Author Appeal

Also, this is more of a personal obsession, but; shoving as many tropes as humanly possible.

Trench coats, Insanity, mind control, Geniuses, tripping and falling on someone, explosions, bad boy with unresolved feelings, split personalities, really these come up alot in my work, <3 love it anyway.

Everythings better with chocolate Sassy Black Woman Japanese Culture African American Culture/West African Culture Dogged Nice Guy Single Woman Seeks Good Man Classical Mythology Hyenas Furry based animated shows Asian Guys Bible Based stuff Shonen Anime/Manga tropes Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson Glasses Books

Not to mention 80's and 90's music plus R&B.

edited 28th Jun '11 9:48:52 PM by jazzflower14

Railguns, car chases, gun fu, protagonists who are either total badasses or almost completely normal, Nothing Is Scarier in horror, subverting tropes.

Black and Grey Morality, Insanity, Idealism Vs Cynicism. I like stories where you have no idea who will live and forces the characters to make tough decisions. I think reading a lot of Warhammer 40K has something to do with this.

Deconstruction, Rousseau Was Right under a nice coating of healthy cynicism, warfare, and individuals associated thereof, Speculative Fiction and the social ramifications of it, and flight of all variants. Also, Humongous Mecha of a Gundamn/Armored Core variety, with the tons of More Dakka and Macross Missile Massacre associated with that.

Also, there will be an Anti-Hero or ten. No exceptions.

Female characters driven by logic rather than emotion. A good deal of my works have a woman in the role of The Spock.

I like to use villainous motifs such as snakes, scars, black uniforms, and alternative lifestyles for the heroes. Heroes in these stories typically are up against a Villain with Good Publicity.

I've used this setup twice: Male Chessmaster Big Bad with female Complete Monster Dragon.

god mode sues.

ive made an entire series revolving around

• someone who turns people into god mode sues,
• a god mode sue so sueish she's considered an eldritch abomination by the actual eldritch abominations that run the universe, and in fact is stronger than them
• the end of the world caused BY the aforementioned god of all god mode sues.
• various god mode sues trying to resolve their current situation (avoid eternal nothingness, find their wife and suffer in eternal nothingness together, avoid eternal nothingness and get revenge on the one who put them there, ect.)

so yeah. i do enjoy employing god mode sues. and making them suffer.

edited 12th Jul '11 3:33:31 PM by Tarsen

I wonder if I ever make a show, there will be a character who pretty much plays with a Play doh equivalent and multiple playsets and tools, just to vent out my childish and colorful fantasies

And other tuff either Author Appeal or stuff I find interesting in other shows:

Monster of the Week

a Carrie type of Downer Ending or something, mainly cuz its just what would happen after a massacre

The Reveal that the a kid is the perpetrator/ evil one, shocking the adult protagonists like Danny Murphy

the not so psycho, more cowardly, less assertive, a bit more positive sociopath, maybe

apparently, children bieng beaten up by the heroes ala The Powerpuff Girls and My Life As A Teenage Robot

Take That!, oh so very much

The stories I think up can range from fluffy love comedies to supervillain black comedies to crapsack-world gorn-tastic scenarios so it's hard to find a commonality. Most of my stories however do involve at least one Batman/Xanatos Gambit.

edited 30th Dec '12 8:42:41 AM by fillerdude

• It seems I have a thing for blond protagonists with a lot of love interests.
• Anime references. By the truckload.
• humiliating people who are involved in typical cliques.
• atypical good guys and bad guys.
• fanservice for all.

I seem to have a penchant for naive but calculating (usually) male SupportingProtagonists and outlandish, complex women with contrasting modes of behaviour.

Also AntiVillains, themes of hope and bitterness, crushing imbalances in power, and adorably awkward nerd romances. Good lord, those.

I do hate Author Appeal though especially when it's so transparent, so I think in my next story I'll have to make a stronger effort to avert it.

edited 5th Jan '13 3:29:49 AM by Kesteven

• Girly men and manly girls. Camp Straight characters and Straight Gay ones. And for some reason, girls who act like male Camp Gay stereotypes.
• Open endings and Maybe Ever After-s. Endings where everything's technically all right but everyone still has a reason to feel sad.
• Bizarre THINGS that break the laws of physics and also people's brains. Time Travel shenanigans that also break brains and laws of physics, but for entirely different reasons.
• and probably some other stuff that I can't think of right now. Yeah.

Tentacle hair, armblades, and giant, butch women.

Sarcasm. Lots and lots of sarcasm.

Sharp-tongued, intimidating characters paired (romantically or otherwise) with gentle, easy-going characters.

Clones, duplicates, and doppelgangers.

Happily Married couples who hardly ever fight.

Loads And Loads Of Characters

All Love Is Unrequited

Lemony Narrator

All three lies on the middle between the line that separates intentional and unintentional.

Seinfeldian Conversation Very much intentional and a favorite trope of mine, however inappropriate and off-timed it is.

...Yup, that's about it.

edited 7th Jan '13 9:36:17 AM by danna45

Just about every work I have ever written has featured a loquacious major character in a Nice Suit. I don't even do it consciously half the time; they invariably find their way into the narrative in one way or the other. I suppose that's the true mark of Author Appeal, after all!

In addition: Lovingly detailed descriptions of scenery and especially food, frequent internal monologues from the protagonist, rather melodramatic chapter endings, and a predisposition to the idealistic side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism.

My protagonists are, however, notable for not having many recurring factors in common, if any. Whenever I set out to create a new main character, making him or her very unlike the last one is always a primary goal. I always write in third-person? Very well, this chap will narrate the whole story. All of my protagonists are male? Very well, this one is a seventeen-year-old girl. And so forth.

In my novel in the works, I mention and describe the MC's car, which will probably only appear in that chapter, simply because I love 1970s Dodge Chargers. It's worth noting that in that scene, probably the only one with a radio, that he listens to 80s rock music. The first half of that chapter is practically author appeal.

The chapters are almost all going to be named after song titles or lines from songs, mostly from the eighties. Trench coats will appear, regardless of how little sense it makes.

Heck, the whole scenario is author appeal once I think about it. The setting is filled with airships, cowboy style firearms alongside sabers and swords, which are also right next to djinn trapped in lamps and Centuars, fauns and griffins... Yeah, it's fun :)

Oh, and...

• Most of the time, its girls fawning over a boy, rather than boys fawning over a girl.
• Having a protagonist who is good looking, but lacking in understanding of why people are going for him. (mostly New Dawn)
• Weird powers that require a good deal of explanation.
• Magi-babble explaining a recent, very strange event. (most triumphant example: "the twin arrays must have drawn upon the same mana reserve, resulting in a dual cause drawing induced explosion that scrambled the local mana reserves and resulted in permanent stagnation for the next six years.")
• Bizarre Kudzu Plot's that get started in one book, and then are finished up in the next...only to open a bunch more plot points.
• Lots of snark from the protagonists. Heck, even from the antagonists!
• Acceptable Political Targets / Lifestyle Targets played with. If there is a jock mentioned, something magical and harmful will be happening to him in the near future. Same goes for right wing politicians, jerkass-ish cops, and celebrities.
• Vague and cryptic term drops that, even at the end of the book, might well make no sense.

Battle scenes, ridiculous fighting gear and skills, alien worlds, science fantasy and battle couples.

I've purged a lot of my Author Appeal, especially of the sexual variety, with fire to avoid irritating, boring, or possibly even disgusting potential fans. Trust me, it's for the best — I'd probably die of embarrassment if some of my earliest rough drafts ever became public. But plenty of the things I love most still remain^note Seinfeldian Conversations, powers earned through great effort or scientific advancement instead of fortunate genetics or the whims of fate, casual nudity, brutal and often short fight scenes, hardened idealists, entertaining jerks, aversions of Fantasy Counterpart Culture, nature as a thing that will fuck you up, a very strong allegiance to Enlightenment, and so much snark. I suspect if I continue this writing thing for a long time, a large amount of it will become a part of whatever Signature Style I develop.

edited 8th Jan '13 4:27:52 PM by KillerClowns

Strange occurrences that really don't get any good explanation. Often of the magical-realism variety. Often they don't even lend to good symbolistic interpretation.

Here's a couple more I thought of...

• Crossdressing. For both genders. Really don't know how I forgot this one.
• Mythical creatures taking on human or humanoid forms.
• If my Pokemon plotbunnies are anything to go by, taking generous liberties with source material.

For me:

• Ensemble casts
• Opposites Attract relationships
• Ho Yay and Les Yay subtext (and basically any other kind of Ship Tease)
• Real Men Wear Pink and other varieties of non-traditional gender expression
• Neuro-atypical characters
• Picking characters' birthdays using the Western Zodiac
• Action girls
• Deadpan Snarker characters
• Intellectual characters
• Characters often end up involving cross dressing at some point or another
• Does This Remind You of Anything?
• Heavily developed religions
• Agnostic characters
• Dark Is Not Evil Light Is Not Good
• Evil Is Sexy

• Badass Normal
• Reasonable Authority Figure
• Elites Are More Glamorous