Your Author Appeal/Creator Thumbprint

I know that the practice of asterisking out words existed at the time, because Charlotte Brontë criticised it on the basis that anyone who was likely to be offended would still know what word you meant anyway.

Cursing is as much as an art form as prose is. It should not be avoided for the sake of avoiding it, or used for the sake of using it. It needs to be used properly.

This like a boss.

I was always of the same opinion myself.

Also, Frederick Douglass's Narrative had the words "damn bitch" written as "d—n b—-h" or some such, so including words but blocking them out happened in the 19th century.

edited 6th Jun '11 12:05:59 PM by annebeeche

Ta da!

Apparently, it seems like I like an episodic structure combined with an underlying arc, since I don't really like Continuity Creep that much, nor Cerebus Syndrome.

Maids.

Alternative Rock.

High Schoolers.

the Christmas Cake option.

I avoid making one dimensdional badasses or nay 'badass' character unless it is a cliche storm.

Hmmm. Well, some recurring things that have cropped up in my works are:

• Abuse of parenthetical asides
• Lots and lots of Canon Fodder, intended less as sequel hooks or fanon bait then to give the setting some verisimilitude and show that the end of the plot is not the end of the story
• Choose Your Own Aesop, or no aesops at all - I don't like didactic writing
• Cryptic Background References, almost all of which I have an explanation for, of which very few explanations will appear in the text
• Cryptic Conversations
• Commonly averting Like Reality, Unless Noted - the masquerade will usually be broken before the end of the work, superheroes will make a significant difference to the world, et cetera.
• A decided tilt towards the Enlightenment end of the Romanticism Versus Enlightenment scale
• Everyone is Genre Savvy
• Hard science
• Info Dumps
• Fairly large-scale plots
• Loads And Loads Of Characters, including multiple viewpoint characters
• Mad Scientists and/or Bond Villain types - at the very least name-dropped, if not actually appearing in the story.
• Some focus on or use of military elements
• A Morality Kitchen Sink, though that's because it's what I feel the real world is like
• No Kid Heroes, ever - I seriously dislike that trope.
• At least one Psycho for Hire type villain
• Frequent use of Reality Ensues
• Very little romance, but rarely none whatsoever
• World of Badass (usually)
• World of Snark (always)

edited 6th Jun '11 4:13:45 PM by nrjxll

That's something I can agree with. I do like to put in some sort of message/theme, but I try to make it ambiguous, and not to make it anvilicious or ridiculously specific.

-cracks knuckles-Okay let's get this done.

-Sociopaths- I do not know why but I find them fascinating. A story of mine will almost always feature a sociopath somewhere.

-Averted Double Standards- I always try to avert double standards likes The Unfair Sex and such

-Adorkable boys-.....I'm a girl. This should go without explanation

-Albinos-usually heroic ones

Deconstructor Fleet - I keep vearign towards this nowadays because it is almost the only way to vent some frustration. However, there are times where I ask why a trope works that way and bring thigns to their logical conclusion. While I may never be from bias (who isn't), at least I could try figure whya trope works that way.

Myth - I really enjoy Greek Myth, I hope its themes and convetions in my work one day.

Whoops, forgot averted Double Standards myself.

Also, this may not count, but I don't use the Rule of Cool as its own justification - I always make sure things I find cool have an in-universe justification rather than being there "because they're cool". Same holds for all the other Rule Of Whatever tropes (except the Rule of Funny in comedies), but they crop up much less frequently.

Edit again: Oh, and I'm big on Earn Your Happy Ending.

edited 6th Jun '11 5:45:14 PM by nrjxll

Yeah, I'm totally the opposite of that :P. I tend to subvert or at least deconstruct and reconstruct be yourself to hell and back, and I usually end up with slightly-massochistic Determinator protagonists who do what they do because they're shit at it and enjoy the challenge. Probably says weird things about my psyche, really, but I figure if everyone's stories were exactly the same the world would be rather boring.

Uh, let's see...
my main characters all have a Dark and Troubled Past, Earn Your Happy Ending is in full effect...

But most importantly, my main characters all end up crying A LOT (probably more than is healthy), probably because...um...crying is difficult and complicated for me in real life thanks to some complications involving abuse and prescription drugs.

Hmm... my characters (esp. in the songs I write) appear to have one single friend who appears for a paragraph or two.

The friend is similar to a mish-mash of extra characters on TV sitcoms, so extremely one dimensional.

edited 22nd Nov '11 6:46:46 PM by BetsyandtheFiveAvengers

...uhm, I think you meant to say mercilessly.

edited 22nd Nov '11 6:46:56 PM by BetsyandtheFiveAvengers

This is kind of late, but anybody who's interested in seeing some old-timey swearing should read some Victorian-era porn. In addition to providing a good cross-section on swearing and such, it is also completely hilarious. And sometimes horrifying. But more often hilarious.

I have a few things that are generally constant, but they aren't mine exclusively. I've always had a tendency to pick one of the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues each to try and find a character's two "primary traits" and then see how they knock together in that setting among the other characters. For example, a character with the flaw Pride and the virtue Duty, especially in a very corrupt government.

Also, I pretty much exclusively write fantasy, so expect loads and loads of fantasy tropes.

As for Author Appeal, hot witches. Both protagonists and antagonists, so I get to see how they might tick in my settings.

Also, A Mythology Is True is always something I have fun with when I do Low Fantasy stuff.

I really try to avoid badass or deconstuct it somewhat.

• Mesopotamian/Ancient Near East mythology - Major author appeal for me. Helps when my family is from that part of the world.
• HipHop - again, I am a huge hip-hop fan in Real Life, and often include its stylistic influences in my writing and characters.
• The Gunslinger and Guns Akimbo - I try to justify these tropes in some way(possibly involving Psychic Powers), but it's fun to draw and write.
• Earn Your Happy Ending - I don't like writing a Downer Ending, but I put the protagonists through Hell for things to end well.
• Crosses the Line Twice or Refuge in Audacity - I find this hard to pull off, but immensely fun to write when it works.
• World of Badass - So, so much.

edited 19th Jun '11 11:45:41 AM by AcesoldierZero

Personally, I feel the need to fit in things that I love in every work.

In my cattle-punk science fantasy story, I threw in mythology, wuxia, tokusatsu, and comic book ideas and tropes. It is much the same with the superhero comic that I'm doing.

Apart from that, everything else is variable.

• Large Ensemble Casts, full of Guile Heroes and Science Heroes, with each character having their own goals and their own personal lists of which other characters they will and will not cooperate with that generally do not divide neatly into factions.
• Earn Your Happy Ending
• A fine line between genius and madness. One proposed candidate for this line appears to be "If it's crazy and it works, it's not crazy".
• Sympathetic characters with a variety of psychological disorders or other cognitive deviations from the target audience. (Also, if you're one of these characters, successfully crossing the line from "it's crazy" to "it's crazy and it works" seems to be how you Earn Your Happy Ending.)
• Sometimes related to the above, heroic characters who incidentally happen to be naturally fond of viscera. (If this hobby is closely related to the manner in which they serve as a hero, they become likely to have a Foil who is an Actual Pacifist.)
• Psychological Horror and Paranoia Fuel
• Morality Kitchen Sink, Gray-and-Grey Morality, Blue-and-Orange Morality
• Whatever the Science Fiction equivalent of Magical Realism is.
• Characters who end up willingly harming their closest friends and replicas of themselves as part of the plot. (The reasons for this one seem to be purely psychological.)

edited 28th Jun '11 9:02:49 PM by Noaqiyeum

Thanks to a conversation in the Literature forum, I think I've realized that I write an awful lot of Platonic Life-Partners. Partially because that First Girl Winds slash Victorious Childhood Friend combo where the main character's best friend of the opposite gender is obviously their love interest is a personal Pet-Peeve Trope.