What are your big no-no’s of writing?

but tha priiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiizeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…:rofl:

oh god…I know tha feeling! They are doing THAT to my favorite Manga…I hate it!!!

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

hahaha oh god…yes! like the concept of being single is HORRIBLE! LOL like single give you a game over screen or something lolol

ahh…made me laugh too much…so so so true…mah ribs hurt now…:joy:

I think there is a case for tropes being handled poorly, but you are right. Everything’s been done before, so it’s more just a matter of execution.

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Well people already covered quite a bit of the ones I would point out. So I will point out one that really bothers me about high school movies:

All people who play sports or exercise are evil psychopaths and all nerds are kind, friendly and never look down on anybody ever.

I have used a computer since I was about twelve and I can safely tell you that some nerds out there are meeeaaaannnn.

There is nothing wrong with either kind of lifestyles. I do both and I enjoy them. I just don’t like the generalization that anybody who is interested in sports must be a horrible human being because of it.

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They can fly, but they don’t breathe fire. :slightly_smiling_face: They pick people up and fling them into shit, but I’d argue their riders (the Nazgul) are way scarier and more powerful than the mounts themselves.

Also, some no-no’s I thought of for IF and games in particular:

  • This is an obvious one, but I really hate false choices. Different from *fake_choices, these present you with the illusion of choice when the author is actually just directing you down their intended path. For example, a situation where you get the choice to accept what someone is saying or question them more rigorously. Upon choosing “question them,” the narrative suddenly interrupts before you get a chance to say anything, redirecting you to the same outcome no matter what. (Someone walks in just before you’re about to say your question, for example, never giving you the chance to speak before the narrative proceeds forward.) I guess this is railroading–but I would much prefer the story proceed in a directed, linear, “railroaded” fashion than pretend to give me a meaningless choice, only to yank it away. I think I read one story recently where the story gave me a choice, and upon selecting the second option, it literally said “Fuck you!” and took me back so that I had no choice but to pick the first one. I instantly noped out. At that point, why bother?

  • Forced attraction on my part. It’s fine if other characters are attracted to me–my MC is always beautiful, after all --but there have been some games that made me feel a little squicky by describing other characters as if my MC has to be attracted to them. I don’t want to call anyone out, but Black Magic is an example of this. Games that describe NPCs as “beautiful, handsome, sexy, attractive,” et al really tend to toe the line with this. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!

  • This is more about conventional video games, but games that force me to protect kids because they’re, well, kids. :upside_down_face: Especially if they’re really annoying, awful kids, but I still have to protect them because they’re kiiiiiids. That sounds evil but if a game gives me the choice to abandon an obnoxious, dead-weight child, I instantly respect it more. I’m not saying I’d do it, but I’d like for the game not to put me in a dilemma (save my grandma or save this annoying kid I just met) where I’m always obligated to save a victim based on societal consensus.

  • Games where you can’t predict what the MC will say based on the dialogue option you’re given. I’ve said this before, but a thing I disliked in DA2 was that you could never tell what Hawke would say based on choosing the “sarcastic” option. It could be anything from a witty joke to “HA, HA, YOUR MOTHER’S DEAD.” Some IF games do this, too, but it’s much less of a problem because it’s text-based.

I’ll think of more later, of course.

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Love triangles with a really obvious outcome, but where the author tries to make out like the outcome might be in question. I am SO SICK of urban fantasy/paranormal with a female protagonist torn between a Troubled Brooding guy who treats her badly and a normal/nice dude. She always ends up with the troubled guy. Alllwaaaaayyyyss. So stop trying to convince me she might not. God I would love for a story where she was like “um, no, you kissed me and then treated me like crap due Traumatic Backstory, got horribly jealous even though we weren’t together, and are generally a jerk - get therapy, bye!”

Attached to that, jealousy portrayed as romantic. I have such a hard time with it because I know it’s really common in romance stuff and some people adore it but in real life, I have never ever actually seen a correlation between “person reacts with extreme jealousy” and “because they just love their partner SO MUCH.” doesn’t work that way, too close to abuse for me to like it when it’s supposed to show how much character A loves character B.

Protagonist Centered Morality (there’s a tvtropes on it.) Everyone who doesn’t like/trust the protagonist is shown to be a bad person, all the good characters like the protagonist or end up seeing they are in the right. If the protagonist is ever “stubborn” about something, they inevitably end up being correct. (kinda related to the points people made above about flaws not being portrayed as flaws.) The protagonist is allowed to lose their cool and we’re expected to be OK with it because sad backstory, but if another character who might even have a worse backstory is even slightly mean to the protag. it’s shown as unacceptable.

Authors who try to trick you into thinking they’re not going to do the obvious trope and might actually do something different/unique…then it swings around and they of course do the obvious thing.

Another TV Trope I hate “Take a Third Option.” Build up a situation where someone has to pick either A or B and it’ll be horrible in different ways whichever they pick… then let them cop out, solve it in a way that wasn’t supposed to work but does, save the schoolchildren and the love interest - and also present it as being horrible that they would ever not try to save both even with the chances being listed as like 99% that if they tried this everyone would die.

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Someone’s narcissistic. Anyway what about say, a power?

Don’t write like Terry Goodkind, got it.

I want to see a situation where someone does take a third option, and it either outright fails or only succeeds at a horrible cost. I’ve yet to see it in a COG game, and that’s often the case with “third options.”

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And the inverse, too. If the antagonist’s only really been a bit of a jerk to the protagonist, or worse, has completely legitimate reasons for their antagonism (e.g. an honest cop after the criminal anti-hero, or being the other character in a love triangle), don’t treat them as the worst scum ever. I mean, sure, it’s good to have some non-villainous antagonists, but the story should be clear that they are non-villainous. (If it’s from the point-of-view of an unreliable narrator, then it is fine, but in that case it should be clear that the narrator is unreliable.)

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  1. False choices
  2. Linear choices that only take on the narrative the author wants
  3. Overly opinionated story, narrating from a singular point of view, generally the authors views on certain socio-political issues.
  4. A Class system in a choice of game. (This only works in actual RPGs) This also ties back to #3.
  5. Repeatedly embarassing the player with lose/lose choices that are solely there to make you look wrong/weak.
  6. Too short/Too Long
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What would you define this as? :slightly_smiling_face:

Hey, if I’m playing a game that’s limited only by the vast power of my imagination, I’m going to imagine my MC is goddamn gorgeous. And what do you mean by a power? :slight_smile:

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This is not an attack on the author, but a good example for too short might be “So, You’re Possessed!”. Not really sure I’ve come across one that was too long, but if it was like, 600k words I could see myself getting bored, but that’s more of a me problem than anything else.

Too much exposition in one go. If there are more than two paragraphs of just explaining things, I’m going to get bored and skip over it. I don’t need to know the entire history of something, I only want the relevant information when it’s relevant.

This one’s more related to games, but punishing, mocking, or not allowing neutrality. If I don’t like any of the sides, I’m not going to pick one, and if a game does any of the aforementioned things, then I’m simply going to stop playing.

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Someone with some kind of ability that makes people attracted to them.

You got me thinking of those games with character customization where you can’t make ugly characters :laughing:

but angelina jolieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee :heart_eyes:

lol like save ashley or kaidan…where I wanted to strap both to the nuke :rofl:

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Oh yeah, black magic weirded me out that I had to base them on something.

Of course she looked like the stay puft marshmallow man.

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Ah, this is okay as long as my MC is aware of the power (or becomes aware of it later) and has the choice to resist it. Like damn they’re attractive, even though I know it’s just their power making me feel that way. But I’d still smash!

I always make characters that I think are smokin’ within the creator, but they somehow look like monsters once the game actually starts. :grimacing:

601

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lol we all suffer from that XD

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But would you stay long enough to figure it out?

Oh god that’s the worse. I especially get bugged out by noses and sometimes ears. After that mouths. But with simpler stuff it’s very easy to see all the options with a perfect face.