Writer's Block Daily

I am now in need of a beta reader.

What you got again?

Contest entry for the 8th TV Tropes writing contest, so I can't say much here. However, if you're not a judge and can keep secrets until the end of May, you can help me out.

I'm neither a judge nor a participant, so I can read and try to offer help. I can't, however, promise I will actually be of any help, since I don't have much experience critiquing short stories.

edited 29th Apr '13 5:59:06 AM by Khantalas

Well, I think we're even because I don't have much experience writing them.

Oh dear oh dear.

I write a seven page short story about someone who is depressed. Have carpool issues on the due date. Get to class 30 minutes late. Instructor won't accept it. Being as this is one of maybe three major assignments for this class I am now pretty goddamn depressed. Ugh.

I finally managed to create a writing blog.

I... wow, that really sucks, especially because it was because of carpool problems... is there any way you can wear the professor down?

Link?

I don't think so. He's a strict guy. My only chance to make up for this in the slightest is some sort of extra credit I'll have to look into. I'm just really burned because it wasn't easy to write my short story, and now he won't even look at it.

edited 30th Apr '13 12:10:46 PM by Ryuhza

D: -hugs- I'm so sorry...

I'm just worried that this is going to bleed into my attitude towards my other classes, which is hard to manage as is.

@Vyctorian: I wish you luck with your blog!

I'm thinking of printing this out and working on it by hand. Might be helpful in sorting it out, if everything is spread out in front of me.

Thanks.

Also for those who asked a link: http://awakenedinspiraltionwriting.blogspot.com

Why is it that the villain is almost always "serious"? That is, there never seem to be any villain equivalents to the wise-cracking, self-deprecating, pop-culture-savvy kind of hero (or the "Spider-Man archetype", as I think of it) - even when the villain has a sense of humor, they always seem to be taking things a little more seriously. I'd personally expect the opposite to be more likely.

edited 30th Apr '13 3:49:07 PM by nrjxll

I'm very sure there are villains like that if you look hard enough.

The Master comes to mind as a particularly delicious example, and... hell, speaking of which, there's the entire Evil Is Hammy trope.

edited 30th Apr '13 4:03:34 PM by KillerClowns

What about the Clown Prince of Crime?

Deadpool, when he is a villain.

Deathstroke mixes the too and is a serious snarky wiseass.

edited 30th Apr '13 4:24:24 PM by Vyctorian

I did put a "almost" qualifier in there. My point is that this seems to be primarily a characterization of heroes.

Mind you, as someone who believes the hero should be as entertaining as the villain, I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. I'm just curious why it exists.

edited 30th Apr '13 4:31:31 PM by nrjxll

Well super serious heroes do exist as well and for the longest time that was one of clear defining traits of a hero. Clean cut, stern and serious; like a soldier.

I have no research to back this up, so it's more a guess than anything but:

Then the 1960's happened, Spiderman shook up the archetype in fiction and reporting of the events the Vietnamese & Korean war shook up how we saw soldiers in media as a whole. To many the military were now the bad guys^, there were massive protests and I'd say an all time spike in anti-military attitudes and these those traits carried over in people's minds as they wrote fiction and bought fiction, maybe not the only factor toward this but I have feeling it contributed.

^ I don't hold this opinion myself.

edited 30th Apr '13 4:49:10 PM by Vyctorian

I think it's because the seriousness of the villain relates to the seriousness of the work.

Look at, say, the Joker: sure, he makes lots of black comedy, but his sociopathy keeps him from being funny in the same way that Spider-man is funny. The goofier the villain gets, the goofier the threat gets, and so the goofier the work gets. Why should we take the villain seriously if he doesn't take himself seriously?

That doesn't explain why the reverse doesn't apply to heroes, though. Hmm.

Because heroes prove themselves worthy when they defeat the villain. The more serious the villain defeated, the more worthy the heroes must be. Thus, in a work with a serious villain, the heroes can afford to be goofy.

I cant think of very many works with both comic heroes and comic villains at the same time, which were not outright parodies.

It could be that a serious villain has an otherness to them which makes them seem less human and there for more frightening. A hero who is serious still has the humanizing action of heroics, but when immoral and serious are placed together you start to get something very unsettling.

An aesop is emerging from my novel.

It seems to be that life is pointless.

I don't know what to make of it.

That's kind of a caricature of the real thing, though.