Author Appeal

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ZOMBIES!

Don't say the Z word!

• Generation Gaps: I honestly think this is easily the most interesting thing to write about.
• Badasses: Not neccesarily the gun totting or saving the world kind. I like when normal people do cool things.
• Sliding Scales: Sometis the funniest things in life after the most horrible. Or vice versa.
• Meta: I just love it.
• Superheroes: Not joking when I say this, but I could easily devote my life to writing bout thse guys.
• Two Man Teams: Again, not just the really cool stuff, but normal people too. Whether their friends, siblings, cousins etc, they are bound to find their way in. Guess I was just a Thompson Twins fan.
• Alan Moore/Niel Gaiman/Steve Spielburg etc: These guys are my idols and I love referencing them.
• Homages and Shout Outs: This even goes into Reference Overdose territory. I just like to do it, and I love to see if people can spot them all.

• The Quiet One. I like my main characters to be people of action, not speeches.
• Byronic Hero. I also like my main characters to be extremely fucked up, but well aware of it and willing to improve.
• Most of the tropes in the extreme emotions like Screaming Warrior, Berserker Tears or Slasher Smile.

• Roaring Rampage of Revenge
• HipHop - I tend to include A LOT of references in my writing. Several of my original characters are heavily inspired by Eminem, MFDOOM, and Rakim, except with much more Complete Monster and Eldritch Abomination.
• Gratuitous Semitic Languages - Both ancient and modern.
• Dual Wielding
• Gun Porn
• World of Badass
• Career Killers

I'm afraid I don't have too many consistent elements, because my stories differ in almost everything :P. Genre, characters, tone, mood, idealism/cynicism... EVERYTHING (almost *cough*). It gets hard to keep track of when I start developing 7+ ideas at once. But I always like subverting things that everyone else seems to like. I write Authority figures turning out to be not-so-bad after all. Members of the opposite sex meeting and *not* falling in love. Characters that *don't* have a dark past or a stubborn, individualistic attitude. Or better yet, main characters that are genuinely unintelligent and, on the surface, kinda uncool. But there is always Snark.

Not gonna lie, that one's pretty hard to let go.

edited 3rd Jan '11 3:33:17 PM by Boredknight

Most of my story characters include, among the following:

• A Cloud Cuckoolander male lead.
• His best friend, a Deadpan Snarker, who usually doubles as the groups Insufferable Genius.
• A Naive Every Girl with hidden insecurities.
• A possessive Tomboy, who usually has a...complicated relationship with the Insufferable Genius.
• A stoic, usually silent member who just sort of observes.
• A [1] [2] who loves to dress up, all lolita style.

• Greyand Grey Morality
• Action Girl
• Genki Girl
• Darkand Troubled Past
• Ho Ya, though not to the extent that Everyone Is Bi
• Nice Guy
• The Stoic
• The Fettered (usually versus The Unfettered)
• Badass Bookworm
• Worldof Badass
• Roaring Rampageof Revenge
• Bewarethe Nice Ones

Those are the ones I tend to use the most, though I try to avoid having them all together. Beware the Nice Ones always worms it's way in though and so does Action Girl.

An oddly specific one: Girls who manage to fight on despite losing some limbs.

Improvised Weapons, firearms, military hardware, Badass Bookworm.

That kind of says it all.

edited 3rd Jan '11 10:17:45 PM by DialgaX

Let's see...

• I'm a huge advocate of the importance of The Hero's Journey, so while I don't make my plots follow it note by note, I reference it a lot.

• On that note, one of my pet ideas is the role that hero figures have in society. I play around with the notion of heroism- what it means, how it has evolved, how the modern world creates its own 'heroes' out of celebrities, etc. I even make this concept part of the plot sometimes.

• Mythology. Lots of it.

• I love referencing other works of fiction, to the point where one of my works is more or less a Massive Multiplayer Crossover despite the fact that pretty much the entire cast consists of original characters. This is all Philip Jose Farmer's fault.

• As a feminist, my female characters tend to be just as badass, if not more, than my male characters.

• I'm pretty much in love with the Rule of Cool.

• History jokes are common, especially when paired with fictional allusions. I often mix history and fiction together to see what I get.

• My main characters tend to be geniuses, or at least nerds.

• My personal philosophy is exactly halfway between idealism and cynicism, and my stories reflect that. Endings are almost always happy, but it generally takes a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get there. Many humans are bastards, but there's a definite good side to human nature. Since two of my influences are Gandhi and Machiavelli, it gets a little weird.

• My characters and I really don't see eye-to-eye regarding the use of force. I myself am a pacifist by nature, but my creations tend to be more than willing to blow shit up to get things done.

• One theme that I think about is that the institution of government is a positive thing, but that politics are bad. I've pretty much lost all faith in politics, but I still believe that government can be good.

• International cooperation is generally viewed as a good thing, which is only natural given my global upbringing. This sometimes leads to self-deprecating humour on my part, since I support the idea of the United Nations, even though I know that the actual organization is utterly useless.

badass longhair and Took a Level in Badass. Yum.

-Bricks are the preferred throwing weapon of Kaxen Land.

-Little boys always wear shorts and long socks.

-Uniforms or suits, one of the two will feature prominently in the casts' outfits.

-The main character and his/her best friend or partner is always some form of Odd Couple usually of the outgoing perky loony and the introverted pessimistic person variety.

-No romance subplots ever (strangely, romance is rarely mentioned even in stories where a fiancee's existence is mentioned)

-Organized Crime is always inexplicably incredibly powerful... even when it is run by a unicorn.

edited 9th Jan '11 2:10:30 PM by Kaxen

These themes reappear in my written work and my daydreamed work (I have a lot of useless time on my hands).

• I tend to give my Manipulative Bastard a Broken Bird as a Morality Pet.
• Expect a lot of My Girl Is Not a Slut. I like when guys defend a girl's honour.
• Rather than having a straight up theif character I make them loansharks/usurers in High Fantasy settings and PlayfulHackers is Urban Fantasy.
• I have difficulty writing a female lead without pairing her with a male, even non-romantically, as I find young females difficult to write. Older girls (18+) I have little problem with.
• Cake Eaters also tend to rear their heads at an alarming level especially in The Charmer demographic.
• My characters are usually Above the Influence, Happily Married, Asexuality, Celibate Hero, or undergoing Unresolved Sexual Tension. Usually justified by the fact that my High Fantasy universes are based off of the 1600s.
• My villains also tend to like instigating Foe Yay, even with the gender they don't prefer.
• Also, I like to play Manipulative Bastard / The Charmer villains off against The Fool / Serial Romeo heroes with the former being Above the Influence with an Urban Legend Love Life. It usually makes for some pretty good insults against the heroes... especially if the villain is involved with a female relative of the hero.

edited 9th Jan '11 5:32:13 PM by StolenByFaeries

Tough, snarky women, preferably with a bit of a punk or indie kind of vibe to them. I don't know why but I find girls like this attractive, and many female characters I think up fit this mold. I also give occasional shout outs to works I like, and take thats to works I don't. All in all I think I'm fairly good about keeping my Author Appeal in check.

EDIT: Minor rephrasing and clarification.

edited 9th Jan '11 5:46:50 PM by tilitzd

Snark. Lots of it.

Other than that...

• Main characters are generally male.
• There's almost always someone with very little social skills, because I feed off of awkward moments.
• On the other end of the spectrum, there's usually someone around who's good with people.
• Fun with accents.
• Someone, somewhere, will make a pun.
• There is never a situation where the morals run black and white.
• Dick jokes, black humour, and if there's not a character with a dirty mouth or mind... well, it's very rare. Because I'm classy, damn it!

My writing has almost no consistent elements apart from style, but there are some things that seem to recur often enough to be considered. An increasing number of female protagonists despite gender being purely aesthetic. A villainous character I like far too much for his own good. Lots and lots and lots and lots of casual worldbuilding, sometimes to Kudzu Plot levels. I like narrative snark a lot, but am not that good at writing it.

I also write a fair bit of classical music. Therein, fugues and hidden variation forms are fairly commonplace, and I also have a fair bit of affinity for the clarinet family. I like abrupt endings that cut off seemingly in the middle of a phrase, but that's the kind of thing that can't really be overused.

The main character ALWAYS has a brother. Always. I do this because it makes for great plot twists and story.

Sharp Dressed Men (and Women)

Also, in almost every fight, the protagonists are significantly weaker and less skilled then their opponents. and need to out think, out wit and out cheat their enemies.

Hopefully not too much of a Thread Necro, but I figured 'twere better to put this in an existing thread than to start a new identical one.

The Mary Sue thread got me thinking of the amount of Author Appeal I stick in my various works and proposed works, be they stories or RPG campaigns:

Pagans. I actually like to have a wide range of religious views represented in my works.

Polyamory.

Capable, multi-talented people. Jacks/Jills of All Trades and people who have skills and interests outside their jobs. Expect at least one to be better at something than they are at their job (it may not be possible to get a job using that skill and they've fallen back on secondary skills to put food on the table.)

Smokers. Especially female smokers.

Goths, Punks and other people with outlandish attire - I'm not a goth or punk myself but I do like their style.

Firearms, especially Walther pistols - usually P-38 or P99.

Fish-out-of-water situations.

Puns and other forms of wordplay.

Historical enactors or recreationists - members of SCA, Historical European Martial Arts, black powder clubs etc.

Some form of underlying principle that forms a subtle Aesop - be it "hope prevails", "tolerance", "family" or whatever. I try not to make them too Anvilicious.

For me it's always been Action Girls, Les Yay (if not outright Girls' Love) and Fantasy Kitchen Sink.

There's a lot of stuff that recurringly shows up, even if I don't really intend to put it there.

• Black haired protagonists, usually female and slender.
• the color black in general really.
• characters with large or wide-brimmed hats
• vigilantes, usually of the "batshit insane" variety
• batshit characters in general.
• music references/jokes that few people but me will get
• fictionalization of obscure real life people (a recent example would be Sterling "Jandek" Smith)
• After the End scenarios, usually ones that can be recovered from.
• Things that are two things at once. On a physical or symbolic (or both) level.
• alliteration/assonance
• internal rhyme (I actually try to remove this, I think it looks tacky)
• singular or otherwise very few occurrences of magical or supernatural phenomenon in an otherwise totally mundane story.
• protagonists who live in/around Carbon-Lehigh, PA. Or in/around Ocean City, Maryland. Or a fictionalized version thereof.
• characters who are minor royalty
• characters who are sadists, masochists, or both. Not necessarily of a sexual variety.
• irredeemable Complete Monsters, the worse they are, the better, it seems.
• stories whose plots make no real sense. Eg. A girl and her dog being trapped in a house for over 100 years with a beast and neither aging a day.
• vaguely described things.

Take thats against the following happen a lot as well.

• People who take certain figures in hip-hop, mainly Micheal Franti, but also Chuck D, entirely too seriously.
• Nietzsche wannabes and similar straw nihilist characters.
• Manipulative Bastards, generally by not being as manipulative as they think they are. I loathe this trope.
• Armchair survivalists. No sir, you could not survive a zombie apocalypse, shut the fuck up.
• Several local authority figures, most notably Brian Doll, who is the mayor of my hometown.

edited 22nd Apr '11 11:40:20 PM by SpainSun

• I Like Swords
• Protagonists and heroes that fear the damage their potential could do. Sometimes their inability to perform a heroic action isn't just down to mortal or social fear, but the fear of putting the blood (if metaphorical) on their hands.
• Villains are often the result of the above fears not being heeded.
• I have a huge soft spot for sappy hero speeches. I try not to use them, but sometimes they make it as a Pre Ass Kicking One Liner after a Hannibal Lecture.

Let's see...

• Alternate History
  • (Often overlaps with Wishfulfillment.)
  • The Swedish Empire, or a FantasyCounterpartCulture thereof, appears quite often as a major power.
• Wolves. Oh my, they are everywhere...
• Folklore. Oh how I love this.
• History.
• CelibateHero.
  • Often seems to overlap with Asexuality.
• Sweden.
• British Isles.
• Fantasy.

Let 's see.

• Action Girl
• After the End
• Amazonian Beauty
• The Berserker
• Black-and-Grey Morality / Evil Versus Evil
• Complete Monster
• Crapsack World (immutable)
• Deconstruction / Reality Ensues
• Earn Your Happy Ending / Pyrrhic Victory
• Fan Disservice
• Gorn
• Rated M for Manly
• Space Marine
• World of Badass
• World of Ham

I also like my main characters to be full grown adults who have years of experience and the emotional maturity to face the horrors my Crapsack World has to offer them.

edited 23rd Apr '11 7:28:56 AM by AdeptusAlpharius