Thread:Espinozaan1/@comment-35757757-20200125065849/@comment-35757757-20200126004534

Also, uh, now here’s the constructive criticism I promised you:

So, I’ll admit it... Timber kinda was a Mary Sue, at least in that one Roleplay. Now, before you start crying, let me explain the reasons why:

1: Timber didn’t really have a personality. He kept flip-flopping from timid, shy, and really sad to some sort of bad*ss with no overlap. If a character doesn’t have a personality, it’s hard to like them because, well... what would there be to like? It’s the personality that can make a character feel real, and allows audiences to connect with them.

2: Everyone you played just unconditionally loved Timber as soon as they met him (minus the evil characters). Like, he never had to do anything to EARN their love, but as soon as they saw him they just instantly adored him. The problem with this is that it’s not realistic. If you’re wondering what I mean: it becomes basically impossible for the audience to suspend their disbelief if the characters don’t act the way actual thinking people do without a good explanation (like mind control). The characters you played did NOT act realistically. Timber could be a huge jerk who tries to hurt people and everyone just ignored it. If you met someone in real life who was a huge jerk, yet everyone still loved them unconditionally, I think you’d be salty too. That’s the effect it has on the audience.

3: Every time Timber did something that should be inexcusable, you just contrived an excuse for him. Forced, contrived writing is bad because it’s unsatisfying and doesn’t flow naturally with the plot. It ends up either frustrating or boring... or both. You CAN have a character do bad stuff, but remember that there should be consequences for it. Otherwise, it’d feel like a guilty person getting off with their crimes scoff-free. When you think about it, the defining trait for a Mary Sue is that the universe bends around them, changing to suit the character. That’s boring because, well... what would be the risk? Where can any actual stakes in the plot come from if the audience knows that the protagonist has no chance of struggling in the slightest. There’s nothing interesting there. There is no conflict.

4: Timber’s backstory is an endless dump of misery purely for the purpose of getting cheap sympathy points. What I mean by this is that Timber has gone through abuse and stuff, yet it never really seems to affect him in an important way. It’s just there so he can just suddenly have breakdowns where he cries so the other characters will feel bad for him. It never actually seems to affect his personality, how he acts, or anything. Now, I’m not saying you can’t have a character with a bunch of bad stuff happening to them in their backstories (Fluff, Dangerverse is full of them actually). The thing is: it should actually have effects on their behavior.

5: His backstory is too confusing and convoluted. Sometimes less is more, and this is one of those cases. His backstory just goes everywhere, not staying consistent and becoming too hard to follow. Sometimes it even seems contradictory with itself, honestly. I’d recommend taking one part of his backstory and focusing on that, expanding on it and turning it to his full backstory. If you really want to use the other events, then I suggest making more characters around each of those, and also combining any events that are able to fit together without becoming too confusing.

That’s what I’ve got. Hope this helps you get better at writing :3. Sometimes we can only see what we’re doing wrong when it’s pointed out to us, and then we can strive to make it better.

Also I wanna throw this in since it seems you need an inspirational song about not giving up: https://youtu.be/wlhgKHHqpL0

This one’s nice :3