khronos does mentoring and khronos does it right.

[Khronos]

first, stop reading YA fiction.

second, your characters are probably repetitive because it's a type of character you enjoy and are comfortable roleplaying. aka, everything else feels foreign and you come up blank.

now, the real solution. look at what you roleplay and do the opposite. instead of looking at things from YOUR point of view, look at them from the character's. it may also help to play a different age group or gender. most importantly, stick to your guns. if your character's shy as fuck, they better stay that way till something occurs that can help them reach past that.

finally, so what if your characters are repetitive? you're not writing a fucking book nor are you some damn english doctorate. what's most important is that you ENJOY writing for the character. because, let's face it, you can play someone completely different, hate it, and get fucking nowhere. test the waters and see what you get out of it.

and, if all else fails, stick to what you know.

[Gabriel Zero]

How does one create diverse characters? Stray away from a trope they've become accustomed to?

Someone described ALL of my characters in two sentences. .

Not trying to get all super serious up in here.

One thing that popped into my head when I read your post was simply this.:

"Our characters are very much a part of our self, since one could argue we give birth to our own creations."

What I'm trying to argue is that even though we take inspiration from media and other works, I have always thought it possible our main leads reflected what we aspire to be. Taking this into consideration might help you tweak your character sheets.

If everything I said sounds like complete nonsense, at least pat yourself on the back that you are aware of your own flaw. That much I can admire you for.

Sorry about hijacking this post, I will mind my own business now.

[Aesa]

first, stop reading YA fiction.

I do not. It's so good though.

Thanks for the advice, it was awesome. Will do everything mentioned!

GZ, I get what you mean, and you're right. Thank you!
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So, Khronos, tell me about these "really fancy literary devices" you mentioned and how to incorporate and use them to improve my writing.

[Ace of Hearts™]

YA fiction isn't necessarily bad.

[Khronos]

i'll remember that when i say it's bad.

as for the fancy literary shit,

imagery kicks ass. metaphors are nice. and don't overkill the simile.

the quickest source for great literary devices are speeches. martin luther king jr. used a lot of them. he was a brilliant user of alliteration and metaphors.

example:

mediocre: The sky was clear and blue, dotted with the occasional bird. It was calm and peaceful. The city was full of skyscrapers, spread out randomly about the city.

awesome: The atmosphere was clear. A painting of perfect blues dotted with the passing birds. Calm and serene, a picturesque moment of peace. Towering skyscrapers populated the city in scattered bunches, littered around without much sense like discarded trash.

both say the same shit, but the use of imagery, metaphors, and similes make the latter obviously superior.

[Flex]

Yeah, but if you're going to start using metaphors, shouldn't you make sure that they WORK? They aren't nice if they don't work. Your likening of skyscrapers in a city to "discarded trash" is kind of, you know... odd... and illogical. It reminds me of The Memory Keeper's Daughter (good book for the first 100 pages and then quickly becomes boring), where the main protagonist envisions his child's small hands as tiny starfishes. That's actually one of my major concerns with Young Adult literature -- the massacre of the metaphor. Just makes me want to scream and hurl whatever crappy tweeny-bopper novel I'm forcing myself through toward the other end of the room.

[Khronos]

no, i was hoping they'd just be there for filling space. you know, pretty frilly things.

odd and illogical? it's bitter and contrasts with the pleasant vocabulary used to describe the sky WHICH the skyscrapers BLOCK.

but i digress, i'd rather not argue over that. if you really insist, let's take this to pm.

anyway, i could write pages about how to make a metaphor work, but that just seems like wasted effort on my part. because, honestly, everyone's at different levels and the usage of a metaphor varies per person. your comparison to one thing could be different from someone else's.

it's also based on opinion most of the time. there's a reason we have so many people disagree over what shit means in writing.

[Flex]

no, i was hoping they'd just be there for filling space. you know, pretty frilly things.

Yeah, I’m sure Stephenie Meyer feels the same way. You don’t even mention that the skyscrapers “BLOCK” the skyline -- just that they’ve been constructed with little thought to the geometric limits of the city, like “discarded rubbish”. There’s no bittersweet feel to the passage, at all, and it’s totally off. I’ve been in Mumbai and Delhi and some of the most hectic, largely populated cities in the world for the past few weeks and even there buildings are constructed with a certain precision and sense… and, yes, I know I’m being pedantic but writing things just because they sound pretty is a No-No when it comes to Good Writing. Even in Fight Club every sentence has a particular purpose and the metaphors are well handled (apparently he wrote most of it under the cars he was working on during his day job as a mechanic, which says a lot for its simplicity and the fact that I don’t like it). Thaaaat being said, we’re talking about roleplaying here, so anybody who’s reading this, go ahead with the purple prose. If you’re writing a book, however… you know… but I’m sure your eventual editor will (hopefully) sort that out for you.

And yes, I agree, we shouldn’t dwell over this, so this will be my last post in this thread.

[Khronos]

^ a prime example of "everyone disagrees on what shit means".

but yeah, if anyone has a problem with any of your literary devices, i'm sure you can discuss it and work things out, or at least explain the meaning of what you wrote.

and i hope for no hostility, this was a terrible example. ):

[spiritisshining]

Hi Khronos, I was wondering if you could help me with conceptualize a story I'm trying to make.