Okay, but follow me...what if she's not like other girls? What if she's a child molester and just can't stop. I'd read that. Like the Woodsman but flipped.
Uuurgh. I hate that trope. Like, unless said character is literally on the run from the mafia or something and actively putting their LI's life in danger, there's NO reason why "Loving someone too much" is a good reason to break up. It's the exact opposite. It's not dramatic, it's not heartbreaking, it's overdone to the point where even a child can tell that they're being emotionally manipulated. It's just........ I really don't like it.
but minor characters lack the development and depth that main characters have, having your protagonist fall in love with an underdeveloped character wouldn’t be very satisfying
"Being in love" doesn't have to be a major plot point, or even a plot point at all, for all characters. Yes, definitely best if the protagonist falls in love with another of the main cast, but the rest of the main characters don't ALL have to fall in love with each other. Some can (as an incidental detail) have relationships that are mentioned but not instrumental to the plot. Or not fall in love at all.
dear authors please stop writing strong female characters that can kick-ass in the first few chapters, but as soon as they meet the male love interest(s) they become useless and constantly need to be saved. Eg. Firstlife and reign of shadows (if she can dodge an arrow flying at her head she wont need help with small inconveniences later).
The best female protagonists are those that have struggles and growth like male protagonists. Sarah Connor would have been killed easily in the first movie without the help of Kyle Reese, but at the end of the film you see she has become the mother of the future leader of the human resistance she needs to be. Ripley was a bit more competent as she as a warrant officer from the start of the first Alien movie, but it was having to adapt and survive a real threat that killed all her crew. In Aliens we see her actively looking for ways to assist, and Corporal Hicks (which strangely has the same actor as Kyle Reese) shows her how to use a pulse rifle so she can defend herself after Hicks, being the only one with enough common sense to be willing to listen to Ripley on how dangerous the xenomorph is and sees how right she is, orders they "dust off and nuke the site from orbit.".
@@DemitriVladMaximov This is part of why I LOVE Throne of Glass. Celaena/Aelin is my favorite female character. She is so diverse in the first glass- i.e she loves kicking ass as an assassin, loves candy and music, but will also c u t you easily. But she develops in the series, grows into her history and into being Aelin, realises the truth about love and about sacrifice, and learns and develops into almost a new person that is still amazing and relateable in ways! Kinda hard to explain but just her journey through herself is something I loved reading.
@@abigailforrest9618 agree She is also super feminine and likes fashion and other "girly" stuff. She doesn't need to act like a man to be as strong as one(both physically and psychologically)
Like, if the feelings are mutual, it’s viewed as sweet and romantic, but if it’s one-way? That’s a restraining order waiting to happen. It’s just super clingy and dependent, often creepy.
Haha, have you seen OSP's take on the Greek myth Narcissus? Person: "I can't live without you." Narcissus: "Then go ahead and die." (hands them a sword)
“Not like other girls” is a trope mainly found in Y/A novels, or fan fictions by 13 year olds who think that they themselves are “not like other girls”
@Lythist yeah but that’s not what the trope is. It’s not that the girl Is an individual and therefore bad. It’s that the girl is such a generic individual she’s either an overly masculine woman who only hangs out with men and everyone other girl is just completely useless or they are just sooooo peppy and upbeat and nice and just basically a marysue that is so much more perfect than everyone else it just becomes really annoying because it not only makes the main annoying but it makes everyone else feel kind of stupid as well
I was laughing so hard when the screen started zooming in the book by Patrick Rothfuss. 5:33. She just keeps talking and talking, and the screen zooms in.
@@reinierovertoom7123 I see this complaint a lot. Some defend it as a point of appeal for the book in that Kvothe is probably an unreliable narrator so there's more underneath the surface of the story, but I honestly don't see it as a legitimate gripe at all, except maybe in his "prowess" with women, which itself is certainly lacking in the first book and actually gets worse in his interaction with his primary love interest even as it improves elsewhere. He's a weak fighter who routinely gets his ass handed to him until over halfway through the second book, and even then he's far from the best in the series, merely very competent. He's very gifted intellectually, but utimately in ways that are realistic enough, and honestly a character with his accomplishments should have a singularly sharp mind. He has a gift for magic that's largely connected to his other intellectual gifts, but it's not the strongest such gift in the story and even he acknowledges that some of his more impressive accomplishments are pretty lucky. And yeah there are plenty of personality flaws that are pretty clear, though I think there's a nice progression of character there, and ultimately the man we see in the tavern seems like a much different (better) person. There are problems with the books and with Kvothe's character, but the Mary-Sue complaint I see everywhere never really rang true for me.
@@whywhatwhenwherewow Somehow I can't hate this character. And the writing is so good ! More often than not, I find the writing in fantasy book to be a bit lackluster, or plainly bad. I loved so much finally reading something well written that even though I find the plot to be a bit lackluster (it's mainly a character driven series, but I usually prefer plot driven), I'm still waiting for the final volume :D On "bad writing", I'm talking about the way sentences are written, not how the story evolves. I loved Mistborn 1 because the plot is great and some of the characters are really good, but by the end of book 2 I could not bring myself to read book 3 (plot lost some of its appeal, lots of boring parts, and somehow poor writing style but it may be due to my French translation (?) ).
@@oriandthesleepytime I think the main point of "flawless" in this kind of discussion (particularly Mary/Gary stue) revolves around skill. Like we tend to say a character is OP / flawless when he doesn't struggle to learn new skills etc. It's a very narrow definition, I agree. By this standard, Kvoth is still not flawless, some skills are kinda hard for him to get. But almost every time it seems so easy for him I understand why people see him as flawless / boring. But as you might have read in my previous answer, even though I agree he is OP (you have to admit he really learns in an inhuman pace :p ), I still find him interesting because he is not that flawless. We tend to focus on the fact that he climbed the social ladder very fast and learned a ton of skills at the speed of light because indeed that is kind of unrealistic. But we forget that more often than not he took some serious hits in the process which made the impossible learning very fascinating instead of plain boring and cringy. As for the character, he is very arrogant, to a point... And he seems to have the most toxic romantic relationship you can get. It may be too much for my taste, like wtf are you still chasing that girl instead of all the lovelier, smarter girls he meets everywhere ? Can't get my head around that ^^
Personally, my least favorite trope is that EVERY SINGLE YA lead has to be unbearably clumsy and inevitably have a scene where they fall under/on top of the love interest to create sexual tension
I’ve read books where a girl would run into a guy by accident and say how hard he is and they talk about oh he is so awesome. I e ran in plenty of guys one time I had to go to the nurse and all we said was sorry to each other.
I actually don't mind the "let out a breath they didn't know they were holding" trope. I find I personally do it all the time so it's not something I find annoying.
I automatically hold my breath whenever watching/reading a scene where a character goes underwater. I have this overwhelming urge to prove that it’s possible
Or just healthy friendship. Or "falling in love" but it's just infatuation, and then they realize they were wrong and gradually fall in love with another person. Natural progression of relationships would be cool.
Yes please! I absolutely hate the "love at first sight" and the "enemies to lovers" tropes so bad, it's not surprising these tropes came from Hollywood movies, since movies only have a certain amount of time and the directors wanted to get the couple together at once. We need more "friends to lovers", but without one of the friends having a crush on someone else who obviously isn't the right fit (usually a jerk). I want close friends who both have a crush on each-other, but don't realize the other one does too until the confession, it feels earned and healthy.
When I hear “unnecessary love stories”, I always think of the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. He ended the series with a female character alone, but his editors had him add in a throwaway line about a guy joining her so the ending wasn’t “a downer”. I’ve never forgotten that.
HuckleberryCyn wow I’m so glad I saw your comment. None of my friends even know about the Uglies series. I never finished the fourth book and now I think I’ll go read it!
I didn’t mind that, personally. I’ve always thought she’d give it another go with David, but they’d figure out it wouldn’t work. I dunno. It just never bothered me much.
Same thing happened with Great Exprectations, the editors forced Dickens to have Kip and Estella get married by the end, since the book is otherwise pretty depressing, despite Dickens thinking they wouldn't realistically go together. It's sad when things like that happen, sometimes the author knows best :/
@Jeremy Barbati Because that is not the way depression works. Generally we just learn to live with it and deal as best we can.Depression is not loneliness or sadness.
Depends what the underlying cause of the depression is. Loneliness can be a form of depression, either because of a lack of romance or a lack of friendshp (you could be in a romantic relationship which has destroyed your friend circle for example). Alternatively, you could feel unfullfilled in life for variety of reasons (lack of achievement, boring life, etc). For example, depression for me was the 9 to 5 grind and being stuck in an office - once i escaped that, my depression began to fade away (not straight away, mind you, but the freedom of time to pursue other goals sure helped).
Or oversimplifying depression and presenting it as a continuous state of mopiness or general indifference to life. Depression affects different people in different ways. I agree with your point regarding "solving" depression. Those may be worthwhile means of dealing with depression for some, but not for everyone.
That happens in real life though. And the "released a breath I didn't realize I was holding". I've experienced both a few times. I know that it's used A LOT in books, but it does happen in real life.
@@Ignasimp It does. The latest it happened to me was this January. We had a motorcycle accident and it was at night, no one was around but (here it comes!) someone was screaming. About a second later, I realized my mouth was open and that the sound was coming from me. The other time I clearly remember was when we went cliff diving. I'm deathly afraid of heights but I wanted to try it. You know what they say, face your fears. (It didn't work, I'm still scared of heights) So when you do it, I was advised to cover/pinch my nose and keep my mouth closed to avoid swallowing water and all that. But the moment I jumped off that cliff, my hand let go and flailed at my sides like an idiot. Before I hit the water, I realized the same thing and yes, I swallowed a whole lot of water and learnt to swim for real because the waters were deeper than I initially thought.
I was watching it while focusing on something else and when I heard "I don't think I can think of a book that has done this" I went "What? I'm sure you have" and looked over to see the zoom and just went "OHHHHOHOHOHOHO"
I know I'm being "that" defensive dude, but I feel like that's a mild exaggeration cuz Kvothe wasn't all perfect and that was made clear many times by him fucking up small things to big things through lack of experience or overconfidence. More importantly, I just think it's a little silly to be irritated about this in the first place, because Kvothe was long since implied to be one of the upcoming smartest dude, so you can hardly expect him to NOT be good at almost everything, so I really like that Rothfuss took into account of Kvothe's lack of experience and powerlessness and preyed on it despite Kvothe being so damn smart. Also, his parents were both good looking people, so why would he be ugly? I'm also surprised that people still complain about him "getting all the women" because it's far less of "getting all the women" and more of the "well shiet this is how THINGS WOULD NATURALLY GO DOWN IN A SETTING THAT'S BUILT LIKE THIS".
@@Newfiecat - If that major conflict is BECAUSE nobody's having the brief conversation, the problem goes pretty deep. Two people playing "I won't say anything until So-and-so says something" no matter what's going on? That's full of possibilities.
Yeah, like the main character gets in an argument another character, an argument that could be clarified and eliminated with about ten seconds worth of talking, but they leave without speaking those words. OR, character #1 fails to make an obvious connection. Character #2 is looking for the fabled black stones of Arcanna and character #1 has just remembered the story his grandfather told him about the location of the incredibly dark gray stones of Harcanno which couldn't possibly be one and the same, could they? Many chapters go by before the connection is made while the reader just groans in despair at their stupidity.
The police/authority figures being incredibly dumb-down to make the protagonists seem more clever/intelligent or to "enhance" the tension (One of Us is Lying)
I felt this, I mean, people in general, are highly intelligent, *even* when they sometimes have *blank moment* days. Sometimes even the "not smart" people in *real life* are *smarter* than some of the "not smart" characters in stories. I mean get *real* man.
I hate lack of communication! It's the most frustrating thing for me when everything could be resolved if characters just said what they needed to say instead of being magically interrupted every time they try to talk about the issue. I recently listened to a detective story/thriller and a side character made a big discovery in the case. Ofc they didn't share it with anyone, just left a voice message "hey i got it i'll tell you when I see you". Went in solo and died so no one knew wth happened. I HATE when that happens! You're working the same case, share the information on the spot and don't go in fighting a serial killer on your own you moron. Really popular plot in movies and tv shows too and it's really annoying!
Yes. Oh, yes. We all know that, in real life, people often don't talk to each other about important things, but it happens way too much in fiction. Part of that overexposure is simply the mass of fiction in various media, and the other part is sloppily defaulting to various tropes and cliches. Re-write the story if it's necessary to keep crucial information away from the relevant characters rather than "I can't tell you over the phone: meet me at the bodega on 3rd and Vine" or whatever. Or, if you're keeping friends or lovers apart, something better than petulant refusals to even let the other person talk. Yes, we've all been in arguments (not always with significant others) where we just didn't want to hear it, but the fiftieth fictional "Don't talk to me!" comes across as a device. This is a problem that goes all the way back to myths and legends. Heroes unknowingly confronting their sons in battle because, for some reason, they never visited so neither recognized the other. People not even asking necessary questions or thinking to write letters asking for information.
No kidding. I feel like if you explain it, it can work (can’t say over phone, mole in group/distrust, need to deliver info under different circumstances), but when it’s just putting off sharing necessary stuff for the plot, it’s pretty annoying. Sure, people wait on sharing information all the time, but when it’s a major clue on the trail of a serial killer? That’s gotta be shared with the team quickly.
It’s a cheap way to up the drama. That’s why people do it. I hate it too. Once in a while it’s ok, but it’s just so overplayed... and it happens multiple times in the same story too! Like seriously, didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!
I once watched a romance anime and all the main characters made outrageous assumptions on what was going on and took something so small as confirmation that they didnt even talk about it. And I just couldnt finish it because everyone beleived things that were completely wrong and didnt want to confirm it with the person.
I actually understand the main characters only falling in love with other main characters one, because those are the people they spend the most time with; it makes sense that they’d develop an emotional connection with someone within the group rather than someone who hasn’t been there for a lot of it and hasn’t gone through a lot of the same things.
yes! this is exactly what i was thinking! also, without them being at least kind of a main character, they're dangerously close to the "love interest that does as much for the story as a lamp".
I think adding a new character and making them gradually the romantic interest is better. Because usually if the main characters get together they must have been best friends before. And that's going back to the point that authors always make a girl and boy friendship into a romantic relationship as if they can't just be friends. As a girl with a few best guy friends I know I would never do anything with them even though I spend a lot of time with them.
This is an "unwinnable" position. Because let's say you *do* introduce a new character as a love interest, that character has to occupy a decent amount of space in the book or the writer will get crapped on for not developing them enough.
I think the main issue is that the romantic subplots are completely forced and unnecessary in many cases. The book you're reading is all about a dark oppressive atmosphere with a focus on action and survival... and suddenly, it's all thrown away because the author (or editor) wants to tie the ending together in a 'happy ending'. Of course, we all know that happy endings can only happen with a romantic interest. It's not like there is any other way to be happy. We can have many romance-based stories without a lot of fighting happening, but it seems we can't have an action-based story without the main character falling head over heels for somebody.
Or just from a development point of view. It's a dammed if you do, dammed if you don't situation. If you don't give the love interest enough development, then you're ripped for that person being shallow/two dimensional etc. If you put in the space to develop them, then that's probably enough for someone to consider them a main character. Edit: should have read other replies first
I'm tired of the parents/family being killed off trope. While yes, it speeds up character growth, we as the readers get to miss out on the family interaction and the bonding. Also, it's freaking awesome when the main character gets put in their place by their siblings or parents because it makes them flawed and capable of mistakes while also showing how deep the bond of family can be.
YESSS. And you can get so much feels with a close family relationship. I feel like too many authors completely toss family relationships and friend relationships to focus exclusively on a romantic relationship.
Also, if someone really does want representation with their families, they can explore different kinds of families as well. Single parents, separated and remarried parents, foster families, step-siblings, “traditional” families, same-sex couple parents, lots of siblings, no siblings, siblings of similar ages, siblings much older/younger, missing family members, kind families, abusive families... there are lots of different forms to look into.
The upside of using the Family Died trope is that you raise the stakes and make the conflict personal in one fell swoop. You also quickly cut emotional ties to the quiet starting village. BUT, it's just as easy to pull this off by leaving a family member gravely wounded but recovering. And if you kill them off to raise stakes once, you can't use it later to keep the main character invested. If your story is short, the trope is an easy to use, low maintenance inciting incident. If you plan on going beyond the initial rage-fueled villain hunt, the family would be better served for character development scenes and as on-going motivators.
@@BonaparteBardithion The family can also be used to heighten drama by having some members choose the antagonist. This creates anxiety and tension, and if done well, can show different points of view while pointing out that all the characters and their points of view are flawed in some way.
Funny thing: If you read medieval literature, every single friendly female character (not counting witches or such) is described as the most beautiful and flawless of them all- even if there are several women involved. Men, who are usually if not exclusively the protagonists, sometimes have more character, some are mischievous, whimsical or carry scars. But the tendency to create "Mary Sues" - especially female ones- is as old as humanity's ability to write.
I feel obliged to reply as a medievalist and you're correct! Feminine beauty was seen as a positive trait, and good (typically Christian) women in stories were most beautiful in all the lands, and while men were also depicted as super beautiful and/or handsome, but they do have some sort of added dimension to them. It came from the impulse of the 'virgin-whore' complex they had, and the idea of the Virgin Mary in medieval imagination, but hey... we should move away from that, no?
I think one of the best ways I've seen "let the characters fail" is in the anime Haikyuu, which is about a high school boys volleyball team. I won't give spoilers but some losses felt very necessary, some hurt to watch and I really appreciate allowing the protagonists to lose; if not permanently then as a form of learning.
YES I was thinking this exact thing. Some losses feel crushing, but are able to motivate characters to improve further so that they can overcome the obstacles that stopped them before. Thank you for mentioning Haikyuu, that's the perfect example, and one of the things that made me really like that anime.
The whole ‘adding on years later’ thing is the very reason almost everyone in the HP fandom has counted the Cursed Child as not canon. I don’t care what JK Rowling says about it. It was unnecessary.
All of you are gonna yell at me, but I actually do really like the Cursed Child. This is just my opinion. You guys can have your own, I can have my own, and they can be different.
@@Nikki-ux9ib I see. It's obvious as different people have different tastes. From my experience Some people like dragon Ball GT and there are who hate it for either just fun or just tastes.
EllisA_is_for_animate Well, Scorpius is the greatest little cinnamon roll, and I think it makes sense that the Time-Turner exists, because just like how science and medicine and stuff has advanced in our world, magic would have advanced in the wizarding world. I also enjoy how J. K. Rowling made Albus and Scorpius Slytherins, because it showed the reader that we shouldn’t be prejudiced against Slytherin house, and good people were in that house.
It's not just you, "not like other girls" is way overblown IMO. Any time a female character has skills or traits of any kind, everyone says that she fits into that trope. I was listening to a podcast where they said that Allison from The Breakfast Club was one of those "not like other girls" characters when she never says anything like that in the movie, she's just a weird person all around. That's what made it click for me.
I feel like Not-Like-Other-Girls and Mary Sue are different tropes. They do often overlap, but they aren’t the same. Mary Sue is to build a character up so much that they destroy their environment and plot, but in Not-Like-Other-Girls, the author usually destroys the environment and plot to build the character. I don’t know how to explain it, but I do think that they’re different. I have mixed feelings on their frequency of use and frequency of being called. On one hand, I agree that when a female is given skills/character she is often torn down for being a Mary Sue, despite just being a dynamic female. Frankly, I don’t like when people get mad for an author writing a girl with feelings/thoughts. On the other hand though, Mary Sues are still very common in work, guys or girls. It’s generally in fanfic, self-inserts, and small-scale writings, but they show up. There’s a fine line from Mary Sue to Chosen One in many cases. So overall, I think that people often call “Mary Sue” when there isn’t one, but they do still show up in writing and shouldn’t necessarily be ignored. As for Not-Like-Other-Girls, it’s not as popular in novels, but it’s often seen in movies targeted at younger audiences and stories written by people in their early teens. I don’t think it’s the fault of the people who write them, really, so much as the society that got them there, though. Lots of girls go through the phase of not wanting to be like the others. We’re taught that traditionally feminine qualities are negative, so we try to be “strong” by disowning our gender. (For the record, this isn’t about trans people; I’m referring to the phase, not the permanent transition) We decide that we hate pink, or we swear off men, or we refuse to wear dresses, or we write about not being like others. Some of these are just qualities, as not everyone likes pink and dresses, but I think that many of us who would otherwise like those things ditched them because they “made us girls.” I don’t mean to sound all SJW or anything, but I really do think that lots of girls go through that point, where we learn to look down on our gender and, in pride, call ourselves different. Basically, I can’t be certain with this, and obviously everyone is different to an extent, but I really do think that this trope is born of shame in what the movies make us.
I disagree. it's really prevalent in the romance genre. I've read lots of books well the male protagonist will explicitly state that he likes the heroine because she "eats big macs not salads like other girls" or she "doesnt wear pounds of makeup like other girls" or she "doesn't wear skimpy clothes" etc. The not like other girls trope is basically whenever the writer tears down the life choices or attributes of other women in order to make the main female character look good. It is very different from the mary sue trope which I do agree is way overblown
It 's even worse when the book then goes into hating on stereotypes of "other girls", then makes it's female protagonist the impossibly perfect character. But every romance starts with instalove or is abusive. I basically watched this video and found that 80% of them applied to the Anita Blake novels. Do yourself a favor and don't read them.
Me in 6th grade: Dystopian is my favorite genre! Overthrowing the government is so fun to read about! Me today: *throwing Red Queen into a bonfire* i haven't read an original book in my _life_
@@benawesomebw1197 have you read Fahrenheit 451? Admittedly I liked 1984 a bit better, but lowering Fahrenheit 451 to the same coffin as 'throne of glass' is criminal.
Am I the only one that doesn't mind "I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding"? I feel like there are times where it couldn't be described any other way lol
@@Carbon2861996 But do you say phew in real life if you are nervous. Like have you ever been so anxious and nervous or stressed that your breath just catches in your throat but you are so distracted you don't realize that it has happened till your body is screaming at you to breathe. So you like just explode out a little... That has never happened to you? You literally just walk around going Phew... Phew... Phewww... Cause if so... Can we be friends? I think that would be so cute. And also, how do you not feel anxious? Are you magical?
*two characters of the opposite gender that have immense platonic chemistry and a great friendship exist* Me: please don't make them fall in love, please don't- *male best friend falls in love with girl, creating a love triangle where he is obviously not going to win, as the other male lead has already been established as the one she'll pick* 🙃
I'd like to see more gayness where one male lead falls in love with the other male lead who is in love with the female lead who is in love with nobody, or the gay male lead, or is a lesbian. Who knows.
Misfit 648 I don't mind a quick overview of what happened, like if I don't remember what happened in the previous book. BUT!! it needs to be short and sweet, then move on.
@@Mondlunar Yeah, but Harry Potter can get away with it, because a) it's not too long and doesn't hold up the story progression or character development, b) it was written with a younger audience in mind than the latter novels hence more recap even though it is a bit condescending towards children as if they couldn't remember what had happened previously, and c) after the success of the first book, a recap isn't too bad considering that some people who haven't read the first novel might pick up the second one to see what all the fuss is about and it can help to catch them up as well.
It's kinda funny actually but an Oscar Wilde quote comes to my mind: "In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody. "
"Not like other girls" seems to be the new mary sue - there are definitely characters that fit both of those complaints, but more often theres just female characters who get accused of this sin just for existing.
I'd like for less authors to write novels as future potential media adaptations, and more with the aim of producing books to stand as examples of GREAT BOOKS. There's a hierarchy of media I've noticed since working in book stores. Popular books are produced to be first drafts of future screenplays, and they read as such. More authors should aspire to defy adaptability.
Blame Hollywood for that, they've been adapting novels since the very beginning, instead of coming up with their own ideas more often. It's created a perception in pop culture that "you're story is only great if a movie adaptation has been made", which is totally false.
You know, for how many times I've seen it, I actually don't mind that sentence, especially if it's used well. There have been times where a tense scene was resolved, and right as I read that line I found myself releasing the breath I didn't realize I was holding in either. When that happens I feel a deeper connection with the character.
The “girl like no one else” trope was soooo prevalent back in the YA dystopian phase. The Selection. Twilight. Hunger Games. Divergent. The MC is always more smart, strong, mysterious, whatever than other girls. I feel like I haven’t seen that trope in awhile, but it could also be bc I haven’t been reading that genre as much.
Yeah, the YA stuff was/is ripe with it. Although honestly the "girl like no one else" is just a spinoff of the age-old, incredibly tiresome "chosen one" trope which I have never been a fan of either. I think it's more interesting to have something that anyone *could* do, but the main character achieves it because he/she is really dedicated, or really clever, or what have you. Rather than "oh he/she was able to do it because something something chosen one"
Agree! I think that trope was so popular back in 2009-2012 YA books. Nowadays, books that have 'girl like no one else' trope are the ones published by wattpad, or basically any popular fanfiction-turned-into-published-books kind of books.
I thought Hunger Games actually did it pretty well. I never read Twilight so I don’t know about that one, but wasn’t Bella kind of supposed to be a really boring, blank slate character so readers could insert themselves into the story via her character.
@@morganfreeman9106 I don't think so. The story begins with her moving to a new town and she has a lot of downer opinions about it, from what I remember. She seems like a character who needs to seek out danger and thrills for stimulation because she's a bit low on empathy, to be honest. I did not find her very relatable.
So what your saying is I should give my characters issues that mirror my own, therefore creating a narrative that is painfully relatable and forces me to deal with my own trauma?
@@emalynscott7612 in my opinion that would be pretty interesting, but, what I am saying is that letting the parents of protagonists live would be more challenging and more interesting; the author would be forced to make a protagonist-their parents relationship, and would force them to decide what their relationship is like - good, toxic or broken? And how the character will deal with it?
Instalove example: Romeo and Juliet Time span: Literally a few hours! I know it’s a tragedy, not a love story, I was just providing an example of instalove. Thanks anyway!
Caleb Goodman Yes but that’s the beauty of Romeo and Juliet. It’s about hate as much as love. They felt their love was so strong and married quickly because of the sudden deaths of their families. War forced them to cling on to one another. It’s implied Romeo would have quickly move on from a silly girl like Juliet and dump her like her cousin if his best friend hadn’t been killed
Romeo and Juliet is not a love story, its a classic tragedy. Shakespeare love stories were classic comedies, the problem isn't romeo and juliet its people who never studied or paid attention in English literature and only read it in middle school going omg how romantic!!! When its literally about the dangers of infatuation, prejudice and lack of filial piety.
@@ss-cp2uy it didn't look like a relationship!! He and Adam would've just looked like best friends or distant relatives if they weren't bragging about it all over twitter!
Joel Katumba I love that book, but I can see where others would have issues with the rushed relationship. You don’t buy into it all the way because of the lack of time put into it. I’d also add “They Both Die at the End” which everyone else seems to love but I hated for this reason and because the sexuality aspect was very much shoehorned into the third act
Joel Katumba what I really enjoyed about that book is that she showed how others they encountered changed the outcome of the plot. I’ll admit the relationship is rushed and likely not love, but I really, really liked the other aspects along with the diversity. I’ll add that I thought “They Both Die at the End” was a worse TSiAaS. It tries to do the same things, but it’s not as effective and the relationship was even more forced. But I love and respect that you’re willing to take another look at a book you didn’t like :) Thanks for the awesome chat!
1. Complain a character's love interest wasn't developed and that they add as much as a lamp. 2. Complain a character's love interest isn't a minor character that adds as much as a lamp.
84C4 well people like different things, but they should recognize that and just stop reading if they don’t like something (unless it’s actually problematic like romanticizing abuse)
While I agree with 84C4 that it might be different taste, I also think that this can depend on the situation. If you have the main character being in love with for example someone working in a small shop, this person can be a developed character while not being a main character. He is maybe not one of the heroes fighting the villain but he can have a personality etc and show that he is multidimensional whenever the hero visits him. On the other hand some people are frustrated when the hero of the story is in love with a heroine fighting the villain too , but all she does is needing to be saved and look pretty. She is a main character then, but she could be replaced with a lamp and everything would be the same. But that's just my perspective. Edit: I may be wrong here because the person in the first example is maybe not a minor character. I'm kinda confused about this. Sorry, if I annoyed someone.
Dear fans, stop sexualizing young female characters even though said characters weren't even sexualized. Example: Nezuko. *this applies to young male characters too but it's more often seen with girls ALSO. Dear fans, stop saying that shipping two boys/men is pedophilia. It's not what it's called. Plus double standards. If it's a female, they're like HARD SHIP KISS NOWWWW!!! (If it sounds dumb, I KNOW. I saw many people commenting that on a HxH comment section. It SUCKS.)
Ditto ditto! I love seeing what readers think about books without having been trained in the Melding of Plot and Character. They/we, after all, are who writers write for. Are they not?
10:25 - Isn't all of the things on this list simply being smart? Writing is both art and a job, and nobody wants to be a starving artist. Just like bands that have 10 albums and only one hit song, many an author has just one hit book. If you write something that resonates with the fans, then you should maximize it for all you can. That's not greed, that's just smart. Even I have toyed with the idea of including in a few bonus chapters for pre orders on books, but have ruled it out because I feel it will only create hurt feelings and divide my audience into have and have nots. But I don't think it's a horrible idea that doesn't have it place if done correctly. And of course publishers are going to have different copies of books. paperbacks are meant to be cheaper by design, and book collectors want a book that can, if taken care of, last 1000 years, and that costs money. And if you end up taking one book and turning it into a series of 10, of course when you reprint them as a whole series, those books will and should have a different coesive design that may not have happened before you knew just how many you would end up with. And if you can bang out 15 books off of a character you had only planned a single book for, then kudos to you for your new found success. jmo
@@Ignasimp they usually go like "there was a shrill scream and I wish more than anything it would stop. It took me a while to realize the screaming was coming from me."
I mean ngl I have done stuff like that. Realizing after it was me. Like one time the girl in front of me at the recess line (this was years ago) dropped to the floor and had a seizure and I didn’t realize I had screamed until someone grabbed my arm.
In historical romances where the author will try to rewrite history and make the atrocious actions of the main love interest seem not that bad just because they are the main love interest. I cannot stand that!
Like when it's a World War Two romance or historical fiction and the main character falls in love with a Nazi and tries to justify them as a good person because that don't turn that one family in. I believe that is something the OP was considering
@@charlottebutler6305 Well then in that case it all depends on whether the audience and author on the same wavelength for what is considered "atrocious".
*While Reading the Magnus Chase Series* Me: (when Sam is 1st introduced) Okay, I guess there's your love interest Sam: (shows no interest in Magnus & is interested in other guy) Magnus: (shows no interest in Sam & isn't jealous over other guy) Rick: (doesn't introduce other girl interested in Magnus) Rick: (doesn't introduce love interest until book 2) Alex: (is genderfluid & doesn't do love at 1st sight shit) Rick: (takes time building friendship between Alex & Magnus that eventually evolves into romance w/ NO JEALOUSY ANYWHERE) Rick: (successfully writes believable romance between dude & genderfluid person) Me: Holy shit is this even legal-
5:00 It’s an interesting observation, but I would say it’s necessary. If someone of the main characters falls in love with a minor character most people would be asking “where did that come from? What’s this other characters deal?” They would feel cheated and like it came out of left field. Characters become main characters because of their development, importance to the story (such as a love interest) or utility. In other words, characters important to the plot become main characters. Characters are not main characters first and then contribute to the plot. No disrespect, just voicing my opinion on this
I mean, I get whar youre saying, but I disagree that it would always be out of left field. The character can easily be someone the MC was interested in before shit hit the fan and their relationship wouldnt be out of nowhere. There are absolutely ways to do it that would feel natural. Not every character has to be important in the grand scheme of things, they just have to be important to the cast. Id like to see more average people sprinkled into the minor cast og a story. Not everyone is special to the world, but everyone is special to someone.
I think it's interesting that you say that, because most of the main characters that we see are integral to the plot very early on, if not instantly. I think it could be interesting to have characters that are important to the main cast but stay mostly in the background, and I think it happens too little. It can definitely be done wrong, but it can also be done right.
“I can’t think of a book where the main character is impossibly good at everything...” *zooms in on The Name of The Wind in the background...* Dying of laughter, absolutely amazing.
@@cthulhu6245 Ha yeah. That was maybe one of my few minor gripes with the story, even though it's one of my fav fantasy novels ever. Rothfuss' writing though is gorgeous.
Most of The Name of The Wind is from Kvothe's viewpoint, and he is an unreliable narrator. When not in Kvothe's viewpoint, things are much less perfect.
Examples: 1. Tsunderes. 2. That girl from the 2nd season of Korra who abuses Bolin. Every scene with these type of characters abusing the protagonist is seen as "comedic", it disgusts me.
I so agree with the points made! It's just missing one thing: Stop with further the plot by stupid decisions, no one in their right mind would make. I think this is (mostly) a problems in thriller. It so annoys me when the protagonist, who is usually clever and in some cases even awfully intelligent, makes a unbelievable decision, like confronting a mass murder *on their own* , because of most ridiculous reasons like "there's not enough time". Ugh. It's even worse when they make one terrible decision after another, and never seem to learn from their mistakes. I'm looking at you Chevy Stevens...
@@Effaly_ Keeping spoilers to a minimum then, a character goes out at some point to face the big bad in order to buy time for the others after doing a very, very stupid thing that he thinks may give him a chance. You should give it a look, one of my favorite vampire movies.
Cursed child was not written by JK Rowling. Fantastic beasts was a story that JK has had and always WANTED to write but never found a way to properly fit it in to the Harry Potter series.
@@tatianakrutke6298 Thank you, she doesn't deserve al the shit that's thrown at her. FB has great characters and potential, i even liked the second one too, even if it was a mess.
@@tatianakrutke6298 yeah, i remember playing a gameboy advance game of harry potter and i do for a fact now there was a chocolate frog card of newt scamander, so i know the character just didn't pop out of the mist
SOOOOO agree about we need more friendship + not every book needs a romantic sub-plot. Like... why??? why there has to be some love triangle in every book??? why?????
"Kill the good guy sometimes. Kill the main character sometimes." I guess Rick Riordan deserves some praise for this then. Also, I feel like he is guilty of adding on to stories after they should've been done, but I love Trials of Apollo and Heroes of Olympus so I don't complain 😂
Well the thing is Rick Riordan even if he adds on to stories, it is not about the main character about the previous series. Such as percy was the main character of the original series but there were 6 other main characters and focused more on them also he doesn't retcon major things mostly, even if he does it actually makes sense.
I think I’d agree with most of these points, but the one about a stand alone with loose ends - sometimes the author’s intention is to write a series but publishers will push to make the first book a stand alone in case the book doesn’t sell well (so they don’t loose money if they make a series and the first book flops). It’s not always the authors choice so it’s unfortunate for everyone.
1. I'm over children saving the world. When was the last time you met one with enough maturity, sense, or experience to save themselves let alone save the world? 2. Anytime the blurb includes the phrase that the main character is "sassy" I immediately eliminate that as a possible reading choice. It usually equates to that character being a snarky piece of work without many redeeming characteristics besides their looks. 3. Novels that are written like how to do intercourse manuals....I do not want or need 3 - 10 pages of second-to-second sport commentary to drive the story. 4. Book series that would have been far more compelling if edited severely to 1 book.
I agree, except I enjoy reading kids save the world because I’m a kid myself and I find it relatable sometimes to see someone my age try to balance saving the world with normal problems for people their age. Buuut I can COMPLETELY understand if you’re not a kid and are tired of reading about no one your age!
For me, if the main character is supposed to save the world or something, they have to at least be in their mid to late teens. I know some very mature teenagers who could handle things being thrown at them, but for children I have a line for what they could reasonably handle. Even children I would deem mature for their age are often nowhere near the level of maturity needed for the tasks writers often give them.
@@user-N20 - yeah I agree, it’s just with someone who is really mature I don’t know if there would be very much character development? Unless they had some other flaw that adds some character development. But really young children couldn’t handle as much pressure as some books give them.
@@saturniiiidae Oh I don't have problems with children if they're written well, It just seems like a lot of children characters I've seen in run of the mill YA novels are portrayed as though they're supposed to be naive kids, but then suddenly they can come up with all these brilliant plans etc. If there is a book where the reason the kid succeeds in saving the world is because of well-timed development, that's fine by me. A series where the kid gets older and more mature throughout the books is even better. I just meant maturity as in, they can mature to match the problems they need to solve eventually, not as in the character is instantly mature from the get-go.
I don’t like when the author (in a first person POV story) describes the main female character as “physically average” and then her male love interest has to convince her she’s pretty as if it even matters
Well, I suspect it does matter to her. Like it matters to all of us, handsome/pretty coin. Certainly, it matters most to the freaks (the beautiful and the ugly) and least to the average. It does still matter though, good>bad. Pretty =/= Can be on cover of magazine Pretty = Physically attractive/arousing to the person saying it Her being pretty, to him, does not mean she suddenly transforms into a model. To him, she is pretty. Fact or, he wouldn't be with her. As a man, physical arousal cannot be faked. Her rejecting that means she thinks her partner is lying to her, she will therefore doubt the relationship and his judgement. She is essentially saying, "he could do much better," which he will interpret. If she so bluntly and consistently believes it, over time he will too. He needs to convince her so that she doesn't mistrust him - it has the benefit too of increasing her self-esteem (someone says a good thing about her, proves that its true, good times).
I really love when the author thinks of us as smart people because when we actually have to understand something ourselves and we figure it out it feels so good! Especially if it is connecting clues, understanding magic systems (looking at you allomancy) etc. because making our minds wander is exactly what reading is about and then when everything clicks.... that's one of the main attractions of reading, in my opinion.
Yes, & if readers don't get it, they can head over to GoodReads & ask for someone to explain it to them! I've seen questions about things that I thought were plainly obvious, so I can kind of see why some authors want to make sure readers "get it", but I agree-it's so much better when the author lets you know things without spelling it out for you!
Yo, why do I feel you also noticed the Stormlight Archives series during the Name of Wind zoom. I was like!!!! Oathbringer!!!! Sorry totally derailing from the original comment, I also agree with you on that!
I don’t like when an author creates a great story, world, plot, characters, leaves a bunch of questions and unresolved plot points and then decides they will not write anymore. They are allowed to do whatever, but readers will and do feel cheated and not cared for.
Agree with almost all of these. Regarding the “not like other girls” trope, it’s usually not stated explicitly, but there’s often something “special” about the female protagonist (I.e. being kind, having a brain, being like really pretty OMG) that sets her apart from the stereotypical girl while all the other females coincidentally are stereotypical girls in the worst way (gossiping, vain, jealous, etc.). Once I read a love interest tell the (very typical) female protagonist out loud that she was “not like other girls” and my eyes nearly rolled right out of my head. 🙄
The thing is: we always seem to say that with a female protagonist. I can't think of a single book in which the protagonist is an everyday person who doesn't have a feature that sets them apart from other people. That's the point. Otherwise the book would probably be pretty boring. Think of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson or even Eragon. All of them have male protagonists who "aren't like other boys" but no one seems to care about that. That being said I totally agree with your last point about the "background girls" who are all gossiping etc. A lot of authors seem to forget that those people too have features that set them apart from the crowd.
@@nobody-xh6ii It's not that being kind makes her a Mary Sue; it's that the author then makes every other female character nasty just to set the MC apart.
The “not like other girls” trope makes it sound like she is strong, resourceful, smart... not like most girls. (Wow, she can do more than make sandwiches!) How often to do they say that about the male hero? To be the hero, you do not have to be a special person, just be in special circumstances.
I hate it when in a story a main character gets a crush on another character and when they realize it they INSTANTLY become super sad because they "only see me as a friend and will never like me back!" and then completely avoids being around that character because of this. Also when they are like "okay this is fine I can live with this, I just can't make it super obvious because he/she can never know!" *proceeds to make it obvious that they have a crush on them*. I also hate it when in stories a character's feelings gets outed in a public setting and that character then avoids ONLY the person they have feelings for. Like I understand wanting to avoid EVERYONE because that would be mortifying, but avoiding ONLY that person?? so frustrating!!!
Re obvious that they have a crush on someone - it is obvious, we cannot hide it. People just cannot hide that stuff. Mainly because 1. secretly they hope they're wrong and that something will happen and, 2. they cannot tone down the energy/enthusiasm they get from interacting with someone they care for. Re avoiding everyone vs specific person - they don't care about everyone's feelings, they care about the specific person's feelings. Only that specific person can do the rejection and, if you don't see them they can't reject you. It's silly of course but, it's very human (for those that aren't confident in their view of themselves as a romantic partner).
@@DoubleplusUngoodthinkful It kinda does happen in real life, especially if you're oblivious to signs or if the other person is just filled with anxiety.
When badass characters are always cold hard aholes that the main character looks up to. I can get coldness to an extent depending on what's going on in that universe but.... have you met real badasses? They're usually the coolest people ever. Why is it always in story form they're always complete aholes to everyone except the main character who is their only friend
Yes! Which is why I am not a big fan of people shipping Hermione and Harry. I actually like Ron and Hermione together. And then jkr did the whole gives her opinion after the fact and says she regretted having Ron and Hermione together.
Katie Wright Yeah, me too! I think that quote of Rowling’s was taken out of context. What she actually said was just that Ron and Hermione needed to mature in order to make their relationship work.
Yes! This is why I cannot understand shipping them! Cant we have a solid, beautiful, supportive friendship and be happy? Tbh Ron 'gets' Harry a lot better than Harry so if he's gonna hookup with one of his best friends Ron is the more sensible choice
@@atella394 honestly I only sometimes ship ron/harry but not often partly cuz I haven't found any good fanfic for that ship that has convinced me of their relationship. Also partly cuz I just like their bromance. I do like the idea of Harry and Luna together. I always liked their chemistry both in the books and the movies.
@@katiewright3309 Yeah I definetely dont ship Ron/Harry but it makes more sense to me than Hermione/Harry. I was pretty happy with Harry/Ginny (in the books, movie Ginny is a travesty) I could have taken Harry/Luna but I don't think Harry was a particularly good match for Luna although she could have been for him if that makes sense?
"He knew he was The Chosen One, Destined to achieve victory." There should be a symbol on the cover of these books that identifies them as having the Chosen One theme. Next!
Biggest insta-love I’ve ever read is Romeo and Juliet. We read it for class and my English teacher drew a timeline on the board for the ones that didn’t pay attention and they got married about twelve hours after meeting! They meet at the ball Capulet hosted at around 9pm ish or at least before midnight and they planned to meet up and get married at 9am. The entire story was less than a week long.
People hate insta-love and claim it’s unrealistic, but then...wth were my grandparents all about? Their story is famous in my family. They met at a party, my grandpa fell in love almost immediately and was suddenly determined to marry my grandmother. It took about a week and then they were engaged. They stayed married for over 70 years, and died a few months apart. Talk about instant life-long love lol.
Rosefire my grandparents’ love story is almost out of a movie. My grandma was dating a guy and I think one family was catholic and one was Anglican but I can’t remember which was which but they were against each other but the guy my grandma was dating would ride his bike to her house and was hit by a car one day when he was riding and had to go to hospital and she visited him and they decided to break up but in the bed next to the guy my grandma was dating was my grandpa and he asked the guy that was dating my grandma about her and once he was out of hospital he asked out and they got married. Also my grandpa and the guy that was dating my grand ma have the same name
Lizzzyy's Life That’s crazy, haha. See? These insta-love scenarios do happen! I think they’re kinda cute to be honest. I get that it’s not always enjoyable in a book but I don’t wanna hate on it. For the sake of our grandparents’ stories. :)
HONESTLY HATE ROMEO AND JULIET FOR THIS REASON ALONE. Everyone makes it out to be this great love story and how they were a perfect fit and in just like no, it's bad, she's like 13 and he's 16 that creepy and not to mention they don't really meet each other and oh they are dead because "Forbidden love". And so many people want to burn me at the stake for it. Like did we even read the same play? Do you have any reading comprehension? Or did you just believe what your Teacher said and didn't actually bother analyzing what you read? Like come on.
EveesCastle Uh, ok. Take it from a legit Shakespeare fan, Romeo and Juliet isn’t the best play ever if you just look for a love story. Having said that, it’s really not about the love between those two kids. They are “madly in love” because, well, they’re pups. I’ve met kids who had a girlfriend/boyfriend at 13/14 and they were just utterly smitten with their partner, to the point where it was almost absurd. Kids have passionate reactions to just about everything and love is no exception. That’s what Romeo and Juliet is. Two kids with no real guidance who fall for each other and don’t know what to do with it. But the point isn’t about their “oh-so romantic story” it’s about the stupid conflict between the families they belong to. The families are so immature and petty, that they become wholly absorbed in their fighting while two of their kids are in love and need help. But the conflict causes the parents on both ends to not care about the struggle between the kids, they only care about the fact that they are from different families. It’s very realistic actually. The whole story is a commentary on how ridiculous and stupid people can be, and how their inability to just get along and work things out causes tragedies. The tragedy in this particular story happens to be the lovestruck kids who suffer because of the lack of care on their families part, and end up taking their own lives. It’s terrible and sad. To make things worse, stuff like that actually does happen. Kids commit suicide because their parents are unsympathetic to their plights and people get hurt when they get caught up in the middle of petty feuds. It legitimately breaks my heart thinking about it because I’ve witnessed things like that happen before, where you just think “If we had just _tried_ to work this out, so-in-so wouldn’t have gotten hurt.” That’s why Shakespeare is a bloody genius, and plus, he communicates these stories in some of the most eloquent English you’ll ever read. Much Ado About Nothing is actually a very similar story, where these people almost go to war over...nothing. A simple lack of communication. It’s hysterical actually and Romeo and Juliet is the tragic version of that type of story. Anyway, just thought I’d share some insight. It’s really not about the romance. It’s about the sad result of stupid, petty fights that people get into. Oh, and, their ages aren’t actually that big of a deal if you remember when this story was written. It was very common for kids to marry at 13+ back then, haha.
America Singer is always saying that “she is different from all the others”, she talks a lot about the other girls. About how much make up they pur while she put a little of makeup and she is always herself while the others ew so fake and full of makeup 🙄
I also thought of her as an example for a girl who is "not like other girls". It drove me crazy how she thought of herself as a better human being because she wanted to wear pants to badly. The whole series drove me nuts (a friend of mine forced me to read them, but then lost it when I started ranting) The whole book made it seem so easy to get rid of the caste system. And it wasn't even explained how Maxon wanted to do it, he just said: "Hey, here's my perfect master plan to get rid of a fundamental part of this society! LET'S DO IT, TREASURE! Please tell me you will you marry me now because boning you is all I can think about right now even though I have a kingdom to lead!" Sorry, I'll stop now.
PinkDonut Unicorn i have to read the final book still so I didi!’t read the second part of your comment. I’m liking this series actually even if America is really annoying when she thinks that she is bettere because she has less makeup 😓 Also i hate her and Aspen togheter
I have one: PLEASE stop releasing books in a series where the author is long dead or has already passed on. I see this in works of Tom Clancy and the author of the James Bond books where they are constantly releasing books under their name, and it's just insulting to be releasing books to make a quick buck. However, there ARE exceptions where the author died too soon and their work was incomplete when they passed away. The two authors that come to mind are the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan. With J.R.R. Tolkien, many of his notes and stories were left unfinished, and when he passed away The Silmarillion was still unfinished and his son Christopher took over many of his projects. I don't mind this too much because I LOVE the world of Middle-Earth, and their many stories are very interesting. Hell, The Silmarillion is my all time favorite book!! Now with Robert Jordan he died when his most famous series The Wheel of Time Saga was still incomplete when he passed, and let's be honest his Wheel of Time Saga was in a pretty bad spot with the 10th installment and was still getting repaired in the 11th installment. To help finish the series they brought in Author Brandon Sanderson and Robert left behind VERY detailed notes to how the series should end, and Brandon Sanderson brought out 12, 13, and 14 to finally finish Robert's epic Saga, and they are some of the best installments in the series!! I normally don't mind releasing a story that the author never got a chance to release it, but to continue to put out books under their name, even though the authors are long dead, then it is time to stop!! Sorry for the long comment. I have a lot to say on the matter. Lol
It’s just unsettling. At least with the Wheel of Time series they put Brandon Sanderson’s name there. If the author is dead, why not just keep the series with the new author?
Tupac much? "Dying" advanced his career like nothing else ever did. half a dozen songs while he was alive, 650,000 after he "died." I wonder where he's living now....
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!! This is my BIGGEST pet peeve. I out it in the same category as the current obsession with remaking films for no reason.
The Flowers In The Attic author. When I worked as a bookseller it drove me crazy that they continued to pump these books. I actually had customers say she couldn't be dead because she was still writing books. 🙄
i’m so tired of love triangles! i just can’t read them anymore, especially if it’s between kind, popular dude vs bad boy. i refuse to watch or read anything with a love triangle tbh. unless it’s been recommended to me
The worst case of insta love I've read was in Children of Blood and Bone. The main character went from HATING the guy with a burning passion for justified reason. Then in less than two days they were in love and making out. I got whiplash.
Stitch329 I completely agree!! it felt so unnaturally fast because zelie was so filled with rage because of what Inan did but within like one or two chapters they’re kissing??
I read this book in july and I enjoyed it but the more I.think about it i realize that it wasn't as good as people and any rankings had been describing it. I didn't really care for Inan or Zelie and I tried to convince myself that I should, but to be honest they were kinda annoying. But I actually liked Amari, she was a lovable character and even though I'm not so eager to do this, maybe I will read the 2nd part.
I love it when an author manages to convey information to the reader that the main character isn't aware of, even though it's written in first person. E.g. there's a series I love where one character is in love with the main character (unrequited) and readers can tell, but the main character just doesn't see it.
I would love it if the book was from two different characters’ perspectives. Happens a lot. But one character tells it from first person present, the other from third person past. Not omniscient narrator, just from third person focussed on the character. Because the way someone thinks can be shown using that and I tend to think of characters who tell their stories in first person present as very (ugh I can’t think of the word!! Kind of just very involved in what’s happening) but third person past makes me think of them as detached and calm or considerate.
the only thing I hate more than "insta love" is the "I met you a couple of weeks ago and I'd die for you". Dude I've been with my fiance for 4 years and 😂 I mean I love him to pieces but...
Actual studies show men are the ones that usually feel the, "I'd die for you," love for partners, and can feel it very quickly. Women feel that mostly for their children not for partners, and also feel it very quickly.
I'd never die for my girlfriend or my children. I can always find a new girlfriend and (as a man) i can always make more children. The only person in my life i think i ever would have laid down my life for was my grandfather. He was the only weak-spot i had.
@@danacampbell8331 Well, she can actually have some friends, she can enjoy having them in her house or go the their house, have a ""girl's night"", read books, go to shopping and like all this is stuff (make up, etc), she can like sport ou dislike them. It's just write the female character without make her a pixie dream girl where she's so much better than the other girls just because she have no real friends and smoke and drink and run away in the middle of the night
Good points. Thank you. My protagonist is a 15-year-old girl whose mother is so desperate to find a man before her "expiration date" that she moves them in with one man after another. It's manageable until the mom meets a dangerous man.
Can I just say: as far as making a supporting character a love interest, despite the positive reaction to the comment, this is such a weird suggestion that I'm not sure it makes _any_ sense. First of all the main characters are only the main characters by virtue of the focus they are given by the author, and by extension their main characters... If the protagonist desires romantic involvement with another character, it stands to reason that other person will take up a lot of space within their thoughts, and as much time as possible within their day, placing them into position to affect the plot, and altering the alchemy of "supporting character." If the protagonist spends no time with, or thinking about the love interest, and/or that love interest shows little in the way of agency, or personality, or significance to the story then readers are going to wonder what the purpose of that character is, or why the protagonist would show _any_ interest in them; if they have agency, and they _are_ interesting, how are they going to avoid affecting the plot when they are in love with the person central to that plot? The alternative to this is like the wife who stays in the background scenes in a movie cooking dinner, and says things like "are you going to pick the kids up from school, I have to go to Yoga?" (because she has her own life, you know?) That's fine, I guess, not everyone is a road warrior, even if their spouse is, but does anyone actually think that's fun, or unique, or interesting? To me this is a little like asking why some audience member in a theater can't be the person on stage... they can... but then... they would...
futurestoryteller Maybe one situation where that can happen is if the main character and the love interest had to separate, and they send letters to each other or something. To make stuff more interesting, maybe have the love interest also involved in the plot in some way but in the background where the main (and so the readers) only finds out their role little by little or later.
I think part of the original complaint is when there is an established cast of characters (such as in Percy Jackson) and then later on when romantic plots start to develop it seems like the only choices for relationships are those already in the "main character" circle. But that being said once a side character does become romantically entangled with a main character it would be natural for that side character to be brought more into focus.
I agree, both ways work, as long as the character has agency and personality. We're all probably thinking about Samwise and Rosie, and Aragorn and Arwen.
When my gf fell in love with the "Hunger Games" movie, I told her she should read the books since they take you inside Katniss' head. She did, and she loved them also.
I've only written one in first person. I like it but I'm a stickler for theory of mind so the character never magically knows what another is thinking.
For me it's killing characters and then bringing them back to life. It's so common that it's predictable, and the death of a character doesn't have any emotional impact when you know they'll be back, soon enough.
Sammy some of the time it’s for effect later in like heroes of Olympus a character dies at the end but comes back due to a medicine that did actually exist in Greek mythology. Then in the next series 3 books in a main character from Heroes of Olympus is killed in the middle of a chapter halfway through the book
This is kinda long but I’m a new writer in need of help (also my idea may be stupid so forgive me) I’m planning a fantasy webcomic where the whole power system relies on death. An individual meeting certain criteria can gain powers - if they’re dead. So resurrection goes hand in hand with power. I wanted to start the story with a powerless protagonist, and subtly foreshadow both her death and subsequent resurrection midway through (Given the genre and world, I’m sure the readers would catch on to the idea that she‘d eventually die and resurrect, which is why I wanted to foreshadow). The emotional impact would instead come from the unpredicted, simultaneous and permanent death of another main character; I’d only be foreshadowing the main protagonist’s death. In any case, resurrection would be a one time thing. I understand killing and rezzing is kinda shunned. Still, I’d appreciate any feedback on whether this could be pulled off, or if I should just ditch the idea completely. Thanks in advance :)
@@ingrid5884 the problem with resurrection is that once only one character is resurrected the book looses allot Of thension because who knows, that important character that died just now can come back to death too, even if you as an author planned to make it permanent, there is no way to inform your reader of it. But your idea is still feasible. The important thing is that there are absolute requirements to ressurect. I don’t know how you want to handle is, but let’s say your character needs to do a ritual and mark themselves befor they can ressurect. The Reader is informed and knows okay, that character does have something like this, for example it is established sometimes previously , and when a character then does not fullyfie that condition, he Is dead for good, so tension can be preserved because characters can still die. As such the conditions should be difficult to be met auswelle as clearly cut. Also it would be good to establish them befor so it comes as no surprise that the other character does not ressurect after a mortal wound. Okay that was a bit long, but what I can say, is just go for it. If you like it even the most stupid plot can still be written perfectly and be a good book.
As long as they do it in a way that lets readers come up with their own resolutions. "Suppose this loose end has nothing to do with the main plot, but (insert fan theory)." Or even a 'Huh, that's odd."
Idk, I wouldn't call that realistic. In real life, nothing ever actually stays unresolved after all? Everything has a cause and an effect and everything leads somewhere. Maybe a dead end, but it does lead somewhere. If by the end of a book I'm left wondering "Oh actually, what happened to those two characters that were hinted at to be falling in love earlier?" that's not more realistic because in real life, I'd just find out if they are together now or not, or if they are endlessly pining after each other for the rest of their lives until one of them dies of old age, giving closure to the question. If by the end of the story I'm like "Wait, so what happened to the magical book after all that?" it's not more realistic that a big question mark is left behind. In real life, things don't just randomly stop existing. Either you destroy it or lose it or it gets sold, or you put it in some storage that one day also is either getting sorted out (meaning the book will be found), sold or destroyed, meaning any book in the world has SOME direction it goes in, it doesn't just exist in a vacuum. If a society is falling apart by the end of a story, it can't *eternally* stay in that state - it will either fall (and potentially be rebuilt) or pick itsself up after all and continue. I don't necessarily mind loose ends, a story is always just a portrayal of one moment in time, and it's each author's choice how much they want to include in that portrayal and how much they want to leave to the imagination of the readers, but claiming it is more *realistic* for things to just be left unclear eternally is just wrong imo.
@@sleepysera, As you said, "a story is always just a portrayal of one moment in time". There's always things that happened before it begins, and more that continues afterward. People lose touch with each other, items get lost... "I wonder what ever happened to..." isn't an uncommon phrase. But I don't like it when a book leaves major parts of the story unresolved. I think that Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" is an excellent example of knowing what to finish and what to leave unexplained.
I agree because in real life I have been like "wonder how that person is doing now" and I wouldn't mind if it was the same for a book. Obviously I'd want the main plot to be resolved because ending. But I wouldn't mind some mysteries just remaining that way
The best love triangle I've ever had the pleasure of reading is in the manga Fruits Basket. At the start of the story, the main female lead gains two potential love interests, and because all three of them live together, you spend a lot of time with all three. The relationships develope organically, and grow and change over time. Partway through the series, one of the potential love interests realizes that his love for her is familial in nature rather than romantic, and backs off from pursuing her, allowing the other guy to become the official love interest. As a bonus, the guy who backed off eventually finds love with a minor character introduced way later in the series, and it is done very well.
The point of view you write it in very much depends on the story, the character and the tone of the book. For example, Percy Jackson worked very well being in first person.
4:54 I don’t really agree with that one, whoever you couple the main character with is going to become a main character or else the love interest would be completely underdeveloped and the relationship wouldn’t be believable and the romance would suck. Just my 2 cents
I was just talking about the characters who are ALREADY main characters and "fall in love". I like minor character who end up becoming a main character due to their accociation to the main character but weren't originally written as main characters. If that makes sense 😂
In most fantasy I've seen, it's the side character or side perspective character that the main character (MC) is involved with, but I'd say it's probably 50/50... because there's literally only one other option-it's not a bad thing. I prefer MC/MC relationships because it's easier to care about it if they both equally affect the plot and are given equal page time (we understand them on the same/similar level, instead of one over another). But this is all personal preference ;=)) and shouldn't determine whether one romance is better than another.
If a storyline feels heavy on the romance because of the MC/MC nature, you're reading romantic fantasy, either that or the author isn't doing a good job balancing their plot/sub-plots, or you're reading YA.
My biggest pet peeve in books (or shows) is when the author makes a character do something completely out of character JUST because the author wanted the plot to go a certain way. They needed or wanted this to happen, so they make their smart characters make out of character, idiotic decisions. It's a huge turn off for me. Stop making your characters do things against who you're building them up to be just because you want a certain thing in the plot to happen! Figure out another way!
You mean like when Ron suddenly and for no reason becomes a jerk to Harry after six years of best friendship and shared traumatic experiences? And vice-versa? (PS Fuck you, Deathly Hallows. Always and forever.)
@@PedroBenolielBonito To be fair, that wasn't entirely Ron's fault. The horcrux was screwing with his head. It's established that it was having a negative impact on everyone, but Ron was getting it the worst. He's always been insecure, and the horcrux brought all those insecurities into the open while also bringing out the worst in him. As soon as he left Harry and Hermione and was away from it, he regretted his actions and tried to get back to them.
I've found in my writing that keeping them in character can lead to more interested and unexpected story twists. My protagonist started befriending the seemingly perfect and arrogant fellow mage apprentice by the second chapter while she was meant to be more of a rival and minor antagonist. Turned out this arrogant lady just needed a friend and my protagonist was a surprisingly great match for that. Opposites in many ways but it just works. They are a great team. And the farmgirl who was initially meant to be more of a friend to my protagonist took to the role of rival and antagonist surprisingly well. She became this nosy gossip.
Insta-love's best example: Disney. Just watch a Disney movie and you just know what it means. . . . P.S- I still love Disney Princesses and other movies. 😋
When I pick up a historical novel and the back cover reads: "Elisabeth - young, beautiful, vivacious - was a very unusual young woman for her time.", I put it back immediately.
Hard agree with minor character love interests! Also me with 99% of books: "This would be way better without the romance." Thoughts on the Hunger Games prequel?
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Well, the Hunger Games has quite a lot of gender equality, although, unfortunately, that just means that men and women are both treated equally shitty.
I would say that in some cases, falling in love within a month can be acceptable, let's say, as a completely hypotetical scenario, this character comes from a completely friendless background, let's say she was born with a crippling heart condition and simply spent too much time in hospitals to build connections at school, and let's say once her condition improves enough and she transfers away to a different school, she meets this other girl who is super cute and cheerful and friendly towards her, and they grow to support each other, but turns out that there is this legendary monster coming and other girl has to fight it or the entire city will be destroyed and everyone will die, so she goes and fight it, and she kills the monster, but that absolute melon manages to get herself killed in the process, I would say in those conditions, the first girl is completely justified to think she had fallen in love with this other girl, and that she can use her one wish to go back in time and try to save her from this grim fate, and perhaps keep doing if she fails, and keep doing it, **as many times as it takes.** Like I said, completely hypotetical.
You just described Homura and Madoka, and you're right. It's a psychological condition where people who haven't had healthy connections with others will suddenly lash on to the first person who's nice to them. I see Madoka Magica's story as a tragedy for that reason, I just wish Homura had a chance to connect with other people besides Madoka, that way she wouldn't have gotten so attached to her. It intensifies her lonely persona even more.
Dying-that's my favorite lol. Took me a minute to get...like who's dying. I think narrator choice should depend on the type of the story-1st person, 2nd, or 3rd should be chosen based on what the author wanna deliver. There are books I read that can't be without the 1st person narration-unfortunately, a lot of people write in 1st person POV simply cuz it's popular not cuz it's fitting. I want my unreliable narrator that makes me doubt his stories, the type that feels so human that it's not about what happened but how he tells it. That's how 1st narrators should be. Human being, almost independent from the authors, telling their stories.
I felt that way about the relationships. I'm not mad about who eveyone end up with ( in fact I'm happy that Naruto end up with Hinata. I don't support Susake and Sakura though. ) But how they did Naruto and Hinata relationship in movie the felt force imo.
HarleyxJoker FOREVER I was fine with The Last but it reinforces how Naruto really didn’t have that many well developed female characters. Kishimoto himself has admitted that he can’t write female characters very well. As for Naruto and Hinata, the Last while I love it as a movie, it’s hindered by how the original series barely did anything to develop Naruto and Hinata’s relationship. For goodness sake she had confessed during the Pain arc and not once did Naruto acknowledge what was said. There’s being dense and just outright forgetting. And I’m banking on the later.
@@Avarn388 Naruto talked about it at least three times since the Pain Invasion. Out-of-Universe, though, the reveal would negatively affect sales, plus NaruHina, sweet as it is, isn't super interesting once they get together. Besides, I'm STILL shocked Hinata actually DID confess. Over a decade later, still freaking shocked. That just doesn't happen!
![Dear Authors... Villains [CC]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/noP8f0WvV4c/mqdefault.jpg)
I picked up the book I was writing in high school and the first sentence was “Angel wasn’t like the other girls in her village”
I wanted to burn it.
Burn the ashes too
Nathanpix !! That made me smile lol
At least you wrote it in high school, we got full-ass grown adults writing that shit
Okay, but follow me...what if she's not like other girls? What if she's a child molester and just can't stop. I'd read that. Like the Woodsman but flipped.
J Whippet I’d read that
I hate it when the characters end their relationship because they love each other too much.
Katharina Jirous this happens??!!
I've never heard of this
That's just phenomenal
Saethron Elf it’s real and it’s ridiculous, for example the mc breaks up with the romantic interest “for their own good”
Uuurgh. I hate that trope. Like, unless said character is literally on the run from the mafia or something and actively putting their LI's life in danger, there's NO reason why "Loving someone too much" is a good reason to break up. It's the exact opposite. It's not dramatic, it's not heartbreaking, it's overdone to the point where even a child can tell that they're being emotionally manipulated. It's just........
I really don't like it.
@@kayleighbrown459 yeah. I've never seen this and it sounds pretty stupid
I feel like once a main character falls in love with a minor one, that minor character becomes a main character.
Zoë Holmes yeah, that’s true.
In total agreement
but minor characters lack the development and depth that main characters have, having your protagonist fall in love with an underdeveloped character wouldn’t be very satisfying
"Being in love" doesn't have to be a major plot point, or even a plot point at all, for all characters. Yes, definitely best if the protagonist falls in love with another of the main cast, but the rest of the main characters don't ALL have to fall in love with each other. Some can (as an incidental detail) have relationships that are mentioned but not instrumental to the plot. Or not fall in love at all.
@@n14d14 you can develop a minor character. Just don't mention the extra details.
dear authors please stop writing strong female characters that can kick-ass in the first few chapters, but as soon as they meet the male love interest(s) they become useless and constantly need to be saved. Eg. Firstlife and reign of shadows (if she can dodge an arrow flying at her head she wont need help with small inconveniences later).
The best female protagonists are those that have struggles and growth like male protagonists. Sarah Connor would have been killed easily in the first movie without the help of Kyle Reese, but at the end of the film you see she has become the mother of the future leader of the human resistance she needs to be. Ripley was a bit more competent as she as a warrant officer from the start of the first Alien movie, but it was having to adapt and survive a real threat that killed all her crew. In Aliens we see her actively looking for ways to assist, and Corporal Hicks (which strangely has the same actor as Kyle Reese) shows her how to use a pulse rifle so she can defend herself after Hicks, being the only one with enough common sense to be willing to listen to Ripley on how dangerous the xenomorph is and sees how right she is, orders they "dust off and nuke the site from orbit.".
*cough cough* _Asuna_
@@DemitriVladMaximov This is part of why I LOVE Throne of Glass. Celaena/Aelin is my favorite female character. She is so diverse in the first glass- i.e she loves kicking ass as an assassin, loves candy and music, but will also c u t you easily. But she develops in the series, grows into her history and into being Aelin, realises the truth about love and about sacrifice, and learns and develops into almost a new person that is still amazing and relateable in ways! Kinda hard to explain but just her journey through herself is something I loved reading.
@@abigailforrest9618 agree
She is also super feminine and likes fashion and other "girly" stuff. She doesn't need to act like a man to be as strong as one(both physically and psychologically)
@@adoragrayskull Exactly! A woman can fall in love and still be a badass, the two aren't mutual exclusive.
I can't stand the "I just met you and now I can't live without you" " I can't breath if you're not by my side" too clingy
Like, if the feelings are mutual, it’s viewed as sweet and romantic, but if it’s one-way? That’s a restraining order waiting to happen. It’s just super clingy and dependent, often creepy.
@@korialogo - Mental illness, for sure.
Haha, have you seen OSP's take on the Greek myth Narcissus?
Person: "I can't live without you."
Narcissus: "Then go ahead and die." (hands them a sword)
GIVE ME DEM POWER COUPLES
Reminds me of Richandamy from... is it Zits? It's a comic in the newspaper. Great use of the "can't live without you" teenage pair thing.
“Not like other girls” is a trope mainly found in Y/A novels, or fan fictions by 13 year olds who think that they themselves are “not like other girls”
W a t t p a d
Wattpad slowly backs away.
Literally no girl is like other girls. No one person it the same, maybe similar but not the same
@Lythist yeah but that’s not what the trope is. It’s not that the girl Is an individual and therefore bad. It’s that the girl is such a generic individual she’s either an overly masculine woman who only hangs out with men and everyone other girl is just completely useless or they are just sooooo peppy and upbeat and nice and just basically a marysue that is so much more perfect than everyone else it just becomes really annoying because it not only makes the main annoying but it makes everyone else feel kind of stupid as well
Lythist yes, exactly, but that’s what the people writing the not like other girls shit don’t understand
I was laughing so hard when the screen started zooming in the book by Patrick Rothfuss. 5:33. She just keeps talking and talking, and the screen zooms in.
That bit really confused me. I remember the protagonist in that book being VERY flawed (arrogant, impulsive, self-centered, reckless).
@@reinierovertoom7123 I see this complaint a lot. Some defend it as a point of appeal for the book in that Kvothe is probably an unreliable narrator so there's more underneath the surface of the story, but I honestly don't see it as a legitimate gripe at all, except maybe in his "prowess" with women, which itself is certainly lacking in the first book and actually gets worse in his interaction with his primary love interest even as it improves elsewhere. He's a weak fighter who routinely gets his ass handed to him until over halfway through the second book, and even then he's far from the best in the series, merely very competent. He's very gifted intellectually, but utimately in ways that are realistic enough, and honestly a character with his accomplishments should have a singularly sharp mind. He has a gift for magic that's largely connected to his other intellectual gifts, but it's not the strongest such gift in the story and even he acknowledges that some of his more impressive accomplishments are pretty lucky. And yeah there are plenty of personality flaws that are pretty clear, though I think there's a nice progression of character there, and ultimately the man we see in the tavern seems like a much different (better) person. There are problems with the books and with Kvothe's character, but the Mary-Sue complaint I see everywhere never really rang true for me.
@@whywhatwhenwherewow Somehow I can't hate this character. And the writing is so good ! More often than not, I find the writing in fantasy book to be a bit lackluster, or plainly bad. I loved so much finally reading something well written that even though I find the plot to be a bit lackluster (it's mainly a character driven series, but I usually prefer plot driven), I'm still waiting for the final volume :D
On "bad writing", I'm talking about the way sentences are written, not how the story evolves. I loved Mistborn 1 because the plot is great and some of the characters are really good, but by the end of book 2 I could not bring myself to read book 3 (plot lost some of its appeal, lots of boring parts, and somehow poor writing style but it may be due to my French translation (?) ).
@@oriandthesleepytime I think the main point of "flawless" in this kind of discussion (particularly Mary/Gary stue) revolves around skill. Like we tend to say a character is OP / flawless when he doesn't struggle to learn new skills etc. It's a very narrow definition, I agree.
By this standard, Kvoth is still not flawless, some skills are kinda hard for him to get. But almost every time it seems so easy for him I understand why people see him as flawless / boring. But as you might have read in my previous answer, even though I agree he is OP (you have to admit he really learns in an inhuman pace :p ), I still find him interesting because he is not that flawless. We tend to focus on the fact that he climbed the social ladder very fast and learned a ton of skills at the speed of light because indeed that is kind of unrealistic. But we forget that more often than not he took some serious hits in the process which made the impossible learning very fascinating instead of plain boring and cringy.
As for the character, he is very arrogant, to a point... And he seems to have the most toxic romantic relationship you can get. It may be too much for my taste, like wtf are you still chasing that girl instead of all the lovelier, smarter girls he meets everywhere ? Can't get my head around that ^^
Hahahaha! I read this right as it started to zoom in, brilliant.
Personally, my least favorite trope is that EVERY SINGLE YA lead has to be unbearably clumsy and inevitably have a scene where they fall under/on top of the love interest to create sexual tension
I’ve read books where a girl would run into a guy by accident and say how hard he is and they talk about oh he is so awesome. I e ran in plenty of guys one time I had to go to the nurse and all we said was sorry to each other.
marie rich c sooo anime?
Every romantic kdrama: 👀
@@coldsphagett8910 LMAO
Twilight?
Dear authors: write good stories, let everyone complain
yeah! somthng I would say to Sulman Rushdie. Critics are really funny for me.
Can't stop em, that's for sure.
that. RIGHT THERE. is what i needed to hear. thank you!!!!
I will. Thank you my dude.
Haters gonna hate
I actually don't mind the "let out a breath they didn't know they were holding" trope. I find I personally do it all the time so it's not something I find annoying.
Agreed. I dont really mind it.
I automatically hold my breath whenever watching/reading a scene where a character goes underwater. I have this overwhelming urge to prove that it’s possible
I’ve never heard it before but it sounds intense, I like it
TheSunGamer101 I agree
Nah I’m Good same lol
I really do hate the whole "falling in love in a week thing."
Healthy friendship to relationship is great.
Or just healthy friendship. Or "falling in love" but it's just infatuation, and then they realize they were wrong and gradually fall in love with another person. Natural progression of relationships would be cool.
Yes please! I absolutely hate the "love at first sight" and the "enemies to lovers" tropes so bad, it's not surprising these tropes came from Hollywood movies, since movies only have a certain amount of time and the directors wanted to get the couple together at once.
We need more "friends to lovers", but without one of the friends having a crush on someone else who obviously isn't the right fit (usually a jerk). I want close friends who both have a crush on each-other, but don't realize the other one does too until the confession, it feels earned and healthy.
I hate when authors are using real-life photos to introduce their characters. that just takes something away for me as a reader
usually i feel the same way but in my opinion the painted man series did it well
Same
Yeah It completely takes away the imagination of what a character looks like away.
Ikr because it's fun to imagine them in your own way and then see how others interpretated them
I like it when they have face claims because it helps me visual the characters better
When I hear “unnecessary love stories”, I always think of the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. He ended the series with a female character alone, but his editors had him add in a throwaway line about a guy joining her so the ending wasn’t “a downer”. I’ve never forgotten that.
HuckleberryCyn wow I’m so glad I saw your comment. None of my friends even know about the Uglies series. I never finished the fourth book and now I think I’ll go read it!
HuckleberryCyn The Uglies was one of my favorite series growing up
I didn’t mind that, personally. I’ve always thought she’d give it another go with David, but they’d figure out it wouldn’t work. I dunno. It just never bothered me much.
Same thing happened with Great Exprectations, the editors forced Dickens to have Kip and Estella get married by the end, since the book is otherwise pretty depressing, despite Dickens thinking they wouldn't realistically go together. It's sad when things like that happen, sometimes the author knows best :/
@@morganfreeman9106 I didn't necessarily mind it at the time I read it, but that author's note always stuck with me.
Depression being "solved" by true love or "finding yourself".
@Jeremy Barbati Because that is not the way depression works. Generally we just learn to live with it and deal as best we can.Depression is not loneliness or sadness.
Nope. Doesn't work in real life. Nope....... Although, neither does flying or wizardry. Hmmm. Wouldn't it be nice if it did work though? Siiigh.
Depends what the underlying cause of the depression is. Loneliness can be a form of depression, either because of a lack of romance or a lack of friendshp (you could be in a romantic relationship which has destroyed your friend circle for example). Alternatively, you could feel unfullfilled in life for variety of reasons (lack of achievement, boring life, etc). For example, depression for me was the 9 to 5 grind and being stuck in an office - once i escaped that, my depression began to fade away (not straight away, mind you, but the freedom of time to pursue other goals sure helped).
Actually I’ve cured depression after finding who I really am.
Or oversimplifying depression and presenting it as a continuous state of mopiness or general indifference to life. Depression affects different people in different ways. I agree with your point regarding "solving" depression. Those may be worthwhile means of dealing with depression for some, but not for everyone.
dear authors please stop writing "someone was screaming then [character] realised it was them"
Is that real?
That happens in real life though. And the "released a breath I didn't realize I was holding". I've experienced both a few times. I know that it's used A LOT in books, but it does happen in real life.
@@nisya.8924 The scream thing happens in real life? Lol. It has never happened to me.
@@Ignasimp It does. The latest it happened to me was this January. We had a motorcycle accident and it was at night, no one was around but (here it comes!) someone was screaming. About a second later, I realized my mouth was open and that the sound was coming from me.
The other time I clearly remember was when we went cliff diving. I'm deathly afraid of heights but I wanted to try it. You know what they say, face your fears. (It didn't work, I'm still scared of heights) So when you do it, I was advised to cover/pinch my nose and keep my mouth closed to avoid swallowing water and all that. But the moment I jumped off that cliff, my hand let go and flailed at my sides like an idiot. Before I hit the water, I realized the same thing and yes, I swallowed a whole lot of water and learnt to swim for real because the waters were deeper than I initially thought.
I literally just finished a book and the main character says that around the end it's Perfect from Cecilia Ahern
that slow zoom in to the name of the wind got me CACKLING
徐明浩shar I swear when I saw it pop into the frame I nearly died 😂 the zoom was a plus
That was so funny!!!!😂
I was watching it while focusing on something else and when I heard "I don't think I can think of a book that has done this" I went "What? I'm sure you have" and looked over to see the zoom and just went "OHHHHOHOHOHOHO"
Hahahahaha! Me too! I actually really enjoyed that book, but I knew Kvothe was going to get a massive eye-roll from readers.
I know I'm being "that" defensive dude, but I feel like that's a mild exaggeration cuz Kvothe wasn't all perfect and that was made clear many times by him fucking up small things to big things through lack of experience or overconfidence. More importantly, I just think it's a little silly to be irritated about this in the first place, because Kvothe was long since implied to be one of the upcoming smartest dude, so you can hardly expect him to NOT be good at almost everything, so I really like that Rothfuss took into account of Kvothe's lack of experience and powerlessness and preyed on it despite Kvothe being so damn smart. Also, his parents were both good looking people, so why would he be ugly? I'm also surprised that people still complain about him "getting all the women" because it's far less of "getting all the women" and more of the "well shiet this is how THINGS WOULD NATURALLY GO DOWN IN A SETTING THAT'S BUILT LIKE THIS".
This is not just for books but all media. I hate I mean Hate contrived conflict due to miscommunication.
If your major conflict can be solved with a brief conversation, there's a problem....
Mandy H Yeah defin
@@Newfiecat - If that major conflict is BECAUSE nobody's having the brief conversation, the problem goes pretty deep. Two people playing "I won't say anything until So-and-so says something" no matter what's going on? That's full of possibilities.
Yeah, like the main character gets in an argument another character, an argument that could be clarified and eliminated with about ten seconds worth of talking, but they leave without speaking those words.
OR, character #1 fails to make an obvious connection. Character #2 is looking for the fabled black stones of Arcanna and character #1 has just remembered the story his grandfather told him about the location of the incredibly dark gray stones of Harcanno which couldn't possibly be one and the same, could they? Many chapters go by before the connection is made while the reader just groans in despair at their stupidity.
EVERY K-Drama I ever got annoyed with in a nutshell~
The police/authority figures being incredibly dumb-down to make the protagonists seem more clever/intelligent or to "enhance" the tension (One of Us is Lying)
Gravity Falls, with Sheriff Blubs and Deputy Durland. I rolled my eyes the first time I saw them on screen, they embody this trope so heavily.
I felt this,
I mean, people in general, are highly intelligent, *even* when they sometimes have *blank moment* days.
Sometimes even the "not smart" people in *real life* are *smarter* than some of the "not smart" characters in stories.
I mean get *real* man.
I hate lack of communication! It's the most frustrating thing for me when everything could be resolved if characters just said what they needed to say instead of being magically interrupted every time they try to talk about the issue. I recently listened to a detective story/thriller and a side character made a big discovery in the case. Ofc they didn't share it with anyone, just left a voice message "hey i got it i'll tell you when I see you". Went in solo and died so no one knew wth happened. I HATE when that happens! You're working the same case, share the information on the spot and don't go in fighting a serial killer on your own you moron. Really popular plot in movies and tv shows too and it's really annoying!
Yes. Oh, yes.
We all know that, in real life, people often don't talk to each other about important things, but it happens way too much in fiction. Part of that overexposure is simply the mass of fiction in various media, and the other part is sloppily defaulting to various tropes and cliches.
Re-write the story if it's necessary to keep crucial information away from the relevant characters rather than "I can't tell you over the phone: meet me at the bodega on 3rd and Vine" or whatever. Or, if you're keeping friends or lovers apart, something better than petulant refusals to even let the other person talk. Yes, we've all been in arguments (not always with significant others) where we just didn't want to hear it, but the fiftieth fictional "Don't talk to me!" comes across as a device.
This is a problem that goes all the way back to myths and legends. Heroes unknowingly confronting their sons in battle because, for some reason, they never visited so neither recognized the other. People not even asking necessary questions or thinking to write letters asking for information.
No kidding. I feel like if you explain it, it can work (can’t say over phone, mole in group/distrust, need to deliver info under different circumstances), but when it’s just putting off sharing necessary stuff for the plot, it’s pretty annoying. Sure, people wait on sharing information all the time, but when it’s a major clue on the trail of a serial killer? That’s gotta be shared with the team quickly.
This is a big one for me. I find it tedious and unnecessary.
It’s a cheap way to up the drama. That’s why people do it. I hate it too. Once in a while it’s ok, but it’s just so overplayed... and it happens multiple times in the same story too! Like seriously, didn’t you learn your lesson the first time?!
I once watched a romance anime and all the main characters made outrageous assumptions on what was going on and took something so small as confirmation that they didnt even talk about it. And I just couldnt finish it because everyone beleived things that were completely wrong and didnt want to confirm it with the person.
I actually understand the main characters only falling in love with other main characters one, because those are the people they spend the most time with; it makes sense that they’d develop an emotional connection with someone within the group rather than someone who hasn’t been there for a lot of it and hasn’t gone through a lot of the same things.
yes! this is exactly what i was thinking! also, without them being at least kind of a main character, they're dangerously close to the "love interest that does as much for the story as a lamp".
I think adding a new character and making them gradually the romantic interest is better. Because usually if the main characters get together they must have been best friends before. And that's going back to the point that authors always make a girl and boy friendship into a romantic relationship as if they can't just be friends. As a girl with a few best guy friends I know I would never do anything with them even though I spend a lot of time with them.
This is an "unwinnable" position. Because let's say you *do* introduce a new character as a love interest, that character has to occupy a decent amount of space in the book or the writer will get crapped on for not developing them enough.
I think the main issue is that the romantic subplots are completely forced and unnecessary in many cases. The book you're reading is all about a dark oppressive atmosphere with a focus on action and survival... and suddenly, it's all thrown away because the author (or editor) wants to tie the ending together in a 'happy ending'. Of course, we all know that happy endings can only happen with a romantic interest. It's not like there is any other way to be happy.
We can have many romance-based stories without a lot of fighting happening, but it seems we can't have an action-based story without the main character falling head over heels for somebody.
Or just from a development point of view. It's a dammed if you do, dammed if you don't situation. If you don't give the love interest enough development, then you're ripped for that person being shallow/two dimensional etc. If you put in the space to develop them, then that's probably enough for someone to consider them a main character.
Edit: should have read other replies first
Jk Rowling: *end Harry Potter*
Also jk Rowling years later: BUT WAIT THERES MORE!!!
Everything that transpired later:
Now that's a lot of damage.
Yes because fans Constantly bombarded her with questions needing to know every small detail. Just because you dont like what she said ain't her fault
I'm tired of the parents/family being killed off trope. While yes, it speeds up character growth, we as the readers get to miss out on the family interaction and the bonding. Also, it's freaking awesome when the main character gets put in their place by their siblings or parents because it makes them flawed and capable of mistakes while also showing how deep the bond of family can be.
mollie ducky not to mention that it can show another side to the character. We don’t act the same with family as with friends.
YESSS. And you can get so much feels with a close family relationship. I feel like too many authors completely toss family relationships and friend relationships to focus exclusively on a romantic relationship.
Also, if someone really does want representation with their families, they can explore different kinds of families as well. Single parents, separated and remarried parents, foster families, step-siblings, “traditional” families, same-sex couple parents, lots of siblings, no siblings, siblings of similar ages, siblings much older/younger, missing family members, kind families, abusive families... there are lots of different forms to look into.
The upside of using the Family Died trope is that you raise the stakes and make the conflict personal in one fell swoop. You also quickly cut emotional ties to the quiet starting village.
BUT, it's just as easy to pull this off by leaving a family member gravely wounded but recovering. And if you kill them off to raise stakes once, you can't use it later to keep the main character invested.
If your story is short, the trope is an easy to use, low maintenance inciting incident. If you plan on going beyond the initial rage-fueled villain hunt, the family would be better served for character development scenes and as on-going motivators.
@@BonaparteBardithion The family can also be used to heighten drama by having some members choose the antagonist. This creates anxiety and tension, and if done well, can show different points of view while pointing out that all the characters and their points of view are flawed in some way.
Funny thing: If you read medieval literature, every single friendly female character (not counting witches or such) is described as the most beautiful and flawless of them all- even if there are several women involved. Men, who are usually if not exclusively the protagonists, sometimes have more character, some are mischievous, whimsical or carry scars. But the tendency to create "Mary Sues" - especially female ones- is as old as humanity's ability to write.
I feel obliged to reply as a medievalist and you're correct! Feminine beauty was seen as a positive trait, and good (typically Christian) women in stories were most beautiful in all the lands, and while men were also depicted as super beautiful and/or handsome, but they do have some sort of added dimension to them. It came from the impulse of the 'virgin-whore' complex they had, and the idea of the Virgin Mary in medieval imagination, but hey... we should move away from that, no?
I think one of the best ways I've seen "let the characters fail" is in the anime Haikyuu, which is about a high school boys volleyball team. I won't give spoilers but some losses felt very necessary, some hurt to watch and I really appreciate allowing the protagonists to lose; if not permanently then as a form of learning.
YES I was thinking this exact thing. Some losses feel crushing, but are able to motivate characters to improve further so that they can overcome the obstacles that stopped them before. Thank you for mentioning Haikyuu, that's the perfect example, and one of the things that made me really like that anime.
One piece Shabaody Arc and Marine Ford...
The whole ‘adding on years later’ thing is the very reason almost everyone in the HP fandom has counted the Cursed Child as not canon. I don’t care what JK Rowling says about it. It was unnecessary.
i don't care anymore about what that woman says since 2007
All of you are gonna yell at me, but I actually do really like the Cursed Child. This is just my opinion. You guys can have your own, I can have my own, and they can be different.
@@Nikki-ux9ib I see. It's obvious as different people have different tastes. From my experience Some people like dragon Ball GT and there are who hate it for either just fun or just tastes.
@@Nikki-ux9ib I haven't met anyone who likes the cursed child so I am just wondering, what did you enjoy about it?
EllisA_is_for_animate Well, Scorpius is the greatest little cinnamon roll, and I think it makes sense that the Time-Turner exists, because just like how science and medicine and stuff has advanced in our world, magic would have advanced in the wizarding world. I also enjoy how J. K. Rowling made Albus and Scorpius Slytherins, because it showed the reader that we shouldn’t be prejudiced against Slytherin house, and good people were in that house.
It's not just you, "not like other girls" is way overblown IMO. Any time a female character has skills or traits of any kind, everyone says that she fits into that trope.
I was listening to a podcast where they said that Allison from The Breakfast Club was one of those "not like other girls" characters when she never says anything like that in the movie, she's just a weird person all around. That's what made it click for me.
Anne Looney Yeah. I wish pseudo intellectual reviewers never heard of the term "Mary Sue". "sHE hAs qUaLIties aNd sKIllS! mARy SUe! "
I feel like Not-Like-Other-Girls and Mary Sue are different tropes. They do often overlap, but they aren’t the same. Mary Sue is to build a character up so much that they destroy their environment and plot, but in Not-Like-Other-Girls, the author usually destroys the environment and plot to build the character. I don’t know how to explain it, but I do think that they’re different. I have mixed feelings on their frequency of use and frequency of being called. On one hand, I agree that when a female is given skills/character she is often torn down for being a Mary Sue, despite just being a dynamic female. Frankly, I don’t like when people get mad for an author writing a girl with feelings/thoughts. On the other hand though, Mary Sues are still very common in work, guys or girls. It’s generally in fanfic, self-inserts, and small-scale writings, but they show up. There’s a fine line from Mary Sue to Chosen One in many cases. So overall, I think that people often call “Mary Sue” when there isn’t one, but they do still show up in writing and shouldn’t necessarily be ignored.
As for Not-Like-Other-Girls, it’s not as popular in novels, but it’s often seen in movies targeted at younger audiences and stories written by people in their early teens.
I don’t think it’s the fault of the people who write them, really, so much as the society that got them there, though. Lots of girls go through the phase of not wanting to be like the others. We’re taught that traditionally feminine qualities are negative, so we try to be “strong” by disowning our gender. (For the record, this isn’t about trans people; I’m referring to the phase, not the permanent transition) We decide that we hate pink, or we swear off men, or we refuse to wear dresses, or we write about not being like others. Some of these are just qualities, as not everyone likes pink and dresses, but I think that many of us who would otherwise like those things ditched them because they “made us girls.” I don’t mean to sound all SJW or anything, but I really do think that lots of girls go through that point, where we learn to look down on our gender and, in pride, call ourselves different. Basically, I can’t be certain with this, and obviously everyone is different to an extent, but I really do think that this trope is born of shame in what the movies make us.
I disagree. it's really prevalent in the romance genre. I've read lots of books well the male protagonist will explicitly state that he likes the heroine because she "eats big macs not salads like other girls" or she "doesnt wear pounds of makeup like other girls" or she "doesn't wear skimpy clothes" etc. The not like other girls trope is basically whenever the writer tears down the life choices or attributes of other women in order to make the main female character look good. It is very different from the mary sue trope which I do agree is way overblown
@@JustLaugh143 Yes, the writer could just say "he liked that she ___________" and leave off the "not like the other girls" part.
It 's even worse when the book then goes into hating on stereotypes of "other girls", then makes it's female protagonist the impossibly perfect character. But every romance starts with instalove or is abusive.
I basically watched this video and found that 80% of them applied to the Anita Blake novels. Do yourself a favor and don't read them.
Me in 6th grade: Dystopian is my favorite genre! Overthrowing the government is so fun to read about!
Me today: *throwing Red Queen into a bonfire* i haven't read an original book in my _life_
this is comment is calling me out on so many different levels i-
Red Queen and Throne of Glass are the same book: Change my mind
Rae -chii Any dystopian book that’s not 1984 is shit.
i enjoyed it but you could see the “twist” coming a mile away. the rest of the series is where it all goes wrong
@@benawesomebw1197 have you read Fahrenheit 451? Admittedly I liked 1984 a bit better, but lowering Fahrenheit 451 to the same coffin as 'throne of glass' is criminal.
Am I the only one that doesn't mind "I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding"? I feel like there are times where it couldn't be described any other way lol
SteviWondr I like that one because it’s actually pretty relatable to real life nerves.
Creativity is awesome, sometimes overused phrases come across as stale, but ultimately...if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I don't exactly mind it but I'd just say ,,Phew" instead.
@@Carbon2861996 But do you say phew in real life if you are nervous. Like have you ever been so anxious and nervous or stressed that your breath just catches in your throat but you are so distracted you don't realize that it has happened till your body is screaming at you to breathe. So you like just explode out a little... That has never happened to you? You literally just walk around going Phew... Phew... Phewww... Cause if so...
Can we be friends? I think that would be so cute.
And also, how do you not feel anxious? Are you magical?
@@kitkatxk2814 phew, phew, phew... 😂😂😂😂
Slow zoom on Name of the Wind is one of the funniest things I've seen in a while. Hilarious!
*two characters of the opposite gender that have immense platonic chemistry and a great friendship exist*
Me: please don't make them fall in love, please don't-
*male best friend falls in love with girl, creating a love triangle where he is obviously not going to win, as the other male lead has already been established as the one she'll pick*
🙃
I'd like to see more gayness where one male lead falls in love with the other male lead who is in love with the female lead who is in love with nobody, or the gay male lead, or is a lesbian. Who knows.
NotABot 8436 get writing 😉
NotABot 8436 sounds complicated, so go for it!
I feel like you’re talking about twilight lol
*cough* twilight *cough*
I HATE when Book 2 summaries what happened in the Book 1 as if we haven't read it 😑. Just continue with the story.
Misfit 648 I don't mind a quick overview of what happened, like if I don't remember what happened in the previous book. BUT!! it needs to be short and sweet, then move on.
Misfit 648 lol what? Who does that? I’m curious
@@elizabethiman7442 The second Harry Potter book has some amount of recap. The third does so too (not as much as the second one though).
@@Mondlunar Yeah, but Harry Potter can get away with it, because a) it's not too long and doesn't hold up the story progression or character development, b) it was written with a younger audience in mind than the latter novels hence more recap even though it is a bit condescending towards children as if they couldn't remember what had happened previously, and c) after the success of the first book, a recap isn't too bad considering that some people who haven't read the first novel might pick up the second one to see what all the fuss is about and it can help to catch them up as well.
Sometimes that isn't the author's decision but their editors. Though, I admit that I usually skip over them too.
And men's only flaw is that they just feel too deeply and are so guilty for all the things they've done and they're *broken please don't love me*
justabitofamug I actually dated a guy like this for a year in high school. Now I just wanna puke every time I start a book with a character like this.
Why is this my current boyfriend, who thankfully is my best friend as well... 🤔 I mean, I love him, but sometimes, Y I K E S !
It's kinda funny actually but an Oscar Wilde quote comes to my mind:
"In old days books were written by men of letters and read by the public. Nowadays books are written by the public and read by nobody. "
everyone is a writer these days...
That's what happens when you have a society of readers. If you consume enough of something, of course you're gonna wanna try it yourself.
👏👏
Wait, Adám, you're not wrong. Or, well, the quote isnt wrong.
Heh... rereading Throne of Glass book right now. Didnt know how everything plays into a big loop.....
"Not like other girls" seems to be the new mary sue - there are definitely characters that fit both of those complaints, but more often theres just female characters who get accused of this sin just for existing.
Can you give an example of what you feel fits the trope definitions but aren't female?
I'd like for less authors to write novels as future potential media adaptations, and more with the aim of producing books to stand as examples of GREAT BOOKS.
There's a hierarchy of media I've noticed since working in book stores. Popular books are produced to be first drafts of future screenplays, and they read as such.
More authors should aspire to defy adaptability.
Yes, and I think most novels if not all can be adapted if the ones adapting it do a great job.
I agree with you, but then they won’t get published. Now agents and publishers are looking for books that can cash in on a movie adaptation.
.
Blame Hollywood for that, they've been adapting novels since the very beginning, instead of coming up with their own ideas more often. It's created a perception in pop culture that "you're story is only great if a movie adaptation has been made", which is totally false.
Author: "She let out a breath she didn't know she was holding."
Readers: *sigh heavily*
i still dont get is it becuase what she was holding was easily recognizble or something
Sounds like She was about to suffocate because of the cliche statement from her author. (lol)
You know, for how many times I've seen it, I actually don't mind that sentence, especially if it's used well. There have been times where a tense scene was resolved, and right as I read that line I found myself releasing the breath I didn't realize I was holding in either. When that happens I feel a deeper connection with the character.
The “girl like no one else” trope was soooo prevalent back in the YA dystopian phase. The Selection. Twilight. Hunger Games. Divergent. The MC is always more smart, strong, mysterious, whatever than other girls. I feel like I haven’t seen that trope in awhile, but it could also be bc I haven’t been reading that genre as much.
Yeah, the YA stuff was/is ripe with it. Although honestly the "girl like no one else" is just a spinoff of the age-old, incredibly tiresome "chosen one" trope which I have never been a fan of either. I think it's more interesting to have something that anyone *could* do, but the main character achieves it because he/she is really dedicated, or really clever, or what have you. Rather than "oh he/she was able to do it because something something chosen one"
Agree! I think that trope was so popular back in 2009-2012 YA books. Nowadays, books that have 'girl like no one else' trope are the ones published by wattpad, or basically any popular fanfiction-turned-into-published-books kind of books.
I thought Hunger Games actually did it pretty well. I never read Twilight so I don’t know about that one, but wasn’t Bella kind of supposed to be a really boring, blank slate character so readers could insert themselves into the story via her character.
@@morganfreeman9106 I don't think so. The story begins with her moving to a new town and she has a lot of downer opinions about it, from what I remember. She seems like a character who needs to seek out danger and thrills for stimulation because she's a bit low on empathy, to be honest. I did not find her very relatable.
How was Katniss special? The rebellion on one side and the Capitole on the other made her special, but she was just a normal teen, that was the point.
I hate when authors say “Hard.” Like, “I hit the ground. Hard.” Or “she rolled her eyes. Hard.” Goddd it frustrates me to no end
or a youtuber said Hard agree all the time.
He was hard. H a r d
it frustrates me, too.
hard.
W h y
it makes me slap my forehead. hard.
What about killing the parents of the main protagonists? This is sooo overused and boring. Be creative, people, stop going the easy way!
So what your saying is I should give my characters issues that mirror my own, therefore creating a narrative that is painfully relatable and forces me to deal with my own trauma?
@@emalynscott7612 in my opinion that would be pretty interesting, but, what I am saying is that letting the parents of protagonists live would be more challenging and more interesting; the author would be forced to make a protagonist-their parents relationship, and would force them to decide what their relationship is like - good, toxic or broken? And how the character will deal with it?
@@atinysadskeletoncarriediny4914 Not really, a lot of time it's not interesting and adds a bunch of unnecessary problems.
Ironic. You have the profile picture of Ezio Auditore, the man who lost his family to Templars.
@@darthmortem585 still, their relationships were written out a bit. But you're right
"I'll never get tired of friends to lovers" don't call me out mom
Instalove example: Romeo and Juliet
Time span: Literally a few hours!
I know it’s a tragedy, not a love story, I was just providing an example of instalove. Thanks anyway!
Caleb Goodman Yes but that’s the beauty of Romeo and Juliet. It’s about hate as much as love. They felt their love was so strong and married quickly because of the sudden deaths of their families. War forced them to cling on to one another. It’s implied Romeo would have quickly move on from a silly girl like Juliet and dump her like her cousin if his best friend hadn’t been killed
Two teenagers under the influence of hormones. If the families hadn't been feuding, it would have been over before the week was out.
Romeo and Juliet is not a love story, its a classic tragedy. Shakespeare love stories were classic comedies, the problem isn't romeo and juliet its people who never studied or paid attention in English literature and only read it in middle school going omg how romantic!!! When its literally about the dangers of infatuation, prejudice and lack of filial piety.
I had to read it because I had to study Tybalt. I played hom in a play.
Well, they are teenagers, and the hormones are raging....
"Saying after the fact that that character is gay" it's not exactly the same, but hi voltron! how's shiro doing?
@@ss-cp2uy it didn't look like a relationship!! He and Adam would've just looked like best friends or distant relatives if they weren't bragging about it all over twitter!
the Not Like Other Girls trope is mostly in YA books with female mcs
Falling in love one week, Merphy, you haven't read "The Sun Is A Star". They fell in love in a DAY
Joel Katumba I love that book, but I can see where others would have issues with the rushed relationship. You don’t buy into it all the way because of the lack of time put into it. I’d also add “They Both Die at the End” which everyone else seems to love but I hated for this reason and because the sexuality aspect was very much shoehorned into the third act
@@whitneymouse i could not suspend my disbelieve in that book but i will try it out again and see if i can feel differently
Joel Katumba what I really enjoyed about that book is that she showed how others they encountered changed the outcome of the plot. I’ll admit the relationship is rushed and likely not love, but I really, really liked the other aspects along with the diversity. I’ll add that I thought “They Both Die at the End” was a worse TSiAaS. It tries to do the same things, but it’s not as effective and the relationship was even more forced. But I love and respect that you’re willing to take another look at a book you didn’t like :) Thanks for the awesome chat!
That's why I haven't read that one :)
Romeo and juliet fell in love after a glance
1. Complain a character's love interest wasn't developed and that they add as much as a lamp.
2. Complain a character's love interest isn't a minor character that adds as much as a lamp.
It's almost as if different people like different things, so all of this is pointless.
84C4 well people like different things, but they should recognize that and just stop reading if they don’t like something (unless it’s actually problematic like romanticizing abuse)
While I agree with 84C4 that it might be different taste, I also think that this can depend on the situation. If you have the main character being in love with for example someone working in a small shop, this person can be a developed character while not being a main character. He is maybe not one of the heroes fighting the villain but he can have a personality etc and show that he is multidimensional whenever the hero visits him.
On the other hand some people are frustrated when the hero of the story is in love with a heroine fighting the villain too , but all she does is needing to be saved and look pretty. She is a main character then, but she could be replaced with a lamp and everything would be the same.
But that's just my perspective.
Edit: I may be wrong here because the person in the first example is maybe not a minor character. I'm kinda confused about this. Sorry, if I annoyed someone.
Here's an idea for the next list: "Dear Fans, please stop ____"
Mate Safranka yes that would be awesome!
lovely idea!
"Dear Fans, please stop attacking other people for their opinions - this all just happened inside a head anyway and nothing was real."
Dear Fans, stop asking me where my ideas come from. The answer has been and will always be :LIFE!
@@Yettyen lol love it
Dear fans, stop sexualizing young female characters even though said characters weren't even sexualized.
Example: Nezuko.
*this applies to young male characters too but it's more often seen with girls
ALSO.
Dear fans, stop saying that shipping two boys/men is pedophilia. It's not what it's called. Plus double standards. If it's a female, they're like HARD SHIP KISS NOWWWW!!!
(If it sounds dumb, I KNOW. I saw many people commenting that on a HxH comment section. It SUCKS.)
I am a writer. I will definitely be taking all this into consideration. Consider me schooled. :D
Right! I always watch these kind of videos to reflect on my work and see how I can improve.
Ditto ditto! I love seeing what readers think about books without having been trained in the Melding of Plot and Character. They/we, after all, are who writers write for. Are they not?
Me too
Hey same!
"JKR seems determined to ruin her own franchise."
Oh boy, yep. At every avenue.
I've never seen an author dig their own grave so enthusiastically
Her views on things have got nothing to do with her books though so why is she apparently digging her own grave?
@@shannonjade1480 mcgonagall is a furry confirmed!11!!!!!1!1
I've never seen a fanbase turn on an author over such trivial things though
Human rights and access to medical care isn't exactly trivial.
Im little out of here. Wts the drill, wht she actually did?
"...making stalking sound romantic."
Yeah! And playing Every Breath You Take at weddings. Or at least wait until we're too drunk to listen to lyrics.
They should start adding that song to horror movies.
They should start adding that song to horror movies.
@@kayg6090 They did actually add that song to the final clip of Stranger Things season 2. It was pretty creepy.
ruclips.net/video/xBXAYuGdSc0/видео.html
Yep, creepiest stalker song ever written.
Stop using long complicated sentences describing short fast-paced scenes. Looking at you, person in the mirror.
yeah
10:25 - Isn't all of the things on this list simply being smart? Writing is both art and a job, and nobody wants to be a starving artist. Just like bands that have 10 albums and only one hit song, many an author has just one hit book. If you write something that resonates with the fans, then you should maximize it for all you can. That's not greed, that's just smart. Even I have toyed with the idea of including in a few bonus chapters for pre orders on books, but have ruled it out because I feel it will only create hurt feelings and divide my audience into have and have nots. But I don't think it's a horrible idea that doesn't have it place if done correctly. And of course publishers are going to have different copies of books. paperbacks are meant to be cheaper by design, and book collectors want a book that can, if taken care of, last 1000 years, and that costs money. And if you end up taking one book and turning it into a series of 10, of course when you reprint them as a whole series, those books will and should have a different coesive design that may not have happened before you knew just how many you would end up with. And if you can bang out 15 books off of a character you had only planned a single book for, then kudos to you for your new found success. jmo
“I heard someone screaming. It was me!” - 🙄 I hate that. It’s so goofy and unrealistic.
What? How does that sentence make sense?
I MP That’s why it’s a problem, it doesn’t make sense, yet I’ve read stories with a line like that in it
@@Ignasimp they usually go like "there was a shrill scream and I wish more than anything it would stop. It took me a while to realize the screaming was coming from me."
I mean ngl I have done stuff like that. Realizing after it was me. Like one time the girl in front of me at the recess line (this was years ago) dropped to the floor and had a seizure and I didn’t realize I had screamed until someone grabbed my arm.
You'd be surprised how common it is for a lot of people, it's used a lot in writing but it also happens a lot
In historical romances where the author will try to rewrite history and make the atrocious actions of the main love interest seem not that bad just because they are the main love interest. I cannot stand that!
I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Can you please give examples?
Oh, f***, that's what I'm doing!
Although the atrocious actions do have consequences and he becomes increasingly remorseful about it.
Like when it's a World War Two romance or historical fiction and the main character falls in love with a Nazi and tries to justify them as a good person because that don't turn that one family in. I believe that is something the OP was considering
@@charlottebutler6305 Well then in that case it all depends on whether the audience and author on the same wavelength for what is considered "atrocious".
There’s also something called a redemption arc...
*While Reading the Magnus Chase Series*
Me: (when Sam is 1st introduced) Okay, I guess there's your love interest
Sam: (shows no interest in Magnus & is interested in other guy)
Magnus: (shows no interest in Sam & isn't jealous over other guy)
Rick: (doesn't introduce other girl interested in Magnus)
Rick: (doesn't introduce love interest until book 2)
Alex: (is genderfluid & doesn't do love at 1st sight shit)
Rick: (takes time building friendship between Alex & Magnus that eventually evolves into romance w/ NO JEALOUSY ANYWHERE)
Rick: (successfully writes believable romance between dude & genderfluid person)
Me: Holy shit is this even legal-
Freedom Fighter
No, it’s not legal. But we let him do it because.
Yay, found a fellow Magnus Chase fan! :)
5:00
It’s an interesting observation, but I would say it’s necessary. If someone of the main characters falls in love with a minor character most people would be asking “where did that come from? What’s this other characters deal?”
They would feel cheated and like it came out of left field. Characters become main characters because of their development, importance to the story (such as a love interest) or utility. In other words, characters important to the plot become main characters. Characters are not main characters first and then contribute to the plot.
No disrespect, just voicing my opinion on this
I agree
True. This makes more sense.
I mean, I get whar youre saying, but I disagree that it would always be out of left field. The character can easily be someone the MC was interested in before shit hit the fan and their relationship wouldnt be out of nowhere. There are absolutely ways to do it that would feel natural. Not every character has to be important in the grand scheme of things, they just have to be important to the cast. Id like to see more average people sprinkled into the minor cast og a story. Not everyone is special to the world, but everyone is special to someone.
I agree with you.
I think it's interesting that you say that, because most of the main characters that we see are integral to the plot very early on, if not instantly. I think it could be interesting to have characters that are important to the main cast but stay mostly in the background, and I think it happens too little. It can definitely be done wrong, but it can also be done right.
“I can’t think of a book where the main character is impossibly good at everything...” *zooms in on The Name of The Wind in the background...*
Dying of laughter, absolutely amazing.
I laughed even though I also friggin love that book
The Warlocke oh yeah, I love The Name of The Wind, but it’s also hard to miss that Kvothe is perfect at almost everything he tries to do.
@@cthulhu6245 Ha yeah. That was maybe one of my few minor gripes with the story, even though it's one of my fav fantasy novels ever. Rothfuss' writing though is gorgeous.
Most of The Name of The Wind is from Kvothe's viewpoint, and he is an unreliable narrator. When not in Kvothe's viewpoint, things are much less perfect.
Dang it, I missed that part because I was playing this video in the background while I did my art homework
I totally agree. I would also say we need to stop having emotional abusive females seem "cute and funny" that is something hardly ever talked about
I can't think of any examples of what you're saying, but yeah, abusive couples need to stop being romanticized
@@NotABot-px7ky tsunderes
Examples:
1. Tsunderes.
2. That girl from the 2nd season of Korra who abuses Bolin.
Every scene with these type of characters abusing the protagonist is seen as "comedic", it disgusts me.
THIS.
I so agree with the points made! It's just missing one thing:
Stop with further the plot by stupid decisions, no one in their right mind would make. I think this is (mostly) a problems in thriller. It so annoys me when the protagonist, who is usually clever and in some cases even awfully intelligent, makes a unbelievable decision, like confronting a mass murder *on their own* , because of most ridiculous reasons like "there's not enough time". Ugh. It's even worse when they make one terrible decision after another, and never seem to learn from their mistakes. I'm looking at you Chevy Stevens...
Would the ending of 30 Days of Night count, or would that more be under heroic self sacrifice?
@@ADADEL1 Haven't read that one yet.
@@Effaly_ Keeping spoilers to a minimum then, a character goes out at some point to face the big bad in order to buy time for the others after doing a very, very stupid thing that he thinks may give him a chance. You should give it a look, one of my favorite vampire movies.
Yeah this form of lazy plot-advancement is literally everywhere. Especially rampant in movies because of limited runtime.
"Adding onto the story after it's ended"
coughcoughCursedChildcoughcoughcough.
Oh, so sorry, just a little something in my throat there.
Morecoughcouchfantasticbeasts1&2coughcough
Cursed child was not written by JK Rowling. Fantastic beasts was a story that JK has had and always WANTED to write but never found a way to properly fit it in to the Harry Potter series.
@@tatianakrutke6298 Thank you, she doesn't deserve al the shit that's thrown at her. FB has great characters and potential, i even liked the second one too, even if it was a mess.
@@tatianakrutke6298 yeah, i remember playing a gameboy advance game of harry potter and i do for a fact now there was a chocolate frog card of newt scamander, so i know the character just didn't pop out of the mist
SOOOOO agree about we need more friendship + not every book needs a romantic sub-plot. Like... why??? why there has to be some love triangle in every book??? why?????
Love triangles are crap, but I do like love as a subplot.
@@ranip7644 I AM SORRY
To be fair the love triangle MUST be included
@@justachildofGod Why?
@@justachildofGod it can be done good but most of the time it's just a waste of time
I like some love triangle tho
"Kill the good guy sometimes. Kill the main character sometimes."
I guess Rick Riordan deserves some praise for this then.
Also, I feel like he is guilty of adding on to stories after they should've been done, but I love Trials of Apollo and Heroes of Olympus so I don't complain 😂
Oof…...
I agree. Rick adds weight to battles by making people die on the good side
I want her to read/review the Percy Jackson series
Well the thing is Rick Riordan even if he adds on to stories, it is not about the main character about the previous series. Such as percy was the main character of the original series but there were 6 other main characters and focused more on them also he doesn't retcon major things mostly, even if he does it actually makes sense.
imo, I think there is a difference between adding on and spin offs.
I think I’d agree with most of these points, but the one about a stand alone with loose ends - sometimes the author’s intention is to write a series but publishers will push to make the first book a stand alone in case the book doesn’t sell well (so they don’t loose money if they make a series and the first book flops). It’s not always the authors choice so it’s unfortunate for everyone.
That's is totally true. I had a conversation with one author once and she said exactly the same.
Jailene Y. Cordero yes that is also very true! I’m partial to those kind of endings myself, so I think it just comes down to preference.
1. I'm over children saving the world. When was the last time you met one with enough maturity, sense, or experience to save themselves let alone save the world?
2. Anytime the blurb includes the phrase that the main character is "sassy" I immediately eliminate that as a possible reading choice. It usually equates to that character being a snarky piece of work without many redeeming characteristics besides their looks.
3. Novels that are written like how to do intercourse manuals....I do not want or need 3 - 10 pages of second-to-second sport commentary to drive the story.
4. Book series that would have been far more compelling if edited severely to 1 book.
I agree, except I enjoy reading kids save the world because I’m a kid myself and I find it relatable sometimes to see someone my age try to balance saving the world with normal problems for people their age. Buuut I can COMPLETELY understand if you’re not a kid and are tired of reading about no one your age!
For me, if the main character is supposed to save the world or something, they have to at least be in their mid to late teens. I know some very mature teenagers who could handle things being thrown at them, but for children I have a line for what they could reasonably handle. Even children I would deem mature for their age are often nowhere near the level of maturity needed for the tasks writers often give them.
@@user-N20 - yeah I agree, it’s just with someone who is really mature I don’t know if there would be very much character development? Unless they had some other flaw that adds some character development. But really young children couldn’t handle as much pressure as some books give them.
@@saturniiiidae Oh I don't have problems with children if they're written well, It just seems like a lot of children characters I've seen in run of the mill YA novels are portrayed as though they're supposed to be naive kids, but then suddenly they can come up with all these brilliant plans etc. If there is a book where the reason the kid succeeds in saving the world is because of well-timed development, that's fine by me. A series where the kid gets older and more mature throughout the books is even better. I just meant maturity as in, they can mature to match the problems they need to solve eventually, not as in the character is instantly mature from the get-go.
@@user-N20 - yeah that’s what I meant! Sorry if it didn’t look the way I intended. I totally agree with that!
And there are so many books that-
*start the day with Cheerios cereal*
I don’t like when the author (in a first person POV story) describes the main female character as “physically average” and then her male love interest has to convince her she’s pretty as if it even matters
@nan ?
@nan ?
@nan lmaooo @ every story on wattpad
@nan this is spot on lmaoo
Well, I suspect it does matter to her. Like it matters to all of us, handsome/pretty coin.
Certainly, it matters most to the freaks (the beautiful and the ugly) and least to the average. It does still matter though, good>bad.
Pretty =/= Can be on cover of magazine
Pretty = Physically attractive/arousing to the person saying it
Her being pretty, to him, does not mean she suddenly transforms into a model.
To him, she is pretty. Fact or, he wouldn't be with her. As a man, physical arousal cannot be faked.
Her rejecting that means she thinks her partner is lying to her, she will therefore doubt the relationship and his judgement. She is essentially saying, "he could do much better," which he will interpret. If she so bluntly and consistently believes it, over time he will too.
He needs to convince her so that she doesn't mistrust him - it has the benefit too of increasing her self-esteem (someone says a good thing about her, proves that its true, good times).
One thing I hate is when a plot is driven by something/someone but then you never hear about/from them again
I really love when the author thinks of us as smart people because when we actually have to understand something ourselves and we figure it out it feels so good! Especially if it is connecting clues, understanding magic systems (looking at you allomancy) etc. because making our minds wander is exactly what reading is about and then when everything clicks.... that's one of the main attractions of reading, in my opinion.
Yeah, the evolution of "show, don't tell". "Leave hints, don't show".
Yes, & if readers don't get it, they can head over to GoodReads & ask for someone to explain it to them!
I've seen questions about things that I thought were plainly obvious, so I can kind of see why some authors want to make sure readers "get it", but I agree-it's so much better when the author lets you know things without spelling it out for you!
Yo, why do I feel you also noticed the Stormlight Archives series during the Name of Wind zoom. I was like!!!! Oathbringer!!!!
Sorry totally derailing from the original comment, I also agree with you on that!
Daeron1603 hahah just as scatterbrained as me.
I don’t like when an author creates a great story, world, plot, characters, leaves a bunch of questions and unresolved plot points and then decides they will not write anymore.
They are allowed to do whatever, but readers will and do feel cheated and not cared for.
ktelle 🙂 I’m not saying that’s not what I was referencing
Agree! That's what I wait till a series is finished to read it.
@@Caps413 same here. I will devour a series when it end.
Looking at you, Maureen Johnson! #shadesoflondon
"Why don't more authors have sensitivity readers"
WTF. Is this a thing? Holy dystopia
Agree with almost all of these.
Regarding the “not like other girls” trope, it’s usually not stated explicitly, but there’s often something “special” about the female protagonist (I.e. being kind, having a brain, being like really pretty OMG) that sets her apart from the stereotypical girl while all the other females coincidentally are stereotypical girls in the worst way (gossiping, vain, jealous, etc.). Once I read a love interest tell the (very typical) female protagonist out loud that she was “not like other girls” and my eyes nearly rolled right out of my head. 🙄
The thing is: we always seem to say that with a female protagonist. I can't think of a single book in which the protagonist is an everyday person who doesn't have a feature that sets them apart from other people. That's the point. Otherwise the book would probably be pretty boring.
Think of Harry Potter or Percy Jackson or even Eragon. All of them have male protagonists who "aren't like other boys" but no one seems to care about that.
That being said I totally agree with your last point about the "background girls" who are all gossiping etc. A lot of authors seem to forget that those people too have features that set them apart from the crowd.
@@nobody-xh6ii It's not that being kind makes her a Mary Sue; it's that the author then makes every other female character nasty just to set the MC apart.
The “not like other girls” trope makes it sound like she is strong, resourceful, smart... not like most girls. (Wow, she can do more than make sandwiches!) How often to do they say that about the male hero? To be the hero, you do not have to be a special person, just be in special circumstances.
I hate it when in a story a main character gets a crush on another character and when they realize it they INSTANTLY become super sad because they "only see me as a friend and will never like me back!" and then completely avoids being around that character because of this. Also when they are like "okay this is fine I can live with this, I just can't make it super obvious because he/she can never know!" *proceeds to make it obvious that they have a crush on them*. I also hate it when in stories a character's feelings gets outed in a public setting and that character then avoids ONLY the person they have feelings for. Like I understand wanting to avoid EVERYONE because that would be mortifying, but avoiding ONLY that person?? so frustrating!!!
Re obvious that they have a crush on someone - it is obvious, we cannot hide it. People just cannot hide that stuff. Mainly because 1. secretly they hope they're wrong and that something will happen and, 2. they cannot tone down the energy/enthusiasm they get from interacting with someone they care for.
Re avoiding everyone vs specific person - they don't care about everyone's feelings, they care about the specific person's feelings. Only that specific person can do the rejection and, if you don't see them they can't reject you. It's silly of course but, it's very human (for those that aren't confident in their view of themselves as a romantic partner).
Because this never, EVER happens in real life!
@@DoubleplusUngoodthinkful It kinda does happen in real life, especially if you're oblivious to signs or if the other person is just filled with anxiety.
When badass characters are always cold hard aholes that the main character looks up to. I can get coldness to an extent depending on what's going on in that universe but.... have you met real badasses? They're usually the coolest people ever. Why is it always in story form they're always complete aholes to everyone except the main character who is their only friend
Usually badasses who are friendly, cool (and even goofy) end up dying tragically in the story. That in itself is another trope that happens a lot.
In my opinion the best male and female friendship in books is definitely Harry and Hermione!
Yes! Which is why I am not a big fan of people shipping Hermione and Harry. I actually like Ron and Hermione together. And then jkr did the whole gives her opinion after the fact and says she regretted having Ron and Hermione together.
Katie Wright Yeah, me too! I think that quote of Rowling’s was taken out of context. What she actually said was just that Ron and Hermione needed to mature in order to make their relationship work.
Yes! This is why I cannot understand shipping them! Cant we have a solid, beautiful, supportive friendship and be happy? Tbh Ron 'gets' Harry a lot better than Harry so if he's gonna hookup with one of his best friends Ron is the more sensible choice
@@atella394 honestly I only sometimes ship ron/harry but not often partly cuz I haven't found any good fanfic for that ship that has convinced me of their relationship. Also partly cuz I just like their bromance. I do like the idea of Harry and Luna together. I always liked their chemistry both in the books and the movies.
@@katiewright3309 Yeah I definetely dont ship Ron/Harry but it makes more sense to me than Hermione/Harry. I was pretty happy with Harry/Ginny (in the books, movie Ginny is a travesty) I could have taken Harry/Luna but I don't think Harry was a particularly good match for Luna although she could have been for him if that makes sense?
"He knew he was The Chosen One, Destined to achieve victory." There should be a symbol on the cover of these books that identifies them as having the Chosen One theme. Next!
Eh it can be done well if its not played straight. It has been and there are many examples
Biggest insta-love I’ve ever read is Romeo and Juliet. We read it for class and my English teacher drew a timeline on the board for the ones that didn’t pay attention and they got married about twelve hours after meeting! They meet at the ball Capulet hosted at around 9pm ish or at least before midnight and they planned to meet up and get married at 9am. The entire story was less than a week long.
People hate insta-love and claim it’s unrealistic, but then...wth were my grandparents all about? Their story is famous in my family.
They met at a party, my grandpa fell in love almost immediately and was suddenly determined to marry my grandmother. It took about a week and then they were engaged. They stayed married for over 70 years, and died a few months apart. Talk about instant life-long love lol.
Rosefire my grandparents’ love story is almost out of a movie. My grandma was dating a guy and I think one family was catholic and one was Anglican but I can’t remember which was which but they were against each other but the guy my grandma was dating would ride his bike to her house and was hit by a car one day when he was riding and had to go to hospital and she visited him and they decided to break up but in the bed next to the guy my grandma was dating was my grandpa and he asked the guy that was dating my grandma about her and once he was out of hospital he asked out and they got married. Also my grandpa and the guy that was dating my grand ma have the same name
Lizzzyy's Life That’s crazy, haha. See? These insta-love scenarios do happen! I think they’re kinda cute to be honest. I get that it’s not always enjoyable in a book but I don’t wanna hate on it. For the sake of our grandparents’ stories. :)
HONESTLY HATE ROMEO AND JULIET FOR THIS REASON ALONE.
Everyone makes it out to be this great love story and how they were a perfect fit and in just like no, it's bad, she's like 13 and he's 16 that creepy and not to mention they don't really meet each other and oh they are dead because "Forbidden love".
And so many people want to burn me at the stake for it. Like did we even read the same play? Do you have any reading comprehension? Or did you just believe what your Teacher said and didn't actually bother analyzing what you read?
Like come on.
EveesCastle Uh, ok. Take it from a legit Shakespeare fan, Romeo and Juliet isn’t the best play ever if you just look for a love story. Having said that, it’s really not about the love between those two kids. They are “madly in love” because, well, they’re pups. I’ve met kids who had a girlfriend/boyfriend at 13/14 and they were just utterly smitten with their partner, to the point where it was almost absurd. Kids have passionate reactions to just about everything and love is no exception. That’s what Romeo and Juliet is. Two kids with no real guidance who fall for each other and don’t know what to do with it. But the point isn’t about their “oh-so romantic story” it’s about the stupid conflict between the families they belong to. The families are so immature and petty, that they become wholly absorbed in their fighting while two of their kids are in love and need help. But the conflict causes the parents on both ends to not care about the struggle between the kids, they only care about the fact that they are from different families. It’s very realistic actually. The whole story is a commentary on how ridiculous and stupid people can be, and how their inability to just get along and work things out causes tragedies. The tragedy in this particular story happens to be the lovestruck kids who suffer because of the lack of care on their families part, and end up taking their own lives. It’s terrible and sad. To make things worse, stuff like that actually does happen. Kids commit suicide because their parents are unsympathetic to their plights and people get hurt when they get caught up in the middle of petty feuds. It legitimately breaks my heart thinking about it because I’ve witnessed things like that happen before, where you just think “If we had just _tried_ to work this out, so-in-so wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”
That’s why Shakespeare is a bloody genius, and plus, he communicates these stories in some of the most eloquent English you’ll ever read. Much Ado About Nothing is actually a very similar story, where these people almost go to war over...nothing. A simple lack of communication. It’s hysterical actually and Romeo and Juliet is the tragic version of that type of story. Anyway, just thought I’d share some insight. It’s really not about the romance. It’s about the sad result of stupid, petty fights that people get into. Oh, and, their ages aren’t actually that big of a deal if you remember when this story was written. It was very common for kids to marry at 13+ back then, haha.
America Singer is always saying that “she is different from all the others”, she talks a lot about the other girls. About how much make up they pur while she put a little of makeup and she is always herself while the others ew so fake and full of makeup
🙄
I also thought of her as an example for a girl who is "not like other girls". It drove me crazy how she thought of herself as a better human being because she wanted to wear pants to badly.
The whole series drove me nuts (a friend of mine forced me to read them, but then lost it when I started ranting) The whole book made it seem so easy to get rid of the caste system. And it wasn't even explained how Maxon wanted to do it, he just said: "Hey, here's my perfect master plan to get rid of a fundamental part of this society! LET'S DO IT, TREASURE! Please tell me you will you marry me now because boning you is all I can think about right now even though I have a kingdom to lead!"
Sorry, I'll stop now.
PinkDonut Unicorn i have to read the final book still so I didi!’t read the second part of your comment.
I’m liking this series actually even if America is really annoying when she thinks that she is bettere because she has less makeup 😓
Also i hate her and Aspen togheter
@@ame_thyst_99 Everyone hates Aspen, is there anyone who doesn't hate him? Except for America?😂
This is the real reason why I stopped reading the book.
I have one: PLEASE stop releasing books in a series where the author is long dead or has already passed on. I see this in works of Tom Clancy and the author of the James Bond books where they are constantly releasing books under their name, and it's just insulting to be releasing books to make a quick buck. However, there ARE exceptions where the author died too soon and their work was incomplete when they passed away. The two authors that come to mind are the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and Robert Jordan.
With J.R.R. Tolkien, many of his notes and stories were left unfinished, and when he passed away The Silmarillion was still unfinished and his son Christopher took over many of his projects. I don't mind this too much because I LOVE the world of Middle-Earth, and their many stories are very interesting. Hell, The Silmarillion is my all time favorite book!!
Now with Robert Jordan he died when his most famous series The Wheel of Time Saga was still incomplete when he passed, and let's be honest his Wheel of Time Saga was in a pretty bad spot with the 10th installment and was still getting repaired in the 11th installment. To help finish the series they brought in Author Brandon Sanderson and Robert left behind VERY detailed notes to how the series should end, and Brandon Sanderson brought out 12, 13, and 14 to finally finish Robert's epic Saga, and they are some of the best installments in the series!!
I normally don't mind releasing a story that the author never got a chance to release it, but to continue to put out books under their name, even though the authors are long dead, then it is time to stop!!
Sorry for the long comment. I have a lot to say on the matter. Lol
It’s just unsettling. At least with the Wheel of Time series they put Brandon Sanderson’s name there. If the author is dead, why not just keep the series with the new author?
Tupac much? "Dying" advanced his career like nothing else ever did. half a dozen songs while he was alive, 650,000 after he "died." I wonder where he's living now....
Thank you thank you THANK YOU!!! This is my BIGGEST pet peeve. I out it in the same category as the current obsession with remaking films for no reason.
The Flowers In The Attic author. When I worked as a bookseller it drove me crazy that they continued to pump these books. I actually had customers say she couldn't be dead because she was still writing books. 🙄
"PLEASE stop releasing books in a series where the author is long dead or has already passed on"
Dune.
The male female friendships one brought Joey and Phoebe from friends to mind.
Lol I had the same thought
Yes!!!
i’m so tired of love triangles! i just can’t read them anymore, especially if it’s between kind, popular dude vs bad boy. i refuse to watch or read anything with a love triangle tbh. unless it’s been recommended to me
I hate love triangles too, strong agree.
The worst case of insta love I've read was in Children of Blood and Bone. The main character went from HATING the guy with a burning passion for justified reason. Then in less than two days they were in love and making out. I got whiplash.
Stitch329 I completely agree!! it felt so unnaturally fast because zelie was so filled with rage because of what Inan did but within like one or two chapters they’re kissing??
I read this book in july and I enjoyed it but the more I.think about it i realize that it wasn't as good as people and any rankings had been describing it. I didn't really care for Inan or Zelie and I tried to convince myself that I should, but to be honest they were kinda annoying. But I actually liked Amari, she was a lovable character and even though I'm not so eager to do this, maybe I will read the 2nd part.
Ntl S I love amari but I have to warn you that her character and friendship with zelie is completely ruined in book two which makes me really sad
Yeah, I heard that second book is a bit of a disappointment:/
I actually enjoy reading first-person even more than third person, I find the plot so much more meaningful because you can see it through their eyes.
I love it when an author manages to convey information to the reader that the main character isn't aware of, even though it's written in first person. E.g. there's a series I love where one character is in love with the main character (unrequited) and readers can tell, but the main character just doesn't see it.
I would love it if the book was from two different characters’ perspectives. Happens a lot. But one character tells it from first person present, the other from third person past. Not omniscient narrator, just from third person focussed on the character. Because the way someone thinks can be shown using that and I tend to think of characters who tell their stories in first person present as very (ugh I can’t think of the word!! Kind of just very involved in what’s happening) but third person past makes me think of them as detached and calm or considerate.
I prefer first person too, but I can take it either way.
the only thing I hate more than "insta love" is the "I met you a couple of weeks ago and I'd die for you". Dude I've been with my fiance for 4 years and 😂 I mean I love him to pieces but...
Actual studies show men are the ones that usually feel the, "I'd die for you," love for partners, and can feel it very quickly.
Women feel that mostly for their children not for partners, and also feel it very quickly.
@@jwhippet8313 that is very interesting, I think he'd die for me in a a heartbeat. Me too, maybe, but I'd die trying bc I'm clumsy af
Shakespeare make this in a night
@@jwhippet8313 I'd die for my girl but like I wouldn't do it happily.
I'd never die for my girlfriend or my children. I can always find a new girlfriend and (as a man) i can always make more children. The only person in my life i think i ever would have laid down my life for was my grandfather. He was the only weak-spot i had.
Not like other girls trope = every John green novel
Or the majority of the YA market and there's an identical one for boys.
I think the only John Green novel that i didn't see this is the new one, maybe i just didn't notice, but
So how do you write an interesting story about someone who is like all the other girls?
@@danacampbell8331 Well, she can actually have some friends, she can enjoy having them in her house or go the their house, have a ""girl's night"", read books, go to shopping and like all this is stuff (make up, etc), she can like sport ou dislike them. It's just write the female character without make her a pixie dream girl where she's so much better than the other girls just because she have no real friends and smoke and drink and run away in the middle of the night
Good points. Thank you. My protagonist is a 15-year-old girl whose mother is so desperate to find a man before her "expiration date" that she moves them in with one man after another. It's manageable until the mom meets a dangerous man.
"Kvothe is the best person ever." - Kvothe
Can I just say: as far as making a supporting character a love interest, despite the positive reaction to the comment, this is such a weird suggestion that I'm not sure it makes _any_ sense. First of all the main characters are only the main characters by virtue of the focus they are given by the author, and by extension their main characters... If the protagonist desires romantic involvement with another character, it stands to reason that other person will take up a lot of space within their thoughts, and as much time as possible within their day, placing them into position to affect the plot, and altering the alchemy of "supporting character." If the protagonist spends no time with, or thinking about the love interest, and/or that love interest shows little in the way of agency, or personality, or significance to the story then readers are going to wonder what the purpose of that character is, or why the protagonist would show _any_ interest in them; if they have agency, and they _are_ interesting, how are they going to avoid affecting the plot when they are in love with the person central to that plot?
The alternative to this is like the wife who stays in the background scenes in a movie cooking dinner, and says things like "are you going to pick the kids up from school, I have to go to Yoga?" (because she has her own life, you know?) That's fine, I guess, not everyone is a road warrior, even if their spouse is, but does anyone actually think that's fun, or unique, or interesting? To me this is a little like asking why some audience member in a theater can't be the person on stage... they can... but then... they would...
futurestoryteller Maybe one situation where that can happen is if the main character and the love interest had to separate, and they send letters to each other or something. To make stuff more interesting, maybe have the love interest also involved in the plot in some way but in the background where the main (and so the readers) only finds out their role little by little or later.
Also the example of Throne Of Glass didn't fully make sense either. Rowan wasn't an MC, neither was Chaol or Dorrian's love interest.
My thoughts exactly.
I think part of the original complaint is when there is an established cast of characters (such as in Percy Jackson) and then later on when romantic plots start to develop it seems like the only choices for relationships are those already in the "main character" circle. But that being said once a side character does become romantically entangled with a main character it would be natural for that side character to be brought more into focus.
I agree, both ways work, as long as the character has agency and personality. We're all probably thinking about Samwise and Rosie, and Aragorn and Arwen.
"Writing in first person" I feel personally attacked.
Me too. I love reading a good first person story 😂
(e.g. The Young Elites, The Last Apprentice, The Ascendence Trilogy, etc...)
I think some books are better in first person and others are better in third, and authors tend to do a pretty good job of deciding which it should be.
@@jadenfedorchak8335 I agree! I adore both.
When my gf fell in love with the "Hunger Games" movie, I told her she should read the books since they take you inside Katniss' head. She did, and she loved them also.
I've only written one in first person. I like it but I'm a stickler for theory of mind so the character never magically knows what another is thinking.
For me it's killing characters and then bringing them back to life. It's so common that it's predictable, and the death of a character doesn't have any emotional impact when you know they'll be back, soon enough.
I feel like it can depend on the characters and if the ‘resurrection’ can make actual sense in that world.
Sammy some of the time it’s for effect later in like heroes of Olympus a character dies at the end but comes back due to a medicine that did actually exist in Greek mythology. Then in the next series 3 books in a main character from Heroes of Olympus is killed in the middle of a chapter halfway through the book
This is kinda long but I’m a new writer in need of help (also my idea may be stupid so forgive me)
I’m planning a fantasy webcomic where the whole power system relies on death. An individual meeting certain criteria can gain powers - if they’re dead. So resurrection goes hand in hand with power. I wanted to start the story with a powerless protagonist, and subtly foreshadow both her death and subsequent resurrection midway through (Given the genre and world, I’m sure the readers would catch on to the idea that she‘d eventually die and resurrect, which is why I wanted to foreshadow).
The emotional impact would instead come from the unpredicted, simultaneous and permanent death of another main character; I’d only be foreshadowing the main protagonist’s death. In any case, resurrection would be a one time thing.
I understand killing and rezzing is kinda shunned. Still, I’d appreciate any feedback on whether this could be pulled off, or if I should just ditch the idea completely. Thanks in advance :)
@@ingrid5884 the problem with resurrection is that once only one character is resurrected the book looses allot Of thension because who knows, that important character that died just now can come back to death too, even if you as an author planned to make it permanent, there is no way to inform your reader of it.
But your idea is still feasible.
The important thing is that there are absolute requirements to ressurect.
I don’t know how you want to handle is, but let’s say your character needs to do a ritual and mark themselves befor they can ressurect.
The Reader is informed and knows okay, that character does have something like this, for example it is established sometimes previously , and when a character then does not fullyfie that condition, he Is dead for good, so tension can be preserved because characters can still die.
As such the conditions should be difficult to be met auswelle as clearly cut.
Also it would be good to establish them befor so it comes as no surprise that the other character does not ressurect after a mortal wound.
Okay that was a bit long, but what I can say, is just go for it.
If you like it even the most stupid plot can still be written perfectly and be a good book.
If watching Cinemasins has taught me anything, this is also a favorite of Disney/Pixar movies as well as some books.
The loose ends, I like. Not everything gets solved. It adds realism.
As long as they do it in a way that lets readers come up with their own resolutions. "Suppose this loose end has nothing to do with the main plot, but (insert fan theory)." Or even a 'Huh, that's odd."
@@julietfischer5056, I agree. It definitely depends on how they do it, and sometimes it's nice to have some things left unknown.
Idk, I wouldn't call that realistic. In real life, nothing ever actually stays unresolved after all? Everything has a cause and an effect and everything leads somewhere. Maybe a dead end, but it does lead somewhere.
If by the end of a book I'm left wondering "Oh actually, what happened to those two characters that were hinted at to be falling in love earlier?" that's not more realistic because in real life, I'd just find out if they are together now or not, or if they are endlessly pining after each other for the rest of their lives until one of them dies of old age, giving closure to the question.
If by the end of the story I'm like "Wait, so what happened to the magical book after all that?" it's not more realistic that a big question mark is left behind. In real life, things don't just randomly stop existing. Either you destroy it or lose it or it gets sold, or you put it in some storage that one day also is either getting sorted out (meaning the book will be found), sold or destroyed, meaning any book in the world has SOME direction it goes in, it doesn't just exist in a vacuum.
If a society is falling apart by the end of a story, it can't *eternally* stay in that state - it will either fall (and potentially be rebuilt) or pick itsself up after all and continue.
I don't necessarily mind loose ends, a story is always just a portrayal of one moment in time, and it's each author's choice how much they want to include in that portrayal and how much they want to leave to the imagination of the readers, but claiming it is more *realistic* for things to just be left unclear eternally is just wrong imo.
@@sleepysera, As you said, "a story is always just a portrayal of one moment in time". There's always things that happened before it begins, and more that continues afterward.
People lose touch with each other, items get lost... "I wonder what ever happened to..." isn't an uncommon phrase.
But I don't like it when a book leaves major parts of the story unresolved.
I think that Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book" is an excellent example of knowing what to finish and what to leave unexplained.
I agree because in real life I have been like "wonder how that person is doing now" and I wouldn't mind if it was the same for a book. Obviously I'd want the main plot to be resolved because ending. But I wouldn't mind some mysteries just remaining that way
The best love triangle I've ever had the pleasure of reading is in the manga Fruits Basket. At the start of the story, the main female lead gains two potential love interests, and because all three of them live together, you spend a lot of time with all three. The relationships develope organically, and grow and change over time. Partway through the series, one of the potential love interests realizes that his love for her is familial in nature rather than romantic, and backs off from pursuing her, allowing the other guy to become the official love interest. As a bonus, the guy who backed off eventually finds love with a minor character introduced way later in the series, and it is done very well.
Shit, I got spoiled lmaooo
The point of view you write it in very much depends on the story, the character and the tone of the book. For example, Percy Jackson worked very well being in first person.
4:54 I don’t really agree with that one, whoever you couple the main character with is going to become a main character or else the love interest would be completely underdeveloped and the relationship wouldn’t be believable and the romance would suck. Just my 2 cents
I was just talking about the characters who are ALREADY main characters and "fall in love". I like minor character who end up becoming a main character due to their accociation to the main character but weren't originally written as main characters. If that makes sense 😂
THIS!!
In most fantasy I've seen, it's the side character or side perspective character that the main character (MC) is involved with, but I'd say it's probably 50/50... because there's literally only one other option-it's not a bad thing.
I prefer MC/MC relationships because it's easier to care about it if they both equally affect the plot and are given equal page time (we understand them on the same/similar level, instead of one over another). But this is all personal preference ;=)) and shouldn't determine whether one romance is better than another.
If a storyline feels heavy on the romance because of the MC/MC nature, you're reading romantic fantasy, either that or the author isn't doing a good job balancing their plot/sub-plots, or you're reading YA.
"Main character centric" my friend, you have finally grasped the concept of a main character xD
My biggest pet peeve in books (or shows) is when the author makes a character do something completely out of character JUST because the author wanted the plot to go a certain way. They needed or wanted this to happen, so they make their smart characters make out of character, idiotic decisions. It's a huge turn off for me. Stop making your characters do things against who you're building them up to be just because you want a certain thing in the plot to happen! Figure out another way!
You mean like when Ron suddenly and for no reason becomes a jerk to Harry after six years of best friendship and shared traumatic experiences? And vice-versa?
(PS Fuck you, Deathly Hallows. Always and forever.)
@@PedroBenolielBonito To be fair, that wasn't entirely Ron's fault. The horcrux was screwing with his head. It's established that it was having a negative impact on everyone, but Ron was getting it the worst. He's always been insecure, and the horcrux brought all those insecurities into the open while also bringing out the worst in him. As soon as he left Harry and Hermione and was away from it, he regretted his actions and tried to get back to them.
@@soloragoldsun2163 Ikr. We first see his inferiority complex surface in book 4!
I've found in my writing that keeping them in character can lead to more interested and unexpected story twists. My protagonist started befriending the seemingly perfect and arrogant fellow mage apprentice by the second chapter while she was meant to be more of a rival and minor antagonist. Turned out this arrogant lady just needed a friend and my protagonist was a surprisingly great match for that. Opposites in many ways but it just works. They are a great team.
And the farmgirl who was initially meant to be more of a friend to my protagonist took to the role of rival and antagonist surprisingly well. She became this nosy gossip.
Insta-love's best example: Disney. Just watch a Disney movie and you just know what it means.
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P.S- I still love Disney Princesses and other movies. 😋
When I pick up a historical novel and the back cover reads: "Elisabeth - young, beautiful, vivacious - was a very unusual young woman for her time.", I put it back immediately.
Hard agree with minor character love interests! Also me with 99% of books: "This would be way better without the romance." Thoughts on the Hunger Games prequel?
Non-Fiction Feminist ... prequel?
@@Air_Serpent Where do you see feminist in Hunger Games?
Another random Tristan no lmao that’s the username
@@legrandliseurtri7495 Well, the Hunger Games has quite a lot of gender equality, although, unfortunately, that just means that men and women are both treated equally shitty.
I didn't know there was a prequel.
I would say that in some cases, falling in love within a month can be acceptable, let's say, as a completely hypotetical scenario, this character comes from a completely friendless background, let's say she was born with a crippling heart condition and simply spent too much time in hospitals to build connections at school, and let's say once her condition improves enough and she transfers away to a different school, she meets this other girl who is super cute and cheerful and friendly towards her, and they grow to support each other, but turns out that there is this legendary monster coming and other girl has to fight it or the entire city will be destroyed and everyone will die, so she goes and fight it, and she kills the monster, but that absolute melon manages to get herself killed in the process, I would say in those conditions, the first girl is completely justified to think she had fallen in love with this other girl, and that she can use her one wish to go back in time and try to save her from this grim fate, and perhaps keep doing if she fails, and keep doing it, **as many times as it takes.**
Like I said, completely hypotetical.
Madoka Magica?
Amanda Goldstine exactly what I was thinking
You just described Homura and Madoka, and you're right. It's a psychological condition where people who haven't had healthy connections with others will suddenly lash on to the first person who's nice to them. I see Madoka Magica's story as a tragedy for that reason, I just wish Homura had a chance to connect with other people besides Madoka, that way she wouldn't have gotten so attached to her. It intensifies her lonely persona even more.
I love writing the emotionally bereft person latching on to the first person they connect with and making that person their whole world.
After having watched this, judging from the suggestions you people need to read better books. :p
someone needs to read the bad ones to find the good ones
@@noamcohen7124 yes very true. I let that someone be someone else. :-D
Dying-that's my favorite lol.
Took me a minute to get...like who's dying.
I think narrator choice should depend on the type of the story-1st person, 2nd, or 3rd should be chosen based on what the author wanna deliver.
There are books I read that can't be without the 1st person narration-unfortunately, a lot of people write in 1st person POV simply cuz it's popular not cuz it's fitting.
I want my unreliable narrator that makes me doubt his stories, the type that feels so human that it's not about what happened but how he tells it.
That's how 1st narrators should be.
Human being, almost independent from the authors, telling their stories.
me: Hopefully future author
*TIME TO BINGE RUclips*
The authors adding on after makes me think of Boruto.
I felt that way about the relationships. I'm not mad about who eveyone end up with ( in fact I'm happy that Naruto end up with Hinata. I don't support Susake and Sakura though. ) But how they did Naruto and Hinata relationship in movie the felt force imo.
HarleyxJoker FOREVER I was fine with The Last but it reinforces how Naruto really didn’t have that many well developed female characters. Kishimoto himself has admitted that he can’t write female characters very well. As for Naruto and Hinata, the Last while I love it as a movie, it’s hindered by how the original series barely did anything to develop Naruto and Hinata’s relationship. For goodness sake she had confessed during the Pain arc and not once did Naruto acknowledge what was said. There’s being dense and just outright forgetting. And I’m banking on the later.
@@Avarn388 Naruto talked about it at least three times since the Pain Invasion. Out-of-Universe, though, the reveal would negatively affect sales, plus NaruHina, sweet as it is, isn't super interesting once they get together. Besides, I'm STILL shocked Hinata actually DID confess. Over a decade later, still freaking shocked. That just doesn't happen!
Boruto's dad was a much better series