An accurate depiction of Eragon’s face when he swears and suddenly he shoots fire.

Line courtesy Agony Booth and art style courtesy MSPaint Lolz.

Comment [8]

Eragon demonstrates his INTENSE GAZE in all-new high definition widescreen and closed captioning. Stay tuned for the moment just after that in “MS Paint Moments in Eldest 2”.

Line courtesy Eldest and art style courtesy MSPaint Lolz.

Comment [8]

Arya broadcasts a mind-message to Eragon from inside the urgal dungeon.

Line courtesy Star Wars (durr) and art style courtesy MSPaint Lolz.

Comment [27]

There are three basic ways to tell a story, and none of them is really better than the others, so to speak. And this isn’t really supposed to tell you which one to choose, because I can’t decide for you, it’s strictly informative. :P

First Person

A story in the first person is told straight from a viewpoint character, as if the camera is sitting inside their brain and looking out their eye sockets. (Isn’t that a lovely thought?) First Person tends to be quite subjective; it’s a bit more objective if the viewpoint character is not the main character, such as in The Great Gatsby.

People speak in the first person when recounting what happened to them: “I bought a goldfish for my daughter the other day, but my cat is a little too enthralled with the thing.”

This is often seen as more immersing than a third person story, but this hangs heavily on the skill of the writer. First person tends to be spotted in young adult novels, so the reader can identify more with the viewpoint character, but this also depends on how skilled the writer is.

First person narrators by and large are a bit unreliable; events are skewed slightly depending on what the narrator did or did not see, and occasionally are tainted by the narrator’s opinions. Some are more reliable than others, however. Case in point: Ishmael of Moby Dick often tells things how they are, whereas Scout of To Kill a Mockingbird tells things how a young girl would see them. An honest character will be more reliable as a narrator than a character who bends the truth, omits some parts of the truth, or outright lies. A very young character such as Scout will probably miss some nuances in other people’s behavior, but an older character like Atticus would likely spot these and maybe internally make a comment about it. This can make for some interesting narrative.

Third Person Limited

This is when the “camera” is always hovering near the viewpoint character, and occasionally will enter his mind so we can read what he’s thinking. We don’t read the thoughts or emotions of the other characters unless the character happens to be psychic.

When you tell a story to your best friend or dog or something you’re referring to other people in it in the third person: “Mr. Van Damme bought a goldfish for his daughter the other day, but his cat is a little too enthralled with the thing.”

Third person limited, in the hands of a skillful writer, can be even more engaging than if the story were written in first person. In this editor’s humble opinion, Twilight should have been written in the third person, because Bella in the first person wins the award for Most Obnoxious Character In The Known Universe And Probably Many Bits Of The Universe We Haven’t Got Any Idea About. But I digress.

Third Person Omniscient

…is when the “camera” visits any of the characters at will. It freely pokes into their minds and draws back when it so desires, and can visit characters a million miles away from another character. It’s likely the most objective of the viewpoint types.

This would probably be how Zeus would tell his fellow gods a story: “Mr. Van Damme bought a goldfish for his daughter the other day, and she thinks it’s really cute but her dad is somewhat dreading what would happen to it if the cat got over its fear of water suddenly. His daughter isn’t too bothered though. Also the brother is secretly afraid of girls.” Zeus watches and laughs ‘cause he’s immortal.

But anyway, this one has been falling out of favor lately; you can see it more often in older works than nowadays. Supposedly it’s impersonal and whatnot. But it would make for a curious story if you combined first person and omniscience.

The moral of the story: use common sense.

Comment [9]

Comment [65]

(Author’s note: I have pretty much no idea what I’m saying in this article. Take everything I say with a grain of salt.)

The novice writer’s fear of a Mary Sue is a very real phenomenon indeed. But that’s not to say Mary Sues are not a real phenomenon in themselves.

If you look at the Mary Sue types, you’ll notice something rather quickly—not one of them has any real character flaw. If they do, it’s never seen as bad or unhealthy. Case in point: Edward is moody and possibly insane but he’s still idolized by a bunch of teenage girls, in the Twilight ‘verse and ours.

The problem with Mary Sues is that they don’t change with the story’s events: they start out basically perfect, and by the end of the story they’re still perfect. Ed is still moody and still possibly insane by the end of the series. This is not a good thing, and, more importantly, it’s really damn boring.

But just adding flaws willy-nilly in attempt to de-Sueify a character won’t quite work. One must put in flaws that are specific to someone’s personality: an extrovert would be a witty, outgoing person, but she might be kind of intrusive and overstep her bounds. An introvert might be a good friend, but she could be too shy to make very many friends at all. Flaws also generally have a source, but not a pointlessly obvious one—people are very complicated animals.

Since you will probably learn better through watching the process, I’ll walk you through an example step-by-step. Methinks I’ll use the second example above, the introvert!

Rough outline

Begin with a basic profile. It doesn’t have to be very complicated, just something to start with and expand on or change around later. Age, career, and family are a good start.

Let’s say Miss A is a lady who is about 20 years old. She comes from a middle-class upbringing, has no brothers or sisters, and her parents separated when she graduated high school. She goes to a small town community college and works as a florist.

Who are you? (We are curious)

She is friendly, but rather shy and needs to be put at ease before meeting new people. Now we need a reason why. Sometimes people are shy because they are perfectionists—they’re afraid of messing up, so rather than practice talking to people, they choose to wait until someone approaches them. Even then, they have trouble with social interaction. Some shy people like this are able to ease up when they don’t feel like they’re being scrutinized.

Perfectionists tend to be the artistic types; notice how back in the basic profile I said she was a florist. She probably spends most of the day arranging bouquets and trying to make them look their best. Perhaps when she’s not working with flowers, she likes to paint or draw. What would someone the complete opposite of Miss A—extroverted and confident—like to do?

She is very trustworthy and has a lot of empathy for other people’s problems. She tends to try sympathizing with her friends’ plights and offering support when they’re having trouble. Even though she’s a good friend, she comes across as scatterbrained and a bit of a ditz. This could be that she is so focused on not looking stupid, something as simple as giving a presentation in class ends up being a terrifying ordeal. She would probably slip up a lot when she talks (especially in front of an audience).

Why would she be so anxious? Perhaps her parents were a little distant and expected no less than perfection from her, so now she feels she has to do everything the absolute right way the first time. Since she’s only a couple years past being a teenager, she probably hasn’t gotten over that typically adolescent insecurity. The age of a character is important—teenagers usually have ‘insecurity’ in common with each other. If it continues well into adulthood, it’s considered unhealthy and a sign of possible psychological scars. Let’s pretend she had a rather mundane childhood and will get over it on her own. At the beginning of the story, she’s sort of halfway out of the everything-must-be-perfect stage and halfway into the just-going-with-the-flow stage. The start of her learning to relax would probably have come from her leaving her parents’ house and living on her own. Without the pressure from her parents to be the greatest daughter the world has ever known, she would learn to take it easy.

And now let’s say, since all that worrying probably took a toll on her, she has trouble keeping appointments and is late often. Maybe she has a poor short-term memory. She would probably be the type to get overwhelmed easily. She dislikes conflict, since that would just add to her anxiety.

Character development

If this is the main character (or even a side character), she’ll have to get over this somehow, coming out as a better person by the end of the story’s conflict, which could be a fantastic journey across time and space. Since she doesn’t like any conflict or danger, she would probably resist a lot in the beginning, because that’s who she is. In an unfamiliar situation she wouldn’t be able to run away from, she would fight it tooth and nail. She would also maybe panic a bit, but she’d eventually come to terms with her situation and learn to live with it. Somebody like Miss A would probably learn how to be more confident with herself because she had to save her companions from some horrible situation. She’d also realize that she can learn from her mistakes rather than attempt to do everything right the first time, every time, and then getting frustrated when it doesn’t go the right way. And most of all, she’d learn to relax.

Since you can’t fix everything with a fantastic journey across time and space she would probably still have issues with being late a lot and still on the shy side, but no doubt she would come out just a bit more brave than the start of the story.

Step recap:

1. Quick story of her life. Change it as you see fit; it doesn’t have to be set in stone.
2. Positives and negatives. For every good thing about a person, there is a bad thing. Sometimes you know people who have two good things for every bad thing, or maybe you know a couple douchebags who have one good thing for every two bad things. The point here is balance—a character with too many good things and not enough bad things is just a boring Mary Sue, a character with too many bad things and not enough good things is just a boring antagonist.
3. Character development. Some flaws can be fixed. Some can’t. By the end of the story, you’ll want to have fixed one or two, the most important thing is that she learned something from her fantastic journey across time and space.

Now I have to use her in my story. :(

Anyway, once again, take this with a grain of salt. If there’s anything I missed, write your own.

Comment [5]

Note: I transcribed most of this from the Amazon preview, since I refuse to give this guy money and I can’t find a PDF of the thing anywhere. If there are any mistakes, please let me know and I’ll correct them. There are probably loads of them because this story steadily drove me insane and I don’t remember typing half of this. Anyway, uh, enjoy! I was going to split this into two parts, but it’s not so long it can’t be all in one part.

Background info: Dragons: Lexicon Triumvirate is a word-salad title for a book that seems to be set in medieval times, except there are ‘technodragons’ (whatever those are) and there’s a lot of physics wank. Kenneth Eng is a known racist nutjob who is currently in jail, and for all we know is still writing. Back in the day he went around several fantasy/SF forums, trying to pimp his book. Most of the reviews on Amazon.com are obvious sockpuppets of Mr. Eng himself.

tl;dr: dude is crazy.

I had the pleasure of sporking this with two ubernerds (Sly and Exit), so I’m sure they’ll point out anything wrong with Mr. Eng’s logic.

Here we go.

Time is not a concept. It is a word.

SS— Time is a concept, “time” is a word. /pedant

And like any word, it can be manipulated according to one’s subjective state.

SS— Subjectively, I don’t see where you are going with this.

Just like quantum mechanics and relativity are unified in that they require perception to create reality, every passing trice can be toiled at one’s will — or against one’s will.

K— I can’t really make head or tail of this so far, but hey, isn’t it a nice day?
SS— Boy, that’s an obscure use of the word trice.

Yet, in the tides of linear moments and unfolded space, there is a realm beyond which any ordinary creature can reach.

K— “Come on! Reach for it! Reach for it! It’s only eight feet up! Reeeach!”
SS— Tides of linear moments. Right. This introduction is so laughably pretentious and incorrect.

One must forget everything he has learned and retain only the one thing that matters in existence if he is to attain the ultimate state of omniscience – the essence of the Lexicon.

SS— You are awfully vague about what the one thing that matters in existence is. Nice sentence.

Across the lands of the ever-changing World, between the globe’s poles and past the dying terrain of Aurahelm, there laid the prominent kingdom of Drakemight.

K— What is this, World of Warcraft? Be more generic, please.
SS— DrakeMIIIIGHT. You couldn’t have made it any more obvious dragons lived here, I guess.

It was a civilization as grand as it was elegant, a place where knowledge towered above all else. Architecture stretched to the skies in the forms of simple geometric shapes, complex and intelligently crafted, but untainted by the opposing thumbs of man.

K— Those damn opposing thumbs are always messing things up.
SS— This makes it sound like knowledge is literally those funky looking towers.

No, this was a kingdom of dragons, undimmed in splendor amidst the fabric of glorious earth, striving to survive and striving to understand all that laid within comprehension.

SS— In a moment you will see they aren’t really striving to survive. They do a pretty easy job of it.
K— Darwin would be so proud.

In front of the walls that surrounded its perimeters, there was a single dragon that stood guard under the dusk sky. Perching upon the edge of the stony barricade, he watched over the mossy, rock-speckled plains that lay past the city, making certain that no attackers breached. Or, at least he was supposed to be watching.

SS— Aww, what a lovable slacker!

Instead, however, his green eyes were fixated on a book in his emerald-scaled talons,

SS— Let me guess, he is green all over?
K— Sounds like the start of a riddle. What’s green and green and pretentious all over?
Exit— Why do his talons have scales?

deeply engrossed in the physical and scientific laws it dictated upon its pages.

K— Heil physics!

He was aware that his actions were an explicit violation of collective code, but he wasn’t worried. His battle-scarred plate armor and tarnished scabbard were enough to remind him that he had quite enough experience to combat any poor soul that dared to assail his post.

SS— Do you need to be reminded? Seems like something I would remember pretty easily regardless of armor.
Exit— That’s worse than the mirror scene for exposition, seriously. Wtf.

“Interesting,” muttered Dennagon to himself. “The force of gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared on this planet, but not in space. I wonder if ‘space’ actually exists.”

SS— Interesting, you seem to have confused the concepts of force and acceleration. You see, Kenneth, that’s the acceleration due to gravity, but not the actual force! Force = Mass x Acceleration. Nice one, you’ve just ruined your entire physics credibility you tried so hard to build with your idiot name drops of relativity and quantum mechanics. Next time you should attempt to graduate from college instead of—
K— [bonk]
Exit— He also seems to think that there is an invisible line, where on one side there is gravity and on the other there is space and no gravity.

His eyes crawled down to the bottom of the page.

K— Ew, it did? That’s gross.
SS— My eyes regularly crawl over people’s bodies, as I undress them with my eyes?
K— I’m not even going to try explaining that mental image. [curls up in corner]

He did not want to stray in his thought, for he felt that he had not read enough today.

SS— You can think while reading, you know… kind of like you can chew gum while walking. Or maybe, Dennagon can’t, because he also needs help getting his pants on in the morning.
K— And his helmet. …brb going to punish myself

“Oh well, I’ll probably never travel there anyway,” he said to quell his imagination.

SS— Foreshadowing, hey-o.
Exit— I don’t know about you, but telling myself I’ll never experience something doesn’t mean I stop wondering about it. Zero-G anyone? My point is, this is stupid.

The wind flipped a page just as he finished it.

SS— Convenient. That’s always been a wish of mine.
K— I wish for chocolate truffles! … Anyone? Anyone?

At the same moment, a clutter of footsteps rumbled the terrain.

SS— Not everything has to rumble the terrain, you know.
Exit— So, he 1) Finished the page, 2) the wind blew the book to the next page, and 3) this coincidence was rendered useless at exactly the same moment by footsteps.

They were metallic, banging against the stones upon the field and and tearing up the moss upon the dirt. A loud cranking sound churned as well, wooden and monstrous.

K— “It’s wooden Gojiraaaa!”

However, Dennagon did not even budge. He knew what was coming and how to handle it.

K— Give me one reason to like the protagonist. Just one, that’s all I ask.
SS— He’s related to Saphira.
K— [loads pistol]
SS— Dragons are just cool!

A train of human knights with shimmering armor and horses of aegises adorned marched forth.

SS— Adorned? On what? Wha? Oh, adorned on the armor? Uh?
K— I did a double-take while transcribing that line.
Exit— Wait, what is being adorned on the armor? Horses of Aegises? ….

Wheeling a catapult amongst their lines, they loaded a boulder. Equipping their shields, they fell into combative positions, orderly as they were taught by their predecessors.

SS— Beginning his sentence with a gerund, Kenneth Eng wrote a bad combat scene.
K— It only gets worse from here…

Reptilian bones decorated their tunics, granting them their only source of bravery in this battle.

SS— Because of humans are savages and cowards, eh?
K— Duh, every pretentious story of the past half-century says so.
Exit— WAIT. These people have horses owned by shields adorned on their armor. And they have reptile bones on their tunics?! And these reptile bones are literally the only reason they aren’t running away like chickens? How can you even see their tunics THROUGH THE ARMOR.
K— Don’t question the story, you’ll hurt yourself.

“And I wonder,” pondered Dennagon whilst he continued browsing, “if these worldly variables are actually constant.”

SS— Time for more pretentious ponderings on metaphysics.
Exit— I will skip commenting on the fact he uses pondered and whilst and worldly in the same sentence. I’ll just point out that the author is saying that Dennagon is discovering that gravity is constant…implying either that the book doesn’t or that Dennagon is an idiot. Either way, something is wrong here.

The commanding paladin trotted up front.

K— Hey, it’s my guild leader! What the hell is he doing in this story?

“Desist beast!” he shouted under his cage-visor helm. “Prepare to be vanquished!”

SS— That’ll work.

“Could you attack me later? I’m in the middle of a tome.”

K— Oh, Kenneth. Your loftiness knows no bounds.
SS— That was the least clever retort I’ve ever read. I’m so distraught. Also, it totally didn’t work.
Exit— I’m fairly sure he thinks he’s being funny.
K— You mean like exactly what we think we’re doing?
Exit— But less good, of course. :P

They armed their lances.

SS— To each lance, they gave a sword.
Exit— A sword to which there was adorned a pony.

“Charge, valiant knights! Destroy this abomination!”

SS— Whoopie!

With that, they charged forth. Lances pointed, they rushed to run through their target like they had run through so many other creatures in their path.

K— Because humans are just terrible like that. Dragons aren’t fire-breathing carnivorous beasts, no sir. They’re better.

Blood boiled in their veins, fueling their avaricious anger.

SS— Gatorade runs through my veins, fueling my soccer rage. /corporate sponsorship
K— The above message brought to you by Gatorade. Is it in you?
SS— (they better send me that check)

Dennagon nonchalantly

K— —BECAUSE HE’S REALLY COOL—

dropped down from his perched position to the ground. Without even taking his eyes off his book, he casually thrust his fist out, punching a hole straight through the head of one of his enemies as it charged.

SS— Wow, just wow.

The decapitated body still hanging off his forearm, he merely shifted his fist to the side so that the others could run into it. Expectedly, they did, blasting apart their own skulls on his scaly knuckles.

SS— Wow, just wow.
K— Just then, pineapples! Thousands of them!
SS— After all that talk about physics, I like the blatant disregard for how physics, and heads, and fists actually work.
Exit— This is just…so…it’s exactly the trope. There’s not even subversion here. It’s not even the trope done well.

Shocked, the remaining knights armed their archery equipment

K— —also known as a bow—

and fired a volley of arrows.

SS— Just like that.

Their draconic prey simply snatched the hilt of his scabbard and ripped out a sword of pristine green metal.

SS— Just when I thought things couldn’t get greener—
Exit— I like the use of adjectives here. Their draconic prey (HE’S A DRAGON!) simply snatched…out a sword of pristine green (IT RHYMES. AND HE’S GREEN.) metal.

Whirling the blade about, he deflected the shots, shattering shafts into wooden shards that spurt across the air in splintered clouds.

SS— —they got stupider.
Exit— Wait. …so to clarify this… Dennagon jumps down, holds out his arm, acts relaxed, a whole bunch of soldiers run into it with enough speed to decapitate themselves, then the rest of the soldiers are like “HOLY SHIT” and fire a lot of arrows at him and then he pulls out his sword and blocks every single arrow. And his sword is green.
SS— Way to describe it better than it was written.

When they ran out of ammunition,

K— —also known as arrows—
SS— Actually, pies.
K— Oh, you.

he thought they would finally leave, but these humans were a bit dumber than most he had met. They drew their close-combat weapons.

K— Also known as swords.
SS— Don’t be silly, they use sticks with bits of string tied on.
K— Come now, you can’t kill a dragon with a stick! You have to jam a few cashews on the end of it first.
Exit— They continue firing arrows at him, because it’s clearly having an effect, until they have RUN OUT OF ARROWS. Then they decide that it is a good idea to move into phase 3 of combat, distinct from phase 1 (run at it with enough speed to decapitate yourself) and 2 (fire arrows at it mindlessly).

Sighing, he set down his book and faced them.

SS— Put it on the ground?

“All right, let’s get it over with.”

SS— LET’S GO!!!!

Hominid war cries were bellowed.

SS— Oh, I missed my cue. LET’S GO!!!!

The knights attacked all at once, and in an instant, Dennagon found himself in the center of a bladed flurry.

K— Those snowflakes are hella pointy. … Oh, not that kind of flurry? Disregard that, I need a break.
SS— Way to let them surround you, Dennangon.
Exit— Phase 3 is apparently “draw your close-combat weapons, yell really loudly, and all swing your swords at once.

Swinging his sword around, he clashed against multiple weapons, parrying them to the ground and into the air. Albeit he was only twice the size of a human, his brute force was not enough to defeat their highly coordinated onslaught.

K— Picture the fights in West Side Story. When you’re a Jet, you’re a Jet all the way—
SS— I’m not sure you know how the word “Albeit” works in English…
K— Wasn’t he a British king?
Exit— So let me get this straight. He can slice volleys of arrows out of the air, but he can’t defeat the “highly coordinated onslaught” of the remaining humans? The humans that previously ran into his arm and decapitated themselves? Isn’t he supposed to have survived many encounters with the humans? Plus these humans are more stupid than the usual, we’ve established.

Nevertheless, he was the one that did not rely on strength to succeed.

SS— Sure he doesn’t.

A knight lept onto his back and held a halberd over his cranium. Taking a roll, he crushed the adversary under his weight and threw the body at an incoming swordsman.

SS— All this while he is in a bladed-flurry?

Another unit

SS— TRAINING HUMAN SOLIDER: ATT 5, DEF 2, HP 15.
K— Hey, I liked Age of Empires. … WHO KILLED MY MONK?! FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU—
SS— AoE II is still my favorite RTS…

tried to throw a spear at his flank, but he slid onto his side and let the projectile fly over him and hit a human behind him.

SS— Like this isn’t the oldest stunt in the books. Some original choreography here.

Spinning around, he then swept his sword in bladed and bloody arcs,

SS— This is a blade that makes arcs that are also bladed. That’s sort of fractal.
K— Did you hear that? It sounded like…physics. Screaming.

paving through his enemies in a gory surge. Severed human parts fell everywhere, and red painted the terrain.

SS— Red is a famous Baroque painter, noted for his extensive use of the color red when painting vivid landscapes.
K— “If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it.”

The catapult then launched. Dennagon sprung into the air, flapping two wings that batted down a few more men in his way. Heaving his entire bodyweight, he slammed into the flying boulder, catching it before it could collide into the wall.

K— For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sooo…he should probably be hurtling away with the boulder in his arms, right?
SS— Hay, physics is my field of inquiry!
Exit— Erm, well, as long as his wings exerted enough force on the air…

Gyrating like a top,

K— “Pelvic thrust!”

he hurled it back at his opponents. The massive stone rolled across their lines, running them down like insects

K— Not the caterpillars!
Exit— Odama! (Anyone who got that joke, thumbs up)

until its bone-crushing path ended in a collision with the catapult. The launching mechanisms exploded into wood and metal fragments.

SS— Either these people have never heard of “dodge!” or that is a sentient boulder with an attitude.
K— Boulders are malevolent.

As he descended back to the ground, a sword was thrown at him.

SS— No way this is the stupidest move I always see in fantasy…
K— PASSIVE VOICE. PASSIVE VOICE. SMASH. SMASH. SMASH. SMASH.

Blending to the side, he let it skim by his chest.

SS— Chameleons are pretty cool, but I don’t think even they could blend to the side.

It cut through the air, grazing the ground as it reeled, and hitting his book.

SS— English at its finest.
K— Man, I don’t even pay as much attention to grammar as I say I do, and this is offending my sensibilities. :c
Exit— This is going to be one of those things where it’s like “You killed my book! D:<” Hulks out isn’t it? Eurg.

The blade penetrated through the cover and out the back, dragging it across the dirt until it was pinned to the wall.

SS— English still at its finest. Also, I’m pretty sure what was just described was the absolutely stupidest thing I’ve ever read. Seriously. That book was on the ground. The sword stabbed through it, so it should be stabbed into the ground, but no, it keeps travelling until it is impaled into a wall?

The bookmark fell out.

SS— Don’t worry, it should be easy to remember your place. You were just pondering how the “force” due to gravity was 9.8 m/s.
Exit— Actually his latest ponder was if that worldly variable was perhaps constant.

Dennagon growled.

“Oh, that does it.”

SS— You can tell this guy is badass because he acts like an idiot.
K— Ah ha ha, the usually-calm-until-one-minor-offense-then-he-goes-insane trope. That’s so original. It’s even got a name—the Berserk Button.

The humans hurriedly gathered their things, frantically trying to decide whether to retreat or fight.

SS— Children, gather up your playthings. It’s time to go now.
Exit— Wait, what things do they have to gather up? I mean, there’s the arrows, but they’re all dust now, and there’s the broken catapult….but that’s it. Oh wait, there’s the heads of the people that ran into Dennagon’s arm fast enough to decapitate themselves (yeah I’m not getting over that).

Dennagon bore his fangs and spread his jaws, creating a heated ignition from his esophagus.

SS— Worst. Description. Of fire breathing. Ever.
Exit— Wait. So it’s an ignition, but not an ordinary ignition? A heated one.

With a huge grunt, he let out a burst of green-hot flame from his nostrils and mouth, casting hellish heat upon his adversaries.

K— Strangely enough, hellish heat is exactly 900 degrees Kelvin.
Exit— …THE FLAME IS GREEN. THE FLAME IS GREEN. whimpers

Those in the center of the fire were cooked instantly in their armor. The others, who were perhaps not as lucky, had their metal shells melted in the blaze, and liquid iron streamed through their flesh.

K— Just add a little paprika and they’ll be good to go.

The few that survived did not have a moment’s time to think before fleeing into the night, screaming like little girls.

Exit— I guess he melted the reptile bones on their tunics.
SS— Kind of makes you wonder why he didn’t do this in the first place, seeing as it would have saved a lot of trouble. And it would have saved us from the anime-ish descriptions of a retarded fight scene. I get this feeling this book doesn’t even want to respect itself.

The leading paladin was left alone. Battered and beaten by too many hits with the draconic sword, he still held his sword high.

SS— I’m surprised anyone could have withstood a single blow from that guy, but okay.
Exit— I was going to say…

“Your gold is mine! MINE!” he roared.

K— Suddenly they’re pirates?
SS— I think the idea is that they are greedy pigs, heh. Oh man, I love that Kenneth Eng’s racism towards humans seeps so easily into his writing.
K— …So they’re pirates then.
SS— Arr, give me some booty, lass.
K— Terrible Pun Man strikes again!

The foolish man dashed in for a final attack.

SS— I like it when authors say things like “foolish” which we could easily see for ourselves.

Dennagon pulled his book out of the wall, and with a mighty swing, he swatted the predator.

SS— The what? Seems like Dennangon is the predator here. Seriously, Dennanangon is the one swatting people.

A splat sounded and there was only gore

K— —Albert’s cousin from Vancouver—

upon the stone barriers.

SS— He so completely destroyed that person that there is nothing left but pulp, I guess.
Exit— With a book.

Lifting his tome, he brushed off the remains of his adversary and blew the dust off the bloody pages.

SS— Okay, you can not blow dry dust off of a page wet with dust. Have you even seen what dust is?

As the smashed remains fell, he continued reading.

SS— Me, I’d probably not be in the mood for reading after that. I’d want a cold shower.
K— Nonsense, only hot water will get the entrails off. And a little tile cleaner. And borax, and bleach, and—
SS— I guess I shall cede to your experience.

“The only forms of gold I own are the bars of knowledge, simple human.”

K— This story is cheesier than gouda. Wake me when it’s over.
SS— Maybe Denanynagon should consider just giving the humans a little gold so they leave him alone. Bribing doesn’t seem like a big deal.

Just as he found his lost page, horns blared from within the walls. Reluctantly, he shut his tome again.

K— ‘Tome’ is not a generic fancy term for a book, I don’t think. Then again I’m not a genius like Mr. Eng.

“Drakemight calls. This day is over.”

SS— Drakemight being his mother.

To the calling, he flew to the inner city.

Polyhedrons, all simple in shape, stretched up from the ground for several miles into the sky. It was a vast maze of

K— —corn.

geometric shapes built of stone, metal and glass, not unlike most medieval constructions.

SS— What? Since when medieval constructions built like vast mazes of geometric shapes? Oh. You mean the building material? Sentence fail.

However, there was something oddly advanced in the architecture, something strangely futuristic about how it was designed. After all, it did reach ten times higher than most castles of its era.

SS— You’d think the whole thing being built out of geometric shapes would be a tip-off.
K— So let’s say a castle is about nine stories tall, and a story is about ten feet, so it’s 900 feet tall, and multiply that by ten and holy crikey that’s a tall castle and might not even be structurally sound I am blown away ladies and gentlemen—
Exit— I think he does not know what castles are. That’s really the only explanation here.

Crowds of dragons flew through the aerial streets, draped in armor and equipped with weapons.

K— Why?
SS— They are constantly under danger of attack by incredibly puny humans.
K— Huh. Okay, I guess I can accept that…maybe after hitting myself in the skull with a sledgehammer a few times, but still.

Dennagon was amongst them, another creature trying to make his way through the World, trying to find his way home.

SS— sniffles Me too Denanangon! I can totally sympathize with your struggle to be heard and found in this bewildering world.

His armor was identical to all the other sentries that surrounded him in every direction, and he appeared no different than any of the hundreds that inhabited the kingdom. The very atmosphere of the place sickened him, for he detested his likeness to the rest of his comrades.

SS— He just wants to be different!

Nonetheless, it was not his position to question anyone. He didn’t even want to talk to them.

K— This guy is about as snowflakey as a guy can get…

Speedily, he found his way through the masses and located a particular dodecahedron that was built into the city.

K— Dang, even his house is a snowflake.

Opening a hatch that lay at its base, he crawled into his domicile and slammed the door shut. Peace and quiet at last.

K— Does he have some dodecahe-drones to keep him company? I know I do.

Inside the ten-sided stone chamber,

Exit— … Dodecahedrons do not have ten sides. They have 12. However, if he is counting instead the walls of this chamber, there should be 5, as each side of a dodecahedron is a pentagon. So: ten wtf.
SS— Hush now, you are detracting from his pretentiousness.

books were stacked everywhere. From volumes of science to catalogs of mathematics, history, and the languages of many species, they littered his realm. Each of them had been browsed at least once, and he knew it was time to get some more books.

Exit— We get it. He likes books.
K— I like them too, they make good chairs.
SS— To be fair, I could describe my room like that.
K— Yeah, but you’re a nerd.
SS— And nerds aren’t ultrabuff dragons, so yeah.
Exit— They are in escapist fantasies! fanfare

However, he rarely had a moment to spare, as he had a life to lead and a war to win. A war that raged across the entire globe.

Exit— He never has a moment to spare, what with the endless commotion involved in guard duty. Wait. This guy is commanding a war? Why is he on guard duty?
SS— Stop. Thinking.

Stained glass windows lined each of the faces of the chamber, yet all of them were intentionally tarnished with charcoal. He had burnt them long ago because he knew there was nothing to see outside.

K— The tones ring clear in my heart..

Only the kingdom that he was unfortunately too familiar with. The charred markings, however, were fading, and perhaps it was time to blacken them once more. Then again, if they stood one more burning, they would probably fracture.

Exit— You know, you can cover windows. >_> You don’t have to burn them and ruin stained glass.
SS— That’s not technically charcoal either. And no, glass doesn’t char when you burn it. There is nothing to char!
Exit— It discolors…haven’t you seen those videos of glassblowers?
SS— That’s not the way he is describing it though. There shouldn’t be a layer of char forming on it.
Exit— Yes, true. Wait. What if he burnt them…and then smeared charcoal on them?
SS— Then he would only be as retarded as he usually is, I guess.
K— You’re putting way too much thought into this.

Stepping betwits piles of books,

Exit— Betwits. I think he was going for betwixt here…
K— I think that was probably an error on my part—transcribing this steadily made me crazier.

he reached down through many sloppily organized scrolls and pulled out a crystal ball. Stroking it with his talons,

K— Insert dirty comment here.

he let streams of energy run through his claws, recharging the magical item with the mana of his mind. It lit up as if given the breath of life.

SS— Careful, you’ve got to let some mana regenerate after that one battle.

“What new events have emerged?” he asked.

SS— Ah, time to watch the good old television.
K— The Amazon preview ended here. Awwwww. Well, I’ll try to find some other bits and pieces. Eventually. Anyone got a PDF?

Comment [54]

Dear Ms. Meyer,

Greetings. I am Kitty, ambassador of the Hive, and I come in peace.

We at ImpishIdea know someone, or several someones, who have accused us of just flaming your books rather than writing constructive criticism. Our rebuttal to that is “SHE’S NOT GOING TO READ IT ANYWAY, BUT OKAY, WE’LL TRY.” Here is a few suggested improvements to the Twilight series. They probably won’t be very constructive because today has been a very terrible day and good days are more conducive to giving useful advice.

Let’s start with your prose. First and foremost, the writing of Twilight sucks lobster telson, what with the purplebarf every other page or so—especially with Edward. Here is what I’m talking about:

Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn’t get used to it, though I’d been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday’s hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface. He lay perfectly still in the grass, his shirt open over his sculpted, incandescent chest, his scintillating arms bare. His glistening, pale lavender lids were shut, though of course he didn’t sleep. A perfect statue, carved in some unknown stone, smooth like marble, glittering like crystal.

Hesitantly, always afraid, even now, that he would disappear like a mirage, too beautiful to be real…hesitantly, I reached out one finger and stroked the back of his shimmering hand, where it lay within my reach. I marveled again at the perfect texture, satin smooth, cool as stone. When I looked up again, his eyes were open, watching me. Butterscotch today, lighter, warmer after hunting. His quick smile turned up the corners of his flawless lips.

I lightly trailed my hand over the perfect muscles of his arm, followed the faint pattern of bluish veins inside the crease at his elbow.

BLEHARGHEURGH.

This is a problem. You needn’t go the Hemingway route (oh ho ho I am so pretentious) and describe everything using the sparsest language possible, but please, this reads like a cheesy bodice-ripper novel minus the bodice-ripping and a quadruple helping of cheese to make up for the lack of sex.

Check out the first quote. Okay, Edward in the sunlight can be shocking. That’s fine. I mean, a vampire in the sunlight? That is shocking.

I start losing it around the point when Edward starts sparkling, and then I completely lose it when you describe him as all the synonyms for “shiny” you can come up with by licking a thesaurus. This purple treatment would be fine if you acknowledge that Bella is obsessive and seeing him as a sparkly David is just part of her unhealthy infatuation. But no, you never make it seem like a bad thing, or anything other than True Love™.

Additionally, her infatuation seems to be purely physical, as your prose suggests. This is also not good; lasting relationships can form out of physical attraction but they can’t be based on only that. It just doesn’t work out that way. Not that I’d know anything about relationships but I’m going off on a tangent¹.

Uh. That was a long tangent, but do you catch my drift?

So, let’s look at the second quote. Hesitantly is used twice kinda close together, but I’ll try not to nitpick. … ‘kay. Even his lips are flawless. Come now, what do those even look like? The only flawed lips I’ve ever seen were ones that were bleeding, scarred, collagen’d, or coated in herpes.

And the third quote: okay, maybe he really does have perfect muscles, but I don’t quite know what those look like. Anyone in the audience want to flex so I can judge for myself? Anyone? No? Fine.

Okay, now this might be nitpicking, but his veins are blue.

His veins are blue.

(This made me freak the hell out and stab the book several times with a steak knife taped to a live clam. I hope you’re happy—my employers heard the ruckus and took away my rations for the rest of the week².)

Is the venom blue? The vampires in Twilight have venom, not blood. You said so. Blood in human arm-veins is blue because it’s oxygen-depleted and is heading back to the heart and lungs for more. Is the venom in their veins oxygen-depleted? Are there little venom cells that carry oxygen round and round their cold, cold circulatory system, to and from their cold, cold hearts? Are the cells made in their venomous bone marrow? Do they have tiny venom platelets and tiny venom white cells that fight vampire diseases like fang cancer and glitter dysentery?

FRUSTRATION.

[cough] A little late, but here is a nice page of writing advice. Scroll down to item 5. See anything familiar there?

I rest my case!

The prose could be vastly improved by chopping out a load of adjectives that don’t need to be there. Most adjectives are just filler anyway—we already know what Edward looks like (kinda), so you don’t have to describe him at every turn. Also the statue simile got old the third time.

Now let’s talk about your vampires, since I’m kind of going down that road anyhow.

To put it simply: your vampires suck bigger lobster telson. Don’t even call them vampires—if you’re going to have vampires, especially the pale, pretty variety, they better have the four mainstays of western vampirism…

1. Fanged and pale (prettiness optional)
2. Weak to direct sunlight and running water; can be killed with a stake through the heart (weakness to holy water and crucifixes optional)
3. Drink human blood by slurping it out through their necks (drinking straw optional)
4. Scary

Are the Cullens fanged? Nope. Are they pale and pretty? Yes they are. Unfortunately they lack any traditionally vampiric characteristics, other than the pretty ones, like DEATHLY PALE SKIN which I’m just wondering how that is pretty but what do I know. So far we’re not doing too well, huh? At least give them fangs. How could Edward bite the hellspawn monster Satan child out of Bella’s uterus when he doesn’t have fangs?

On that note, what possessed you to think that was a good idea? That was about the grossest thing I’ve ever read in a story, and I’ve read smut. CHOMP CHOMP MMM TASTY UTERUS. On that note, shouldn’t Edward have gone insane with hunger for her delicious freesia blood while he was chomping the Loch Ness monster out of her womb? On that note, why can they have children in the first place? Edward is a dead person, his sperm should have all been good and dead by the time he got around to fucking his girlfriend. Venomjizz cannot make babies. You fail biology forever. FOREVER. On that note, why did they wait to have sex til after they were married? Don’t you know teenagers don’t actually wait until they’re married unless they’re loveless, emotionally-stunted geeks³ or painfully religious, which neither of the main characters seemed to be? On that note, why was Edward still going to high school? High school is like four years of being molested with a cactus by the government—why the hell would he keep going even though he knows he’s not going to age and graduate? On that note, why didn’t Bella go to college and get a life before settling down? What the hell, Smeyer?

But I’m off on several million tangents again. Let’s get back to the list of vampire things.

Are they vulnerable to any of the things a traditional vampire is? No, but they can be killed by fire, so I guess that counts for something.

Do they drink human blood? No, they’re “vegetarian vampires⁴“. That one bad clan of vampires drinks human blood, but they’re BAD GUYS, you know, like actual vampires.

Are they scary? Hell to the no with potatoes and gravy. They sparkle. That is not terrifying, that is not wondrous, that is just stupid. STUPID. THE SPARKLING = STUPID. MAKE IT STOP

Give them some different name, some name that doesn’t already come with a lot of baggage and expectations. Make up an entirely new variety of creatures altogether, because these creatures aren’t vampires. It seems the only resemblances are occasional animal blood-drinking and pale skin.

I’d talk about your werewolves, but they have enough similarities with actual werewolves that I don’t think you’d need to mess with them too much. …Except for the imprinting thing. That’s kind of a creepy major disruption of free agency⁵.

Now for the last and most troubling issue: the characterization.

Bella amounts to a boring, generic high school female who has no spine and no life outside of her relationship with Edward. Occasionally she has flickers of bitchiness and whining, which I guess is a personality trait (??)…seriously, she lies all the time to people she’s supposed to care about—that is not admirable or even tolerable. The guys at her new school seem genuinely nice and friendly, unlike Ed (who is kind of a bitch himself), and she still turns them down, presumably because they aren’t pretty and mysterious⁶. She uses Jacob for attention and puts herself in danger on purpose just to hear Edward’s voice. She’s obsessed with Ed in a really creepy way. Flipping open the second half of Twilight and the rest of the series is proof enough.

To make us like a character, they have to be likeable first. Bella has few, if any, redeeming qualities—she has all the personality and bitchiness of a yellow jacket. She’s not the hero of the story, Edward is, and she’s just there to fall in creepy obsessive lust with him. And for reader insertion.

Also, you’re creepy. If Edward is your ideal man, you might have some untapped psychological issues. Or maybe you just like being dominated by jerks (I think there’s a club downtown for those sorts of people).

Let’s move on to Edward. Edward is kind of a psychopath, and lemme copypaste something so I can have maybe a little credibility. Context: Bella was accosted by some guys in the street, Ed comes to the rescue.

“Get in,” a furious voice commanded. […] It was amazing how instantaneously the choking fear vanished, amazing how suddenly the feeling of security washed over me—even before I was off the street—as soon as I heard his voice. I jumped into the seat, slamming the door shut behind me. […] “Put on your seat belt,” he commanded […] I quickly obeyed … But I felt utterly safe and, for the moment, totally unconcerned about where we were going. […] I studied his flawless features in the limited light, waiting for my breath to return to normal, until it occurred to me that his expression was murderously angry. […] “Are you okay?” I asked […] “No,” he said curtly, his tone was livid. […] “Sometimes I have a problem with my temper, Bella.”

At least he admits it. I think if I was frozen forever as a 17-year-old I would have mood swings a lot too, but he’s worse than most girls are when they’re PMSing. Seriously now. Sometimes he’s sickeningly nice to her, yet still condescending, and other times His Expression Darkens And He Gets Real Pissed™.

I don’t remember which chapter or anything it’s in, but I seem to recall him ordering her around a lot. That’s not because he cares, it’s because he’s a dick. True story.

Recap: if you were to re-write the series, I’d suggest the following things:

• Fix your prose—cut needless adjectives and quit trying to find substitutes for “said”
• Fix your vampires, because they are not true vampires
• Get rid of Breaking Dawn because it’s disgusting
• Fix your protagonists—Bella needs to be more than a generic bitch and Edward needs to stop being so bipolar and domineering
• “And so the lion fell in love with the lamb” is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in my life
• Bible parallels/references do not automatically make your story deep, please stop trying

In conclusion, I need to go feed my snails.

Totally sincerely and not at all sarcastically yours,

Kitty Eulalia
Hive Ambassador

¹ I mock bad stories because I am a loveless, emotionally-stunted geek

² SEND HELP

³ i.e. me and this entire site

⁴ “Vegetarian” used here means “pussified”

⁵ Jacob imprinting on Bella’s daughter = HEURRRRRGH

⁶ This is not the reason I have a crush on the Prince of Persia—nope, not at all.

Comment [106]

Welcome to a MST Dungeon Special, where I spork with actual humans instead of myself and people I invented to keep me company because I am a friendless trollop.

Source: I discovered this excerpt via Badfic Graveyard. Here is the original post, and here is where you can continue to read the story if you’re so inclined, but it’s really terrible and purple and you should probably wear a gas mask before clicking the link. It’s almost like Song of Solomon in the Bible but worse.

MSTers: Kitty and Ali. “Ali” is not short for “Alison” so don’t call him Alison.

Caveat lector: This may hurt your mind a little, as it’s one of the most extreme examples of freaky simile purple prose I’ve ever seen.

—

[6…5…4…3…2…1]

Kitty: Hey Ali. This is so goddamn purple I don’t even know.

Ali: Only one way to find out. I haven’t even read the first sentence yet.

As Spikenard

Ali: I’m unsure why, but this name reminds me of Digimon. It doesn’t even end with -mon. Why does it remind me of Digimon? Maybe ‘cause it sucks.

watched, Bronwyn slipped the transparent cloak from her shoulders; it fell with a whisper.

Ali: I wonder, does he mean a ‘woosh’y sound?

She let her hands drop to her sides; she pulled her shoulders back and stood erect, feet apart, legs straight.

Kitty: You know, like how most people stand.

This is what he saw:

Kitty: SATAN!

Bronwyn standing pale and tall in the nervous light that shimmered through a vibrating canopy of green leaves.

Kitty: They had one of those cheap motel beds on each branch.

The shifting bands of milky light and emerald shadow

Ali: Shadows are where no light is shining and stuff. Black. Black. Is emerald black? No, Ronny, it’s not.

made her seem luminous, translucent, as though she were a tallow candle glowing beneath its own flame. Like a porcelain lantern. Like a curtain fluttering in a window at dawn.

Kitty: Okay, now we’re descending into the realm of extremely bizarre metaphors. Soon he’ll start describing her feet as crocodiles.

Ali: I’d just like to point out they were similes. Sorry, I’m a dick about that.

Kitty: Nobody cares, Ali.

Like a ghost that came and went with the twilight and darkness, that first veiled and then revealed.

Ali: He came.

Her hair had the sheen of the sea beneath an eclipsed moon.

Ali: Have you ever looked out to sea in the middle of the night? With no moonlight? I’ll tell you what you’ll see: fuck all.

It was the color of a leopard’s tongue, of oiled mahogany. It was terra cotta, bay and chestnut.

Ali: What’s the colour of a leopard’s tongue? Red? Pink? Why didn’t he just say red?

Her hair was a helmet, a hood, the cowl of the monk, magician or cobra.

Kitty: Well, was it a monk, magician, or a cobra? Pick one, Miller.

Her face had the fragrance of a gibbous moon.

Kitty: The moon smells like cheese and gravy.

The scent of fresh snow.

Ali: Nuh-uh, not unless fresh snow smells like cheese and gravy too.

Her eyes were dark birds in fresh snow. They were the birds’ shadows, they were mirrors; they were the legends on old charts.

Kitty: This is steadily getting more and more ridiculous. [eats popcorn]

Ali: Oh I get it. Because like, when you look into her eyes, her life story will resonate out of it. Kinda like when you look at the key of a map to find the toilets.

They were antique armor and the tears of dragons. Her brows were a raptor’s sharp, anxious wings. They were a pair of scythes.

Kitty: Those are some deadly eyebrows!

Her ears were a puzzle carved in ivory. Her teeth were her only bracelet; she carried them within the red velvet purse of her lips.

Kitty: Whoa, uh…ew.

Ali: I wonder if she has a zipper between them lips. The image is very disturbing.

Her tongue was amber. Her tongue was a ferret, an anemone, a fox caught in the teeth of a tiger.

Kitty: Her tongue is furry, possessed of stinging tentacles, and orange.

Ali: Yeah, no wonder she keeps her lips zipped tight like a purse. I wouldn’t want anyone else seeing my tongue either, if it were like that.

Kitty: Also now that he’s using “was” instead of “was like”, it’s a metaphor. IN YOUR FACE.

Ali: He’ll slip up soon, just you wait.

Her shoulders were the clay in a potter’s kiln.

Kitty: So getting covered in fire a lot?

Her shoulders were fieldstones; they were the white, square stones of which walls are made. They were windows covered with steam. They were porcelain. They were opal and moonstone.

Kitty: Alright, they’re white, we get it.

Her neck was the foam that curls from the prow of a ship,

Ali: So…she’s got some facial fuzz? Don’t girls usually shave that off before you can even see it with a microscope?

it was a sheaf of alfalfa or barley, it was the lonely dance of the pearl-grey shark.

Kitty: “Pearl-grey shark” could refer to almost any shark, really.

Ali: Her beard sounds longer than mine, if she can make it sway around like a dance.

Her legs were quills. They were bundles of wicker, they were candelabra;

Kitty: They were chocolate bars, they were bottles of air freshener, they were shrooms.

the muscles were summer lightning, that flickered like a passing thought; they were captured eels or a cable on a windlass.

Kitty: Aww, poor eels. Or cables. Whichever.

Ali: Isn’t this a fantasy? WTF cables.

Her thighs were geese, pythons, schooners.

Kitty: Honk-hiss-swoosh!

They were cypress or banyan; her thighs were a forge, they were shears;

Kitty: I need to go to Shears and return this Kitchenaid.

Ali: “Her thighs were a FORGE”? That’s got to be an innuendo. Also I can’t tell: is she supposed to be pale, dark-skinned, or burnt to a crisp?

Kitty: Maybe at the end of this Miller will go “Just kidding!” and tell us what she actually looks like.

Ali: A lioness, a crowbar, a cheesegrater. At the same time.

her thighs were sandstone, they were the sandstone buttresses of a cathedral, they were silk or cobwebs.

Kitty: Which are really nothing alike except for their delicate nature.

Ali: And any woman that could be compared to cobwebs should probably be kept away from, unless you were looking for prime material for Cannibal Corpse’s next album art.

Her calves were sweet with the sap of elders, her feet were bleached bones, her feet were driftwood.

Kitty: That’s an attractive image.

Her feet were springs, marmosets or locusts;

Kitty: Locusts? Seriously? The only way this could be worse is if…

Ali: Locusts are the most beautiful creatures in the world though!

her toes were snails, they were snails with shells of tears.

Kitty: …snails. Seriously, Miller? Get a clue, before someone hits you over the head with a baseball bat made of them.

Her arms were a corral, a fence, an enclosure; they were pennants; they were highways. Her fingers were incense.

Ali: They carried the tale-tell scent of a person who doesn’t use soap.

They were silver fish in clear water;

Kitty: Silverfish keep getting into my cabinets, they’re really annoying.

they were the speed of the fish, they were the fish’s wake. They were semaphores; they were meteors.

Kitty: [gasp] SHE killed the dinosaurs!

Her spine was a snake. It was the track of a snake. It was the groove the water snake makes in the glossy mud of the riverbank. Her spine was a viper, an anaconda.

Kitty: Well, at least snakes, vipers, and anacondas are related…

Ali: Oh, I get it now. She’s a stickman. A really wobbly one.

It was the strength of the anaconda. It was the anaconda’s unknown hieroglyphic.

Kitty: It baffled the Egyptologists for half a century.

Her spine was a ladder, a rod; it was a chain, a canal, it was a caravan.

Ali: Lemme figure this one out. It’s a ladder…it’s a really straight ladder.. made of…chains. In the water pools of our…circulatory system. Which are kind of like…

[pause]

Ali: I give up.

Her buttocks were fresh-baked loaves; they were ivory eggs, they were the eggs of the lonely phoenix. They were a fist.

Ali: Somebody’s been staring too much.

Her breasts were citrus, they were soapstone; they were bright cumulus

Kitty: I’d say they’re more like nimbostratus, but to each his own.

and the smooth fingertips of Musrum. Her breasts were honeycombs and dew-beaded windows, or soft, sweet cheese.

Kitty: Was it the Laughing Cow sort?

Ali: Ew, you can see the the veins on her tits? Gross.

They were sweet apples; they were glass, they were cowries.

Kitty: And again with the snails.

Ali: Snails? Enlighten me. I assumed he meant a cow’s udders.

Kitty: A cow’s udders are called, uh…udders. A cowrie is a kind of snail that lives underwater. I think it’s one of the cuter varieties.

Ali: Well, I wouldn’t have guessed.

They were the twin moons of the earth.

Ali: Someone failed first grade…

The nipples rose like mercury with her heat. They rose like monuments atop flowered hills, above deserts of hot sand; the nipples were savory morels, with the flavor of the forest.

Ali: I spoke too soon. Wait a sec, Sparkster can see her nipples? Is she in the nude?

Kitty: Well, maybe. She’s like a fairy or elf or something. We all know how eagerly those will shed their clothes.

Her ribs were a niche, an alcove, an apse; her stomach was an idol in the niche, alcove or apse, an effigy, a phantom.

Kitty: I’m picturing, uhh…oh hell, I don’t know. I’m picturing a lot of unrelated objects piled on top of one another and stuck together with krazy glue.

Ali: I think she’s anorexic.

Her stomach was a beach, a savannah, a flagstone warmed by the sun, a cat asleep on the flagstone, a bleached canvas sail in hot southern winds. Her navel winked like a doll’s eye,

Kitty: Creepy…

like the eye of a whale, like the drowsy cat.

Ali: Ok, so her face is pale. Her shoulders are burnt to a crisp. Her stomach is yellow. Her thighs are charcoal. What next?

Kitty: Her crotch is orange!

Her pubes

Kitty: Damn, I spoke too soon.

Ali: You’ve got to be joking.

was a field of wheat after the harvest, a field neatly furrowed; it was a nest, a pomegranate, an arrowhead, a rune.

Kitty: I think I’ve lost my taste for pomegranates. Thanks a lot, Miller.

Ali: Since when were the pubes beautified anyway? Well, there was that chocobo-head…

Kitty: Let’s not mention Chocobo Nights ever again. Ever.

Ali: But I’m pregnant! With a ch-kkihhty, let go of my throooooaaaaaarrrhhhh [asphyxiated]

It was a shadow. It was moss on a smooth white stone. There was an orchid within the moss. There was a drop of dew upon the orchid.

Kitty: Her crotch is a smooth white stone with an orchid with a dewdrop. Is it okay if I bang my head against my keyboard for a sec?

Ali: Ok, but only if I get to bang my head against the wall. brb.

Kitty: tgyjyutryuti6i8dt679uytfiyg

Ali: Back. I think there’s a fracture! I’m so…happy…

It had the breath of moss-beds, of the deep seas, of the abyss, of scrimshaw and blue glass, of cold iron; she had the sex of rainforests,

Kitty: —because rainforests are sexy somehow. I mean, what about soggy, hot, smelly, malaria-ridden jungle is sexy?

Ali: Sexy Amazon chicks, Kitty. Sexy Amazon chicks.

the ibis and the scarab;

Ali: That’s Egypt again, not a rainforest.

she had the sex of mirrors and candles, of the hot, careful winds that stroke the veldt,

Kitty: That word is SO purple I don’t even know what it means.

Ali: It’s some sort of geological…geographic…place. Some sort of plains or something.

the winds that taste of clay and seed and blood; the winds that dreamed of tawny, lean animals.

Kitty: I understand we all went through a purple phase, but damn!

“You are quite beautiful, Princess Bronwyn,” Spikenard sang, with his sardonic grin and eyes as violet and hard as amethysts.

Kitty: Good luck trying to stab those out.

“Your body is halfway between earth and dream, neither magic nor elemental, neither animal nor spirit.”

Ali: I… I want to say something, but I can’t. I’m going to try for a fracture again instead.

His long fingers reached towards her face, brushed her eyelids…

Kitty: In Spain, you can’t touch the queen. Let’s pretend we’re in Spain and OFF WITH HIS HEAD—

Ali: [administers meds] Calm down.

Kitty: YOUR MOTHER EATS SCARABS IN HELL

“Your eyes are the sound of rain.”

Kitty: [blinks] Oh listen…it’s the sound of rain. [blink blink]

Ali: I tried, I tried really hard. It just left me dizzy. And now I can’t stop blinking.

. . . followed the contours of her cheekbones and jaw . . .

“Chalkbeds and moonlight.”

[1…2…3…4…5…6]

Kitty: According to the poster of this monstrosity, on the next page she gets raped. Let’s not read that, we’ve suffered enough.

Ali: Christ, I think I’m having a mental shut-down. I’m going to go listen to “Still Alive” to help put this knife down from my chest.

Kitty: Don’t do it, just remember it’s all over. You’re free! Go frolick in the fields.

Ali: NOT THE FIELDS. They’re covered in cows and snails and leopards and chains and ladders and ovens and Spanish people!

Kitty: Uhhh…shoot. The ocean? No, that has sharks in it. How ‘bout Egypt or the rainforest?

Ali: I’m afraid of nature. And animals. And sexy Amazon chicks.

Kitty: At least your navel is not an eye! … [runs screaming into the night]

Comment [31]

I thought that was pretty stupid actually, and I do love to laugh at certain things at Twilights expense (Team Khaki!) but that wasn’t funny, it was the same old “oh your prose is too PURPLE!” argument people have against the writing. Which is fine, whatever, you don’t have to like that style of writing, but if Smeyer is so awful then THEY can go out and write their own damned best-seling novel showing how THEY think vampires should be. Sorry, I wasn’t amused =/

-Twifan on IMDB after reading my article (emphasis mine)

I’m sick of this argument. In fact, I’m so sick of this argument, I had to cram several corks in my mouth to keep myself from unleashing a long string of profanity at my computer instead of typing an article like I’m supposed to. If I don’t do this article, I’m going to lose my rations for the rest of the week, and I’ll have to eat the dirt (which tastes like feet and gunpowder).

First off, the majority of people here have tried their hand at writing. I can say with confidence that most people here can, in fact, write in a more compelling way than Meyer or Paolini can. The point most fans make—that we are not writers and have no right to mock bad books—is moot.

Second: the truth is that anyone who uses this argument has violated Ebert’s Law, which states that you do not have to be of some field to criticize something in it.

Here is an example: say you go to a sushi restaurant and you decide to try the eel. You do. You don’t like it; in fact, it tastes a little like deep fried combat boots, and you tell the chef so. Are you a sushi chef? It’s quite likely that you aren’t. Could you tell that you didn’t like it, that it was made of inferior materials? Indeed you could.

Lastly, if we cannot criticize something such as Twilight or Inheritance because we haven’t tried our own hand at writing, then fans of the series who have not tried their hand at writing cannot say something is good. If they haven’t tried, how would they know if their favorite series is really as good as they say?

And a tangent just to shake things up—bestselling does not necessarily mean good. Hype does not always surround good things. References: boy bands, The Da Vinci Code, and Tom Cruise.

My point: This argument is old, tired, and unoriginal. Come up with something that’s, you know, actually logical and will take more than a moment’s recitation of Ebert’s Law. Pretty please?

Comment [47]

Hi there. We don’t like the Twilight series, and we have a lot of articles that will tell you why we this is so, but you don’t have to think we’re correct. You’re entitled to your opinion just like everyone else. I think we write the articles to sway middle-of-the-road readers into joining the Dark Side and/or because it’s funny in our sick little minds.

The problem we have with Twilight fans is the way they behave with people who have dissenting opinion. I noticed a lot of fan response to the anti-fandom involves CAPSLOCK OF RAGE or trying to ward them away somehow. It’s kind of scary. This is why Sly, in his unending wisdom [cough], is trying to get discussion between fans and antis going. If you haven’t already noticed, the new forums do not require you to register for anything—this is to encourage lurkers and fans to post.

Maybe about a month ago I went to a forum called Twilighters Anonymous to ask what they found appealing about the series. This was not me trolling or trying to flamebait anybody, I am actually legitimately curious—the series appeals to a lot of teenage girls but manages to totally repulse me. Asking a Twilight forum why they liked the books seemed like the right course of action. I found that my thread was rather quickly deleted. What’s up with that? I’d like to discuss the merits—or lack thereof—of the series, but it seems I’m not allowed at that particular forum. I would try at another one but I’m trying not to cut myself over this tragedy.

Okay, that’s not totally the reason. The other reason we don’t like Twilight fans much is because the bizarre fangirl lust they have for Edward is, quite frankly, extremely creepy. Being a fan of a fictional character is fine, obsessing over a fictional character is just unsettling…

Additionally, we really are fans of the books, just a different kind of fan. If we mock something, it means we really like it, but not in the same way as a regular fan. We like it for being so stupid it deserves mocking. Twilight is so melodramatic and silly, how could we not mock it?

But I’m getting off track. The gist of what I’m saying is that Twilight fans really creep us out and the fandom really, really doesn’t like having other discussing. We like other discussion if it’s not rife with caps and a billion exclamation points and personal attacks and assuming we have no lives outside of the internet.

Look :

Its ok, you’re allowed to have your own opinion. A lot of people on this board didn’t even like it either, they just come here to hang out. I personally loved the movie, nott he best I’ve ever seen of course, but I really enjoyed it and that’s simply my opinion. Everone is entitled to their own. Don’t worry about it! =)

This is the kind of fan that is really cool. This is the kind of fan we like talking to. They’re the kind of fan who unfortunately has rarely, if ever, posted here. We’ll try to be more like this fan in our srs business discourse if the rest of the fandom gives us this same courtesy.

If you guys can let us talk about the series without it turning into a flamewar or talking to us as if we’re Satan’s concubines, we promise to stop being such elitist bitches.

Sincerely,
ImpishIdea

P.S. We know where you live.

Comment [28]

Dear Pristopher Chaolini,

Hi there. I noticed ever since Eldest you seem to be quite bored with your “cycle”. Not even the anti-fans like us really have anything more to talk about. Why do you seem so disinterested? Recent Shurtugal.com interviews are more brief and terse while in old ones you seem bubbling over with excitement. What happened?

I believe with the advent of Eragon you were happy with your work. Like a beloved child, you paid close attention to Eragon and would not let it associate with people who did not absolutely and unconditionally adore it. Critics were falling over themselves to call you a “wunderkind” and a “genius” who “graduated high school at the age of 15”—never mind that it was home school, not public school, that gave you a diploma, and while you began work on Eragon at 15, you ended it at 18. The immature writing style is indicative of your age and mindset. This is not a bad thing, but I do not believe it should have been published in its current state. Pruning excess is not bad. After all, for the healthiest of fruit trees, you have to do a whole lot of clipping.

By Eldest your enthusiasm was still flying high. Critics very much anticipated the next book, probably fanning themselves and coming down with cases of the vapors because holy shit they just couldn’t wait to read the next work by the world’s most amazing literary child-genius. Except you were like 20something by the time it was released so the age card really shouldn’t have been played any more, but beating a dead horse is sometimes really hilarious, especially when it’s reduced to a pile of blood and giblets.

And then Eldest came out. Most critics agreed it was overwrought and too long and too boring and not enough happened, except for the hysterical Randy Forest Ceremony scene. At the time the series was still planned to be a trilogy. We all agreed it suffered from the syndrome most trilogies suffer from – the second in a trilogy has to have something happen, but it can’t resolve the story or the third book will be flailing around uselessly like a Macy’s thanksgiving parade balloon caught in a hurricane. Two Of Three Syndrome hurts even the most careful of authors. Talented authors are able to at least make second books interesting, maybe introduce important characters in some way. While you’re not the most talented of authors, at least you did better than New Moon, whose only memorable scene was the functionally retarded protagonist’s cliff-diving episode.

Then there was Brisingr. It was, in a word, awful. It was, in several words, too long and boring and it was obvious you hadn’t learned a goddamn thing from literary critics who suggested, many times, that you quit with the purple prose. You revealed you liked “big books” and immediately I understood why Eldest and Brisingr were such doorstoppers. You like big books. You felt it wasn’t a proper book until it was capable of breaking the windshield of a sports car. Therein lies your crucial mistake.

And I could tell, by the dwindling of the fandom and the growth of the anti-fandom, that you had lost interest in your beloved child. You have better things to do, after all, like go fishing or shoot moose or whatever it is people in Montana do. Writing another doorstopper just isn’t in you anymore. It’s lost its spark and novelty and no longer entertains you.

What will the next book bring to the table? Absolutely nothing, unless you’ve been spending these abnormally quiet years actually practicing writing better. If that’s true, then good for you, that’s awesome and I wish you luck. If it’s not true and you’re just bored, please quit pretending you have any interest in the series at all anymore. I’m quite sure you don’t.

So, here are my suggestions to revitalize the remains of the series, or at least your writing career.

My suggestion is that you make the final book as short as possible. Prune away unnecessary chapters and paragraphs describing inconsequential things. Learn to write convincing dialogue. Learn to write convincing romance. Learn to write characters who aren’t either all good and right (elves), all stupid and unenlightened (dwarves), or all evil (orcs – yes I know you attempted to give them some sort of culture but it fell flatter than a Swedish pancake). And for God’s sake, learn to conlang. English ciphers are not constructed languages, they are English ciphers and that’s all they’ll ever be.

My other suggestion is that you simply stop the series altogether. Very few people actually care about it enough to see it through to the end, and I’m sure aside from a few nutjobs, no one will be bothered. Learn your chosen craft. Try your absolute hardest to write in your own voice, not the voice of old dead guys with a writing legacy no one can ever quite imitate. Write something else. Start a new series, or maybe just a new standalone novel. Not every book has to be part of an epic trilogy. Not every story will benefit from a metric fuckton of padding and purple prose.

Sincerelyish,
Kitty

Comment [29]

My apathy cannot be contained

No it’s not actually out. This is just my prediction for everyone’s reactions.

Comment [25]

Kitty: Oh hai Impish Idea! You may not actually remember me! I have no idea who is running the site anymore! Joining me is Mr. Cratylus, who I felt was uniquely qualified to discuss romance novels.

Cratylus: What.

K: We’re talking about that section at Barnes and Noble with the long name. The most bizarrely specific genre.

C: You should stop putting off that article about Mary Sues, and that other article about how to make fictional worlds. And maybe that comic.

K: Please to be stop talking now. The question on the table is “can teen paranormal romance be good?” I’m of the opinion that any idea, no matter how stupid, can be executed in a way that’s enjoyable. But I don’t think the 2012 literary climate is very encouraging to “good” paranormal romance.

C: Twilight will probably be felt for generations to come. Like a famine. Unlike a famine, there was no diaspora.

K: You don’t know that, you’ve been dead for centuries.

C: Now perhaps you should define “paranormal romance” as a genre.

K: Sure! Long version or short version?

C: Please, don’t make this hurt more than it already is.

K: So the genre is called “teen paranormal romance” most of the time, which has its own section at Barnes & Noble that is substantially larger than the comics section. It invariably features the bland, bitchy Protagonist who may or may not be accompanied by some bland, bitchy friends. Protagonist has never really been intimate with anyone, and if she has, she is still most likely a virgin. She is said to be intelligent and mature, and she thinks of herself as plain, probably while describing physical features negatively that are not actually negative.

C: Your readers will very much buy that overlarge eyes or full lips or too-long legs or a deathly pale complexion are undesireable, because your readers have all hopped out of time machines from the year 1850.

K: Protagonist is disaffected, stuck in a rut, or otherwise just bored with her daily routine. Something interrupts said routine—she moves to a new town, attends a new school, there’s a new kid, whatever—and the story usually begins around this point. Protagonist falls in with the supposedly mysterious and compelling Bishounen who is drawn to her for some reason or another, and he’s a cold, distant jerkbag or a way-too-forward walking sexual harassment lawsuit. Bishounen is revealed to be a vampire, fallen angel, worwilf—

C: Werewolf.

K: Wurrwulf, or whatever fantasy humanoid can be made to look pretty. It is then revealed that Protagonist is different somehow and therefore deserving of this magical creature’s attention. More often than not, this difference has something to do with how tasty she would be, how tasty her soul would be, or how much power she would lend Bishounen if he killed her. But he doesn’t do any of those things because reasons. She is also targeted by something else, perhaps the Rival vampire angel warwhippet who intends to hurt her or use her or kill her. Or maybe a whole clan of them! Get creative! And then at the end, Bishounen saves her, Rival is killed or neutralized or escapes to set up a sequel for the inevitable (INEVITABLE) trilogy, with a surprise fourth book if the author is feeling particularly saucy. The end.

C: Scintillating. When you put it that way, I can see why you would have a hard time making the case that paranormal romance can be good.

K: Which is why I’m asking you to fix it. Fix the genre.

C: Ugh. Okay. Let me just list all of the possible subversions of the Twilight plot…

K: Really? You have 5 hours until sunup and you are choosing to occupy that time with a boring-ass list?

C: ssssiiiiiiiiiiiighhhh … Right, you would think that the first thing wrong is the protagonist. Obvious, isn’t it, that you wouldn’t read a story where you hated the character through whom you viewed the plot. However, in a lot of romance novels, if you don’t like the viewpoint character, it doesn’t matter because you will be given niblets of man-candy throughout, and the narrator is usually such a dull non-entity that it doesn’t matter if you dislike her.

K: I dunno, I find it hard to stave off the waves of disgust that tumble over me whenever I’m exposed to Bella Swan for longer than a couple seconds.

C: Bella’s a special case. Anyway, since fixing the protagonist isn’t really a priority for this genre, let’s see about fixing the protagonist’s friends. What do good friends do when they see their friend with a guy who is clearly a huge jerk?

K: I was about to say that in high school it depends on how attractive he is, but the author doesn’t even have that excuse. High schoolers are stupid, but by and large they aren’t sociopaths, and they’d probably start noticing when a friend got a lot more bruises and injuries since she started seeing a dude (BELLA I AM LOOKING AT YOU) or if they were potentially attacked by the guy or the guy is visibly a bad person (THIS GLARE IS FOR NORA).

C: Right. That doesn’t really excuse their friends having their one singular personality trait make them unaware of what’s wrong with the protagonist.

K: They only have room for “chipper” or “obnoxious” or “flighty.” They can’t cram “thoughtful” in there anywhere! You’re asking too much.

C: I think it’s well-established that readers of paranormal romance never ever care about the friend characters, and they end up being completely irrelevant to the plot anyway. They’re just there so the narrator has someone to talk about the love interest with.

K: Having two or three girls in a story does not necessarily guarantee it will pass the Bechdel test, I guess.

C: What about the love interest?

K: Well, he’s attractive.

C: Attractive, mysterious, fascinating, intellectually similar to the narrator. He usually has more personality than the protagonist, but it’s comprised of more unsavory things than your average fellow. The readers very definitely don’t want this bit fixed, because…I don’t know. I have no idea why.

K: I don’t really, either, but there are some personality types who are attracted to the idea of being used sexually and not having any choice in the matter because it absolves them of the shame or blame associated with consensual-ness. That’s not to say girls who have this kind of fantasy want to be raped, they just want to let go and not have much, if any, control of the situation. They’re not uncommon and I don’t think they’re unhealthy but I do think this sort of thought has an underlying, damaging cause in some people. Girls in American culture in particular are usually taught that sex is a bad thing to have when they’re still teenagers, and for some girls actually reading about sex is off-putting or gives them guilt enough that reading it just isn’t enjoyable. So, the G-rated version. Expect inappropriate touching or hungry stares or, uh, slamming against walls. And descriptions of need and want and other such piddle.

C: Piddle?

K: Now that I’ve gotten the horrible sex part over with, high schoolers really want to be special and better. This is often kind of nebulous, they don’t know in particular what they want to be special for, they just want to be recognized and affirmed and superior. Some quick and easy ways to make the narrator, and thus the reader, unique are to make her the only “smart” girl in the story and make her be the most mature student there, as well as having her be the only one who resists Bishounen’s mind powers—or is really really delicious to whatever Bishounen may be. Protagonist is better than other humans because she is “smart” and “mature” and “level-headed,” Bishounen is better than other humans because he’s a physically and mentally superior fantasy humanoid. They are obviously made for each other because if Bishounen went out with Obligatory School Bitch or Obligatory Supernatural Ex Girlfriend, who are both dumb as boards, he would just be insulting himself. Both she and he are supposed to appeal to the reader’s deep, forbidden desire to be better than other people despite her plainness, and by extension, have a mate who is better than other people.

C: Oh. Well then.

K: In conclusion, no, the reader does not want Bishounen fixed.

C: The other story elements aren’t entirely flawed. There’s something to be said about battles between supernatural creatures occuring just under the surface of our everyday boring world. What else could be going on that we don’t know about? This setup neatly taps into the human desire to understand the unknown, and to interact with things that may think wildly differently from ourselves.

K: So do you want to clubfight? I technically count as a Gorgon.

C: No thank you. This plot might be a bit more interesting if it weren’t driven entirely by the idiocy of the characters. The narrators seem far too willing to wander where they know full well may be bad territory, but they press on anyway, perhaps in a misguided effort by the author to demonstrate bravery. Who knows. I do think this plot, even with the romance angle, could be done well. But the reader doesn’t really care about the supernatural world plot. It’s there to make tension, sure, it’s there to make you worry if the love interest will get there in time to save the narrator, but ultimately it doesn’t matter too much.

K: Soooo…?

C: So I think the chief problem with this genre is that almost everything feels superfluous. Paranormal romance is what it sounds like—“paranormal” and “romantic”—but everything else is just a load of canned icing on top, that is to say, insubstantial, not very filling, and probably bad for you. The other chief problem, or vice problem if you will, is that the reader base simply doesn’t care about the mediocrity. This is something that has gone back since romance stories have existed—mediocrity sprinkled with pretty embellishments and the occasional smattering of intrigue so that the reader holds their breath and exhales when it all gets better. Why fix what isn’t broken? They’ll still be sold and read, and as long as that holds true, they will be continue to be written.

K: This bums me out for the same reason that many chick flicks bum me out. These things are written by women intended for women, and they are overly maudlin and dull with a lot of contrived stuff happening to one-note characters.

C: Why do you think that is?

K: Umm…uhh…

C: Come now, use your brainmash.

K: Wellll…one could make the argument that a chick flick, like any other Hollywood film, must be greenlighted before production can start. And the people responsible for greenlighting movies are mostly dudes. So, maybe said dudes think that a female-dominated, female-produced film will only appeal to females if it’s sappy and stupid and insulting. Film that shit, we’ll make millions. What I’m saying is they might be out of touch, and they, not being women themselves, probably have a warped view of what women actually like.

C: Alternatively, they know this type of film will get asses into seats for the same reason mindless action films will get asses into seats.

K: You’re saying that Sleepless in Seattle is the female equivalent of Escape from New York?

C: Yes, actually. Both are dumb, unchallenging, unabashed female/male fantasies respectively, intended not to make you think but to make you pay for a ticket. There’s still the issue where chick flicks get a lot more public and critical bile than silly action movies, but I choose to believe that’s because most people complaining about chick flicks are just those who don’t want to watch them, and most critics complaining about chick flicks feel like they’re far below their ability to review.

K: Then this probably applies broadly to paranormal romance in the sense that it’s a guilty pleasure genre. I guess the male equivalents are probably Warhammer novels or Witchblade?

C: Let’s go with that.

K: That’s not to say women don’t read those, I’m just saying it’s mostly guys who read those.

C: I’ve forgotten what point you’re trying to make here.

K: The point is…paranormal romance can probably be good.

C: “Probably” here is written in 20-meter letters and painted red. There are a lot of factors going into why good paranormal romance will be rarely published; that is to say, all media and genres have tried-and-true, paint-by-numbers guaranteed cashrakers, and this is what will dominate in whatever industry the media belongs to. It also depends a lot on marketing. Look here, a black book with a minimalist white and red cover and a thin lowcaps font! It must be like Twilight, and it usually is. Look there, a brown and grey first person realistic military shooter with a fellow in a soldier’s uniform at the middle of the box! It must be Call of Duty, and it usually is. The Twilightesque allows for an escapist female fantasy about being special and adored by someone better than human. The shooter is an escapist male fantasy about guns and warfare with no consequences beyond being set back a couple of minutes when death occurs. I do think these are roughly the same—it’s just that female-oriented media tend to receive a lot more spit from those not in the target audience.

K: Why’s that?

C: Beats me. You should ask for people to discuss it in the comments.

K: No! I am afraid of the bile!

C: Let them throw up on you.

K: Hey, the sun’s coming up.

C: Is it?

K: Yeah, it’s like, that big glowing blob of fire over that hilltop.

C: Huh.

Super Secret Hella Announcement
Aforementioned articles will happen soon, but I’m also working on a spork of the Draco Trilogy. You may recognize their author, Cassandra Clare, from back when she spelled her name with an i.

Comment [20]

Comment [40]

“Let’s play a game,” said Kitty to one of her made-up people named Malachi, who looked simply thrilled to have his newspaper-reading interrupted. “I’m going to list all of the distinct characteristics Bella has. That way I can hopefully prove with facts that she is a good character.”

“Good luck finding anything,” said Malachi, “and I mean that with utmost sincerity.”

“Nonsense! It’ll be easy once I get started.”

Kitty opened her notebook to a mostly-blank page and stared it down, ballpoint pen in hand. No idea was coming to her instantly, but she figured giving it time would give her loads of ideas.

Just then, there was a breeze through the open window, and some of Kitty’s hair brushed against the paper. She stared at it for a few moments, then realized something.

“Aha!” she said. “Bella has brown hair.”

“That doesn’t count,” Malachi said, looking over the top of the comics section. “Personality traits, not physical ones.”

“Maybe she’s mousy because she has brown hair,” said Kitty. “Right? Blondes are dumb, brunettes are shy, redheads have a temper…”

“How many people do you know whose hair color fits their personality?”

Kitty thought for a minute. “She could be a natural blonde, and that would explain things—”

Malachi took a moment to facepalm, and seeing that she was not quite ‘getting it’, spoke again. “Use your brain for a second,” he said. “Do I have a temper?”

“Not really…but your brother does, and he’s got red hair too,” said Kitty.

“Never mind. Just get on with your list.”

Kitty nodded and stared down at her notebook again. After scratching out the note about brown hair, she doodled mindlessly in the margin—was Bella really that dull? She thought about it, putting all twelve of her brain cells to work, and then a light went on in her head.

“She likes Muse!”

“So does everyone in the Twilight universe,” Malachi said. He went back to the newspaper. “Hehe…Garfield really enjoys that lasagna, doesn’t he?”

She scowled at the notebook, crossing out the Muse note. This was supposed to be an article for ImpishIdea, detailing how Bella could be a decent character. She had all day to write it…it was Saturday, after all…there was no real hurry. Except by now she usually had an idea of some sort.

“She, umm…complains about stuff a lot, like when she moves to Washington.”

“Good. Now you’re getting somewhere.”

Kitty wrote it down.

“There’s only one thing on this list,” she said. “Why can’t I come up with anything else? It’s a little hard to believe any character could possibly be that…indistinct. It’s like she has no personality beyond Edward.”

Malachi narrowed his eyes over the comics section for the thousandth time.

“You know what? Why don’t you just write down whatever comes into your head?”

“Okay, that’ll be easier…thanks!”

Comment [20]

“You know,” Kitty said, tearing out and crumpling up her failed attempt at probing Bella’s characterization, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t make you this annoying when I first invented you.”

“And I’m ashamed to have come from your tiny mind,” said Malachi. He set aside the newspaper and went into the kitchen for some leftover takeout. When he shut the refrigerator, Kitty tugged on his sleeve.

“Will you share?”

He looked down his nose at his creator, takeout box in hand. She and her ridiculous grin stood absolutely still.

“It’s chow mein and some jiaozi.”

“Okay. Then we can work on my essay about why Edward is a good character.”

While yesterday’s leftovers revolved slowly in the microwave, Kitty chewed on the end of her pen.

“Bella wasn’t good for my essay ‘cause she was just a stand-in for every teenage girl ever.”

“No, really?”

“Edward, Edward…what’s he like on the inside?” she pondered aloud while choosing to ignore his last comment. “How does a dude like him think?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Malachi. “I’m not a hundred-year-old girly man.”

Kitty stared at him for a moment, head cocked to one side. “You have girly hair.”

“It’s not girly and you’re an idiot.”

She sat down at the kitchen table and scribbled ‘Characteristics of Edward’ on the top of her notebook. The first thing that came to mind was ‘incredible hotness’, so she wrote that down.

Five minutes later, even after having a few chopstickfuls of chow mein and a jiaozi, she hadn’t come up with anything else. The only things that came out of the ballpoint pen were doodles and the idle phrase ‘this is a tasty gaozuh jaozuh dumpling’. Malachi continued to be unhelpful by devouring most of the noodles.

“I don’t have any ideas, do you?” Kitty said.

Malachi sighed. “Listen…you’re looking for depth where there isn’t any. Edward has about as much depth as your average birdbath. Do you know exactly why Bella likes him so much?”

“He has much cute,” said Kitty matter-of-factly.

“And?”

She paused. “He gives the illusion of having depth.”

“That’s, uh…”

“He’s also very protective,” she went on, grinning. “Because he cares! Lots.”

“Yeah, in a really creepy way,” said Malachi.

“What?”

“Edward is creepy. You can’t deny that.”

Kitty didn’t look like she quite understood him.

“Alright, well,” he said, “how can I make this clear to you…let’s play pretend for a moment. Okay?”

“Okay!”

“Let’s pretend that we’re at a middle-of-nowhere high school.”

“I am in high school,” said Kitty.

“Yes, I know, but I’m not. So, hypothetically of course, you’re new to the school and you don’t know me. Or anyone, for that matter. With me so far?”

Kitty nodded.

“Alright, so say on the first day you see me hanging out with my weird siblings,” he said. “And we all look alike, and there are some unsettling incestuous undertones, but you can ignore those. In fact, forget I said anything.”

“Incest, what?”

“Never mind that, for we radiate handsomeness. You and your homely friend are dazzled.”

“Huh?”

“Dazzled! You are dazzled! Now why are you looking at us?”

“Radiation.”

“…Right. Anyway, I’m pretending I have power to read minds. And while you’re undressing me with your eyes, I try to read your mind. But I can’t read it because there is nothing in it.”

“Hey!”

“And you’re average-looking, but you smell delicious. Please excuse the saliva.”

“That’s a little weird.”

“Yes it is. Later, I go to your house while you’re sleeping, and I climb up to your window and watch you. All night. Is that okay?”

“Well…”

Malachi cuffed her upside the head. “No, it’s not okay, it’s creepy. Moving right along, after I declare my undying scent-based love for you, we find ourselves in the throes of angsty teenage lust. Except I keep telling you that I’m dangerous. If I lose control I’ll probably bite you. That’s what I’m doing every day: fighting the urge to bite your delicious flesh.”

“Um, yeah.”

“And if I decided to take your ‘virtue’ right then and there I would probably smash you into tiny pieces, along with the entirety of the Volvo I’m probably doing you in. That is how good vampire sex is. But it’s dangerous, and you can’t have any.”

“But—”

“Absolutely not. Also I’m extremely cold to the touch, in fact, you could say our makeout sessions feel like being poked repeatedly in the mouth and neck with an ice cube.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“Yes it is. Additionally, I have a lot of angst. I have enough angst to fill the Caspian Sea and then some. And I will keep watching you sleep until I get bored—oh, you said my name in your dream. I am turned on. So much. Especially because you smell tasty.”

“Hold on—”

“You are my special brand of heroin, and that is why I love you—”

Kitty put up her hands. “Okay, quit it, you’re weirding me out.”

“Sorry. Now who else could I have described?”

“Edward?”

“Yes,” said Malachi. “Can his creepiness be justified? I think not.”

She stared at her notebook, thinking.

“But Edward is cute,” Kitty said, looking up, “so it’s okay.”

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YO DUDES — I’ve been working on a thing which is like, ImpishIdea exclusive or some such. Here are some sketches from it, and some notes about em transcribed so you don’t have to look at my terrible writing.

Instead of putting the pictures up here raw, I’m linking you to them…they’re a bit big.

Mash here for doodle of Jeni

Jeni:

• The resident medic because she has the magic touch and can melt your eyes
• Proficient in ASS-KICKING
• Also SHIN-KICKING
• Just KICKING IN GENERAL
• And if that weren’t enough, she’s an expert on genetics

Mash here for doodle of Kitty

Kitty:

• Mechanic
• Perpetual blank stare, may or may not be retarded
• Usually crawling around in the walls and feels uncomfortable in wide-open spaces
• Carries a big pipe wrench
• Those things that look like antennae are receivers

Mash here for doodle of Sly

Sly:

• LEADERPANTS
• HAS LIKE, PSYCHIC POWERS OR SOMETHING
• BLOW THINGS AWAY WITH HIS MIND
• LOOK AT HOW TALL AND SKINNY HE IS GODDAMN
• ALL ABOUT MATH AND SHIT

Comment [23]

If you’re here reading this you’re probably wondering how to make REALLY AWESOME ORIGINAL FICTION as you can probably guess by the title! Fortunately I know just how to make really awesome original fiction with almost no effort at all!

First pick a fictional universe you really like. I like Sailor Moon so let’s go with that.

This is the main character of Sailor Moon, uh…Sailor Moon. She’s kind of a ditz but has redeeming qualities such as caring a whole lot about her friends.

Now since you don’t want your original fiction to be too much like your source, turn the main character into yourself with some of the traits of the original main character put on and tweaked a little so no one can tell where you took it from!

IT’S MEEEEE

Changes made:

-Spiral Heart Moon Rod has been turned into Feral Red Crab Rod.
-Sailorboots replaced with cowboy boots.
-Shirt removed.
-Miniskirt replaced with capri pants.
-Hair uglified.
-Elf ears stapled on.
-Wobbly antennae added.

Notice how the little headband thing is still there, but it’s such a small detail no one will notice or care you cribbed it from Sailor Moon. Instead of Sailor Moon let us call her, uh, Soul…Muun. Her civilian name will either be your name or a name you wish you had. Let’s call her Squeezer Of Biceps.

Now that you have your original character, let’s choose a setting!

Sailor Moon takes place in modern-day Tokyo except for the times where they go to some otherworldly cool place but let’s focus on the Tokyo. You don’t want your own story to take place in Tokyo because people would accuse you of stealing! And you’re not stealing, you’re just using Sailor Moon as inspiration. Instead, let us set our story in Osaka, land of funny accents and stand-up comedy and tasty noodles. Or, if you don’t like funny accents, how about Kyoto? That place has like, temples and probably more noodles, you know that’s pretty awesome.

Okay now let’s come up with a premise for the story. What is the premise of Sailor Moon? Well, it’s complicated like most things from Japan, so I’ll simplify it. Sailor Moon about this girl Usagi who’s retarded but finds out via a talking cat that she is really SAILOR MOON a superpowered heroine who was the princess of the moon a long time ago and can kill bad dues who do bad things.

Let’s copy paste here and play some mad libs…

[Story Title] about this [girl/dude] [Name] who’s [negative adjective] but finds out via [plot device character] that [he/she] is really [some kind of superhero, the chosen one, super special awesome, etc] a [cool noun] who was [something really cool] and can [list superpowers].

Okay now let’s apply that to Soul Muun.

Soul Muun about this girl Squeezer Of Biceps who’s boring and stupid but finds out via a hermit crab that she is really SOUL MUUN a superpowered crab-based hero girl who was princess of the Crab Kingdom and can control decapods with her mind.

See? You can’t even hardly tell I took these ideas from Sailor Moon anymore!

And now for the final touch: make a cover with some sort of symbolism on it, be it completely obvious or supposed to be entrenched in subtlety but is actually really stupid.

In this example the crab symbolizes crabs and the hands represent Wall Street.

Comment [28]

Warning: humongous image and abject stupidity ahead.

Comment [14]

If you’re like me, your two favorite series are Eragon and Twilight. I have compiled a small guide for you, dearest gentle sexy reader, on how to be just like the characters in these two assuredly awesome series.

Eragon: First you’re going to have to fix your hair. It’s too messy. Comb it. Like, right now. If it’s not brown, roll around in some mud or chocolate until it is. Check your eye color. If it’s brown, you’re done. If it’s not brown, stab yourself in both your eyes with a letter opener. Blood dries from crimson to brown. Lucky you. Now check your mirror again. Point your ears artificially by pinching the upper part and pulling up. Now for your face! If you are not sexy, go to the nearest plastic surgery clinic and ask for the Deluxe Sexifying Package. When you wake up you will be left with an enormous bill and the most gorgeous, if a little stiff, visage anyone has ever seen. Now hit the gym, say deep things like “the songs of the dead are the lamentations of the living,” and ogle the groins of others in the locker room. Make sure you have basically no personality.

Murtagh: Brood sexily. Hate everything, but sexily. Angst over your father being a horrible villain. Wear dark clothes. Sexily. If you are unable to be sexy, stop eating until you are. If fangirls begin to chase you, don’t run. Use the power of your hotness to fly into the night like Batman with better hair. If you are unable to fly into the night using your hotness alone, procure an extremely sawed-off shotgun and fire directly downward. Or use said shotgun to kill fangirls, but that is illegal. Unless you are sexy enough to pull off murder, refrain from attempting it.

Bella: Make sure your hair and eyes are brown. If they are not, you do not look enough like Stephenie Meyer and you should give up. Press on if you are a brunette. Keep your lips parted but your teeth closed like a proper lady, so you look bored or mildly annoyed constantly. Deride yourself so others will tell you how pretty and awesome you are. Trip over everything, even while standing perfectly still. Find new and creative ways to damage yourself. Moon pathetically over a guy who visibly can’t stand your presence. Like Eragon, be sure to have pretty much no personality or interests. You’ll be on your way to grabbing the attention of everyone else in no time—at least, if you’re not operating in the real world.

Edward: Purchase hair dye. Give up. You’ll never be as beautiful as Edward.

Jacob: Go to an outdoor swimming pool. Swim in the deep end until you cannot keep afloat any longer. When you emerge you should be both tanned and capable of flexing really hard. Next, since werewolves don’t exist, you’re going to have to convincingly portray one using your own scruffiness. File your canine teeth into points and stop shaving a little bit before a full moon. Run around outside howling. If you have friends, convince them to do all of the above so you can pretend you have a herd gaggle crash pack. When there are girls nearby, force yourself onto them. They like it.

Comment [24]

Comment [25]

YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM.

Comment [20]

TEARS ARE SO DELICIOUS.

Comment [25]

Comment [22]

Comment [28]

Sadly, this is probably not the truth.

Comment [21]

Dear SlyShy,

The other day I was taken to Wal-Mart by my mother. I like to think I’m classier than the type of person who I usually see in Wal-Mart purchasing goods made entirely by starving underpaid minors in China, but I was pretty gross that humid day so I’m sure I fit right in.

What I noticed immediately on entering the place was that it looked like Twilight, Inc had a breathless orgasm in the very center, liberally tossing Edward dolls and Forks High School t-shirts every which way until goddamn near everything was covered in black and gold and that typeface I can no longer stand to look at. Wal-Mart, you are completely predictable, and I am so disappointed in you.

But it did give me an idea! I propose that we start putting your face on everything.

Think about it. We can wring obscene amounts of money out of squealing fangirls and never have to think about putting ads anywhere—and all you’ll have to do is never leave your house again! (I say that because I know you don’t like blood thrown all over you.)

Here are my proposed products:

SlyShy dollies! They’re not made with your actual hair, but we’ll claim that on the box so the fangirls don’t try ripping your hair off and replacing the plastic hair with yours. Also that may lead to someone attempting voodoo or something, and if I learned anything from middle school it’s that voodoo is absolutely never to be messed with.

SlyShy t-shirts! I’ll do the photoshopping myself, because your eyebrows don’t make you look nearly brooding enough. Stop waxing them. Also, please don’t have sex with anything, because fangirls really love virgins. Sorry if that cuts into your plans.

Vials of SlyShy venom! Not yours, of course, the possibilities of voodoo are too great to ignore, plus I don’t think you’re related to any sort of snake or komodo dragon. Instead, I will supply rattlesnake venom. It works almost the same, except rattlesnake venom doesn’t turn you into a rattlesnake.

SlyShy brand puppies!

Slylight! Yes, an official book series, starring a female character with no personality to speak of and you. The cover of book one will depict a pair of hands holding a tomato. This represents your unending desire for delicious tomatoblood. The cover of book two, entitled Dead Raccoon, depicts a dead raccoon. Nothing is more brooding than roadkill. If you have any ideas for the third and fourth books, please let me know. Additionally, I will begin work on a fifth book written from your point of view, but I will cancel it after Reginald leaks it or something.

I hope you take my proposal into consideration! This is a lucrative plan I’m sure you won’t regret.

Beans,
Kitty

Comment [21]

There are already a lot of articles around on how to write female characters. That’s all well and good, but I think it’s a lot less restrictive to have an itemized list of things you shouldn’t do. It also might be easier to digest than lengthy essays.

Also, this list is intended for people with more testosterone, but since I’ve seen young female authors screw up their own young female protagonists, estrogenites are perfectly allowed to read this too.

Like all my advice, this is subjective, in no particular order, and should be taken with a small pile of grains of salt. I know very little about good writing and am not qualified in the slightest to give pointers on it, but being female I think I’m qualified to give pointers on writing characters who share my gender.

I’m going to assume you’re taking your work seriously and expect your readers to do the same. Obviously if you’re making pornography none of these tips are going to apply.

1. Female characters should be characters first and female second. The fact that they’re women shouldn’t get in the way of their other traits.
2. Don’t have all your female characters be sexy when the physical appearance of your male characters can vary wildly. Especially egregious in visual media. Keep your ratio of pretty to average at least mostly even across the sexes.
3. The vast majority of women are not wispy heroin waifs or excessively stacked lingerie models. Believe it or not, it’s possible for a woman to be attractive and not fit into the standard brick house mold.
4. That said, having a woman’s worth riding entirely on her attractiveness is a great way to get your female readers to hate you.
5. While it’s true sometimes women think about their breasts, it’s never with any depth (in my experience). Mentioning this at all will probably come across as unnecessary at best and downright creepy at worst. Most obnoxious of all is when the author specifies bra sizes. It makes my face go ಠ_ಠ
6. Having “good” female characters be cute and “evil” female characters be sexy is kind of lazy.
7. Also lazy: making the “evil” female character hideously ugly while the “good” female characters are pretty.
8. A woman can be very competent without being a Mary Sue. A woman who can catch on to any skill or masters something very quickly is in danger of falling into the bottomless pit of Sueness.
9. Making a female character good at stereotypical “boy things” is, if you’ll pardon my french, a bullshit way to characterize. It’s distressingly common in TV shows that think they’re clever and subversive. I think the best way to handle female auto mechanics or professional ass-kickers or whatever is to give a reason for her to have that skill (like any other skill, you know, don’t make her an awesome musician for no reason) and to not make a big deal about it, in-universe or out.
10. A female viewpoint character describing herself in poetic terms (“chocolate eyes”) is going to come across as self-aggrandizing. Unless that’s your intent, find another way to describe her appearance (and not with a mirror scene, dammit).
11. A lot of women won’t give very deep regard to other women’s bodies. They’ll probably notice bad skin or frumpy outfits, but beyond that they won’t scrutinize too hard. They’re way more likely to notice a snooty expression or a false smile.
12. Particularly shallow women will give very deep regard to other women’s bodies. If you don’t want to have your viewpoint character come across as shallow, it’s best to not start writing a lengthy paragraph on her archenemy Susie Bitchfield’s obesity and poor choice of miniskirt.
13. Not all women desire marriage and children. Some want one or the other, some want neither. Not all women want to be testicle-crushing CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, either. Some want to be psychiatrists or artists or teachers or morticians…or whatever else. You know, just like men.
14. Female characters should probably not be solely motivated by a need to have the approval or attention of a man. Or all men in general, really. Female characters who do this ought to change by the end of the story, and realize that their happiness shouldn’t depend on the whims of menfolk.
15. On that note, actions speak louder than words. Even if you don’t state it directly, a female character who appears motivated only by men is going to be assumed to be motivated only by men.
16. Avoid overly “empowered” female characters. Empowerment doesn’t mean she’s terrible to men just for being men—it just means she’s not stepped on for being a woman.
17. Probably more of a personal peeve than anything else, but I really, really dislike that one female archetype who is rude and often violent to her spineless male love interest, but they end up together in the end anyway. If the genders were reversed, it would be called an abusive relationship—and even then, there will be some segment of your readers who finds it romantic. Yes, Twilight, I’m looking at you. Glaring.
18. The “headstrong” female character who has wacky banter with the similarly headstrong male lead leads me to believe they’d have really excellent (if angry) sex, but probably wouldn’t last in a normal relationship for longer than a couple days unless one or the other grows out of their headstrongness.
19. In a romance story, or a story containing elements of romance, please don’t give the female lead stupid reasons for liking the hero. Reasons like “he’s well-endowed” or “she knows his inner depths, despite his blatant jerkoff behavior on display literally all the time”. I’m kind of sick of the hero always getting the girl anyway, like she’s prize at the end of the race—but if you insist on keeping that plot element, at least give both of them good qualities.
20. Don’t have a female character for the sake of having a female character, which is something I see happen in video games and comics a lot. Give her something to do that isn’t doting on the hero.

Some examples of good female characters

• Hermione Granger (Harry Potter series). She’s kind of a know-it-all, but this lessens as the story goes on because she grows and changes as a character—like real people do. She strives for academic success because she wants it, not because she’s trying to impress anyone.
• Heather Mason (Silent Hill 3). She is shown to care a lot about her dad, and when he gets murdered, she goes after his killer and the woman who gave the order. While Heather is motivated by a man, I think the fact that he was her sole parental figure is much more important than his being a man. None of her emotional reactions to the freaky stuff around her seem unnatural or unrealistic.
• Alyx Vance (Half Life 2). She usually makes “decent female video game character” lists, and for good reason—she’s competent at a lot of things, but in a believable way. She’s never petty or vindictive, she has a good relationship with her father, and she is voiced by an actress who actually sounds like she knows what she’s doing (that helps a whole lot in video games).

I could keep going, and I could pick more and more nits, but I think the above is sufficient for now.

Leave comments okay I will give you friendship cookies nomnomnom good.

Zukünftigen Artikel?!?!

• Kitty attempts to define “Mary Sue” once and for all!
• Kitty asks if it’s possible to write a good paranormal romance!
• Cheesecake recipes!

Comment [125]

Most of you appear to learn how to “spork” by watching and imitating. There are a lot of examples out there, but sometimes outright giving advice is okay, so that’s what I’m going to do.

This is also totally not a shameless plug for my site.

Terms

First, a little explanation so you don’t get your terms mixed up: an “MST” is the same thing as a “spork” if the “spork” you’re talking about has lines of a story interspersed with witty commentary. A “spork” can also be something like Eragon Sporkings where it’s simply a series of funny plot summaries that make fun of Inheritance. For the purposes of this article I’ll call the former type of merrymaking a “spork” because that’s the term most of you are familiar with and I can deign to call an MST something else for a few minutes, even if that something else sounds like a kind of South American fish with pointy teeth and a creepy affection for strawberry trifle.

Choosing A Story To Mock

Three things:

1) It must be readable. Not in the “my word, this story is so awful it’s nigh unreadable,” I mean readable in the mechanical sense. You must be able to at least make sense of what’s being written, if the story looks like it was written by a computer programmed to tell everyone in the world to buy its cheap v14gr4, you probably won’t find too much joke material in it.

2) It should probably be bad in some way. Bad characterization, bad prose, bad worldbuilding, all three is even better—the very essence of the show that invented sporking in its usual incarnation was making fun of awful B-movies. Making fun of something that’s actually good is rather difficult because you can’t make jokes at the thing’s expense unless you’re the type who mocks the things you love. If that’s the case, by all means, mock til your tongue commits seppuku.

3) Only do it for fun. If you don’t do it for fun, the spork ceases to be funny.

How To Be Funny

I made a post on the forums elaborating on what makes a spork funny, but I think it needs more elaboration, like one of those complicated Celtic knot things, only this time it’s a Celtic knot made of more Celtic knots made of braided squid tentacles.

At the root of making a good spork is being funny. Sporks are all about making readers laugh at something. You can force yourself to be funny but if you try too hard all the funny is sucked out. One must have a good eye for when to take a joke further and when to stop.

From the Eye of Argon MST:

as he observed his comrade in death.
Mike: “You appear to be in death, comrade.”

Simple, obvious, and amusing. If someone else said something else the funny would be ruined. Sometimes just a simple one-liner without going on is the best course of action, and frequently, the funniest. Try not to hold up the flow of the spork with a lengthy rant about something. You can do that maybe once for a smallish spork and possibly twice for a lengthy spork. Unless you can make the rant really funny, then go for it.

Having pop culture references can also be funny if done well.

When a few inches from the wall, a loud, penetrating squeal,
Mike: Mariah Carey must be in there with him!

If you have ever even heard of Mariah Carey this joke will be obvious to you, and it is amusing.

One pitfall I see happen with a lot of sporks is “randomness.” Random humor, or as pretentious people all it, a “non sequitur”, can be kind of okay in certain situations but often it’s just kind of annoying and uninspired. Any talentless douchetard can shout “ZOMBIE CHEESE NINJA” and have legions of 13-year-olds laughing really hard at your randomness but if you yourself have actually shouted “ZOMBIE CHEESE NINJA” I want to test my new lobotomy method on you.

Another pitfall is being too vitriolic. While sometimes the author totally deserves it for being stupid or a prick, your spork cannot run on that alone. If you can get past the bad design choices here you can probably tell this is not a good way to spork. No, I’m not talking about Crater Lake Blue text on a robot vomit background, though that is definitely not a good way to spork—it’s the endless anger on the part of the sporker. You can’t spork something when you’re pissed, otherwise all the funny will be sucked out and you’ll be stuck with commentary almost as painful to read as the story you’re trying to mock. And even if you’re not pissed, you just want to be funny, being constantly mean and hateful about it isn’t really the way to go. There’s kind of an ambiguous line between too much vitriol and just enough vitriol. It’s best to err on the side of caution.

This rule doesn’t count if the story you’re sporking is, say, a lemon fic that manages to offend all the senses you have and even some you don’t. If it’s universally horrible and offensive and basically no one likes it (any given David Gonterman fanfic positively catapults to mind), you can be just about as horrified in your commentary and everyone will be too busy emphatically agreeing with you to complain that there’s too much acid-spewing on the part of the sporker.

Nitpicking about grammar or spelling is only good if you can turn it into something funny, like so:

Eyeing a slender female crouched alone at a nearby bench, Grignr
Tom: “Grignr”?
Mike: Look, we’re already on the second chapter. Get over it.
Tom: I know, I know, it’s just… I’d like at least buy a vowel or something.

It wouldn’t have been as amusing had Tom just said “I know, it’s just a really stupid name.” Make sure if you’re going to make fun of something, you actually have a joke to tell. If you just go “THEY SPELLED THAT WORD WRONG” you just kind of come off as looking for something to pick on because they don’t know how to make fun of much else in the story.

If you’re not sure if you’re being funny, find a friend, sibling, or prison inmate who has a good sense of humor (or at the very least knows what’s funny and what isn’t) and have them read your spork. Ask them to be honest with you about it. They will more than likely be able to offer you advice on how to make it funnier. And if they don’t, well, I’m pretty much always available and never doing anything but playing video games so drop me a line if you want your spork to be judged harshly by an unfeeling stranger.

Now you know how to be funny. Let’s look at picking a cast for your sporking team.

Your Sporking Cast

As a rule of thumb, you’ll probably want to use between one (e.g. Project AFTER) to four people who are doing commentary on a story. They can be real people with whom you are collaborating a la Kitty and Ali make fun of Silk and Steel, or fake people you made up, a la MST Dungeon.

If you have one set cast it gives the readers some familiarity. For example, in the Eye of Argon MST, the cast is the same two robots, Tom and Crow, and the same one human, Mike, that are in the show familiar to most people who are in the sporking business. There are other characters but they don’t actually do the sporking—such as Gypsy, another robot cast member, and the Mads, or the mad scientists who force the main cast to watch horrible movies/read horrible stories. Each of the cast members on the original show and in this particular spork have their own distinct personality and type of “riff” or “comment.” Tom Servo is an intellectual kind of robot who references pretentious things sometimes, Crow T. Robot often makes innuendo and is often the first to point out when something is retarded, and Mike is a little oblivious to the horrors that have befallen him and thus pretty optimistic. He makes a lot of less-pretentious pop culture references.

In the MST Dungeon (I’M DEFINITELY NOT PLUGGING) there are three people who are in the theater and make fun of horrible stories. Cookie is optimistic like Mike in a way and generally tries to see the brighter side of the current story no matter how awful. Malachi is a pretentious, slightly egotistical lech, who is probably the most sarcastic of the cast. Levi rarely talks but when he does it’s a reference to music or a movie or something similar. Micron, an endlessly perky supercomputer, is a background character who runs the cast’s lives. He stays silent most of the time and occasionally substitutes for one of the main cast when one of them is indisposed. These are all characters that I’m using for a real thing, with the exception of Micron, I just used them in my sporks and warped their personalities slightly to make them funnier.

In the Naga Eyes spork, the sporker uses characters from the universe the fanfiction takes place in—in this case, the Kingdom Hearts universe. This cast works because the characters the sporker used have vastly different personalities and it’s kind of fun watching them react to their bastardized forms do horrible things in the fanfic. This particular cast also works because they’re familiar faces to basically everyone who is going to bother reading the spork…though it’s a vore fic, so if you’re not into that sort of thing I wouldn’t recommend clicking on the link. Even though the spork alleviates much of the agony, it’s easily one of the most traumatizing things I’ve ever read.

You should also consider what kind of sporks you’re doing in relation to your cast. If you do a variety of sporks spanning different genres, you should probably stick with the cast of the old show, collaborate with a friend or two, or make up your own cast. If you’re focusing on, say, Harry Potter fanfiction, you could use your friends or the cast of Harry Potter.

Once you have your cast and your funny in your toolbox, you’re basically all ready to go.

Examples of Sporks

Because you can never have too many examples.

- Eye of Argon MST — one of the best sporks ever about one of the worst stories ever, when I die I want this story printed and buried with me

- The MSTing Mine — a bunch of old sporks dating as far back as 1993, some mocking fanfiction, others mocking email spam, “Rangers of NIMH” is one of my favorites

- Spork of some horrible Pokemon fic demonstrating how not to do it, please make sure your site wasn’t created by a time-travelling web designer from 1997

- Project AFTER — various sporkings of terrible anime fanfiction, webcomics, cosplay, etc.

- MSTron — once upon a time a valley of awesome and more awesome, now is broken, looks like your only chance at seeing the awesome is via the Wayback Machine which I have linked here

- MST Dungeon — specializing in stories containing really obnoxious main characters, annoying Mary Sues, or just having several imperial tons of drama behind them

In conclusion, I hope you learned something from this article that turned out way longer than I wanted it to. If you have any questions leave them in the comment box and I’ll try not to answer them in a way that suggests I have been raised by hyenas.

Also if the formatting for this thing looks weird, blame SlyShy, he broke textpattern apparently by smashing an entire ditto machine over its oblivious head.

Comment [15]

Emoticons stolen with apologies to SomethingAwful. I am not direct linking I promise.

I awaken in a clean, white room. It can’t be my room—it’s not grey and dishevelled enough. This place is white enough to have had every inch scrubbed with bleach and a Brillo pad.

This also is not my bed. It’s comfortable, so it can’t be my bed.

I rub my eyes and sit up. The corner of the room contains a bathroom cubicle and a shower stall. Reaching over my shoulder to feel my hair, I notice it’s slightly damp and smells of generic hotel shampoo—not mine. The rest of me is clothed in white scrubs, which are also not mine.

“Welcome to the Reading Test,” says a synthesized voice from above me. I jump at the sound, but resist the urge to hide under my cot.

“Who are you?”

“Your test begins now,” the voice says, ignoring me. “Please proceed to the library.”

A door opposite me slides open. I didn’t notice it before, but the door blends in perfectly with the surrounding walls.

Well, I don’t have anything to lose. I get out of bed and cross into the library.

It isn’t so much a ‘library’ as it is a ‘room with only one book in it.’ The place has unfriendly, harsh fluorescent lighting, just like the previous room, although this one is much smaller. The blue book sits on a metal table in the center. I don’t want to think so, but the dragon on the cover is…staring at me. It’s not an evil stare. It’s the kind that makes you want to black out the eyes with pen so it’ll stop looking at you.

“This is your assigned story, Eragon, by Christopher Paolini. Please read the prologue. When you are finished, mark your place with the provided bookmark and exit the library.”

I look about for a camera or something I can address, but seeing none, I nod to myself and sit down at the table.

Flipping open the book, I examine a map on the inside cover. Hmm…I could be wrong, but deserts don’t really just appear like that in the middle of a field, do they? I don’t remember where I read that. Come to think of it, I don’t really remember anything specific before waking up here. But, hmm, the names of some of these towns are so familiar. ‘Isenstar’, what is that, a lake? That name sounds vaguely similar to something I may have heard before.

Deciding to look at the map in depth later, I begin to read the prologue.

— — —

Prologue: Shade of Fear

: “Generic minions, your attention please! Tonight is the night we are going to assault an elf for a plot device she’s carrying with her. If you mess this up, I will be the angriest Shade you’ve ever seen. Ever.”
: “okay boss we’ll do our best”
: “That’s what I like to hear!”
—
Meanwhile, several miles away…
—
: “Bodyguards, please don’t let me be molested by anybody on this journey we could easily bypass through some convenient magic.”
: “sure thing princess arya”
: “You guys are so good at bodyguarding. <3"
--
Later…
—
: “Oh come on now, are they really riding white horses? I can see them from all the way over here.”
: “uh oh they’re riding this way”
: “Shh, don’t make any sudden movements! They might see us…”
—
: “Do you smell something? It smells like fetid meat.”
: “horse”
: “Oh, alright.”
—
: “One of you didn’t shower this morning. And when I find out who, heads will roll.”
—
: “I hope we’re not attacked by a plot point while we’re here. But at least those aren’t too dangerous.”
: “I BEG TO DIFFER!”
: “Uh-oh!”
: [killed]
: [attempts to flee]
: “Not so fast, my pretty!”
: “Sucker!” [magics the egg away]
: “Augh! Why didn’t you just do that before and save me the trouble of coming out here?! FRUSTRATION! GARJFZLA!”
: [killed]
: [passed out]
: “Hot damn! Well, it looks like my journey wasn’t in vain…” [takes Arya] “Bwa-ha-ha! Galby will be pleased! _{And then maybe I won’t be a virgin anymore.”}
Kitty:

— — —

I mark the end of the prologue and leave the library.

“Thank you,” says the voice. “Tomorrow you will return to read chapter 1.”

Comment [8]

My second day in the white room. The disembodied voice has been kind enough to provide me with a Rubik’s cube to play with. Unfortunately there’s little else to do besides try to solve the cube, throw it when I get frustrated, and sleep some more. The voice occasionally deigns to speak to me, but only if I ask the time of day—even then it will only say that it isn’t necessary to know the time to complete my reading test.

“It is time to continue your test,” says the voice. “Please proceed to the library.”

I set the unfinished cube on my pillow and go through the library door.

“Please read chapter 1. When you are finished, mark your place with the provided bookmark and exit the library.”

“Alright,” I say. I look at the inside cover once more, making a mental note to ask for a pencil and paper so I can copy the map later.

— — —

Chapter 1: Discovery

: “Hm hm hm, today seems like a good day to chase this deer I’ve been chasing for three days.”
Deer: [limp limp]
: “You’ll never escape me now!”
Night: [shatters]
:
Deer: “Loser.” [runs off]
: “What the hell was that noise? Deer don’t make that kind of kaboom when they’re shot! I’M SCARED!”
Egg: [fizzle]
: [pokes with arrow] “Hmm, my arrow hasn’t burst into flame. I bet it’s safe to pick up!”
Egg: [smooth, glistening, hardened silk, pretty]
: “Er, hmm, I don’t know what this is. It’s probably a little dangerous, since it appeared in a firey explosion and all. Maybe it was meant for me!”
Crickets: [chirp]
: “I should sell it to that jerkface Sloan. Then maybe it’ll make his house explode…I am a genius. Okay, good night moon.” [stuffs egg in pack and goes to sleep]
Kitty:

— — —

I put the bookmark at the end of “Discovery”, which is a bit short for a chapter…maybe I can continue to chapter 2.

Something knocks me onto the floor with lightning speed. I look up, and I can see a clawed metal arm disappear into an open ceiling panel, which closes with a short whrr.

I get up.

“Please refrain from reading ahead,” says the voice.

Without thinking, I nod at the ceiling where the arm disappeared.

“Thank you. Tomorrow you will return to read chapter 2.”

I look around for any cameras, but just like yesterday, there are none.

— — —

Day three. I think. I’ve been sleeping so much I have a hard time keeping track of the days myself, it’s only the chapter-reading that assures me my internal calendar is still functioning.

Speaking of the book, I’m a little afraid of asking the voice for the paper and pencil necessary to copy the map. What if it decides to not let me have it? I don’t need to copy the map, really, but it makes things easier for me if I can track where the story is going.

I twist the Rubik’s cube aimlessly.

“It is time to continue your test. Please proceed to the library.”

With the door sliding shut behind me and the voice saying its usual words, I open Eragon again.

— — —

Chapter 2: Palancar Valley

Sun: [rises with a glorious conflagration of pink and yellow]
CP: [takes several adjectives to describe things]
—
Later…
—
: “Hey Sloan, I need to buy from you!”
: “Get AIDS and die.”
: “Oh, you. Anyway, I don’t have money—”
: “Leave.”
: “No, I have something to pay for all the meat I have to buy! Here!” [plunks egg on counter]
: “Where’d you get this?”
: “I found it in the middle of an explosion in the Spine.”
: “Choke on a cock.”
:
: [enters shop] “Dad, stop being such a douche.”
: “Yeah, what she said.”
: “Horst to the rescue! Don’t worry, I’ll buy you, uh, your meat.”
: “Horst, you’re the coolest!”
—
Even later…
—
: “Hello nephew, where did you get all that meat? All that can’t come off a deer. Or something.”
: [retelling]
: “Oh okay.”
: “I found this rock! It’s really shiny and blue and pretty.”
: “Gee, that’s probably worth a ton. You should ask the traders when they get here how much you could sell it for.”
: “Yay!”
Kitty:

— — —

I carefully put the bookmark at the end of chapter 2 and turn to leave.

“Thank you. Tomorrow you will return to read chapter 3.”

The Rubik’s cube still sits on my pillow, unsolved.

Comment [18]

(So you don’t have to wonder anymore, yes, I based the story surrounding the mocking on Portal. And middle school…because Portal and middle school were both unnerving. I guess people seem to like this a little so I’ll continue.)

Day four. I dreamt of solving the cube puzzle last night, but I wasn’t in the white room. I was in some sort of blurry place with vibrant colors and sounds…could that have been where I come from? My memories are still unclear, as if my brain’s full of fog, but the colors and the sounds were so familiar to me. Hopefully I’ll be able to dream about that place again again.

There’s another long day ahead of me…I bend down to pick up the cube from my floor and give it another try, but I’m interrupted by the voice. “It is time to continue your test. Please proceed to the library.”

The thought of taking the cube with me into the library crosses my mind, but I’m never in there long enough to have idle time to solve it. Inside the library, I look up at the ceiling, but there is no evidence that there was ever a metal arm.

— — —

Chapter 3: Dragon Tales

: It’s a good day to harvest, isn’t it, cousin?
: Yes it is, cousin! Let’s finish it in one paragraph so it’ll be less boring.
—
Later…
—
: Oh snap, there’s snow and terrible weather, I hope the traders can make it!
: Otherwise we’ll probably starve this winter. Someone needs to hurry up and invent refrigerators.
: [runs out to check the road] … THEY’RE HERE
—
Even later…
—
: “Say, trader-man, can you tell us the value of this shiny rock?”
: “Tell us, for we need money.”
: “Oh, I don’t know. Let me try to smash it and see what’s inside. Just like a geode, only worth fifty million crowns!”
:
: [WHAM WHAM WHAM] “Looks like I can’t break it and I can’t calculate its value. Now go away, I’m busy counting money.”
—
Even more later…
—
: “Political exposition.”
: “Oh, politics.”
: “Yes indeed, but politics is politics.”
: “It’s very political.”
: “Quite.”
—
And even more later…
—
: “I am a mysterious storyteller.”
: “Tell us a story, Brom!”
: “Once upon a time, Galbatorix was not so crazy. He was a Dragon Rider! Then he went mad and killed everyone. Then he kicked a guy. And that’s how he became king of the empire.”
Kitty:

— — —

I’m about to put in the bookmark, but before I leave, I’ll test something.

I turn the page as if about to read ahead.

Sure enough, something knocks me off the chair with a quick hit to my ribs, and I look up in time to see the claws vanish into the ceiling.

So I’m not insane after all.

“Please refrain from reading ahead.”

“Okay.”

“Thank you. Tomorrow you will return to read chapter 4.”

I leave the library and make a beeline for the Rubik’s cube and the sanctity of my cot.

Comment [9]

Today is day five. Did anyone notice I went missing? Is anyone looking for me, or am I simply a nobody someone kidnapped and stuck in this room? I don’t remember if I lived alone or with others before I woke up here. I still remember how to do laundry, though. Maybe that’s a sign I lived alone before all this.

I only mentioned laundry because I’m currently washing my scrubs in the sink. They were starting to feel a bit grungy. Unfortunately there aren’t any spares, so I wrapped myself up in one of my sheets, just in case the voice had eyes.

Even if someone noticed I went missing, what are the chances they would find me here? As far as I can tell, this room is completely sealed off from the outside world. I haven’t completely discounted the fact that there could be other doors that I haven’t found…after all, the door to the library looks like just another bit of wall until it slides open.

But the chances of me finding the exit are slim. The room is rather large, and the doors have no distinction from the walls. Even if I was sure I found a door, I would have no way of opening it. The voice seems to slide them open at its will.

A “he”—I think the voice is a he. Or rather, the owner of the voice is an it, but the voice itself is a he.

“It is time to continue your test. Please proceed to the library.”

I dry off my hands and return to Eragon.

— — —

Chapter 4: Fate’s Gift

: Zzzzzzz…
Egg: [squeak]
: “Mrrrgh” [blink blink]
Egg: [squeak squeak]
: “Shut up you damn rock!”
—
Later…
—
Egg: [squeak squeak rattle]
:
Egg: [HATCH]
:
: [born]
:
:
Kitty:

— — —

After putting in the bookmark, I address the ceiling.

“This is a really short chapter. How about I keep going with the next one?”

“That is not necessary, tomorrow you will return to read chapter 5.”

I go back to washing my scrubs.

Comment [14]

Tomorrow, I’ll have been here an entire week. I know I’ve read something about solitary confinement having an adverse effect on people, but it isn’t really solitary if there’s a disembodied voice talking to you every now and then. Perhaps that’s the only thing staving off madness.

I wonder what would happen if I refused to continue reading the book. Sure, it isn’t an amazing read, but it’s bearable, and even okay in some parts…but I’m curious. Maybe the voice—er, the owner of the voice—would punish me with another hit. I examine my ribs; there’s a definite bruise there. Perhaps I should wait for it to heal.

Now I am fiddling with the Rubik’s cube, waiting to be called on.

“It is time to continue your test. Please proceed into the library.”

Well…now or never.

“I don’t really want to.”

“Please proceed into the library.”

Should I push it?

“No thank you,” I say to the ceiling.

“I will take measures against you if you do not comply.”

I shouldn’t go any further. I have a feeling the voice is more than capable of turning me into a blob of carbon.

“Okay.”

— — —

Chapter 5: Awakening

: “What’s this, anyway? It’s kinda cute…”
: “Squee!”
: “Awwwwwwwwwww!” “Lemme just pet you—”
Explosion: [WTF]
: “OW OW OW IT BURNS — what’s this on my palm? Did you claw me? Thanks a lot, dumb dragon.”
:
—
: “Kay, I built you a house in a tree. Live in it.”
:
: “Don’t look at me like that!”
:
: “What did I just tell you?”
—
One growing-up montage later…
—
: “You know what, you’re getting too big. I better tell my family before they start noticing the dragon tracks, giant dung piles, and all the missing sheep.”
: [munch munch]
: “Yeah. HEY, RORAN!”
: [mindspeak] Eragon Eragoooon!
: “What the strudel?”

— — —

One face of the Rubik’s cube is almost entirely blue, but the rest of the faces are just a jumble. Time to begin again.

— — —

When I woke up this morning, I had a terrible ache in my lower back. It still persists, even though I’m trying to distract myself from the pain by working on the Rubik’s cube. It’s nothing but an exercise in futility now—I get the feeling I’m not the type to do logic puzzles. That, and my back refuses to leave me alone, making it extremely difficult to focus on something other how much I want some ibuprofen. Standing up straight hurts now.

It’s been one week, but it feels like it’s been a month. I haven’t seen another human being in an entire week. Only the voice, the Rubik’s cube, and Eragon.

The voice calls me to the library again. I can’t even begin to explain how much I don’t want to read the stupid book right now…but it can’t be helped. I don’t need any more bruises.

— — —

Chapter 6: Tea for Two

: “Brom, Brom, Brom!”
: “What do you want? I’m trying to be nostalgic for my dragon-riding days.”
: “Can you tell me about Dragon Riders? I heard they’re really cool and stuff and my asking doesn’t have anything to do with the dragon I’m hiding in the forest right now.”
: “Ooooo-kay…well, a long time ago they were really powerful. Mostly because dragons are ageless and awesome. Like dwarves and elves. Speaking of elves, they’re called fair folk because they’re sexy, and they came from a distant land on silver ships.”
: “Hey, that sounds like—”
: “Shut the fuck up. Anyhow, elves used to be real assholes. Then the dragons and the elves fought. Then there was a treaty. Then there were Dragon Riders. Then Galbatorix went mad and killed everyone. Dragon-riding changes a man. Makes his ears pointy.”
: “Umm, okay. Sounds cool. So where do orcs come from?”
: “Urgals.”
: “Whatever.”
: “They followed the elves. They’re just that rude.”
: “Cool.”
: “Did you know your name is an elven name?”
: “AWESOME”
: “If you happen to find a dragon, you should name it Saphira.”
: “‘Kay weirdo, bye now!”
Kitty:

— — —

I think I’ll nap again. There’s no ibuprofen here.

Comment [13]

I woke up to the sound of breathing. All over the white room—I can’t avoid it. Even when I sit down here next to the shower stall, I can hear the breathing.

— — —

Chapter 7: A Name of Power

: “Hey, Eragon, me and Katrina—”
: “No one cares, Roran.” [runs off]
: “BUT I’M GETTING MARRIED!”
: “I SAID NO ONE CARES, RORAN!”

—

: “Hey dragon!”
: “Eragon!”
: “Why don’t you say something else?”
: “Fine.”
: “Dammit, I’m so angry right now! Roran’s such a douche! How dare he get married without my permission!”
: “…Mmkay.”
: “So, I guess I need to name you. That would probably be best.”
: “Um, yeah.”
: “How about Billy? No, Bob. Eh, that reminds me too much of Roran’s old roommate…uhhhh…how about Harry?”
: “Are you retarded?”
: “No, but…”
: “But what?”
: “Oh you’re probably a girl dragon, huh? Ahaha, okay.”
: “Can I get a new rider?”
: “Shut up, Saphira.”

— — —

Stop breathing on me. I’m trying to sleep. You’re not funny, voice—you’re just trying to make me believe I’m hearing things.

— — —

Chapter 8: A Miller-To-Be

: “Dad I wanna marry Katrina and go become a miller!”
: “No one cares, Roran.”

—

: [as real and complex as any person]
‘s personality: [eclectic and at times completely alien]
& : [understand each other on a profound level]
‘s actions and thoughts: [constantly reveal new aspects of her character]

—

: “Hey look, an eagle!”
: [catches it; releases it] “No hunter of the sky should end his days as prey. Better to die on the wing than pinned to the ground.”
: “Whatever, go get us some pheasants.”

Comment [12]

There’s a little crack in the wall that I didn’t notice before. Has it always been there? … No, I don’t think so. I would have seen such a mark in the otherwise pristine surface. It’s on the same wall the sink is on.

I pick up the cube and creep over to the wall. The crack looks sort of like the library door, but in the wrong place and opened only slightly.

Inside the crack I see a gray stairwell. I can only poke my hand through…with some squirming I’m able to get my arm through, but the space between the door and the wall is so tiny, I can’t squeeze all of me through to get to the stairs. That’s my way out…how can I get it to open farther?

“Ow!”

The door tries to close with a whirring groan. I tug my arm free and jam the Rubik’s cube in the gap—the door strains against it, but the cube holds fast.

— — —

Chapter 9: Strangers in Carvahall

Kitty: Oh, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.
: “Well Dad, it’s time for me to go make something of myself.”
: “Okay, okay, I’ll stop resisting. Also here are some words of wisdom that sound deep but should just be common sense.”
: “Thanks Dad!” “Okay Eragon let’s head out.”

—

: “Howdy, mister miller-man. Are you here to take Roran away?”
: “Yes, he’s going to help me out with—”
: “YOU BITCH”
: “…Let’s get outta here, apprentice.”
: “Whoo, milling will be fun!”

—

: “Hey, Eragon.”
: “‘Sup Horst.”
: [furtively] “Uhh, you still got that ock-ray? ‘Cause there were a couple uspicious-say ypes-tay down here recently looking for someone with a lue-bay ock-ray, and you should probably ide-hay it. You atch-cay my rift-day?”
: “Huh?”
: “…Just lie low for a few weeks.”
: “Gotcha, Horst. Eragon out.”

—

: [sneak sneak]
: “TELL US WHO HAD THE SHINY ROCK”
: “It was Eragon. He has herpes.”
: “NO I DON’T YOU JERK”
: [look in his direction]
: [suddenly dizzy] “Whorrrgh…”
: “Eragon! Hey! Go home, stupid!”
: “Huh…? Oh, right…gotta get home…”
: “Also you have a silver mark on your palm. What’s up with that?”
: “None of your beeswax, old man, piss off!”

— — —

When I return from the library, the cube is still looking at me plaintively from between the door and the wall. The door has long since given up the struggle, but I don’t want to risk removing the cube, just in case the door shuts and I’m trapped here forever…

Comment [13]

Pretentious Introduction

I’m not a biologist or an expert on anything that has ever existed in the universe ever (except for stuff I made up) by any means, but I study it often on my own because I have nothing better to do with my life. I’m going to brief you on the basics of an ecosystem, and what a fantasy animal will need to survive, if you’re going to go so far as to make up your own animals (and if you are you’re really cool). I tried to fact-check as best I could here but I’m very bad at explaining things clearly and probably misread something along the way. A large amount of this is recollections of what I learned in biology and zoology classes, backed up by my good friend Wikipedia.

So, I’ll start with niches.

Niches

In an ecosystem—like a coral reef, a desert, or mountains—each animal occupies a set niche. The niche is pretty much what an animal eats and where it lives, its set place in the ecosystem and where it belongs in the food chain. If you knock out an animal’s population, its niche will have to be filled by another animal.

Example: Deer

Deer eat grass and weeds, so naturally they will go to where they will find this type of food, or will be born in it because their parents came to where they found food. If there isn’t another ruminant animal in the area, the niche is unoccupied, and deer who move into the area will move into that niche. If another ruminant moves into the area and there isn’t enough food, there will be competition between the two species, and whoever manages to push out the other animal will be the new occupant of the niche. If a shepherd moves to the edge of the forest with his flock of sheep, the sheep are probably going to push the deer back into the deeper woods, because they now have strange, woolly competition from their strange, woolly cousins.

However, if a goatherd were to move to the edge of the forest with his flock of goats, the competition pressure on the deer would be a little less. Goats are browsers—they’ll eat grass, but they’ll eat the leaves of shrubs too. Actually goats eat a lot of things they shouldn’t eat but that’s another rant entirely.

What about things with similar diets that are not brought by humans/not ravenous invading ruminants?

Rabbits often live in forests, and they eat vegetation as well, but their populations are controlled by human hunters or carnivorous things (as with deer). The rabbits are so small though that their territory is quite small as well, and rabbits and deer can coexist without much trouble. The trouble with the sheep being in the same area is that there are usually a lot of sheep in a herd, and in a large concentration they can chow down a small area in no time at all. If the sheep were evenly distributed over a large area, there would be less of an issue with there being enough grass for deer and sheep to eat.

The point is that if their niche is being overtaken by another animal of similar size and similar niche, such as antelope or sheep, deer will seek food elsewhere. Do you like to fight other shoppers at the grocery to get the last box of Captain Crunch? And then do you like to get kicked in the face afterwards so you drop it and you don’t get the Captain Crunch anyway? Deer don’t like that either.

Speaking of food, let’s talk about what animals have to get their food, and another things they have to survive with.

Adaptations

All creatures need something such as speed, stealth, size, armor, a weapon, or a combination of those, to survive. They have these as adaptations to their environments. Cheetahs are a paragon of speed on land, making hunting easier. Cuttlefish change color to blend in with their environments. Elephants survive because they’re just too huge for most predators to take down. Rhinos have thick skin like armor. Sharks have jagged teeth for munching on their food and biting whatever tries to bite it.

Example: Deer are actually quite dangerous when sufficiently enraged

Deer (at least all the ones I ever knew) didn’t want to be eaten, so they go where they will find cover. A forest with a mix of coniferous (pine) trees and deciduous (pretty much every tree that is not a pine) trees, with a few clearings for grass to grow, is a good place for a deer to live. A deer also has long legs and can run quite fast, allowing it to dart around trees and be hard to hit with an arrow. It has flat teeth, allowing it to chew its grass into a pulp. Its ears are very sensitive to the slightest sound, making hunting one a little difficult if you happen to step on a twig or rustle a shrub or shoot yourself in the foot. It also has antlers, which means a painful headbutt if you make a buck angry.

Since I’m getting bored with the deer example I’ll use some other cool animal: everyone’s favorite fast cat, the cheetah!

Example: Cheetahs can run faster than you and your grandma

Cheetah adaptations include a lithe body, incredible swiftness, and lots of jaw strength. A cheetah isn’t too big, but it definitely has speed and a weapon, located in its mouth. That’s all they need. If you’ve ever watched a video of a cheetah hunt, sometimes they first wait for a gazelle to come into view (stealth in action, like what a lion does). A gazelle can run fast as well, so a cheetah must work hard to make the kill. Its thin body is more aerodynamic and speedy than that of a more heavily-built tiger or leopard. Once the cheetah pounces it administers a bite to the gazelle’s neck and holds it there until it dies. Then the cheetah can eat it. Victory for the cheetah!

If a cheetah were in the forest, it would probably hunt deer as well, but its speed does not offer too much control, and the cheetah would probably hit a tree. That’s why it lives in the savanna. Not because it knows consciously that it would hit a tree in a forest so it stays out of the forest, but it hangs around the plains because of the wide open space, and there is prey there. It won’t crash into a tree if there aren’t any trees where the gazelles are, and the grass provides cover while it’s sneaking around. Here is a video by National Geographic that shows a couple of brothers’ attempts at getting a gemsbok calf for dinner. This one explains its various adaptations for speed.

Example: Jellyfish float like butterflies and sting like bees

And an underwater example, so I’ll stop using so many mammals. Jellyfish are not fish—they’re cnidarians, and they look pretty harmless. They resemble plastic bags with tentacles. But the tentacles have things called nematocysts, which are stinging cells. Most jellyfish aren’t very big, so it doesn’t have a size advantage. (A rare example is a Lion’s mane jellyfish.) It doesn’t have speed; it swims by squeezing its body to move forward. A person can out-swim one pretty easily. Its body is squishy and feels like gelatin. It doesn’t even have a brain or blood. But those nematocysts are very painful, and the nematocysts of some species are deadly. Even these are not completely infallible—there’s a kind of fish that swims in the tentacles of man-o-wars, a dangerous colony made of jellyfish relatives called medusas, without any trouble at all. Loggerhead turtles can make an easy meal of the man-o-war. Most jellyfish don’t have to worry about much though, since in general animals are smart enough not to go near one. Here is a video explaining some more about jellyfish, and some shots of a cute kind of tiny jellyfish.

Example: Cuttlefish, which you might not see unless you get very close

One of my favorite animals is a cuttlefish, which like a jellyfish is not actually a fish (it’s a mollusk). They eat things like small crabs and small fish. Most kinds of cuttlefish are pretty small except for a larger variety that lives in the Great Barrier Reef. They’re related to the squids and look a lot like them. Their size isn’t an advantage because dolphins aren’t afraid of munching on them, and it probably couldn’t outswim a dolphin anyway. It’s squishy and if it smacked you with a tentacle it wouldn’t hurt. They do have a pretty cool way of surviving though. Cuttlefish can change their colors in less than a second by using special cells in their bodies called chromatophores. They can blend in easily with their surroundings by turning the same color as the sand or coral nearby. It can also make intimidating displays of weird rippling colors, letting you know you’re bothering it. You can see a freaked-out cuttlefish in action here and a segment from NOVA about cuttlefish.

Example: Humans, cooler than you might know

We’re actually pretty extraordinary animals. For what seems like no reason whatsoever, some ancestor of ours decided to stand up and use his hands for something other than walking on. Walking upright was a large evolutionary step, if you believe Darwin was correct. Our brains got larger this way (compare the brain size of a four-legged animal to a human brain’s) and our hands got around to painting the walls of caves and making tools. Nowadays humans are using them to type things and slice fruit and punch people. We basically survived by being really smart.

Now, let’s look at the food chain, or at least the parts that involve the deer, in this foresty environment.

The Food Chain

If you didn’t pay attention in school, I’ll give you a quick rundown of how the food chain operates, using a simple example in the forest environment. If you remove a step or two, the intricate balance is lost.

It all starts with the sun

This is where the grass gets its energy. The grass is a producer, meaning it doesn’t eat stuff to get its energy, it uses sunlight and water to make its food. Of course there is a lot of grass because there is a lot of stuff for it to make food with. The more food there is, the bigger a population gets. Humans are an extreme example of this, except that humans have also slapped once-common diseases into submission as well as harnessing agriculture, something other animals can’t do. If you’ve ever wondered why humans are so numerous, now you know.

The grass is then devoured mercilessly

The deer is a consumer, which is the opposite of a producer in that it has to eat stuff to get energy. A deer is also an herbivore—it only eats plants. Deer belong to the suborder Ruminantia, which also includes sheep, antelope, goats, and cows. They are cud-chewers, which basically means they eat grass, throw it up in their mouths, and eat it again so they can extract every possible nutrient from it. It’s gross, but ruminants don’t think so. So the deer is usually found munching grass and wandering around in its foresty home. It have to eat a lot of food because grass doesn’t have a lot of energy compared to the deer.

The deer is then devoured mercilessly

The deer is then hit in the brain with an arrow by a human in a fantasy-type world, where its skin is tanned and turned into leather and its meat salted and stored for the winter. Also its antlers might be used for things like tools or hanging above your fireplace. Humans don’t have to eat a lot of the deer to get enough energy, because the deer already has a load of energy stored from eating a ton of grass. And if something were to eat a human, like a horrible ravenous manticore, it probably wouldn’t have to eat too many to be full. We humans are quite energetic if you’ll pardon the terrible pun.

So that’s how a food chain works. Armed with this information, you can pave new trails in fantasy creature creation and possibly kill someone with it. Good for you.

Playing God

When making a fantasy creature, think of its habitat and its niche. What kinds of animals live in this habitat? What niche will this fantasy creature belong to? What does it eat? Will it kick out the native population of creatures of that same niche? Because, after all, you can’t have a lot of one kind of ruminant and a lot of another kind of ruminant in a small area. If the habitat is too small, then one of them is going to have to go.

Example: Dragons

Let’s go to a mountainous environment, and pretend that’s where dragons live. A dragon is a carnivore, so it would probably push back any other carnivores, such as mountain lions, into other parts of the mountains, because what chance has a mountain lion got against a dragon? Also, a dragon also usually has to have a lot of territory, because it’s so huge.

Example: Salamanders

Salamanders, the fictional kind, live in fire. Yes, fire. If a fantasy creature lives in a normally inhospitable environment, like fire, you don’t have to worry about niche. The salamander has an unconquerable niche in a fantasy setting unless you happen to create another type of fire-dwelling creature. (Real salamanders would die if you put them in a fire, so please don’t do that.)

Example: Sea Monsters

Some sea monsters depicted on old maps are beasties that look like serpents, only really huge. If there were any carnivorous whales or sharks near the sea monster’s habitat, they’d probably have to seek meals elsewhere because the sea monster would be eating all the fish. It might even eat the whales and sharks themselves if it wanted to. As a twist you could make it a filter-feeder, but this would remove baleen whales from the sea monster’s habitat.

The Process

Now I’m going to walk you through two different creatures I made up. One is a swordolphin, and the other is an annoying flour bug.

Swordolphin

I had to make up some kind of animal to live in the ocean of an Earthlike world. What kind of animals live in the ocean? According to the primordial soup theory, life itself began in the ocean, so there must be a lot of creatures there. The ocean covers nearly three-quarters of the world. The diversity of life in the sea is quite wide: sponges, whales, hydras, seal lions, fish, worms, sea slugs, starfish, coral…

I decided to base the creature on a dolphin, but it would be like 30 feet long instead. I gave it small but sharp teeth and a long “nose” like a marlin’s, and I had it practice the same hunting technique as a marlin—hit a fish with its nose, and while it’s stunned, go scoop the fish up in its mouth. I also gave it two dorsal fins like Giglioli’s whale, a characteristic that does not occur on any known animal. The swordolphin occupies the niche of “eater-of-big-fish”. I made it a solitary animal, only gathering together to mate, with the mother eaters-of-big-fish taking care of their baby monsters until they are big enough to survive on their own. I figured these creatures would have a lifespan of maybe twenty years, and they mate a few times over the course of their lives. It’s essentially a giant mammalian swordfish. The animals that would probably not be around are other kinds of dolphins, carnivorous smallish whales, and maybe marlins.

Annoying flour bug

I wanted to bother the people that lived in the farming village at the feet of some large mountains, but I didn’t want to set a plague on them. So I went with making a type of beetle that eats grain and is often found in their flour mills. I don’t know a lot about beetles, because frankly there are just too many of them. But they have quite a few things in common. They all have a tough exoskeleton that doesn’t protect them from the bottoms of your shoes coming down hard upon their backs, but it prevents ants and things from nibbling on their soft innards. They have antennae that they use to feel around, and all have six legs. A lot of them can fly.

(Do you have the heebie-jeebies right now? I do. I hate bugs.)

So my made-up beetle, I said, would be smallish and a bit easy to completely miss if you aren’t looking for it. It would maybe be the color of the grain it’s so fond of. So I made it vaguely the size of a grain of wheat, and darker than a grain of wheat. Just enough to blend in. I also made its antennae a bit small so it could blend in even more with its food. And for good measure I gave it wings, and they reproduce by having their eggs fertilized and buried in some loose earth near food until the little baby beetles hatch and crawl out of the dirt. Now the people of the village have a pest to look out for, and I’m going to have the farmers hire people in the village to pick out the beetles and squish them for a quick buck. Unfortunately some get overlooked and probably turned into flour.

Recap, or alternately, the tl;dr version

So there’s a basic creature creation from start to finish. That swordolphin is kind of simple, but you can get about as complicated as you want, so as long as…

• It occupies a certain niche (browsing herbivore? small carnivore? large omnivore?)
• It has tools to survive (speed, armor, size, stealth, weapon, a combination of those)
• It has a way to get food (lives on the plains, has flat teeth, and eats grass? lives in the desert, has sharp teeth, and eats lizards? filter-feeder in the ocean?)
• It has a way to find a mate and reproduce (a song to attract a mate? a colorful display of feathers or scales?)
• It has some kind of shelter or cover (open ocean where there’s few creatures around? a cave in the mountains? a coral reef? behind trees in the woods?)
• It has enough space corresponding with an individual animal’s size, or the size of the animal’s family group (a small group of large animals with a lot of space? a large group of rodent-like creatures with a small space?)

Except you don’t have to take any of this seriously and I wasted about twenty minutes of your life now. I should be ashamed of myself. You also don’t have to think this out as much as I’ve obviously done, because not everyone has to be a geek nerd dork biologist wannabe and completely overexplain every little thing like I just did.

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