If you feel this blog has insulted you in any way. Submit a complaint to the non-existent complaint department. Solar certainly doesn't give much of a damn, as examples will be used in this. As per Creative Commons, I am able to do this, so any sort of copyright claim will simply be disregarded. You can just simply not agree with what I'm saying, although any sort of asshurt will just be lol'd at as we get on with our lives. If you do not like this, you can simply not read the blog and not take this personally. Y'know, instead of making an ass out of yourself.
Oh boy, I have a load of energy that I need to diminish because tonight's a worknight. More or less, aside to being a creation guide, this can be halfways taken as a roleplay guide where I similarly rant against bad styles that I've seen. Refer to the above short statement before proceeding any further.
"But Sol, why are you up at 1 AM writing this?"
See Answer A.
Anyways, I'm sure all of you knew this was to come, but it's a guide. A guide to in some ways, which can be regarded for; creative success. This will basically tell you pretty much everything to do, and not to do when you make your character, fan, original, or otherwise. In particular; to make it well received.
The general rules for All[]
Now this can be put for a list with all creation whether or not, there is the general ruleset to go by. You can think some of these to not have limits by whatsoever, but.
Too bad. Thinking that way won't do much to improve you or your writing, if you refuse to accept that, then stop reading this blog immediately.
- Do NOT reuse the same idea. Even with the creators we've seen on this site, yes, even those who claim to be great. I've just seen a repeat of the same formula, comparable to CoD, pretending to be new, when nothing much has really changed. Such a wide example can be of the line that we've seen regarding JaredtheFox's line of creations, which originally had proven fruitful, only to go down just about the same line of general repetitiveness that is just "Warlord evil conquering ruthlessism dominated by psychic people" factions and characters both. Which the characters themselves have had the notable, and overused product of shifting size.
- Don't be that person who just copy-pastes something on a new cover. It's not only uncreative and unoriginal, but it makes you look like how CoD is produced now.
- KNOW about the powers your character/Faction has, this is a common misconception for just about plainly everyone. People just stack powers on a character expecting them to work or pretending to have the knowhow of, well, how it's done. But I always see those characters who practically have the wrong interpretation of a skill or power, or worse. Their creators claim that they have these talents, when the creator actually doesn't show sufficient enough knowledge about the power, more or less the skills or traits a character possesses. Not only this allows some to just put anything for their character for whatever dumb plot device they cooked up; this is practically a precursor to Godmodding.
- Powers and skills are usually set in a specific field. While you can be a jack of all trades, it's VERY stupid to have Hammerspace on your character when the character lacks any sort of knowledge on spacial power, Spaciakinetic, Galaxamancy, or anything else you use to call Spacial manipulation, knowing of it is usually essential to get hammerspace. And no, Chaos isn't a valid option for it. Chaos does a variety of things, although Chaos Control only really shifts time rather than make one teleport. Although it is capable of conjuring projectiles as much as the next field, which doesn't make it all space manipulation, let alone unique..
- If your character is supposedly super intelligent (I'm looking at you, Falco the Eagle..), at least make an effort to show this intelligence other than 'oh they built their own lab' or 'they can build this this and this'. Within roleplays with his controller, Falco wasn't shown to be at all, that intelligent; but rather unintelligent. While played for laughs in a short moment of stupidity or judgment lapsing is unknown, Falco thought it'd be a good idea to walk towards a glimmer in a bush, only to get shot by a sniper shot. Which brings us to our third topic.
- Know your strengths and weaknesses.. Sadly what makes the creative field more or less a headache to step into was rather, people making God characters. Now I understand if it's under mythology or to go upon the cases of well, whatever. Fleshing out a world? Making something new? It doesn't really matter when you make a character and you just flash out your groin or chest expecting people to care. This is especially a bad case with some RPers, and even me on some occasions, although for the most part I just ask to be proven something's a good combatant. Again, I'll refer to Jared in this case of where the average cockfight (take this however you will.) is of going by "Oh, my character or group can trounce your own easily". Not only this is a display of arrogance, but the line of strength is somewhat disorderly and skewed because people just, again, want to flash whatever.
- Not only this sort of leads to fights, but having the strongest character out there or claiming they're unstoppable is one of the biggest traits for Mary Sueness, and should be avoided at all costs. Each character, army, faction, whatever. Should have their own weaknesses, no matter their strength or power level. And no, making a DBZ-powered character probably won't make me, or anyone else, give anymore of a damn to give. We have better things to pay attention to, like jobs, paying bills, or looking at better creations.
- Don't make weaknesses the way to defeat a character, please.. This is sorta a mainstay issue of creating any sort of thing that was ever present. Refer to above where people have those unstoppable or super strong characters, and capitalize that the weakness is the only way to defeat them. This means, unless the plot demands it, or unless you somehow have whatever is needed to take them down. You can't take them down whatsoever. And I don't care if it's standard invulnerability they have up their sleeve, or if weaknesses are the only way to harm them (Shedinja, I'm looking at you and your Wonder Guard bull.); it's simply unacceptable for that of a character. Strengths and weaknesses should be balanced out, not only by types of attacks persay, but emotional and physical as well. Just having a few to count makes for a rather static character that seems to trudge their way through everything.
- More or less make some of these weaknesses, at least, easily accessible, and for Gods' sake, don't complain if someone happens to have one of your weaknesses against your character.
- Explain why the character or faction or whatever possess what they have. Skills, weapons, or anything else that applies, simply having it for just having it is overall, dumb. Now, I don't know if this character is a joke or not, that's entirely up to debate, but I've seen a character who possesses eight cars, can run on walls, and dual-wield pistols (which isn't all that special for the last part seeing you'll still need to be a very proficient marksman to effectively dual-wield, other than just plainly dual-wielding), and thirteen guns which, supposedly, he carries all of that on hand. Now, a thirty-year old person. Having eight cars and thirteen firearms. He'd need to live on a fortune, because I have a decently paying job, and I can barely afford college and my own car without taking a loan, zing!
- Do NOT have unlimited resources. Of course this is just. You know what? I don't even need to explain this safe for like, one sentence. No one has unlimited wealth/resources at their disposal.
- No one.
- You need resources and money to build your own lab, just not technological knowhow and smarts. But you need to take in mind that even if you make your own generator and lab, you still have to take all that electricity from somewhere, and find a way to have that electricity. Let alone, have the tools to make such, and no, no amount of supergenius should serve as an excuse. You'll need tools. Which cost money. You'll need parts. Which cost money. Can you make these parts yourself? Not all of them, unless you're some crafting God, which; guess what? You're not.
- Come up with your own ideas, and validly explain it instead of just saying "Oh it does this.". Selfgiven, no explanation needed. Kthx, bai.
- Make sense and be logical; there is no such thing as overthinking a character. The more creative and original you get. The (possibly) better of a creation you'll make.
- Stand out from the crowd, at least a little, but not too much, or not too little.
- Portraying or having a Canon character in your series? Do. It. Right. I cannot stress this enough with how people involve a "canon" character in their adaptations. I get that fanon is sorta a way to interpret the Canon character as anything, but to do it far from what they originally were or interpreted. Or skewing their history, relationship status, or personality without valid reason where they can just be written off as another OC at this point, can be invalidly taken as just being more of a Fanfiction if anything. I know Black&White has Touhous in it, that's a given, but I at least try to portray any sort of canon character to their truest or original sense for the most part.
- Unless you do it right, and keep them in the present timeline; do not make your character the offspring of a canon character, unless, again, you do it right. Or with good reason. Just saying they're the kid of a character will not only have sarcasm take place in taking the character seriously. But people altogether can ignore your character simply for these reasons alone. There are quite a bit of people that do this.
- Do NOT give your character a canon character's unique/signature power, or powers from a different universe. TAM's character using Susanooh from Naruto, Sonic characters using their usual shpeel of another universe's talents, or even a canon character's own.
- Your character is the boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend of the canon character? Nah , even if you establish it before or why. The character likely already has a spouse or best friend unless given good reason or, if they simply don't have such. That is, of course, if you establish it different than canon or give a reaaaaaally good reason.
- More to be added, I guess? If I find any other reason or example for it. I dunno? I think I covered everything, but now by the time I finished this I'm halfway asleep so. Yeah. Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll find these tips in good use.