Hahaha I was just about to say Jack Reacher! Have you heard of Richard Rahl as well? He's not smug but he's kinda falsely humble, which is altogether a different kind of annoying. The author Terry Goodkind has even admitted to his novels being his way of spouting his own philosophies I think - or so I heard anyway. Well, I didn't like my co-author's character, which has since put a halt on our collaboration. No hurt feelings or anything - she understands people react different to things sometimes - but I can't write with a character, a key character, whom I just cringe at every time I have to read her parts. My co-author seems prone to writing women who don't care about their own lives - and that immediately puts me at a distance because I just can't understand that. I understand sacrifice, and putting someone or something else above your own life. That I do get. But a general disregard for one's own life without having necessarily something or someone you're dying for, now that I just can't wrap my head around. On top of this, this particular character is self-pitying with a huge dose of "woe is me!" who hasn't really suffered for real or seen the world because she's also rich and extremely sheltered, and her "woe is me" cause is that she is too sheltered and thus suffers from it and all she wants is the freedom to live her own life. On top of this, she isn't very useful at all, and is very pretty. I dunno. This combination just made me go eeegh...
Yes, I would also hate this character. To me (and I don't mean to throw immature around because I hate the word) it seems a very teenage concept of cool, and one that does not translate well to anyone else. I would find this character unbearably surly and would be unable to abide the juvenile vanity of wallowing in self-pity. It would just piss me off instantly if I met someone like that.
Hmm....I sort of like the characters who basically know everything and act cool. It pains me to see characters who do dumb things for "heroism." I in fact love books who have people who know everything, like Sherlock Holmes. In at least one Sherlock Holmes story, the entire story is about him sitting in a chair, explaining to a client how he knows who the criminal is, BEFORE investigating anything. So I'd rather much take a smart character who's never wrong rather than a dumb character who is always wrong and always gets out alive.
Goodkind is terrible. The Reacher books are at least fun, though he's certainly a Mary Sue. I don't have to like a character to read about them, but I do have to be interested in them.
I don't think I could even buy such self-sacrifism (it's a type of ism!) because I'm not sure it's very realistic, and I like to read about characters who feel realistic (by the way, I really like Soren, you know who I'm talking about ) and make choices that, well, make sense in the given context. I expect people to have some kind of survival instinct, even if it wasn't super honed. It's like a form of fake heroism that you don't see irl, but it's easy to throw into crappy fiction. Anyway, I'm sorry your project got scrapped. Maybe she'll change her mind about the type of character she'd like to write? I can understand that even rich, well-off people have problems, but if they don't acknowledge how privileged they still are, I struggle to sympathize with them. Jay McInerney made his character Allison Poole quite sympathetic even though she was described something akin to a rich bint in one of Brett Easton Ellis's novels (their characters overlapped each other's novels), but I think what made her sympathetic for me was her genuine passion for acting, her fucked up family situation (a manslut for a dad who chose the well-being of his lays over her daughter), and money problems (her dad had cut the money flow). Yeah, she was pretty, skinny, and witty, but the lack of self-pity and a healthy degree of selfishness made her likable in addition to the things I listed.
Lol you're still reading that? I thought you stopped! Hehe reading what you wrote made me grin like an idiot I agree with the basic survival instinct thing. I think that's probably what put me off, too - I just couldn't understand her. And seriously her life wasn't so bad that it warranted that level of... what do you call it? Self-negligence? She does have passion - the passion to free the infected and believe in their humanity. But the way she was hoping to do it was so naive and when it came to facing infecteds, she was running from the beasts like everyone else, which made me feel like she lacked conviction. Co-author doesn't agree though lol. My co-author is actually thinking about merging 2 existing characters from her own novel and using some of the 50k+ words she scrapped for that novel and turning all that into the character I've been saying I dislike. It's not brilliant - the character - but more tolerable. Just super shy and with a bit of determination and a bit of self-loathing. I have yet to read all those snippets though - another 50 pages to go... meh. I feel like she writes repressed characters quite often. They are strong characters and usually interesting - but reading it and writing with it are quite different lol.
I am still reading it, yeah. I've been meaning to drop you a few comments,actually. I've just been such a scatter-brain as of late because of work and school that I haven't gotten around to put them into a coherent email. Sorry.
I dislike all characters who are young, brash, unaware, not very smart, immature, weak, doubtful. Contrary to what many people seem to like, I am not interested in weaker characters growing stronger while struggling to overcome a greater threat. I also dislike it when characters rely on dumb luck to get out of a tough situation, or they have to be saved every time. I like characters who know what they are doing and can get things under control to get out of a sticky situation. I am far more interested in stories where the protagonist is equally powerful as the antagonist in capabilities. Two equals duking it out is so much more fun than than following the usual struggle to grow.
I have a limited capacity for stupid characters. Every so often I read or watch something and end up scratching my head, asking "why didn't they just do thing x and fix the problem then and there?" It's not that I'm particularly smart because I know I'm not, but some folks just seem to have a tendency to write incredibly stupid characters who end up in trouble out of sheer idiocy. Alas, many horror stories, movies, and series rely on this (trope?) to create suspense, which just makes me root for the antagonist. Oh, and TV shows like the Walking Dead, Falling Skies etc. are so guilty of this that I can't bear to watch them anymore. If the characters are that dumb, they might as well make a decent meal of themselves for the zomzoms/aliens and be done with their incessant pursuit for needless drama and "suspense" derived from moronic, illogical behavior. I also get bored with characters who are seemingly awesome at everything they do, never fail, never get seriously hurt (no matter what dangers they face), always have the perfect comeback, always know what to do, they either can do everything or they learn at an inhuman pace (e.g. learn to fly a Tomcat in a few minutes, unlike real pilots... oh, and these heroes/heroines never have any use for RIOs), and, of course, everyone and his dog falls in love with them even when the MC behaves like an asshole. I'm sure I forgot a bunch of stuff, but you get the gist; the perfect, untouchable demigod heroes. They're just boring because from the get-go you know nothing bad will ever happen to them or if it does, they'll just bulldoze their way to the inevitable "surprise" victory.
Bland, undeveloped, token female characters that are clearly just there so that the author doesn't feel sexist. Bonus points if their main personality trait is compassion. Writing a a cast of thirty men and then tossing one or two women in as an afterthought is not real representation. It just isn't. Real representation is treating them like actual people instead of cardboard cut-outs that look nice and play cheerleader for all the males in the story.
Oooh, related to this, authors who make ONE kickass female character, one who, like, fights with a sword and wears pants and everything and no one really comments on it being unusual, making it seem as if the society isn't sexist... and then every OTHER female character is a fine lady who speaks through her husband or a scullery maid or whatever. I mean, if the society isn't sexist, there should be lots of women in positions of power. If the society IS sexist, the kickass female character is a huge anomaly, and should be acknowledged as such, in her characterization, in the way others react to her, and maybe even explicitly in the narrative.
The orphan that has powers that were never revealed to him/her and finds out through near disaster. Ho hum.
Most anyone in a Micheal Bay movie.... Micheal Bay himself... Holy Hell I hate all this Micheal Bay..... so my MB hating has me wondering were the characters in the movies he directed poorly written or did he make them bad characters by being a horrible director?
Becoming an author has actually spoiled my enjoyment of some films for the very reasons you state. On one hand, it upsets me that I can't enjoy mindless drivel anymore without feeling the need to shout at the TV. On the other, I'm glad I'm not wasting my time watching mindless drivel anymore ... Although, there are some days whey you just need to watch some facepalming TV in order to get through the week.
Funnily enough, I tend to be more accepting of films like Transformers simply because it's what I would call, total fiction. What I mean is, there's no way it could ever happen, transforming robots from a distant planet and we become their allies?? Whereas, take Olympus Has Fallen ... no, please take it! LOL What I mean, is that film is based on the premise that the White House can be taken over by terrorists. Now, we have the White House, we have The President, we have Terrorists ... to me, the film is based on events which 'could' happen. But the stuff the main character goes though, and he still walks away at the end, come on ... never gonna happen. Same with the woman (Defence Secretary, I think) who is quite slim but gets kicked from pillar to post but still manages to walk away without collapsing in a flood of tears at the first blow! ... As if!
I hate characters who don't do anything. I was reading the 'lord valentine' novel and nearly gave up reading for good because I tried to force myself through it. He doesn't do ANYTHING to resolve the plot, he KNOWS what the problem is, but he just goes along with his little circus troupe rather than try to do something about it (and it's not that he loves this troupe or anything). At one point he tells himself 'when we get near enough to this location, then I'll leave this troupe I'm traveling with', and he just goes along the story without going in the direction of RESOLVING the plot. He spends his time philosophizing, 'Should I be king? Nah, let the other guy who actually wants to', which then becomes 'I should be king, I was TRAINED to be king, I mean....I'm totally doing it for the people, it's REALLY not for myself', and that philosophy is around the first 100-150 pages right there.
I dislike antagonists who are evil just because. They just want to see the world burn and for no apparent reason. Might is well be stroking some cat while playing with that ridiculously long beard. Fuck, that annoys me.
I don't mind total fiction movies but there is something bout Micheal Bay movies that just annoy the hell out of me... but I do see your point, I'd just prefer to stick to the Friday the 13th, child;s plays, nightmare on Elm st. Hellraiser ect.... (the originals not the remakes) kinds fiction.
Bonus: The orphan has powers, but everyone and their dog hates the orphan and shuns him/her. But don't worry, that orphan is pure of heart and will, at the end, prove them wrong (or even save them!) without even a hint of vengeance in his/her thoughts. I concur. If a book has these two in its pages, I'm throwing it away.
I can actually deal with that, but they have to be evil in a really memorable way. Otherwise they can feel like something out of a bad Saturday morning cartoon.
