Character Development Lessons: 04 Humans · 10:13am Nov 28th, 2013
Character Development
04 Humans
Hello students! Sorry this is late, I got in a bit of trouble yesterday, involving school ironically, so I didn't really have the motive.
Today we are tackling the biggest subject so far that actually has some relevance to FiM Fiction. HiE, Humans in Equestria, the term for one of the biggest and popular crossovers between MLP and the real world. Mostly.
Over the course of FiM Fictions history, there has been many a story about a certain human making (usually) his way into Equestria and rounding up a whole lot of trouble with the main six. Of course, with everyone thinking this was a great idea, all did the same thing, thus making it very overused.
I'll start off with two of the early stories that helped set the foundation for most HiEs you see today, and their human characters. First we have 'My Second Life' by Coal Buck, a story no longer available on the site as the author has left but can be found here; and the other 'Through The Eyes of Another Pony' by CardsLafter.
It is my belief that these were the stories that brought about the hundreds of others and laid down the first cliches for HiEs.
In 'My Second Life' we have our human, Coal Buck, arrive in Equestria by way of Everfree forest thanks to a misspell from Twilight. When given the opportunity to return, he refuses, claiming that he finds Earth terrible and would rather remain there. Being one of the early fics, it quickly grew popular and everyone thought that they too would try the same to gain equal attention. The rest is history, and seemed to stay this way unless by crossover with something else.
Eventually, on one drunken night, CardsLafter followed through with a dare to write his own story. His one, 'Through The Eyes of Another Pony', starred himself crash landing in Equestria by way of meteor. Except, he was a pony. From there, he quickly made his way to Twilights and amazed her and the main six with his phone. The story leads on from there.
From these stories, you can recognize many story traits that appear in fics today, and in the vast past.
The human characters themselves were each unique for their time and pretty well done. Coal was down to earth, responsible and social with an avid hatred for most things human. Cards, his character later coming to be known as Fire Wall, was crazy and energetic with a taste for the bizarre and the only good use of internet memes in a story in history. Both would get serious when the time called, and pulled together with their friends to kick flank and save the day.
From these characters, you can see many character traits that appear in many HiEs. These lead, in my opinion anyway, into a hard to break habit of basing stories off the ideas that these two fics followed. I'm not saying all stories are like this, 'You Do (Not) Belong' is a brilliant example of what can be done, but many have fallen under the 'copy-cat' trait.
That is mostly stories plot and such, and some can be different, but even in those there is one thing that is present through even the good fics. Male, 16 - 22 collage/high school students being the main characters. Why is this? This is mostly because most writers here started off with no experience, so in order to get into the hang of things they had to go with what they knew, themselves. The storm of self-inserts and 'almost' self-inserts (Those that claim to not be self-inserts but only have a few tiny traits difference) ravaged the site for quite some time. If even still happens in most HiEs now. Most are the same, apparently having no real social life, or friends that are never mentioned apart from "I miss my friends" to add a tiny bit of depth, and have either a few basic items or nothing. And they appear either near the Everfree forest, in the Everfree forest, or just Ponyville, in general.
Yes, I'm ignoring some traits that are quite unique amongst some of these stories and not all HiEs have this, but I'm simply speaking from the majority and pointing out what they share.
Effort is wasted on stories that will never be read since they already have been made. People create a decent plot and character development that is somewhere past the first three chapters that no one reads, because they already have. Interesting villains and deep OCs are introduced to help the human rather than just rely on the main six, but no one will know them. Simply because the character they help, the character that must face all these incredible feats, the character that goes through hell to save the day, is the same damn guy who appeared in the same damn way as the other few hundred chaps who came before him.
This can be best solved - in my opinion - in two ways. Firstly, change where he bloody appears to somewhere interesting, or make the character outside of your own insight in life. Or just make them female.
For the first one, location, I'll say a quick note on since this is a Character blog. There is more room outside the Ponyville boundary. It doesn't stretch to form a small tube to Canterlot then end there. If you look up Equestria map, you can see there is MUCH more room where you can explore! The Griffon land, frozen north, Shady Hallows, some random tropical islands, on top of a mountain, anywhere that isn't Ponyville and the small surrounding area.
For the second one, characters, you can make a character based off where they start. If they start on top of a mountain, they could be a hiker. If they appear on some tropical island, they could be some rich ass tourist. If they appear in Shady Hallows, they could be a Ghost Buster. There are millions of jobs and professions that you could make a interesting character off of alone. Imagine if you combine that with a certain trait, like a greedy hiker, or a very forgiving billionaire who panics after losing all his money. ANYthing that is off from the norm is bound to be noticed, and if done write - and zero punctuation issues - could gain a feature in the special box nearly instantly!
It's all a matter of getting off the island of past successes and finding your own land. Create your own sensation. Then have a whole bunch of people do the same thing afterwards and this message be repeated for the millionth time.
Remember, this is my opinion. Please tell me your own opinions or ideas by commenting, and see you next time.
Class is Dismissed!
The starting of my HiE was pretty cliche, but all the subversions and original parts only come AFTER I've done all the initial introductions and everything, including his entry into Equestria. Seriously I wanted to just jump right into the action where he has already spent some time inside and his position in Equestria has already been solidified, but anybody who hasn't seen his history and character development would immediately scream "GARY STU", hence, I had to start from the very beginning. Which were VERY cliched beginnings.
I'm still only halfway through the start and I still wish I had more readers
Yeah...yeah you're right. I've let my creativity become too narrow, I'll broaden my reach and ideas...
And I already have one now...
I admit, my second HiE fic hit most of those cliches(though I still think my first one was at least somewhat original). It was a blatant self-insert, with myself swooping in to save the day from a villain that had already been used in the show itself and all that stuff. However, I recently got an idea for a more original one that I hope will be more popular, and I will be posting as soon as I actually write it. There are a lot of things that you mentioned that I'm hoping to forgo in favor of better, newer ideas, and this actually helped me think of some, so I thank you sir
If I may add my two cents? <ahem>
I first want to say that I agree with most of this, so if I don't directly comment on something, to save time assume I agree.
Now, down to business,
I understand what you are trying to say here, but I think you said it a bit too generally. Not to boast, but I am not lacking for experience. In real-world literature, I've been published multiple times. The reason I wrote my main character as a college age guy is because, frankly, sometimes it is better to write what you know than to go off of something you don't. Understand that I'm not saying a writer should grow complacent with an idea and never branch out, but if it is a choice between doing something you know that is cliche well or doing something inventive that is foreign badly, you should probably stick to what you can write realistically. Moving on.
F***ing yes! Finally someone bloody said it!
<ahem> Sorry.
Couldn't agree more. I was showing my HiE to a friend and he stopped because of this exactly. After I explained the direction the story was headed, he simply asked me, "If you planned all that, then why do your readers have to get through all this exposition bulls**t."
I think that's the big problem. The first three chapters in any HiE I've personally seen that was worth it's salt is always exposition. Granted it seems to have taken even longer in my fic...
... but still, I feel like it is best to judge a HiE by reading about three chapters in, especially given the beginning is always rather formulaic. Moving on.
Those are the only two major things I wanted to comment on. Overall, good lecture. Maybe you can review my fic once it's done. Til then, you deserve a reward. Have some mustaches.
Well, now I remeber why I tossed all those old horrible fic ideas I had, only one of which saw the light of day for not even a week. I felt if I had any cliche story, it was probably my first one. But I've dug too deep to remove it at this point. Oh well, I'll finish it and use this frankly amazing and 'I-should've-thought-of-that' tips of yours. Thank you.
would it be original if my character woke up in the crystal empire or applelosa?
1552315
Probably.
1552016
For your first point, that is exactly the point. It's just that everyone did that. And remember, I spoke about it being about the majority, which is not as big as some would believe.
As annoying as these clichés are, they did give me an idea once to write a comedy fic about Twilight and Celestia building a portal to Earth, only to discover hundreds upon hundreds of these young Gary Stu student types coming through to Equestria. The two eventually decide to destroy the portal.
Ahh...if only I had the time to write it...
1554866
I would read the hell out of that.
1554907
Please don't tempt me. I'd be heartbroken after writing say a 20,000 word fic like that, only to see you and maybe 3 other dudes read it.
1554932
Wow. Didn't expect that response. What's so bad about me reading it anyway?
1554940
Yeah I worded that really badly. Just edited it.
I meant to say I'd be heartbroken if 'just' you ended up reading it.
My current fic for example is only at 58 views.
1554947
Ah. Yes, the biggest problem. I know that feel all too well, like the one story I just posted...
Oh well, keep trying!
Meanwhile, I'm going to trash yet another bad idea then go cry about it.