Twins in fiction?

Anyone else get just a bit irritated at how twins are treated in fiction?

Twins always either have the exact same personality, or total opposite ones. Like the girly girl versus the tomboy, that type of thing. It's kind of annoying, because in real life, twins are alike in some ways, different in others, we're in the middle of the scale usually.

And the way twins always do things together in stories. You barely ever get a story where it's only about the one twin, and the other twin stays at home, doing nothing, in the same way a normal brother or sister might be left to do. And being a twin is usually some sort of plot device too. It's just a bit annoying, haha.

What do you think? XD

I agree with you. I don't even know any twins in Real Life, and I have found most Twin Tropes inane before I even discovered this website.

My protagonist is actually an identical twin, but he plays more significance in the plot than his little brother does. They are both on the side of good- there's no good/evil dynamic here -they do not finish each other's sentences, they do not like coming to work and finding that they've dressed the same as the other, it is virtually impossible to mistake the two, and they also do not like each other.

In fact, making one twin good and the other one evil is pretty stupid on its own. '_'

You've got to cut the writers some slacks; AFAIK, twins aren't that common (I think I only saw one pair throughout my whole life) and the chances are, their perceptions on twins probably got wired by exposure to the media portrayal. How the whole thing start...I'm thinking that it has its root in Nazi's experiments on and obssession with twins.

IGNORE ME!!

I have some twins as protagonists. I think they act like regular siblings, they're fraternal twins though.

My protagonist is a twin, but it doesn't really factor into the plot, for the most part; it's just an aspect of his character. When I bring the other twin in, I try to write him as if he has Asperger Syndrome (partially basing him on myself, because I have it).

They're also borderline immortal, and by this point in their life, their DNA has changed enough that it's possible to tell them apart just by looking at them (every 100 splits or so, DNA mutates, so 2000 years of mutations has got to add up to something).

They occasionally finish each others' sentences, but not usually, and this has some basis in fact. They also have their own language, which is also true - it's called twin talk.

I only have one set of twins, and they're fraternal. Not to mention one becomes an Ascended Extra while the other is left behind in the recurring cast. While they have different skill sets, they also share personality traits, like their introvertness.

I have fraternal twins in one of my stories and yes, they are opposites (aside from the obvious). The relationship is kinda based on the one I have with my brother so its not a completely discredited trope.

One is a hothead, the other tries to keep her cool. One is smarter, the other is not as intellectually gifted. Both have a tendency to get in trouble,

edited 18th May '11 5:08:17 AM by AtomJames

My main character has twin sisters, but they're only very minor characters. They're also a little young to have completely defined personalities, but one is much more boisterous than the other.

Do clones count? Being a clone is essentially like being an identical twin.

In my case, most of the clones being the same is justified because they're reared to all be the same and to not have any individuality. Jack is an extremely rare case of individuality in a One Fifty-Four though he's not exactly a polar opposite. He is opposite in ideals to the typical One Fifty-Four, but he shares many of the idiosyncrasies, such as his gait, his tone of voice, the quiet, servile manner he may sometimes revert to, etc.

In an upcoming story I'm working on it features two pairs of twins and hence important to the plot. One of them are identical twin brothers with similar yet distinct personalities. (one of them is more talkative than the other, but it's not very obvious in the story unless you read some of their dialogues carefully.) One has powers, the other does not. The same thing applied to the other pair of twins in the story.

The other pair are fraternal twins, both of different gender. And likewise, the boy has powers while the girl only gets some of it after performing a ritual with her brother. The boy acts as if he's the older twin, even though she's older than him and can be protective of his sister, but nonetheless their relationship does not go into the disturbing territory known as twincest.

And speaking about twins in real life, I've met a pair of identical twin sisters and despite what you guys said in the earlier posts, they are pretty much alike and together almost all the time. Though they are not mischievous in any ways.

I'm thinking about making a two cyborg sisters/living supercomputer twins; one the information absorber. Shera can literally upload many petabytes worth of information in seconds directly (it sort of [[Horrible/Fanfic sucks]] to be her, while Sherry can organize the said data, deleting unnecessary (and NSFW) datas and organize.

edited 18th May '11 6:13:58 AM by dRoy

I have a pair of twins with one being separated when they were two. I don't know if I would say they are opposites per say but they are very different.

One is naive , idealistic and compassionate. He's something of a pacifist that only fights when someone he cares about might be in danger.

The other is blunt, kind of socially awkward, and rather stoic. He engages in violence occasionally because its what he was raised for.

edited 18th May '11 7:00:30 AM by JewelyJ

I have twins in one story who act almost exactly the same, because they have supernatural powers that give them Twin Telepathy as a side effect. However, all the other twins they've met are nothing like them. They're sort of a deliberate Deconstruction of Twin Tropes.

Oh, and I made them same-gender fraternal twins, because you almost never see that in fiction. Fictional twins are always either identical or opposite gender, but in reality identical twins, same-sex fraternal twins and opposite sex fraternal twins each make up a third of the twin population.

In another story, I have opposite sex fraternal twins, and they basically act like siblings who happen to be the same age. The story would work just about as well if I made them a year or two apart instead. They have some interesting interactions, but those have nothing to do with them being twins.

Because the only twins I'm writing are in fan fic, I don't really have much choice in their personalities. Though due to various Fan Wank, I suppose they're not really traditional twins, in that they separated after 'birth' and though they have entirely different bodies, minds, opinions, etc, they still apparently have one soul, though it's slowly separating. And they discover that they still have a bit of synchronization when one of them is being tortured.

Other than that... I think the only "twins" I had was clones. There was one guy who thought he just had incredible regenerating abilities, until he learns he acts more like a starfish and whatever was lost turns into another version of him. It turned out, there were a lot of hims running around because of this — and they were all being used as cannon fodder. Needless to say, the "original" is horrified because, you know, they're real people, too.

I created a twin brother-sister duo once for a Mutants And Masterminds game session. They weren't Half-Identical Twins, like Zan and Jayna (though referencing that was their Berserk Button); picture Kobra and Kira from Mortal Kombat, but in nonmatching Goth-style attire. Occasionally, they finished each other's sentences, but that was mainly 'cause they knew each other's trails of thought fairly well.

The only real weird thing about them was the fact that they occasionally acted like they were more than siblings. Eventually it was revealed that it was just an act to shock people.

edited 18th May '11 9:21:02 AM by RedneckRocker

If I decided to write about twins, I'd draw on me and Leradny. I exaggerate our differences most of the time, but in serious conversation I usually describe us as having different branches of the same interests.

Example: Lera and I are both artistic (in the literal "art" sense), but Lera likes making clothes while I like drawing. We both like writing, but my writing is usually straight Darker and Edgier High Fantasy or Urban Fantasy while hers is usually more dramedic sci-fi/fantasy blends. (Fanfiction-wise, my writing is 90% Darker and Edgier and Deconstruction while hers is more Slice of Life.)

Appearance-wise is where we tend to give off the Different as Night and Day vibe; my closet is 80% red or purple, I have about six pairs of jeans (two of them are red), almost nothing has patterns and the ones that do are either really subdued or the Design Student's Orgasm kind, and I wear very few dresses/skirts. Contrarily, Leradny wears lots of retro-fifties stuff in lots of floral patterns, white, and pastels. Topping it all off is that I like my hair short while Lera's hair is usually really long.

Weirdly enough, I'm the one who tends to be an Ill Girl because in the winter I get lots of colds and in the summer I get nosebleeds from the heat. (The latter's much less of a problem now that I make sure to keep hydrated, but I DO live in California.)

edited 20th May '11 10:54:27 AM by Sharysa

^ You forgot that I post a sentence every few seconds, while you manage a Wall of Text three or four times a day.

edited 18th May '11 12:48:18 PM by Leradny

I never knew you guys were twins. Huh.

That, too. I SUCK at fast-moving threads.

I have a thing about writing twins... a pair manage to work their way into nearly every story, and I can't seem to reign it in, so I really do need to learn to write them well. Currently, the pairs in my stories usually share some interests and personality aspects, but are not identical in it, are close but don't do everything together and have different sets of friends. Whether or not they're identical really seems to depend on whether they're the same gender. Also, if one twin is the main character, the other is rarely the second main character; sometimes, I suspect the main character only has a twin because I'm obsessed with them.

I should probably try harder with this.

Holy crap I knew Lera had a twin but not that she was a troper too!

Hi there Lera's sister.

I'm actually writing about twins as well, (and before anyone says "Everybody writes about twins" remember the thread title). I'm working very hard to make it seem like a regular sibling relationship, although I do plan on having some hints of "twin" connection later.

Can't remember the title, but one of the more interesting takes on this was in a book where one of the twins died early on, and the other one had to deal with his death as well as with other people's tendency to treat him as a Replacement Goldfish. (He described himself as "the undead twin" because of people's reactions to him.)

The only twins I have in my story are the Magnificent Bastard and his brother who is a Posthumous Character.

OK, this thread is making me feel better about it, hahahaha. XD

It's good seeing different ways of writing about twins, not the same old way.

What do you think about the book Nightrise? I think the twins have different personalities, though with one of them absent for most of the story, it's a little hard to tell. They are psychics, but there are lots of other psychics in the setting, and it is not explicitly because they are twins. But on the other hand they do get separated for most of the story, and the fact that they are twins is not a plot device.

edited 23rd May '11 6:48:32 PM by storyyeller