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Post by heredoncove on Dec 3, 2010 14:41:33 GMT -5
I'm answering before reading everyone's responses. I don't have a singular main character so I'm going to try to answer this the best I can.
How did you come up with them?
Some characters became from a previous hood, Maxis and my own. The Lemieuxs, The Valdez, The Behars were all from an old hood I had and because I was making a hood and really liked them I brought them over. Everyone knows the Calientes and the Heredon clan was a whim that grew from developing the history of the Cove.
How were you inspired? Did they come first or did the story?
The older characters that I was doing already had stories, just little ideas that came to me as I played them and from there I wanted to flesh it out. This is especially true with the Caliente sisters. Everyone knows who they are and have tried their hand at their stories but I wanted to add something to them, make them interesting.
Some I started from scratch and had to seriously sit down and think about the kind of people I wanted them to be.
Are they anything like you or the people you know? Are they modelled after other characters or celebrities?
Nope, none of the characters are modelled after anyone else. I think it would be weird to have a representation of myself in the story. LOL
Are they Mary-Sue'ish (and you know when it's written well, then a Mary Sue can still be a good character)
I hope not ::looks around with crasy eyes:: I would hope I've shown both sides of my character and that they aren't the most beautiful, special, precious characters in the whole world.
Did they develop on their own or did they need the plotline to as a stimulus?
I'm pretty sure I used a plotline with all of them do give a boost to their development. It gave me a much better sense of the way their characters would develop over the long run ( or a two year mark) and how they would react to a situation because I had to answer those questions.
Do they have flaws that are important to the story?
They do and for some of them it's the main reason they're in trouble now. John is arrogant and a serial cheater which has left his marriage in shambles. A lot of that storyline is seeing if they can fix it and if they want to. I want their flaws to actually screw up their lives if its bad enough just like it happens in real life. I try to make everything organic to the characters. I obsess over it.
Do you like them? (some people don't like their protags, I find that interesting)
I do like them although I don't agree with a lot of the stuff they do. I can't help but like them because they're like my babies. LOL
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Post by laura on Dec 3, 2010 15:35:11 GMT -5
@laura A standard Mary-Sue, if I recall correctly, is a character that seems to be a perfect representation of the the author in the story. In fact, that's where the term came about... people who would write themselves into fan-fiction and positively affect the canon characters and stories around them (I believe the first defined Mary Sue was a Star Trek fan-fiction character, is that right?) Ah, okay. I doubt my Lucy is a Mary-Sue then, because she's truly nothing like me at all, lol! Which made me wonder if maybe my Leila was a Mary-Sue instead, because she is quite like me. Though I wouldn't say she's flawless. Her life is actually pretty hellish right now, lol! ;D Oh, I shouldn't laugh... I mean, poor girl  |
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Post by sb on Dec 3, 2010 16:10:36 GMT -5
How did you come up with them? How were you inspired?
Gayl came up with them, or most of them; I'm just along for the ride. Those that I came up with sort of appeared out of nowhere. I can't think of anything in particular that inspired me to create them except Gayl's work.
Did they come first or did the story?
Gayl's characters came first. Mine came after the story.
Are they anything like you or the people you know? Are they modeled after other characters or celebrities?
Gayl and I both unapologetically have self sims in our world. She's a good person. I have emotional outbursts, cheat on my husband, compete with my daughter and run off with rock stars. Exactly like me in real life.... No one is modeled after any other character or celebrity.
Are they Mary-Sue'ish (and you know when it's written well, then a Mary Sue can still be a good character)?
I think Mary Sue phobia is kind of overblown. Everybody is scared to death of the woman. I don't know if they are and I don't care.
Did they develop on their own or did they need the plotline as a stimulus?
Both.
Do they have flaws that are important to the story?
Yes. They also have virtues that are important to the story. Sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.
Do you like them?
I love some of them. Some of them annoy me. I don't dislike any of them; there are no villains, just people making stupid choices.
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 3, 2010 16:18:53 GMT -5
Are they anything like you or the people you know? Are they modeled after other characters or celebrities? Gayl and I both unapologetically have self sims in our world. She's a good person. I have emotional outbursts, cheat on my husband, compete with my daughter and run off with rock stars. Exactly like me in real life.... No one is modeled after any other character or celebrity. I hope it's not offensive that I completely laughed at that. Because I can see it. Man, I'd love to be able to pull more stories out of you about your real life. |
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Post by sb on Dec 3, 2010 16:23:40 GMT -5
Lunar, of course it's not offensive!! LOL!
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 3, 2010 16:34:54 GMT -5
Illandrya, hearing about Deyon makes me have to say-- welcome to my world, lol! I knew there was a reason I liked him so much. Some characters just seriously take over.
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Post by mdpthatsme on Dec 3, 2010 17:59:25 GMT -5
I've been asked a bunch of times how I came up with my many characters...well a seven year old's mind is a wonderful place for an imagination to grow. How did you come up with them? Uhhhhhhhhh...combinding everything I see, hear, watch, and understand. How were you inspired? Action figures...DragonBallZ...Final Fantasy...movies, books, video games...nope...I really never had an inspiration...not to my knowledge at least. I just liked to forge characters. My hands and feet were my characters when I was a baby (as I'm told by my mother) and when I became older it just seemed natural for me to stretch out and make people/split personalities/etc. Did they come first or did the story? The characters always came first. Sure they grew in the storyline, but their "bases" were made before the story was ever constructed. Are they anything like you or the people you know? All my characters have a piece of me somewhere in their personalities. Clay, the Man, is a lot like me just all male...he's artistic, humble, shy towards new things, and he LOVES pizza. Marvelous Mac is very blunt, brutally honest, and indifferent to "Human" kind. I am very much like that myself. Sally's favorite color is green, so is mine. She also is a bit eccentric.  Are they modelled after other characters or celebrities? Never. Are they Mary-Sue'ish (and you know when it's written well, then a Mary Sue can still be a good character) What I have gained through my time investigating the writing world, having a Mary Sue character is a bad thing. They say if you have one, your story and character are not original. Do I have one? I have absolutely no idea...because I don't even know what a Mary Sue is. Seriously. I've seen it mentioned in tons of places, but do not know what it means. I will comment that I try to make all my characters as unique as possible, but who really knows. They may have some relation to this "Mary Sue." I hope not. Did they develop on their own or did they need the plotline to as a stimulus? I wouldn't say "stimulus." I create backgrounds, horror stories, likes, dislikes, and such for my characters before they ever step foot in the story. They do develop and collide with the other characters as the story progresses. Do they have flaws that are important to the story? Oh yes, they all do. They have to!!! Shane's probably one the predominant of these characters. Do you like them? (some people don't like their protags, I find that interesting). I have to live with them through the story. I better like them.  Like the smiley being yellow! Thanks Kiri! |
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Post by blackdaisies on Dec 3, 2010 22:07:42 GMT -5
I just wanted to say that there are so many fascinating characters in this thread and it honestly was fun reading about how you all made them. I just finished work, I'm going to have a late dinner (and some tea!), and will be replying to specific posts shortly.  |
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Post by Stacy on Dec 3, 2010 22:22:23 GMT -5
Lunar - it really bothered me that Lilith was more passive than active. At the time I was reading all the industry blogs and writing books and stuff like that, and everyone was always screaming "strong active characters who drive the story and make choices and things don't just happen to them!!!" Also, you know, I didn't want to seem sexist, like - oh look, there's the girl being all weak and being saved by her boyfriend. Even if I did kill the boyfriend after that, it still felt kind of maiden in distress/white knight ish. I eventually came to peace with it, because, you know - Lilith is a person, not a statement. She is who she is. And you're completely right - characters who seem passive on the surface tend to have a strong inner strength. And here is what Wikipedia has to say about Mary Sue, lol. Mary SueThe Mary Sue tests I've seen online seem very oriented to fantasy fanfiction. My characters would always pass, because if nothing else they don't have magical powers. Also - rereading my post, I'd forgotten just how much Valley originated in legacy ideas. I really think my driving motivation was to take the new game, take the tropes from the plotty Sims 2 legacies (ones posted on the Exchange and that were popular three and four years ago, btw - didn't even read non-Exchange stories back then), and do them up right. LOL! But yeah - if you go back to, like Morning or Meeting - look at the description of Lilith's job. Births and birthdays and deaths. Total reference to legacies. It's kind of like how Legacy 15: Riding the Purple Llama was a polemic about the attitudes I saw on the non-legacy Sims story forums I visited at the time. But no one ever gets these snotty little jokes but me. That's probably a good thing. |
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Post by mdpthatsme on Dec 4, 2010 0:04:58 GMT -5
Ah, thank you, Stacy. Now I know that every single character in every single tale is a Mary Sue. Could they have come up with any more definitions to cover everyone as a Mary Sue? [rolling eyes] Ok one part that I read on the site said that if the character(s) represent or fulfill the writer's or reader's fantasy then its a Mary Sue character... [raises eyebrow] Are they serious?!? We're not allowed to have fantasies now or it gets stereotyped. That's what a Mary Sue is...a stereotype, but then again it covered basically every single character in existence. [shaking head] I need to develop a new character to throw off the balance of the universe!!! WAHAHA! My evil plan!!! |
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 4, 2010 0:45:50 GMT -5
Also, you know, I didn't want to seem sexist, like - oh look, there's the girl being all weak and being saved by her boyfriend. Even if I did kill the boyfriend after that, it still felt kind of maiden in distress/white knight ish. I eventually came to peace with it, because, you know - Lilith is a person, not a statement. She is who she is. And you're completely right - characters who seem passive on the surface tend to have a strong inner strength. Exactly the worry I admit I have sometimes-- that I might seem sexist because so far it's been female leads (because I've mostly been terrified to take on male lead voices). But I say if you're just a normal person, and some crazy crap happens to you, what in the world will you do? I admit that it's basically my own phobia. That and the invisible wall I feel like I'm trying to dazzle people away from, lol. Also, I have to say it's been interesting hearing exactly how Valley started out as a Legacy because I couldn't see it before. Now I get it. Mary Sue has become such a generalized term that it almost holds no meaning anymore. Not to me anyway. It's become a "you'll know it when you see it" sort of thing, which is always a bad sign, lol. This has become one awesome thread. I love seeing everyone's thought processes! These would make some good interview questions. |
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Post by sb on Dec 4, 2010 19:49:11 GMT -5
I hate Mary Sue. Mary Sue was a parody. She has morphed into a monster, that creature from John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. An excuse to terrify women from writing about women JUST IN CASE it's a Mary Sue.
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Post by mdpthatsme on Dec 4, 2010 19:52:09 GMT -5
I hate Mary Sue. Mary Sue was a parody. She has morphed into a monster, that creature from John Carpenter's 'The Thing'. An excuse to terrify women from writing about women JUST IN CASE it's a Mary Sue. Interesting that you type that because actually I write about guys more than girls...hmm...but I grew up more as a "tomboy" than as a "girly girl" so I'm familiar with the guy aspects. |
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Post by laura on Dec 4, 2010 19:57:54 GMT -5
I'm glad we're talking about Mary Sues and "weaker" female character. Yes, Beth, we are terrified of writing them! Even though probably a good half (or more!) of real life women would appear, on the outside, to be weak. I agree with Stacy though that these are the women who often have the most inner strength.
I think, rather than asking is your character a Mary Sue (whatever that means), we should ask is she consistent, and dimensional, and is she kept from being favored in the story? That's where it sounds like the "Mary Sue" character goes wrong - the author doesn't want to throw any shit at her. And all characters should be held to these standards, male and female alike!
Another Vonnegut rule:
"#6: Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of."
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Post by sb on Dec 4, 2010 19:58:52 GMT -5
I write more about men than I do about women, and I doubt I'm anybody's idea of a girly girl. It still makes me angry.
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Post by sb on Dec 4, 2010 20:15:35 GMT -5
Is it the strength that makes a female character a Mary Sue? I always thought it was the idiotic aspect, the woman who shows up and saves the day, redeems the bad guys and makes the brooding rake fall in love with her. You're right, Laura. She's the one who never screws up, the 'special' one.
The Vonnegut quote is dead on.
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Post by thelunarfox on Dec 4, 2010 21:20:04 GMT -5
lol, yeah, that's definitely her. Mary Sue will be the one with no flaws who still manages to somehow get the brooding one to fall in love with her and change his ways. She doesn't necessarily have strength or real virtue. She simply is, I think. And by existing, things just hapen magically around her without any effort on her part.  |
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dinuriel
Full Member
Torturing characters? Me? Nooo...
Posts: 374
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Post by dinuriel on Dec 4, 2010 21:32:12 GMT -5
I never thought I'd say this, but... I think I'm going to have to stop looking at this thread. This "Mary Sue" character is starting to sound suspiciously like this one particular cousin of mine, and thinking about said cousin kind of makes me want to stab things. Sorry all  |
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Post by muzegoddess on Dec 4, 2010 22:02:29 GMT -5
Great topic! Very interesting to see with everyone else came up with.
How did you come up with them? Isabella was created by chance. She was simply a sim I made and started playing with. At the time I didn't know how to turn off free will so I just watched her live her life, making some choices for her as she went along. But somewhere along the way she became more than a sim, she became real to me in a way. I would start making up reasons for why she did some of the things she would do and her story just started unfolding that way. She moved beyond a sim and into a real character.
How were you inspired? Inpired first by game play and then my imagination took over. Issy has been driving the car ever since.
Are they anything like you or the people you know? There are parts of her that are like me, certain situations in her life that are similar to mine. But those are just surface things. She is her own character for the most part.
Are they modelled after other characters or celebrities? She is not modeled after anyone, though I suppose she does have similarities to a sterotypical soap opera or romance novel heroine.
Are they Mary-Sue'ish? I don't think so and I don't want her to be (not that there is anything wrong with that; it's just not her).
Did they develop on their own or did they need the plotline to as a stimulus? I think the plotline I came up with was instrumental in developing her into who she has become. I had some false starts with this story, but once I really started filling in the motivations and reasons why she did what she did in gameplay, things came alive.
Do they have flaws that are important to the story? Absolutely. She's all flawed up and some of them are annoying and make me want to slap her. Those flaws will bring about several important turning points. I haven't gotten there yet but those flaws are going to result in a serious transformation in both her character and the story as a whole.
Do you like them? I love her and more than that I understand her. Even when I don't agree with what or who she wants or why she does something, I love who she is at the core.
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Post by sb on Dec 4, 2010 22:18:22 GMT -5
Muze, I love Isabella. I didn't know Rayne until I started watching her. It is an incredible way to slow down and see a character, particularly one as complex as Isabella.
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