"Talking Like a Guy"

OK, so what is this character's goal and current occupation or lifestyle? Because I'm just not picking up on what it's supposed to be.

And the Batman thing was supposed to be a humorous way to show how an immature boy will typically try to live up to a kind of unattainable paragon of manliness, and that one of the best ways to figure out a boy's motivation is to try to figure out what kind of manliness he idolizes, or if he rejects traditional notions of manhood all together. Everyone took it very literally.

I got the feeling that he's supposed to be a kind of shonen-style Idiot Hero, or something similar, so he'd look up to a kind of Macho Martial Artist type but fail badly at doing so.

edited 13th Jun '11 4:02:55 PM by MatthewTheRaven

Wait, Nicky thinks he's a tough guy, right? He thinks he's well 'ard, or he wants to be seen that way? If so, then yeah, he's going to talk more like Batman. Or a gangsta/thug. Or a professional wrestler. Even if he's really a brat.

Are you going for bratty? Is bratty the intent?

It sounds bratty to me. How old is this Nicky anyway?

He's fourteen. Hrrm. Well, I may have taken that second portion out of context. He doesn't think he's a "tough guy" persay... He just... Doesn't like to lose? Maybe?

But yes, he IS supposed to be a shonen-style protagonist. More of a deconstruction of one though. You're supposed to find him annoying. And I like that idea. I just want to find the midpoint between annoying and intolerable

How do I put this . . . AHR often seems very young. Not childish per se, but she hasn't completely outgrown the speech patterns she considered embarrassing in this post. It might be helpful for her to mimic the speech patterns of other people around her.

(Or maybe just have Cakman write dialogue for certain characters. After all, Jack London himself had his wife write dialogue for female characters, after conceding that he was incapable of writing women.)

but I love AHR. she doesn't talk like she is young, i think... let me check out that link

Nicky doesn't sound girly, he sounds whiny and immature. The revisions don't make him sound more male; they make him sound more like a reasonable human being.

And it irritates me that so many people associate "whiny and immature" with "female".

Like male characters can't be "whiny and immature".

Mr. AHR tend to speak more maturely than me sometimes, especially in her critique mode. I can have a more serious tone to my posts if I choose to, but I like being loose.

^^ Yeah, but there's more than one type of whiny and immature. A 14 year old boy acting like Nicky would attract some very odd looks, I think. And probably get beaten up at school.

Yeah, it's a very feminine type of whiny in terms of diction, what with the cutesy extended syllables. I've never heard an immature boy talk that way, only immature girls.

I do indeed channel immature me when I write Nicky. I also take note of my brother's actions (age eleven, takes after me, but with more ANGERGRARANGER) and the actions of my classmates. As for when I write panels, I tend to channel stream of consciousness me, which is not so much immature, so much as me not trying to make sense.

So yes, Nicky was intentionally made to be whiny, immature, loud, grating, annoying, etcetera, etcetera.

That's one half of the equation.

The other half is what Nicky is based off of, which is essentially the archetype of Idiot Hero. I see poor social skills, loudness, immaturity, stubbornness in the lot of them, and I took them and tried to make them more consistent. Immaturity, coupled with stubbornness and an inability to read social situations pretty much means there is no "off" button that seems to be common in many shonen stories.

The main problem Cakkie has is, he doesn't want Nicky to become intolerable. That is all well and good, I know for a fact I strive for the same goal.

The issue on which we clash on, however, is how to go about it. He believes that removing the exaggerated syllables will make him more tolerable, whilst I believe it is missing the point of Nicky as a character, and that there has to be another way to make him more tolerable.

It's why I let him make this thread: to let us be able to see if Nicky's talking really came off as that feminine and thus breaking suspension of disbelief, or making him into something of a stereotype.

Or at least, that is how I interpreted it.

edited 13th Jun '11 5:40:31 PM by MrAHR

Well. That was... Much better than I ever put it.

I guess what I find a bit bewildering about Nicky is words like "ITTT-TUH", which is a trait I wouldn't expect to see from even an immature 14 year old boy. Without context, I'd probably have guessed that he was of primary school age, or even had some kind of developmental disorder. Otherwise I'd expect him to find speaking like that embarrassing.

edited 13th Jun '11 5:44:04 PM by BobbyG

Ahahah. That. That doesn't happen in any scene but that. It was me trying to emulate a hissing whisper yell. I try to fool with Realistic Diction Is Unrealistic, but it's very clearly a learning process

edited 13th Jun '11 5:45:15 PM by MrAHR

Ah. That makes more sense.

Otherwise, yeah, he suggests "bratty, whiny, bit of a sissy". If that's what you're going for, I think he's fine, though I don't know how patient I'd feel with such a character.*

Fascinating. What exactly was it, about him, that made you unable to tolerate Naruto?

edited 13th Jun '11 5:53:27 PM by MrAHR

He was too loud, too rude and too selfish. Even his voice grated on me.

I don't find him so bad now, but that's because I got used to him after watching more of the series, and all the time that I was properly following it, I liked Sasuke better because he seemed a bit saner and less whiny.

It was the fact that he was the central character that put me off so much. That was before I'd had much experience of unsympathetic protagonists, so initially, I was just like "We're supposed to sympathise with this guy? Seriously?"

Bobby G couldn't tolerate the first few episodes of Naruto, AHR. Believe it. She couldn't tolerate them one bit.

He, Cakkie.

I'm glad you find me so funny.

That's the thing. Loud, grating, annoying, stupid...why do I care about this person's story? My first reaction to a story's protagonist really shouldn't be 'OH GOD FUCKING DIE PLEASE' if you want me to be invested. There's no sympathy and no charm, so why bother?

I do understand that this is a deconstruction, but it's still a hurdle to overcome.

Well, that's the hurdle AHR is setting out to overcome, Mathew. And if she doesn't get it at first, well...

“The first draft of anything is shit”. Ernest Hemingway

I needed that quote, since my current draft isn't in a condition for criquting.

Not even the boys at my school with learning disabilities talk like this.

Not gonna say it again.