BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
TERRIBLE WRITING TIPS
Just like with everything, there are bad writing tips that exist… for some reason. Welcome to another session of me writing about writing at two in the morning. Here are a few bad tips for writing I’ve heard of.
Disclaimer: don’t actually follow these tips.
1: Good Trait = Mary Sue
“Your main character is a decent human being who acts sane, respectful, and kind, but has plenty of flaws? Wow, what a Mary Sue.”
A Mary Sue is only a Mary Sue if you make them one. Your main character, or any character, doesn’t have to be an absolute trash human being to be a good character. You don’t need to give a character a sad backstory to make them interesting.
This is also the problem I have with a few characters who are complete jerks yet the fandom loves them. A good example is Katsuki Bakugou from My Hero Academia. Just about every weeb knows that he is the number one most liked character in America and Japan. Like, how did we allow this to happen? Now, I don’t hate Bakugou. His own personal issues and the fact that he does have some respect for some people are respectable in my eyes, but he literally told Midoriya to kill himself and bullied him in the first episode, shouldn’t that be major red flags?! Now, I would be a hypocrite to say that you shouldn’t write characters like Bakugou, but this involves the next terrible tip.
2: Romanticization/Glorification
If you don’t know what romanticization is then this is how I define it. Romanticization is making a horrible situation, such as kidnapping, not as bad as it seems. Doing this is offensive to the people who are going through such events. Take Vincent Van Gogh for an example. People say that he was able to create great art because of his mental issues. First of all, that is not acknowledging him as a person. It is saying that his metal issues were the reason for his success when in reality it was him the one who did it. Tragedies are tragedies, and they shouldn’t be thought of as anything else. This is why people have so many issues with media such as Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why.
It is understandable that someone might think someone’s death had an impact on them to deal with grief, but if you make it look intentional and not a coping method that is where I draw the line.
Many idiots on the internet have romanticized things like mental illness and other serious subjects, and make them seem like edgy personality traits. It is not bad to write characters with those serious subjects, but it is important to represent correctly. Fiction can spread stereotypes, and thanks to the internet nowadays it is easy to find out how to portray these subjects respectfully and correctly.
3: Your Ship Has No Flavor
Why does everyone think that two people hating each other is the equivalent of love? I can understand the I-hate-you-but-I-love-you dynamic, but how do people have a crippling enemies-to-lovers addiction?! This is the problem I have with the enemies to lovers trope. Yes, it can be executed well, but why do we think that enemies tearing each other apart to be romantic?
Now, that was my excuse to rant about tropes I don’t like, but people think that a ship that has no flavor is bad. This is similar to romanticization, but I want to talk about the absolutely unhealthy relationships.
First of all, healthy ships are still interesting. A lot of people can agree that adding flavor to situations are good ways to spice up your story, but saying that only unhealthy relationships are good is false. As with every relationship, they can have some rocky moments and be a good dynamic. Unhealthy relationships can be added to a story, but don’t make two characters who are obviously toxic for each other get together at the end of the story.
To successfully pull off an enemies to lovers story you need to make the audience believe that the two love interests are actually developing some kind of connection. You can’t just make it that a character all of a sudden loves their enemy. The webcomic The Doctors Are Out does a good job with the enemies to lovers trope by making the two characters have a developing relationship that makes sense. In fact, I don’t doubt that the likely love triangle will be bad.
4: If You Don’t Know, Don’t Write
“Hey, are you unsure of how to portray something like mental illness and gender dysphoria? No problem! Just don’t write about it! It’s not like the internet doesn’t exist!”
Now, this tip wouldn’t be so bad if the internet didn’t exist. Relatability is one of the things that make stories so interesting because we can see ourselves in a fictional world. That would also mean to portray something correctly you would probably have to experience it yourself. Voice actors use their own experiences to draw in the emotion of the dialogue to make the sound more believable. The same goes for authors.
You can find a lot of authors that use their own life experiences to be reflected in their work. That’s why studios will hire people from these different groups because they are the people who know these experiences the best.
I would let this slide, if you couldn’t do your own research. With the internet nowadays you can easily find sources that can tell you about certain topics and people who have shared their own experiences.
In my opinion, it is better to have no representation than representation that is misportrayed.
As the media has progressed in the years diversity has been a lot more common. Diversity is important because it shows respect to everyone that is reading and it normalizes people of different groups as they should be. Many people use media as escapism, but when people don’t see people who are relatable to them it defeats the point. That’s why including groups of people of different races, religion, sexual orientation, gender, body types, and et cetera is important. It is also important to portray it correctly.
If you know what J.K. Rowling has been up to lately, I think both of us can agree we need to cancel her. J.K. Rowling has made many claims about characters from Harry Potter after all of the books and movies confirmed her wrong. For example, Hermione Granger being black and Dumbledore and Grindelwald having an intense sexual relationship. Rowling made these claims to gain more readers by seeming inclusive, and we can’t forget how transphobic she is. Another problem is that no one asked for this, but years later after there have been literally eight movies confirming how the characters are portrayed in the book she makes these claims to seem a lot more inclusive than she actually is.
Obviously, this is a bad way of adding representation. Rowling is probably one of the few modern days examples of trying to add representation to an already existing work. Yes, making changes to stories can be tiring, but changing a character’s race is not that hard. Queerbaiting and tactics such as that are absolute no nos because it is just trying to lure more viewers.
Yes, I know the fear that you accidentally misportrayed something in your work, but you can literally research on the internet how to do this correctly. I am cisgender and have never expeierenced gender dysphoria, but that doesn’t stop me from adding transgender characters into my works.
Researching can also help you avoid repeating stereotypes. It is okay to make a certain character a bit of a stereotype, but it is a problem when it is recurring in characters of the same group. People of different groups should be normalized in your work because they are normal people who deserve to be treated equally.
5: Every Villain Must Be Complicated
Now this tip isn’t so bad. Yes, villains can be interesting and complex, but not all villains have to be misunderstood creatures. A villain is a bad person, so of course they will be bad.
The difference between a villain who is evil because they are evil and a villain who is evil because they like to be evil is that the second villain has some kind of motive while the other is just evil because of plot convenience.
One villain from a series I am writing, Loki, is evil because he is built off of negative emotions. He is a tokrei which is a creature created from negative emotions, usually from the dead. Hitoshi Nakajima, Loki’s vessel, is a demon which is a tokrei trapped in a humanoid body, and because of his genetics Hitoshi’s tokrei is intelligent and has much more control. Loki lives inside of Hitoshi, but since he had been ignored for so long he got bitter and decided to start causing trouble for Hitoshi.
That’s it.
That is why he did a lot of bad things.
He was being ignored.
That doesn’t make Loki an uninteresting villain. He plays a big role in Hitoshi’s character arc as an antagonist because Loki is what Hitoshi hates most about himself. There is no further motive behind Loki since he doesn’t need it to have an active role in Hitoshi’s arc.
Heck, some characters barely have a motive for just about anything. Osamu Dazai from Bungou Stray Dogs wants to die because he doesn’t see a point in living, but he saves himself because he doesn’t want to experience pain and he wants to die with a beautiful woman. Dazai also joined the Armed Detective Agency because Oda told him to. Ango turned out to be a traitor and Oda was about to die, so he had nothing left. Oda told him that if good and bad truly meant nothing to him then he should go defend people, so he can at least become a better person. There was no internal conflict inside of Dazai, he is just a character with barely any motive, yet he is still interesting and a fan favorite.
Execution is important too, so that the villain can be interesting. The Homunculi from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are evil because they follow Father and his motives. They have the same morals as him and he basically treated them like his own children. They are still interesting since they clash with the protagonists’ morals and since they are the embodiments of the seven deadly sins it is interesting to see how each of their personalities contradict each other.
6. Wing It
“What’s better than making up your character on the go? It’s not like you can preplan a character or your story!”
I’ll admit, I have been a victim to this. Most of the time when I started a book a few years ago I would have an image of how I want my character to be like, but it took me a while to realize that I don’t actually stick to that. That doesn’t mean it won’t take a long time to perfect a character. Believe me, it took me three years to be satisfied with one of my protagonists. But, just like stories, making it up as you go will mess a few things up.
Characters have multiple layers and should be complicated, and there’s a pretty easy way to avoid this. The first thing to do is figure out their goal and morals. A goal and morals can say a lot about a character, so try and determine what they want.
And, as mentioned before, winging it for a story will make it bland. You should have some kind of skeleton like how certain important events will connect. How is the story going to end? How is it going to start? What drives the story?
But it might be more of your nature to go off free when writing. Yes, I can understand that because believe me, I have tried being organized and it took me months to realize it wouldn’t work for me. That doesn’t mean the whole winging-it should be ignored because to create something you do need a starting point.
7. Feminine Stuff Is Bad
This kind of falls into the category of female characters. I will admit, it is hard to write female characters sometimes, and I am a literal cisgender girl. Not only is it hard to write them, there is also a thing where any character that is feminine is bad. I get that probably all of us have gone through an emo phase, but what’s so bad about making a character like pink? I think the reason why people think that feminine characters are bad is because it is some kind of weakness or it is not cool.
I get that you might not be so feminine yourself, but what is “not cool” about being feminine? Is it because all of your characters are peppy cheerleaders? If you define feminism in character terms that would mean a character who is girly; example, someone’s favorite color is pink and they wear skirts. Characters are meant to be diverse, so what’s wrong with making someone a bit girly?
The other reason why I think people look at feminism in a bad way is because it shows weakness. I mean, many people have heard a little boy being told that boys don’t cry, but barely anyone has told that to girls. Is it because for a long time female characters were often the damsel in distress with a big strong man being their savior? Even if being feminine is a weakness, so what? The reason why characters are strong is because they overcome their fears and weaknesses, so even if being feminine is a weakness wouldn’t that be a good way to write a strong character?
Obviously, being feminine is not bad and certainly not a weakness, so do what you want with your character. Just don’t make it illegal.
This also falls into the whole male gaze and feminine gaze situation. The inclusivity of women in the entertainment industry is important, and I am not the right person to be talking about this subject. So try going to the internet to research about this topic and how to represent women correctly.
8. Backstories Here, Backstories There, Backstories Everywhere!
I love backstory, but I will not lie, prequels kind of suck. It is one thing to write a sequel, but another to write a prequel.
Obviously, when writing a character, the backstory is important. Backstory shows us what kind of character they are and what led them up to the point they are now, but people will say that backstory is essential. Now, if you couldn’t catch my sarcastic title, a backstory isn’t all that defies a character. A character can be just as interesting with or without a backstory, depending on who they are.
A recent character of mine has been given the spotlight for an arc. Alex Arvage, your formulaic Kei Tsukishima, is a character where his backstory is not necessary. Alex is mostly an average young student with a personality and hobby, but Alex finally gets the attention he deserves in the H.H.Holmes’s Wonderland arc during Meg’s side of the story.
The student council president turns out to be a tokrei which is revealed when he gathers random people to participate in death games in a pocket dimension he calls H.H. Holmes’s Wonderland. The dimension is named after the real life serial killer H.H. Holmes, but a serial killer is the least of the characters’ worries. With over 100 people fighting to be the few lucky survivors of the hellscape everyone is the others worst enemy.
Unfortunately for our characters, Meg and Alex, they are forced to join. In this arc we get to see a more villainous side of Alex. Basically, he went from salty salt to the whole Pacific ocean. Alex is merciless and is completely focused on surviving. Alex will manipulate people, steal, and play dirty to get his way at any means. He knows that there is no victimless solution, so he doesn’t dwell on the people who are meant to die. This opposes Meg’s morals and her believing that all of them can beat the games without bloodshed. We get to see these two characters clash with their ongoing battle of survival and ideals. Spoiler alert, but during this entire arc we do not see flashbacks of Alex’s childhood that might’ve made him this cold antihero. That’s because Alex never needed a backstory to shape him into who he is; Alex is Alex and the way he thinks is because he uses logic over emotions. He is just acting on his own beliefs that don’t need a backstory to back it up. In fact, that’s kind of the point of his character. He’s average. He is just a guy who has a personality and surprisingly quite useful considering that special abilities are often the dominating trait while Alex has a useless one for murder games.
I would recommend showing a character’s backstory if it is necessary for the readers or it just makes narrative sense. Just, there’s a reason why background characters are background characters.
9. Said is Dead, Never Use But and And To Start A Sentence, and No Adverbs
This is more on the grammatical side of writing a story. You’ve probably heard this during your class throughout school, but a narrative story honestly doesn’t need to do that. Fictional stories are meant to be told, so they are usually told in thoughts like speech. A story should have its own flavor because it is being told to you by the narrator. Of course, using common grammar rules like commas and capital letters are necessary, but your order of words and the ones you use are up to you.
My personal preference is third person, long monologues, and much visual expression while in some of my older writing, it was quite straightforward and told in first person. Just like art style, writing style varies from person to person.
10. If It’s Been Done, Don’t Do It
What is the difference between a trope and a cliche? A trope is something that is often used in writing while a cliche is a dead thing like the phrase “home sweet home”. Now, people have preferences when it comes to tropes, but sometimes these tropes can be pulled off good. Then why do people feel like you need to be completely original?
Yes, originality is good, but no idea is absolutely unique. To go completely original you would basically have to make a new genre. I have many magic systems because urban fantasy is my main genre for writing, but there are many similarities between them. The main similarity is that certain people are blessed with the ability to perform magic like magicians, wizards, witches, and etcetera. The other similarity that is there a lot is that it is genetic. Despite that all of my magic systems are quite different from each other. One of my magic systems is extremely scientific with much explanation in the story on how it works while another relies on genes for someone to be able to perform magic and is much more spiritual. Some people are blessed with the ability to perform some kind of magic while others have to rely on minerals. It really depends on species in another and isn’t explored so much while the newest generation of rulers can wield the powers of a crystal that each nation has.
Heck, sometimes inspiration feels like repeating tropes. I had a little tough spot once when I thought about how similar my stories were to others, and I was questioning how creative I actually was. Breaking news! Inspiration and doing something that has been done before is not that bad.
Here’s some useful advice! It is good for authors to study other works that are in the same category of their own work to help them improve their own storytelling. Other stories can help you figure out how certain stories like yours work and good ways to write them. I have been planning to watch certain shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender (I wasted my childhood on Dora The Explorer, okay), Wakfu, and She-Ra And The Princesses Of Power to help me with a recent graphic novel I have developed and a series of novels I am remaking. Avatar and Wakfu are historical fantasy stories that fit the story structure of the graphic novel while She-Ra is a sci-fi fantasy take-down-the-evil-empire story that helped me extend the universe of the novel series.
Multiple inspirations from vast genres is also helpful. A story of mine has many inspirations from different stories of different mediums. The OCA and detective stories were inspired by Bungou Stray Dogs, Meg’s side and all the supernatural stuff was inspired by Toilet-bound Hanako-kun, Emmet’s side was inspired by The Mandalorian, the semi tournament arc was inspired by Alice In Borderland, the timeskip sequel is inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and My Hero Academia, Hitoshi’s arc and the Loki quest were inspired by Jujutsu Kaisen, Dekcanor was inspired by Hogwarts from Harry Potter, Yackson and their shenanigans was inspired by Lalin’s Curse, Nathan’s trial and arc was inspired by Hamilton, and the list goes on and on.
You can even see this in other stories quite easily and it doesn’t even take away from the story. My Hero Academia’s creator, Kohei Horikoshi, has told the public that Star Wars was a main inspiration for his hit manga series. All Might is a hero past his prime and decides to train a kid to take down a big bad guy just like the original Star Wars trilogy. There is also obvious inspiration from western superhero culture like the DC comics.
So where was I going with this? I don’t know for the most part. Does that mean that converting a bad tip into a good one by proving it is bad? Probably. Also, mostly because I am pretty sure I should get a lot more sleep for people my age.
This was mostly an excuse for me to rant, but at least I was able to prove bad tips to be bad and mix in good tips… probably.