen one trope, but after I started reading the wheel of time, I think it can be done well and with something new (sorry about my english! Hi from Brazil :)
mmh. Interesting, in my case reading WoT convinced me that the chosen one trope is not for me, still a great read though. And Rand is, i admit, a great character, just not my type.
Old comment, I know, but maybe it worked because he wasn’t the only special one. There were reborn heroes, his two best friends got powers, and just about everyone was special somehow. He was chosen but the conflict felt like the whole world was involved in saving it.
When I write murder mysteries, I just let my characters take over the plot. Very often, the murder happens rather late on as the characters are simply not ready for it to take place.
Oh my goodness, I started a trilogy that was a strange sort of follow up to this kids book I loved when I was little, and it was meant to be that they were all grown up, and therefore the themes and writing just generally more mature. But the main character.. she literally made my skin crawl with how PERFECT she was !! Always knew the right thing to say, never lost her temper, loved by everyone, absolute patience, so clever, “not like the other girls” agh I couldn’t even finish it !! Please just give me FLAWS
Which series is this 😂
@@caitlingill yeah so i can avoid disappointment 💀
Sometimes characters who are loved by everyone else can be okay, especially if they don't really care/ are preoccupied by other things /so cute and innocent that I really can't blame them. But a lot of the time it's really unrealistic and annoying
(I totally agree with your take on Celaena)
Yeah! I think a great example is Tohru Honda!
Always enjoy a good rant video😋
My own pet peeve in stories (and, I’m specifically looking at you, “Arrow” TV show) is when character A knows something that character B does not but really needs to and A decides for no good reason not to tell them - you know that B will find out and be destructively pissed off at A for ages and ages after.
Lmao yes! It’s a disease of The CW shows.
Yeah, the Chosen One trope is really one of my favourites! It is overdone, I'll admit that, but I just love books with a Chosen One so so much!
One that is not mentioned (well, because it's not exactly an annoyance) is: mandatory love story.
I know that it is one way to add a "sidequest" or to add "depth" to a character or to the story but... no. I've never read a book where it made sense. The usual love story is either "ah yes, we run away from the Big Evil together so we're in love" or "ah yes, we talked about our Tragic Past -tm- and now i love here and now she's IN DANGER" (kind of an external motive, as you said.)
Plus, it's always 1) straight and 2) the man has to save the woman.
Ugh.
The last good book I read was written by my best friend and she put NO love story in it and DAMN, that was so nice.
Ok what you just described sounds like the monsters of verity duology but w/o the mandatory love story.
The two main characters do run away from monsters together and yes they do share their tragic past and the dude saves her life a couple of times & vice-versa but they *didn't* fall in love. I was genuinely surprised there were no romances, just two characters who completely understands each other and cares about each other in the most platonic sense. The two characters are so different yet lovable in their own way and ve Schwab is an amazing writer. I suggest u check out this book or her works if u haven't any
THANK YOU! GLAD I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO HATES THESE!
it can happen with bad written gay stories as well, like Banana Fish where the male protagonist always saves his male love interest who gets in trouble every fucking episode.
I know! Love stories to further the plot are really annoying to read. I like reading things like fights or action sequences that ACTUALLY further the plot instead of obnoxious love stories that just feel forced.
Well! Here i was writing a YA- age novel with basically zero romance and wondering if that was just something wrong with me. I like a good romance, but... it's gotta good, othwerwise I just don't care. So I don't write them often.
I think static characters can be pretty interesting. A character sets out to do something and they do it. That’s not to say they didn’t undergo trials but they are the same when they face the end goal.
Currently writing a little story just for myself but I still watch your videos for advice even though noone will read it 💀💀✨
you should post it somewhere! show the world your talent and passion!
Same
I am HERE for the Throne of glass slander! :D
One of my least favorite more popular tropes is when enemies to lovers isn’t a slowburn. Like when they’re enemies but all of a sudden they’re forbidden lovers at the beginning of the book. I LOVE enemies to lovers when it’s slow and well done
Great video! I also hate the lone wolf trope where characters will learn CRITICAL INFORMATION but share it with no one, especially allies who are LOOKING for that information to help the plot! But the author decides it’s too early so we need to stretch the plot out and be dark and broody and keep it to themselves bc after repeatedly putting others in danger hero decides this time I don’t want to put them in danger or some nonsense
The miscommunication thing drives me up the wall as well! Something I really don't like either that ties in with that is when characters jump to conclusions and then base all of their actions on those assumptions. It's usually clearly a plot device, and I really don't like it, haha.
for the saving your sister thing. That is the person's left limb, their second brain, their closest friend, one of the most important people in their life, being taken into an entirely different place where she is likely not going to survive. If my younger brother was taken into an high fantasy world you bet your ass I'm running in there with a half thought through plan and barely enough supplies to keep me alive!
Yes, I would love to see the relationships of siblings talked about and explored more in these stories, but I don't think there is an external motivation more personal than a sibling.
You’re so cute when you’re ranting lol 😂 those tropes annoy me too especially the “it’s my fault!!” Without it actually being their fault
The main trope that is a big peeve is the forced happy ending it’s like you could have a really tragic story everyone is dead but it ends happily because Reasons
Please do tropes in books that you enjoy!! As an aspiring writer, these videos really help me understand what readers are looking for, and it's good for me to know what I should/shouldn't be putting in my story.
I hate "The Winx Club" Syndrom, but it can also be very good if its well-written. Like if they actually develop a stronger emotional bond with that certain character in the friend group, just like in Six of Crows. The relationships were also amazing slowburn and it was kinda defined since the beginning who could possibly make a couple so it doesn't really bother me lmao
Save the Sister Plots:
They never get me. If I read a summary of a book and it starts with "has to save her sister/family member [...]" I just lose a major part of my interest for the story. I believe, that's because I do not know their family member - so why should I care? And I do have a sibling. But just because I have one, I don't care about whether a character I don't care about yet can save another character that gets abducted so early in the story that I don't even get to start caring about them. Like, make me care first before we go on a journey to save someone haha
Princesses not wanting to marry:
I'm fine with there being some plots like this, but it has somehow become so common, that we end up just having a bunch of rebellious princesses who don't want to take any responsibility and completely ditch everything they were taught since birth. How about a Princess that might not necessarily like it, but accepts it as her duty and works hard to become a responsible Queen instead of just a side-kick to the King? Like give me a couple that was arranged but puts in effort into their positions and their duties and therefore comes to mutually respect and admire each other, rely on each other.
Isn't that so much more powerful than a rebellious princess who runs away and falls in love with the first commoner she meets?
You make very good points!
The divorced empress, protahonist actually is about that you talk, but actually its the empereor who fall OUT of love of her and tries to replace her with a pauper.
Its a webcomic, but damn. The protagonist its great, and its really a excelent empress, but her marital life sucks.
@@devilinred3319 hmm not so sure, I’m talking about the falling in love eventually, not about falling out of love
The only "save the sister" plot I remember reading is Caraval, which handles it very badly because A) we barely know the sister and what we DO know about her doesn't make us like her; and B) the protagonist spends 99% of her adventure wanting to smooch the love interest rather than exhibiting any demonstrable concern for her sister.
A save-the-sister plot I read was The Last Fallen Star. We actually do get to know the sister, Hattie, before she technically “dies,” and frankly she’s a wonderful person. The reason she dies is because she’s trying a last resort to help her sister achieve her one dream, and before that they were already making different plans that nearly worked. This means we actually get attached to Hattie thanks to her getting actual screen-time.
The Last Fallen Star is a very good book, do try it out if you’re into modern fantasies.
"They're too nice for their own good" I FELT THE SHAKY CAMERA SO MUCH
Rapidly taking notes to write my fantasy book
The How To Train Your Dragon books do “The Chosen One” really well. The way it is done might surprise you.
Flawed characters are SO good
This video is such an amazing resource for writers. Your explanation of flaws and pet peeves in writing has made me do so many double-takes on my own story - I've already changed two things because seeing from your reader perspective made me realize plot holes. Thank you so much!!!
I will say, I get the external plot point, but there isn't much more personal than the loss of a sibling
Also the singular "bad boy with a tragic past" that I will comepletely support is JD from Heathers the Musical
6:12 minutes into the video
Katniss Everdeen: I feel personally attacked.
A couple notes I’ve realized:
For cartoony characters, a good way to avoid this is to see if you can fit every part of a character using one word descriptions. If you can, it’s probably too cartoony
Also, for the “everyone loves the main character,” I think this trope can work if it’s not only romantic love! THERE ARE DIFFERENT KINDS OF LOVE PEOPLE! They can love them like a friend (or a BEST friend), a sibling, a parental figure, etc.
The self-sacrificial character can be done really well if the character is later revealed to be suicidal or be depressed. it can make the character more compelling and make readers more attached to that character.
I like when the chosen one trope is challenged or like, done in an unexpected way? I don't know how to explain it but I really like it
18:25 when authors forget that these are symptoms of depression and anxiety and try to pass it off as love and humility
That is insulting. Self-sacrifice is about loving others before yourself, courage and unselfishness. Running into danger doesn't help with dealing with depression; I know because I've had it. Being depressed made me (and many others I have known who struggled with it) behave more selfishly, not unselfishly. Learning again to help others and put others before myself helped me get OUT of depression, which is also a key facet of any Twelve-Step Programme if you look it up. If anything, self-sacrifice is a cure for depression, not a symptom of it! And what on earth would you consider love and humility, then?
Being overly self-sacrificial CAN be a bit foolish or turn into showing off, but I thought we were supposed to prefer flawed characters? Really, this a very unkind accusation of caring people just because they don't share your own motivations and preferred flaws.
@@cmm5542 oof, I think you misunderstood me. My comment and yours are in agreement.
I, myself, have chronic depression, anxiety, and several other conditions. What I meant in my comment was that I’m tired of authors giving characters symptoms of mental illness and calling those traits something else. They’ll have characters hate themselves and say that this is proof of how unselfish they are when instead of actually being unselfish the characters are actively hurting themselves or instead of making their characters thoughtful and kind they give their character symptoms of anxiety so they feel awful until they do something extra for another charyinstead of doing something nice just because they want to. I love representation of people with disabilities but I hate our struggles being shown off as something they are not. My BPD has helped me remember EXACTLY how to make those around me feel understood and cared for but that wasn’t compassion, that was manipulation and I did those things because I hated myself and it hurt me! I’ve learned how to act kindly just because I want to and I am a kind person but my trauma and self hatred aren’t what make me kind. Authors will steal the overwhelming emotions that people with BPD struggle with everyday but pick which ones to represent and say that these characters’ trauma made them naturally compassionate, selfless, blah blah blah and it sucks because trauma DOESN’T do that without the fuck-load of other symptoms and how fucking dare authors that don’t know the struggle steal my story and paint butterflies and hearts all over it when it caused multiple suicide attempts and hospitalizations!
Sorry, I feel passionately about this topic. Anyway, as writer I’m fixing this by writing accurate representation for us with mental illnesses and trauma. We deserve better and I think showing true kindness and compassion will help the world differentiate between symptoms illnesses and healthy love and how mentally I’ll people can do both.
@@cedarmoss7173 I'm so sorry I misunderstood your point. I misread it as all examples of self-sacrifice in books coming from a place of depression. You're completely right that passing off mental struggling as 'just being nice' is harmful; and I guess I get even more upset when some authors I read belittle mental health by comparing it to genuinely nice behaviour (like, I have OCD. When I hear or read someone saying being near and super organized or something else that's actually a pretty normal and even helpful quality is 'so OCD', I get really upset because they don't have any IDEA what difficulties OCD actually causes, and that it really does NOT make my life cleaner, safer, or more organized!)
Thank you for explaining instead of getting annoyed at my response; that WAS genuinely kind of you 🙂 Hope all goes well for you, take care 💜
This is evidence that there are understanding people still left in this world
This was the one annoyance in my own book series. Writing from the perspective of those characters- who are not the protag- really helped reveal what was going on there. Now I'm making fixes so it's more apparent.
I find "not like other girls" trope to be somewhat inspiring when it is done the right way. And by the right way I mean the situation when a girl is excluded (or rather not even invited) from a circle of popular girls for reasons such as looks, family background, grades, etc. It's actually quite a common thing that occurs in middle and high school, and many of my female friends and me have experienced it. We wished to be like other girls, but other girls decided we were not.
Now in teenage books and movies "not like other girls" girl is always conventionally attractive, witty, confident, wears fashionable clothes, etc., etc. It is a girl that would be 100% popular in real life but a medium presents her as an outcast for no logical reason.
I also don't like when "not like other girl" becomes popular in the end. It rarely happens in real life. I'd prefer a story about a girl strengthening her friendship with her "also not popular" friends and exploring adult life beyond school social grading stereotypes
i’ve also seen many girls who are conventionally attractive but they’re also outcasts because they like being alone and are cold and off putting with a resting bitch face. They’re all dark and gloomy which makes them not seem approachable, so they have little to no friends and nothing to use to climb up the social ladder because people already see her as weird. At least that’s how i can see the “not like other girls but still pretty” done right. It’s not all about looks and all.
I will say though that she would not dress fashionably, for instance she’d rather be in comfy clothes like sweats with the idea that fashion is pain. I can even see her being witty, but has no one to share that wit to because again, nobody speaks to her, but the biggest flaw i see is those books making her confident.
Confidence is how you get friends, like you don’t even have to go and talk to them cause they will flock to you. I’ve transferred high schools like 3 times in the last 4 years and every single time it’s what i’ve seen. Don’t get me wrong, she can be confident around those close to her like that’s normal because you’re comfortable with those people, but don’t make her confident around strangers in class because then it’s making you wonder why she’s unpopular. Also the only way i can see the nlog become popular is if the story revolves around those popular kids changing and becoming more friendly towards her or sumn and then adopt her into the friend group. Imo it’s less ‘becoming popular’ and more of getting a good and reliable friend group.
that’s just my two cents tho. I had so much thoughts about how this trope can be done better just so many times that it’s been stewing in my brain for like a decade.
I think the "not like other girls" trope is about putting down "traditional" girliness to elevate "not-like-other-girls-iness", if that makes sense. EG "I am better than all those vapid, unicorn-loving, boy-band-worshipping cheerleaders because I listen to Nine Inch Nails and read Edgar Allan Poe and research serial killers and actually have a brain in my head." It's supposedly a backlash against Mean Girl culture but is in fact equally judgmental, just in the opposite direction. It reduces all the female characters who are not the protagonist to straw men (so to speak) and only seeks to illustrate them as two-dimensional stereotypes to be ridiculed and looked down upon. It seeks to praise one mode of femininity at the expense of another (girls with ABC "conventional" characteristics are lame, girls with XYZ "alternative" characteristics are cooler, better, more worthwhile human beings).
To me, a story about a group of girls who are excluded from the popular group is not necessary a "not like other girls" story; it's just a story about the universal struggle to fit in.
I agree with you, I quite like the chosen one trope IF being the chosen one does not also come with being without flaws and indestructable.
I don't know what does it say about the majority of books I read now, but Murderbot (android who gains free will) from Murderbot Diaries was the best character I've read in a while, while still being believably non-human. How talented the author should be to write a robot better than 90% of human characters I read in other books?!
i actually do like chosen one tropes when they’re done well. i especially love when the chosen one trope is inverted or deconstructed in some way as well
I kinda like the chosen one trope but only if they have to work and fight to live up to it
Watching it as an aspiring writer! Thanks for letting me know things to look out for, besides the obvious ones! ❤️
I have zero problems with the "chosen one" trope, because that's the basis of all fantasy stories dating back to the Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Greeks. Think of all of the Greek tragedies and epics, they would have never happened if the character wasn't "the chosen one."
As for the Princess who doesn't want an arranged marriage, I think that's one of my favorites. Because let's be real, the royal life is definitely NOT what Disney movies and such showed us. And if you look at the history of royalty, I wouldn't blame someone for being like, "Screw royalty and arranged marriages, I want to forge my own path."
I actually do like villains who are evil just for the hell of it. I think it’s really fun! But I usually only utilize this trope when they’re working with or against another villain who is 100% convinced what they’re doing is the right thing.
I just wanna say I love it when main characters fall in love but not within the same group like someone outside of the main cast like a not rarely mentioned side character but a side character that isn’t always there
A trope that I never see, which I WISH I could read at least once, is one where the main character is really normal but their best friend or sibling is the one who is all special and “chosen”.
I want a book through the eyes of the normal character trying to support and help the special one, while also battling their own insecurities of being insignificant and boring. We always see the main character being all sparkly and different and the key to the whole plot, but we never get a main character to who ISNT in the spotlight.
My rule for writing flaws is to add two for every positive trait.
One that recently has gotten on my nerves is the “I’m leaving you to find myself” trope, where one character ends a relationship to find themselves or go on a journey alone. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but when there’s almost zero reason for it to happen it’s just baffling! If you have something important to do, or want to see the world, what’s wrong with a couple doing it and growing together?
I can't understand if the nurture part was a really good recover from the water/plant distraction or was planned from the start and I love that.
it was improvised hahaha
18:07 The only self sacrificing character that I love is Kim Dokja from ORV(Omniscient reader's viewpoint) since he does that not just cause he is the main character but because his whole life he was treated like he was worthless that when he actually found people who cared about him he didn't believe that they would be hurt by his suffering and he subconsciously wanted others to feel bad for him in order to feel worthy
I sometimes worry about looking “too normal” because I WANT to stand out from the crowd lol, but obviously most people don’t want that
i could see the self sacrificial thing working for a character if it was well established that the character genuinely thinks their life is worth less than those theyre saving, and that in itself becoming a conflict.
The writers at Disney should be taking notes. Especially when it comes to writing villains.
I really loved how the Wheel of Time used the chosen one trope. 14 massively long books where the chosen one is all set up to have a final battle against the big baddie but (spoiler) in the end, the chosen character points out how many people were actually involved in the fight, and how, even if he lost, those people would still keep fighting. That is a trope that can be very well done when written well, but an absolute disaster when it's abused.
I'm with you about wanting stories to have more of an internal focus of the literal journey of the 'character' rather than what may as well just be a plot oriented series of scenes with paper cut outs for people. That's usually my criteria for something that's maybe just for fun, and something I consider more serious reading.
Not only that, but having a character with an external locus of control or identity, being carried around by the plot rather than character, makes them all the more less realistic, or at the very least, harder to empathize with.
I love how Keeper of the Lost Cities ticks almost every single box present ✨
15:45 “is when the main character is wanted by everyone. ”
Bounty hunter type wanted??
“Like everyone falls in love with the main character ”
*oh..*
The overuse of the bad boy trope is the reason why I have chosen to never write it. All male love interests coming from me will be sweet, understanding, and know how to cook. Beyond that, they'll all be different, each with their own struggles and failures and flaws.
Also, yes, miscommunication stinks, but I'm currently writing about a character that feels compelled to keep a secret from someone she is currently living with (that would affect the person she is living with if it got out), and the guilt will drive her to the point of confession.
Now, I don't hate keep-a-secret-driven plots, but I don't like it when someone discovers something on their own or through a third party, rather than finding out from the main character him/herself. I have yet to watch/read about an honest to goodness, sit down at the table, tears and yelling confession. So I'm doing it myself.
There will be strife, and there will be forgiveness. Communication can get you forgiveness, and I don't see enough of it in media.
Thank you, Kylie for choosing to write healthy male interests. I hate the bad boy trope. We need better-written male characters, especially in romance. I hate the idea that a male character can be the epitome of a red flag but we are supposed to forgive his flaws because he has abs and money.
Honestly less so for love interest but I love edgy characters. Jason Todd is the best member of the Bat family. Mostly because he makes the logical conclusion that his family was destroyed by crime, then he joined Batman and was killed by a criminal THEN resurrected to see not only had nothing changed but that Batman had just replaced him. Reason dictates Batman isn't going far enough so to make a real change he chooses extreme measures. The Three Jokers comic does do an interesting idea about Barbara who was traumatised by the Joker too but healed better than he did trying to help him heal. He misreads this affection as romantic love. Or Elric of Melnibone arguably one of the most influential anti hero who would go on to inspire Geralt from the Witcher as well as a lot of its world, Game Of Thrones and Elden Ring by Martins own admission. Plus Warhammer ripped him off shamelessly. His is a tragic love story but told from the pov of the edgy character.
love the vibes your throwing around in this video haha! really enjoyed this type of video.
i think im literally throwing around vibes with all my hand movements
“Winx Club Sydrome” that’s funny because “Gossip Girl syndrome” works too 😂
I love it when characters slowly go insane 😆
Your gestures.... I live for it
i’m an aspiring writer and this video is going to be very helpful for my future books (hopefully i actually end up finishing one lol). i am definitely behind you making another video for things you like in a character because that can also be super helpful!! thank you for making this video 💘💘
“When there’s no character arc…why…would you do that?” As a writer, I can tell you it’s hard! It takes a lot of foresight and planning that a lot of amateurs don’t do or don’t get!