Creating Gods
The problem sometimes with the stories on Wattpad is that the writers love their characters far too much. I mean, I understand that the protagonists should be lovable and awesome and shit, but seriously? Making them practically perfect in every way possible? No, people, just no. This ain’t Mary Poppins, and she was practically perfect, meaning she had her flaws and stuff.
But there is thing such as going overboard. Make her brave, but not foolishly so. Go ahead, make her intelligent. Or privileged, or beautiful, or wise, or something else. But don’t do it all at once!
I’ve read two stories on Wattpad where the heroines are so crazy perfect that I wanted to take a literary pillow and smother them in their sleep. But no they would be so perfect that my attempt would be thwarted. In the normal version, she would probably kill me with her perfect jujitsu shit, and in the fantasy version she would just incinerate me.
In the first story, she not only is a princess, she’s a super genius, beautiful, knows five different kinds of martial arts, and is confident to top it off. The second story is basically a fantasy version of the first. The girl is super strong, super smart. Think of any power, and she probably has it. She can incinerate stuff, resurrect people, read their thoughts, kill them, bend time, and disguise herself with magic. The girl does her makeup with magic. I repeat, the girl does her makeup with magic.
Now, I agree that makeup’s expensive, but that’s no reason to give your character every ability on the planet. In the near future, I expect there will be characters that can exfoliate their skin with magic, or speak 240 languages.
The beauty in characters is their flaws. There are kick-ass intelligent and strong characters that we all love, but what makes them more loveable is their flaws. It reduces them from alien gods to human beings, much easier to empathize with. I understand there are some people who like reading about these superhuman beings, but I don’t think they are the majority. They shouldn’t be the majority.
My reason for liking a character is reading about their struggle. They’re not great if they get to where they want without so much as chipping a nail. They have to sweat for it, and sacrifice for their happy ending. Or sad ending, whatever is the author’s cup of tea. Unless the book is comedic. Then I understand that the whole character development thing can be unceremoniously thrown out the window and the author can have some fun.
Basically these celestial characters I’m talking about are just Superman without Kryptonite. I want to like them, I really do, but it’s really hard to. I mean, you can fly, blow stuff up, read people’s thoughts¸ etc etc. Personally, I would either take over the world or else eradicate all evil, just as most of our valiant heroines do. But I wouldn’t let three or four handsome boys get involved and in my head in the process.
That leads me to my next little quibble (don’t you love that word?), these guys are head over heels for her. But she’s all like, “No, you don’t love me. You just think you love me!” Then there’s a totally awkward chemistry moment. The guy tries to convince her that she is in love with him, and then she’s like, “No! Don’t tell me what I feel!”
Hypocrite much?
Oh don’t tell me you’ve never seen this. It’s like everywhere on Wattpad. The most idiotic thing is that she’s been given everything most people wish for, yet she’s totally “Ehhh, whatever” about it. No, if I had endless money and superpowers, most people around me would think I had a life-long drip of laughing gas plugged into me or something. I’d be so happy people would think I was dopey, as in I was taking dope.
And that’s it. I’ll probably return to this rant later, but this is all I have to say regarding the topic as of now.
