1. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    A Different Female MC

    Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Antaus, Nov 26, 2017.

    In this I'm just looking for opinions. I was trying to create a female superhero that was different from the general run of the mill types. You know, tall, leggy, boobs the size of your head. To that end I created a hero by the name of Mercedes. She comes from a mixed ethnic background, her father is white, mother is black, she's a bit lumpy in the waist section, has a small chest, and is going through the teenage 'train wreck' phase when her abilities manifest. I know teenage isn't anything new, but it does add to the problems she has to deal with in the story. She's also not the 'poor kid' with a hard luck story, as she comes from an upper-middle class family that might be considered low-end rich.


    [​IMG]

    Although not exactly the way I envisioned Mercedes, this picture I nabbed off the net is pretty close.
     
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  2. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

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    Heroes are defined by their character. Far be it from me to judge what you want to write about, but if your goal is to subvert physical tropes, then demonstrate their uselessness by ignoring the physical descriptions altogether, and focus on what makes Mercedes a genuine hero. Don't just shoehorn in a high yellow chunky girl for the express purpose of being different. The last thing teens need to learn is that race and socioeconomic status are legitimate character traits worthy of any kind of pride. What's her character arc? What problems does she deal with?
     
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  3. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

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    I'm actually all for the MC being what people might not expect, and I love that she's not a skinny perfect little thing, but I also think that if you're focusing on making that the focus you're going to have some problems. No one wants to be spoon-fed the things they know are true. So we all know that beauty doesn't only come in the form of a model, and that rich or poor doesn't actually define a person's worth. So the best thing you can possibly do (in my opinion) is write the story as @Laurus has suggested and only mention those things if they are actually important to a scene - don't write scenes just to show how special and different she is.
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2017
  4. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    The important thing is that however you make her, you make it relevant to the story. Physical imperfections are great sources of internal and external conflict.
     
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  5. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    They can be, but they can also just be incidental. Maybe this girl doesn't feel conflicted about her appearance at all. Maybe she's totally happy with having a body that does what it's supposed to and she isn't worried about external beauty standards. So that's an element of characterization, obviously, and therefore important to the story, but it doesn't have to be a big angsty thing.

    I think it'd be lovely if it wasn't.
     
  6. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    I was trying to subvert the physically perfect hero trope, because I wanted to present a hero that was more along the lines of the average everyday person, and her appearance is a source of self confidence issues. It's not the focus of the story however. It's one aspect of a much larger and more complicated whole. Mercedes is dealing with issues both internal, external, trying to live her life, deal with having abilities, decide on a career after high school, and many other things. She doesn't 'angst' over her appearance though. I find most angst stories to be annoying honestly.
     
  7. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Internal and external conflict isn't limited to "angst". I think some people misunderstand what 'conflict' in fiction writing refers to.

    I like your ideas here. You seem to have a decent grasp on the conflict as I was using the term.
     
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  8. izzybot

    izzybot (unspecified) Contributor

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    You should pick up some Ms Marvel comics.
     
  9. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    So, that girl is more than attractive enough to be considered, well, attractive, yes? So I'm a little concerned about how the point that you're trying to make will be made.
     
  10. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    She doesn't scare me...
     
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  11. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    Lol, she's not suppose to be scary Homer, she's suppose to be normal. There are more than a few powered people in this story, and most of them look normal. There are a few of the 'gorgeous types' though they are considerably fewer. I'm trying to reflect the variety of people in life rather than 90%+ powered people being tall, handsome/gorgeous, and Caucasian. Of course this isn't something I mention in the story, it's just something I'm working on through the introduction on characters that are wide an varied. Of course there are still Caucasians with powers, they're just not the bulk of the hero population.

    To me stories are more than character appearance, and I always try to work on their personalities and develop them as unique individuals with their own strengths and flaws of course. Never the less image does play a part in things as well.
     
  12. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    You need to write an MC that you actually want to write and have some connection to. That's the key here. Tokenism is no better than exclusion. So don't make her, for want of a better expression 'less than perfect' just for the sake of it. You need to build up a coherent picture of her as a person and be writing something inside her that connects to you and your experience of the world. The way you describe her makes her sound more like a cypher; like an 'everyman' and that's just a different kind of bland. Someone who is just kinda average, just kinda normal, just someone you'd see in the street. Not poor, but not too rich. Not stunningly gorgeous, but not ugly either. Someone who's wondering what she'll do after high school, someone who's exactly like you (the reader) except she has super powers. Someone who you can pretty much make feel whatever the story needs her to feel. And that's... I don't like that kind of MC.

    'Normal people with powers' is almost a trope in and of itself these days. Seriously, it is. It's just the base line of how modern super hero stories are written. That is literally the description of the new Captain America and the various iterations of Superman going back a long way. And that's Harry Potter's schtick. And Anamorphs. And Buffy. And a bunch of other stories. And that doesn't make it a bad thing. But you do need to think about what you are doing here in a little more depth.

    You need to forget about making her normal. You need to think about what makes her interesting. Because, as it turns out, it almost never really matters what the characters look like. The vital stats are broad brush descriptions that mean nothing when applied to any one specific person. To take one example; you say that she's worried about what she's going to do after high school. Ok, what does that mean? Is she worried because she doesn't know what she's going to do? Or is she worried that she can't get into Harvard? Is she trying to choose between quantum physics and computer science? Or is she just trying to find an easy major to coast through? Or are her parents pushing her towards college when she isn't academically inclined? All of these are things that are well within the sphere of 'normal'. But each one of these are a totally different story to tell, they lead you to a completely different kind of character. If she literally has no idea what to do after school then becoming super-powered might be a comfort to her, because suddenly she has some direction in life. If she's driven to get into Harvard and off to law school then she might be really conflicted because she has this obligation to use her powers but they aren't useful for what she really wants to do with her life. If she's really smart and into science then having super powers would be both fascinating and totally frustrating because to her understanding of the world it shouldn't be possible. If she just wants an easy life then powers would play well into that. And if her parents are a source of stress and expectation then she'll be worried that her being 'different' will make her parents disown her. These are all possibilities, and it's these that will make her a character worth remembering, not her being 'average looking'.

    I write teen books too. And let me tell you, I don't think about making my MC characters average. I think about what makes them different. That's what you need to find to make them engaging.
     
  13. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    I intend to, the average Jane part is a starting point for her. She's just the average, everyday girl who ends up with abilities. From there I already know what I'm going to develop her into, though the actual process is still being written out. There will be more than one story with this character, and the first one is how she becomes a hero, how she deals with this, insert a few hilarious disasters here and there, and make her into something more than the average person. I don't consider heroes 'normal' because it takes more than normal to be a hero in this context. I'm working a lot of angles with this story. Conflict that's internal/external, how she deals with it, growth and change as a person, how this affects her life and the people who know about it, coming to terms with being different. There's a lot going on here and I'm working to weave this together into a story about a girl who goes from a normal life to being the cape and tights type.

    At the same time I'm also going to be working on trying to show what she's like when not out doing the hero thing. How she tries to live as normal a life as possible, how being different affects that, and so on. Honestly it's hard to sum up the whole thing in a few posts, but there's a lot going on with her. She's still growing mentally and emotionally, because when the story starts out Mercedes is only 16.
     
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  14. Primordial Knight

    Primordial Knight Member

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    Being different, for different's sake isn't a good thing, and neither is Tokenism. Usually for instance, that there is mostly Caucasians as super heroes, is because they often focus the story in places like america. Where the Pop is over fifty percent Caucasian. While I imagine if you placed it in India, or Korea, you'd get similar results with mostly Asian or Indian raced heroes in those countries, they are just the majority there. Tokenism makes people feel more like political agendas rather than people, Which is an issue, Not saying you are doing that, Just saying try to avoid it.(also not saying, don't have different races as superheroes, just that put into consideration, whatever country you're having your story place in for the general rule.)
    While going with the Average Jane story, isn't a bad thing, Remember to add in what makes her unique(And everyone has some), Whether's very intelligent but arrogant, Whether she has truly no idea what she wants in after high school, or Just confused between two large subjects, whether her parents are trying to force college on her, or she wants it herself. How she manages both hero work and academics, social life, ect. You People aren't going to remember her for the things she's like everybody else in, They're going to remember her, for what makes her special, For what and how she overcomes challenges. Also as a hero, you should also(if you haven't already) decide on her morality. Is she all for helping the police? Does she kill her villains?(At least the mass murdering types.) Does she respect government authority and the law, or does she despise both. Does she cripple her foes, or refuse to do anything that is life threatening or permanently damaging someone, This is especially important, because it shows how far she's willing to go to protect the innocent, While also showing how far she ISN'T willing to go, which can be very detrimental, Possibly getting herself and even the people she protects hurt or killed(CoughBatmanCoughJokerCough). All important stuff to think about with a super hero.
     
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  15. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    You miss my point a bit.

    But she's not normal before she becomes a hero. She's her. She is someone before the story starts, she has a life that was already happening. There needs to already be something interesting about her when you start the book, she isn't a blank slate that the book fills up. And that's what I mean by finding what makes her interesting. Not interesting halfway through the book. Interesting on the first page. Characters are people before the story starts. You need to establish that this is someone worth reading about before anything happens to them. It's not getting super powered that makes her interesting, it's who she is as a person.

    Imagine for a second that you were writing a schlocky detective novel. Does the book show him losing his wife and developing a drinking problem on the page? No. That's his backstory. The story you are writing is the case that's happening some time after that. And on the first page of the book he looks at the dead body, takes a pull from his hip flask and remembers that he was supposed to pick up his daughter. The case he is working on might resolve some or all of this internal conflict, but that story didn't create the conflict or the depth. His life up to that point did that. He lives outside the bounds of the book.

    I exclusively write teen girls. And much about them is supposed to be average and relatable. But within the first chapter we see that Beth is isolated and misses her dad, we see that Tess is super competitive, we see that Natalie is scared of her foster dad. The main plot runs right through these factors, and they grow and they overcome them. But the internal conflict isn't developed through the story; the internal conflict has always been there.
     
  16. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    @Primordial Knight That I have worked on that a good bit. Mercedes is still deciding on a career, but knows she wants to do something that helps people. She's a very nice and considerate person, to the point of being a doormat sometimes (something she has to work on). As to hero morality, she only uses as much force as needed to defeat someone, she's not brutal. However she will kill someone if left with no alternative, but that would be an absolute last resort when all other options had been exhausted. She's the law abiding hero who helps police, because later on in the story, when she gets her head on straighter, she decides that she needs to set an example. For that reason she co-operates with police, helps the everyday person, things like that. She even goes so far as to refuse product endorsement offers because she feels it's wrong to use her abilities for personal gain.

    @LostThePlot I plan to work on that too, making her stand out despite being normal. I know that totally agree average characters are boring, I've put down a few books because of it. I'm still on the 'get this crap on paper' draft, so right now I'm just getting everything out of my head. I know Mercedes as a character, but writing the first draft will also help me get to know her as a person. That way I can make her both normal and memorable at the same time. I'll be going back over everything later on and expanding upon my first draft, because there's a lot going on with her older sister as well. That plays a large part in the story because they're about polar opposites of one another. Mercedes = mild mannered, kind, considerate, meek. Erin = Loud, rude, aggressive, ill-tempered, and over-protective of Mercedes at times.
     
  17. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I'm missing your point as well, because... those are normal things for teens to worry about/deal with.

    I agree that it's good to get inside your character's heads and show what's going on, but I don't think this is connected to whether someone is "average" or "normal" or whatever else.

    Everyone has issues. Everyone has depth, even if they're within the "average" or "normal" range. Your description of your characters' issues (misses her dad, etc.) doesn't sound any more profound than the issues the OP is describing... what's the distinction you're trying to make?
     
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  18. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    The thing to remember is that 'normal' is a fuzzy, high order description. No person is normal, normal is a wide band of things that some people fall within. To most teens 'normals' means 'the cross section of people at my school'. And that includes everyone from the mean girls to the sporty girls to the goths to the stoners. It encompasses everyone from lower-lower class people who's families live on benefits and only have one pair of school shoes, to the upper-middle class who's dad picks them up in a BMW.

    That is what normal is, that whole range of stuff. But once you get closer to a person they cease to be normal and become someone distinctive and memorable and sympathetic even while being totally normal. The trick is to create someone who feels real and unique, not just a gestalt of the average. And that's where needing to write someone you understand and share experience with. An 'averaged' character isn't one who is at zero on every axis, it's one who is at 3 on one and -3 on another. A 'zero' character feels like she's not even there, and that's what makes things like her skin colour seem to be token; like they've been tacked on to make her interesting. But if she's a unique and interesting person in her own right then no-one will even think about what she looks like.

    To push a little further; why is she so mild? Is she desperately trying to be liked? Is she just reacting to larger personalities around her that are suffocating her? Is her home life really dysfunctional and she's trying never to be asked what's wrong? What's the deep root of who she is?

    Because that is what you build a character around. Of the three things above; one is someone who's afraid people will find out how boring she is and needs to build self esteem, one is someone who's desperate to make her own way and her powers would let her do that, one is someone who's secretive that craves control. All are really interesting things to write, all fine fodder for a super hero. And yet they are all still very normal. And, most tellingly, it matters so much more than what she looks like.
     
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  19. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

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    That's my point. They are normal things, but they aren't average things. They are descriptions of a specific person with a specific life, experiences that colour who they are and conflicts in them. They are within the realms of normal but are still interesting.

    My point, since you missed it, was that normal people are interesting. You just have to make them individuals.

     
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  20. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    So I guess we agree with what makes a good character... but I don't understand why you think the OP doesn't know this as well, or what evidence you're seeing that suggests the OP isn't no track to create a good character.

    I mean, statistically, the character probably won't be great - most writers on this site are pretty new, and most characters created by new writers need some work. But are there specific alarm bells ringing for you here? Just that the author has a mental picture of the character?
     
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  21. Antaus

    Antaus Active Member

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    You are right about normal though, it's really just a setting on the dryer. I guess a better way of saying this was I didn't want Mercedes to start off being a superstar. She's not gorgeous, sure of herself, knows what she wants to do, or has all the answers to a situation. There are problems, issues, and things she's dealing with like everyone else. Although after doing a good bit of writing I think I've found what does make her stand out, it's her kindness. She's not a spiteful character and doesn't hold a grudge.
     
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  22. raine_d

    raine_d Active Member

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    Maybe try this on for size... apart from her super powers, what is it about Mercedes that makes her unusual and interesting (every MC's got to have some traits that grab the reader, and pretty much every person on the planet has personality traits that make them different - hey, there've been absolutely fascinating MCs based on their dead boringness!!! - but that's a tough thing to pull off)

    So forget about the superpower, and the 'normal girl' bit. Leave them strictly to one side for a minute. What else is it about Mercedes that you think will make people want to spend the time with her that reading takes?
     
  23. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    The problem is, though, that by trying to make your story not about appearance, you're in danger of making it about appearance.

    You're essentially making a "thing" of this character not looking like a supermodel. But to make a point of that, you will likely have to be pretty emphatic about her appearance having flaws, and emphatic about the appearance of people that you're comparing her to--which is problematic in a fourth-wall sense because you're comparing her to characters in other stories. And suddenly the story is about appearance.

    It's just fine--it's good--if in your mind you're resolving not to go down the path of rhapsodic descriptions of her brilliance and beauty. But I don't really see it as a story element.

    I'm also disconcerted about the muddling of characteristics here that seems to be putting "not Caucasian" in opposition with "gorgeous". Yes I realize that the not-Caucasian is one item in a mixed bag of other characteristics that you're mentioning, but the end result is the suggestion that being not-Caucasian is incompatible with being gorgeous, and that it is somehow ordinary and "less than". I'm assuming that you absolutely do not mean that, but you're in danger of sounding like you do.
     
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  24. Trish

    Trish Damned if I do and damned if I don't Contributor

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    That is quite the jump you just made there, especially since the OP said absolutely nothing of the sort (which you admit, and so clearly know). This is one of those times when it feels like perhaps we're just looking for things to be insulted over and leads to writers being absolutely paralyzed by the 'what-if's'. Sorry, but... just no.
     
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  25. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

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    Only white people can be gorgeous.

    ^That's something you should be disconcerted about instead of busybodying yourself with what someone is close to unintentionally implying.
     

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