So last we met I discussed originality being an illusion, but I feel I do need to cover something – the use of tropes, stereotypes, and “seen-it-all-before” elements in our worldbuilding. For the sake of not having to abuse a thesaurus, I’m just going to call these “Tropes.” Plus it’s shorter to type.

I’ve talked about tropes as something that can kill a world because they’re unreal – yet at times tropes aren’t a problem. Let’s explore. (more…)

(Way With Worlds runs  at MuseHack, Seventh Sanctum, and Ongoing Worlds)

Every worldbuilder, author, artist has had that moment. That moment where originality seems to be a fleeting illusion.

Perhaps they feel that they can’t seem to do anything original. Every idea they have seems done (and perhaps done better). The fear of being accused of derivation. The sense everything they do seems to be alike.

Perhaps they feel there just isn’t anything left. Everything has been done, there’s nothing left to do.

So let’s address that issue that many a worldbuilder faces – how do we deal with the need to be original? Fortunately there’s an easy answer.

Screw originality, who needs to worry about it?

Pointless Quest, Pointless Question

The need for originality that seems to trouble many a creative person, reminds me a lot of writer’s block. Writer’s block, in my mind, really is something that only has power over us as we name it – and having named it we’ve given it power and made our fear of it a trap. Originality is a case of where we have this vague idea of something and, feeling we must find it, fear its lack.

It’s all fear with little substance.

Let’s ask what originality is, anyway.

Something never seen before? Impossible because there will have to be some similarity in your ideas or your world to something or no one will ever have an idea of what’s going on.

Something new? New may be a matter of perspective. I’m sure with enough work anyone can find a similarity between two ideas. I once jokingly said the anime “Attack On Titan” and the surrealist Cartoon “Adventure Time” are the same – a shapeshifter and a combat expert in a post-apocalyptic future helped out by a slightly off-kilter scientist. So what really is “new” or “different”?

In fact, sometimes the unoriginality is original in another way. I’m reminded of an episode of the show Remember WENN called “Between a Rock and a Soft Place,” where the crew of a small radio station did a show called “Same Dane, Private Eye.” However this hardboiled thriller was really a retelling of Hamlet, with the prince as a two-fisted detective. Original or not? Original in combination of unoriginal ideas? Your guess is as good as mine.

Something where there’s nothing else like it on the market? Depends on your idea of the market – and many a market don’t seem to care about originality.

So I’ going to suggest “originality” is not a solid thing, it’s a somewhat relative, situational term. Useful, indeed, but something that’s better as a whole because it’s parts don’t exactly some up. A map not a destination.

The thing is when we treat originality as a solid thing, then we seek something that isn’t solid. When we don’t find it (and worse, when we’re in a funk, it can be harder), we become depressed or angry. But we’re angry something we can never truly be said to have, because the term isn’t solid.

So stop worrying and get back to worldbuilding.

The real question of your setting is “Does It Work.”

Integration Over Consternation

So really the question a good worldbuilder should be asking is how do their ideas hold together. Does the setting make sense, is the history believable, does the magic work, is the technology properly explained. Does the world functioning a way that people “get it” – and thus they can buy into it.

See, good worldbuilding means creating a setting that makes sense and functions, that people can grasp intuitively. It doesn’t have to be “original.” In fact it may be rather unoriginal. You could even be exploring common ideas so originality isn’t on the agenda.

But if it works and comes to life, people can connect with it.

Part of the fear of unoriginality (but only part) is that one is resorting to tropes and common ideas. Dead concepts, long ago mummified and propped up in many a story, wayposts saying “here’s your big ‘ol standard plot.” We’re afraid, in short of a world that’s just “here we go again.”

But when your world comes to life, when the ideas tie together, then it’s not a world of tropes – it’s a good, solid setting. You may see things that have been seen before, but it’s alive, and engaging, and interesting. It’s also yours, your unique vision, spinning away like an orrery.

Tropes are uninteresting and laughable when dead. But when alive . .. then they’re just common ideas working.

Imagine a bog-standard fantasy tale with your usual ripoff D&D party – the fighter, the wizard, the thief, and the cleric. Sounds boring and stupid. But imagine in brought to life, with magic versus religion, a warrior’s code ruling a person’s life, a shadowy criminals past haunting them . . . and then you have a story that could be interesting. Because it’s alive, even if the individual parts seem like tropes and stereotypes.

Well, seem like tropes and stereotypes until you realize how lively they are. Maybe tropes are what happen when you rip archetypes and common concepts out of their settings and just have their ghosts haunting your works.

Stop Worrying

So stop worrying and go build your damn world. Make it work, live and breathe. Make it function. Make sure it makes sense.

You’ll make a better setting, have more fun, worry less, and get more done. Let Originality be something that’s a laudable goal, perhaps even a good measuring stick, but one you measure by the liveliness of you setting, and one that you on’t let dominate you.

Besides, maybe when you focus on making that world well, originality will take care of itself, because we all know when our minds really get going that’s when the real surprises start . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

(Way With Worlds runs  at MuseHack, Seventh Sanctum, and Ongoing Worlds)

My friend Serdar, in writing Flight of the Vajra (which I edited, I admit, but I enjoyed the hell out of it) is fond of noting the plot happened when he realized his setting didn’t hold together. The novel is basically about things not working, or as I like to put it ,having more questions than answers is bad, but more answers than questions is worse.

What Serdar says sounds both wise and flies in the face of a lot of the attitudes heavy Worldbuilders may take. We want things to make sense. We want it to hold together. We want it to work.

But sometimes the tale is what happens when it doesn’t work. Maybe it’s a disaster. Maybe it’s a transition. Things are always in transition anyway.

So before you look at your latest world, at your latest change, and decry how you can’t see how the kingdom survives, or the galaxy prospers, or whatever remember that you may have just found the story you were looking for. The world breaking is the story.

The problem however is that you don’t know if you’ve done bad worldbuilding or that you’ve created a good but unsustainable setting. Maybe the setting falling apart is because your exquisite sense of detail has led to an inevitable conclusion – or maybe you just did a crappy job.

So it’s time for some questions.

Question 1: Why Does It Break?

First of all you have to ask just why your setting seems destined to fall apart. I mean if things are going to break down you have to know why?

• If it is because things just don’t seem to make sense, then the fault is probably yours.
• If the falling apart occurs because of elements in the setting, it may just be an unexpected feature. If you see a race war between elves and dragons as inevitable despite a fragile peace that was hard-won you don’t have a problem – you have a game, a story, or a RPG session

Question 2: How Did We Get Here?

You look at your setting and realize it’s going to go down in flames. Is this a story to tell or is this a mistake on your part? Part of the question is asking why this is all happening.

• * Are there reasons for the setting to get to the point f degrading that make sense in the context of the world? Can you explain why the Star Empire would survive the first hundred years but not the next two? In short, can you see your setting existing, but eventually falling apart.
• * If you can’t explain how your setting would get to the point where it would then fall apart you have a problem. Essentially the setting has shoddy infrastructure anyway and falling over is your mistake, not a feature. It should never have been big enough to fall apart.

Keep Asking

Those two questions can essentially tell you if you have a story – if the breakdown makes sense and the setting is reasonable up to the point of the breakdown. With both those traits you have at tale – without, you have mistakes in your setting.

However, maybe that’s not what you want to great in a story or game or comic . . .

But I’m Not Interested In Writing It Falling Apart

Sometimes we discover we’re not writing the tale we wanted or crafting the game we intended. That’s a bit of a tough call. A few pieces of advice I can provide is:

1. Change perspectives. Maybe the giant collapse is something you can write from a different perspective then intended. Maybe your perspective is the problem, and once you’re in a character or two’s heads the setting’s problems are things you want to write.
2. Back up. Back up a few years before everything goes straight to hell, and tell your story from there – though the coming collapse may annoy you.
3. Jump forward. Jump up your timeline and see if the setting eventually evolves to the kind you want to write.
4. Re-engineer. The hardest thing to do is re-engineer your setting to remove the relevant apocalypse. That is something that’s a bit challenging and potentially can tempt you to dishonesty. I’d say go for it, but if you can’t truly do it, hen you have to conclude your setting is what it is.
5. Quit. Not recommended. Staring over is kind of coping out and you have all that hard work.

Your call on these things. Though I’m not up for quitting – after all if you ram through you may find you want to write the end of the world after all.

It’s Part Of What You Do

Finding your setting is going to fall apart is one of the challenges of worldbuilding. It can shock us and surprise us and derail us.

However it’s also one of the benefits of the craft. Unexpected findings, challenges, settings coming to life are part of the magic of worldbuilding. Though it may alter our lans, at least it’s doing so in a way that truly surprises and inspires and comes to life.

Well, assuming its because the world was well built, but you get the idea . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

(Way With Worlds Runs Weekly at MuseHack and Seventh Sanctum)

So last time I noted how David Brin had gotten me discussing the idea of the Idiot Plot or the Planet Of Morons – the idea the hero(es) are the only things saving the world, which is also corrupt and stupid.

The thing with this plot is it degrades society – and degrades the characters and the world. It makes the heroes stupidly unbelievable, it makes the villains shallow or uninteresting, it makes the world improbable.. It’s in short dumb and inaccurate and psychologically toxic when it’s everywhere.

But I’d like to expand on this in what is hopefully my last Heroes and Villains post on worldbuilding. Yeah, I know, unlikely, but still.

Namely, if you don’t resort to the Idiot Plot and the Planet of Morons (and you won’t, right?), here’s my thoughts on how to make the story or game interesting while preserving world integrity. Because you do want to engage the reader, but you also want to have a good, believable world setting.

First, let’s get to the heart of the matter. (more…)

(Way With Worlds runs at Seventh Sanctum and Muse Hack)

Ironically I was about to wrap up my heroes and villains series when David Brin dropped an asteroid-sized essay in my lap.

He notes rather brilliantly that a huge part of our media is the Idiot Plot, that the story is often about a few people who save the world because everyone else, all of society, are a bunch of idiots if not evil. It’s not just Suspicion of AUthority, he notes its socially corrosive.

Now Brin’s article on its own is well worth reading. I’m not going to recapitulate it here because he did a great job. Also I probably couldn’t do it justice.

But I’m going to address the issue as a matter of worldbuilding, because the Planet of Morons, the Idiot Plot, is a serious problem for worldbuilding. That’s what I cover.

Also this idea doesn’t work for building a world. (more…)

It seems that we often end up discussing Good and Evil when we are talking Heroes and Villains, antagonists and protagonists, and often for pretty good reasons. Let’s face it Good Versus Evil is a prime conflict and element of many stories, and we want to read/play/experience interesting characters.

However, after awhile, it seems that it really becomes boring and trope-ridden. We talk Good and Evil but don’t think about it, signifiers are thrown around randomly, and titles like “heroine” or “villain” seem to stand in for actual moral issues. It’s mummifying good and evil, propping up heir bodies, and treating them as marionettes.

A friend of mine once noted that smoking was always used as a sign of evil in media. That was an example of how sometimes good and evil just becomes a pile of signifiers.

So when we think Heroes and Villains, here’s a bit of a challenge of you.

Stop thinking Good and Evil.

Start Thinking Why And How. (more…)

Sacrifice is a part of literature and part of our lives. The act of giving something up for other reasons, perhaps making the ultimate sacrifice of ones life, is part of us really. We value the act of giving things up at time because it provides surety, clarity – and a view into someone’s character.

In fact, we know it from worlds and stories all too well. It’s a common part of our heroes – but also in villains who redeem themselves or at least have some integrity

You know the drill:

• The heroic sacrifice of some starship captain or engineer that guides their ship into a deadly run on the enemy – and may not even be saved at the last moment.
• The person who dies for a cause, getting nothing in return.
• The hero or heroine that trows themselves on the grenade-equivalent or detonates the bomb-equivalent by hand to save his or her buddies/country/world (pick at least one).
• The villain, who at the last moment, realizes what a giant moral vacuum they’ve been and dies to correct it.

You can easily name at least a half-dozen other examples. It’s woven throughout literature, through film, through comics, through legend.

However there’s time the sacrifice seems . . . off.  It sets your teeth on edge for some reason. It seemed false. It seem contrived. It didn’t work for some reason.

And because it didn’t work, it bugs the hell out of you as a reader or player of the game or whatever. Something is wrong in the world.

In worldbuilding, when self-sacrifice happens, like anything else, it should have a reason. If there’s no reason for it to exist, it’s just going to come off wrong. Yet at times, it seems we shoehorn it in there, or it seems to fit yet . . . it doesn’t.

Here’s some warning signs to look out for that tell you that the brilliant self-sacrifice of your hero, or the touching sacrifice of your reformed (but now exceedingly dead) villain, aren’t.

Tropeagedddon

Sacrifice and self-sacrifice are tropes in literature and  settings, and thus done a bit too easy. We throw in something into our plots and panels and game options that “fits” as it fits what we think should fit, but it just doesn’t work in our world.

It’s ay, way too easy to throw in a scene of self-sacrifice, just as sure as it is to put an all-too-familiar action scene in a movie, or a stereotype into a story. Sacrifice is a language people understand – but like selecting the wrong word in a conversation, it doesn’t work if it’s not appropriate.

Look out for putting in acts of self-sacrifice just because “the situation calls for it” or “it fits the story” because it should fit the characters and the world.

Selfish Motives Of The Character

Self-sacrifice is an act of transcending the self for something greater- it’s about giving up literally everything one has for a reason greater than one’s own life. Now those reasons may be questionable or crazy or ephemeral, or just plain stupid (at least to the survivors), but the act of self-sacrifice is literally giving up of self.

It’s not the same as sacrificing the self for something.

However the character motivations may really turn out to be selfish. Consider other motives for self-destructive behavior:

• In order to make someone sorry.
• In order to become famous or remembered.
• In order to escape a problem by appearing to “go out” in a heroic manner.
• To fulfill fantasies of martyrdom.
• As an act of self-hatred, essentially as suicide that doesn’t look like it.

Now these motives may indeed fit whatever character you’re creating who’s about to detonate the McGuffin Orb or whatever. If that fits, then by all means it’s consistent with your setting for them to go out. But it’s not heroic, it’s not noble – and frankly other characters will probably suspect.

Now that could be fascinating (“he saved the world, but he was also an egomaniacal jerk, how do we react”) but be careful of dressing up self-serving sacrifice as something else. It will grate horribly.

Selfish Motives of the Author

Now in no way do I want to cast aspersions on you and your world. But sometimes let’s face it, we do stuff in our stories because we like it, and sometimes that includes how we write characters, and how they die.

We can be motivated to put in an act of self-sacrifice assorted ways:

• To just get rid of an inconvenient character. That’s coping out, and believe me, people will notice.
• Because the character is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu/Author’s pet and we want people to love them/feel sorry for them. Usually it’s transparent enough it annoys people.
• Because we wrote ourselves into a corner or built or world i a way we didn’t expect. Usually a big boom solves some of that, but there’s only so often you can play Crisis On Infinite Earths before you kind of strain your credibility.

When it comes to really good worldbuildng, I think we have to take pride in our crafting a good world, and learn how to make it work. Inserting our own motivations in too far, violating our own continuity, damages our settings. In the case of something as deep as self-sacrifice, it can be outright annoying.

Giving Up The Wrong Sacrifice

So, when your heroes and villains make the ultimate sacrifice, make sure it fits them, that the reasons are good, and that t fits the setting. Sure they may be wrong, stupid, suicidal, but at least portray them properly. It brings a truly visceral feel to the story and avoids cheapening your scenes.

Best of all, when you deliver a tale or a game or a world where these moments of self-sacrifice truly ft, it keeps those involved int he world, the readers and gamers, engaged. It makes the world real and organic and alive – even when characters in it are dying.

That after all is what you’re trying to do.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

So last time I covered the risk of creating Omnicompetent characters – those good-at-everything characters that are hard to believe. Too often we make our heroes and villains omnicompetent, and it’s a warning worth heeding. The Omnicompetent soon end up Omni-unbelievable, distorting the world and making things just seem wrong.

However, there’s a flipside issue I want to address, that of Incompetent heroes and villains. Though I find the former more common than the latter, it’s still an issue with good worldbuilding.

Ever wonder how the hell this person is going to save the world, or how this moron managed to threaten it? Is their stupidity celebrated as a kind of victory? Does the world builder seem to want you to celebrate it?

Welcome to the world of the Incompetents, the dark side to Omnicompetence

A Familiar Tale

You know the story. The hero who manages to save the day despite being stupid/ignorant/etc. The villain with . . . really nothing going for them except they are somehow a threat. Some characters are even portrayed at being so good at what they do because of their stupidity, which is not a trait you want in doctors, programmers, or scientists let alone your hero and their archnemesis.

Sometimes this is played for laughs, which is fine in a comedy – much as an Omnicompetent character can also be played for laughs. In this case it may well fit your focus.

But other times, I think you know what I mean, the characters successes are so outrageous and unbelievable that you really don’t buy them because they are explained by (and not defeated by) their own incompetence. Just as surely as an Omnicompetent character distorts a world, so does a protagonist and/or antagonist who is so dumb you’re not sure they should be allowed to drive, let alone use the Orbital Death Ray.

These sound a bit like the classic Holy Fools, but I have a better name for them . . .

Unholy Fools

In many cases, I think these characters are distorted versions of the classic Holy Fool, characters that seem weird or dumb or foolish, but there is something greater at work. Somehow they succeed despite or even because of what makes them foolish, and yet you wonder how incompetent they are. They’re paradoxes who may be straightforward.

There’s a beloved tradition of these characters. Sometimes their foolishness is a lack of the B.S. others adsorbed. Others think differently. Yet others mess with people to make a point, appearing foolish. Finally some are ambiguous, and that’s the part of the story, making you wonder.

Captain Tylor of the anime series is a great example of a modern Holy Fool, and his very ambiguity is part of the story.  Discworld has several Holy Fools who you later on find are not fools so much as some of their personality traits that seem to be flaws aren’t (not spoiling here).

The Holy Fool, frankly, is a damn hard character to create. If you’re a worldbuilder, you have to understand them inside out when the point is they’re mysterious. If you can do it right more power too you.

However, the Holy Fool sometimes seem to just be the Lucky Dumbasses who are annoying. Let’s call them Unholy Fools.

Thinking Like Children

What we often end up with in these “reverse Omnicompetents,” the Unholy Fools, are often childish characters who succeed for reasons that seem to be dumb luck or their dumbness is somehow a virtue. It’s not that they have a virtue that appears to be dumb (often a classic element of the Holy Fool or Holy semi-Fools), or that they lack a negative complicator, it’s literally they’re just stupid.

This happens in comedies, of course, but can happen in a lot of tales as well. The character who “is just doing their job” or “doesn’t know anything about that, but I know how to punch something” and so on is an Unholy Fool. They succeed supposedly as they’re not smart.

They’re not ambiguous, or differentially smart. There’s not that level of thought put to them.

I think characters like this are popular and easy to fall into as:

1. They don’t make the readers or gamers feel inadequate.
2. They thumb their nose at supposedly smart/talented people.
3. They can be good for a laugh.

Of course after awhile the Unholy Fool here sort of grates on people because they are dumb, their successes aren’t believable, and . . . they don’t have reason to be the way they are. The successful idiot too easily is just another authors pet, verging on Mary Sue/Gary Stu territory.  In fact, I’d say the Unholy Fool is more likely to be a Mary Sue than many Omnicompetent characters.

An, of course, a worldbreaker.  Because, in the end, they’re just successful idiots for no reason

Did You FalL Into The Trap?

So how do you detect you’ve fallen into this trap?

Well first, as noted these Unholy Fools are worldbreakers. If you can’t explain their success, their like-ability, etc. that should set off your worldbuilding alarms. In your gut you probably know it.

Another sign is finding you didn’t think them out as well as you thought. If a character seems to coast, things seem to be “too” good for them despite their flaws, you may have fallen into this trap as well.

Finally, I think Unholy Fools are characters who in their incarnations, appeal only to a subset of people. If you notice some folks dislike a character and you don’t get why, yet others rally to defend them, that may be an indicator.

The best test simply is “can you explain why your character triumphed the way they did”in a manner that works in the world. Te audience may not know (that’s part of the fun with HolyFools) but you need to.

Comes and Goes

It’s odd writing this as I find when I first wrote Way With Worlds I didn’t see many Unholy Fools. Later I noticed quite a few of them popping up, I suspect as they can also be Mary Sues/Gary Stus and they appeal to anti-intellectualism. My guess is these kinds of characters and their appeal come and go with social tends as well.

So perhaps in another decade or two, this may get a laugh as people wonder “oh, who would write that?” But a few decades later . .. well, who knows?

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

When we create heroes or villains, indeed main characters, in many cases we’re dealing with highly competent people. In the cases of antiheroes and so forth we may not be making such individuals, but in general our “leads” of the tales in our world, who we focus on, are highly competent people. After all you need to have a certain level of ability to do things worth writing about (or just not end up dead early on), though there are exceptions.

In a few cases, the competence is a specific focus of a story in your world – I once hard the delightful term “competence porn” to describe certain forms of literature where characters plan, plot, employ skills, and so on. It’s one I still use and want to promote. So please use it.

Anyway, there’s a point where you can take it a bit too far. The characters are not just good, but good at everything. They become Omnicompetent (also a word I want to promote), and at that point the world starts breaking down because one person’s talent risks seeming unbelievable.

Well it is unbelievable. And that’s the problem.

What Is Omnicompetence?

I describe Omnicompetence as being essentially: a character that is either so good at so many things or good at one thing or a set of things that they might as well be good at everything. The former are Renaissance Men and Women turned up to 11, the latter are people who can manipulate any computer system or master all forms of magic.

Attributing Omnicompetence to people is something we encounter not just in our worlds and settings, but real life. Think of the last time someone said “Person X does Y so they can do Z” and you went “wait, what?” Politics especially is prone to this – I don’t know how many times I’ve heard “X has a successful business, so they can do Y” when Y has nothing to do with having a business.

I’m sure by now you’re thinking about a few Omnicompetent characters you’ve seen and thinking “you know they’re just as believable as the last harebrained political hyperbole I heard.” Which is the point.

Now before we delve further into why Omnicompetence is a world-wrecker and distorts your setting and tales, a slight digression . ..

A Few Caveats On Omnicompetence.

Now before I launch into exploring Omnicompetence I want to note a few things.

First of all, Omnicompetent characters are not necessarily Mary Sues/Gary Stus/Authors pets. At least in my experience they often have reasons for being so good at everything, it’s jut poorly explained and designed. The aforementioned Mary/Gary type characters usually have no believable explanation or for that matter competence – the author takes care of them – and I’ll cover some of that next column.

Secondly, Omnicompetent characters can work in certain settings that have a comedic bent. Buckaroo Banzai, the rockstar-neurosurgeon of the cult film (and a personal fave of my youth) is an excellent example. Parodic characters can be effectively omnicompetent as that’s part of the humor – as well as times that breaks down.

Third, I find Omnicompetent characters are often less annoying if done right, so at times harder to detect. Omnicompetent characters are at least characters, and in the hands of talented creators, their unbelievability may be lessened. Several writers have treated Tony Stark, Iron Man, as Omnicompetent, but also human and fallible. Villains like Doctor Doom and Darkseid are often the same way, from Doom’s sense of class or Darkseid pining for his lost love.

No with that said, let’s get back to Omnicompetence and why it’s bad for your world.

Omnicompetence: Just Inaccurate

So lets get this out of the way: Omnicompetent heroes and villains are just inaccurate. Yes far less annoying than Mary Sues, yes they can be funny, and they can often be written right. If anything they may provide competence porn and be quite enjoyable, even if they’re a little too competent.

But in the end let’s face it, no one is good at everything. It comes off as unbelievable, it is unbelievable, and it distorts your world. The Omnicompetent character is a distortion. An anomaly. Something inserted into the setting but not supported by the setting.

In short, trying to explain Omnicompetence just doesn’t hold water most of the time (though there may be exceptions).

I think it’s easy to fall into the trap of making characters Omnicompetent for a variety of reasons:

• It’s easier to just make people good at stuff.
• We extrapolate on talented characters and people and get it wrong.
• It is easy to dot o make a hero powerful enough to save the day or a villain competent enough to be a threat.
• We think of people that are treated as Omnicompetent and real life and are influence by that.
• It’s fun to write people who know what they heck they’re doing.
• It gives people something to aspire too.

It happens. It’s OK.

Just look for the warning signs.

But what should we aim for in our character creation and worldbuilding to prevent it before it happens?

Competence With Foundations and Repercussions

A character’s competence should, like anything else have competence due to a proper foundation – and have repercussions.

There are reasons for a character to be good at something:

• They know something for a reason.
• They got training for a reason
• They directed their energies for a reason.
• They have some trait or talent for a reason (even if it’s inheritance).

In turn, the act of having or gaining abilities has repercussions:

• They take time/money/effort not spent elsewhere. The character with the three PhD’s may have one heck of a student debt (there’s a superhero story for you)
• They provide a different perspective. Your character who is a brilliant artist may not know how to turn their computer on.
• They affect you as a person. The character with the implanted memories that make them super-skilled is going to suffer from some pretty interesting mental problems.
• They bring people to the attention of others. An amazing wizard who displays precocious skill at 11 is going to get a lot of attention by people wondering about an 11 year old flinging fireballs.

Competence may be its own reward, but it doesn’t come without tradeoffs. They just may be worth it.

When you think about competence in origin and effect, it makes richer characters and richer worlds. Come to think of it, imagine the fun of a character who seems to be nearly Omnicompetent and exploring how they got that way . . .

Beyond Omnicompetence: The Believably Competent Character

In creating believable competent characters – so often our heroes and villains – it’s important to make sure the competence is understandable. The believably competent character.

In short, the characters are competent, but the tradeoffs and limits are obvious. This makes the characters believable and understandable and relatable – and the world and the characters more real.

This may mean they’re talented as all get out. Human history shows us many amazing people with a wide array of skills. I’ sure many of us can think of people who have amazing abilities and knowledge – but they’re people.

Keeping An Eye Out

When focusing on your characters, the competent ones – so often heroes and villains – be on the lookout for Omnicompentence. In turn, by building believably competent characters you can head the problem off and make a richer world.

And a less annoying one, frankly.

Sorry Tony.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.

NOTE: I am addressing Mary Sues in this column, which often involves questions of definition. As Mary Sues (and the male counterpart Gary Stu) are often a continuum, I wanted to clarify my definition. My definition is of an “author’s pet” – a character who gets vastly preferential treatment by the author in a way that distorts the story. Thus I am discussing them entirely in the negative.

A Dark Mary Sue? Most people would say that Mary Sues often darken things as it is. They may make works into pandering creations that are hard to enjoy. An author or game creator may be worried that, after so many Mary Sues, a new character idea will be seen as an ego-fulfillment vehicle. Wether they annoy us in literature or gaming or make us worry how others view our works, they’re there, worrying us.

In the worlds we build, we may even be cautious about how we design heroes, heroines, and supporting characters. We take that extra effort to make sure they’re not Mary Sues, or even that they’re not perceived as such. For all people may enjoy a good wish-fulfillment story, there are times they can be quite harsh on other tales (namely ones not fulfilling their fantasies).

So we’re careful with our heroes and our heroines. Perhaps very careful.

But maybe they’re not the ones we should be keeping an eye on.

Through The Looking Glass Darkly

When you’re busy scrutinizing your cast you might miss where else Mary Sues pop up. These authors pet, Mary and Gary are tricky little devils, and maybe you should be looking at the other side of your cast.

Because sometimes they’re the villains. Not in the ruined-my-story-sense but in the fact that real Mary Sues and Gary Stus can be the bad guys. The Villains. The Antagonists. The characters raging at the meddling kids and their pet.

Sometimes they can be even more annoying than Mary Sue heroes. Watching a likable, interesting heroine deal with a well-armed overblown author’s favorite Dark Mary Sue is a great way to kill interest in the story. When the threat is so bad you can’t see anyone realistically coping with it, or so beautiful-powerful-great that you feel like you’re reading ad copy, there goes interest in your tale.

Needless to say if you’re a dedicated worldbuilder, they devastate your setting just as sure as any Mary Sue can. Mary Sues, authors pets, distort the world and make it unbelievable as the author’s blatant biases are more important than an understandable setting. Your suspension of disbelieve flies out the window pretty quick when a Mary Sue makes his/her appearance.

Of course this may be an odd statement – a Dark Mary Sue? Aren’t Mary and Gary supposed to be beautiful, perfect, wonderful, loves, etc.? How do you do that to the character everyone is supposed to root against? How do you Mary Sue-ify them?

Theres something peculiar to many of us writers and worldbuilders, perhaps all of us, in that one time or another we create an author’s pet. Maybe it’s a wish-fulfillment, maybe it’s identification, maybe its a power trip. Mary Sues are powerful, lucky, have it all, and are something we, sadly, get attached to.

But none of these qualities say that Mary Sue or Gary Stu have to be good guys. You’ve probably seen a few of their ilk that were so annoying you wondered why the hell they were the heroes and heroines.

In my experience, a Dark Mary Sue or Gary Stu make it even easier to make their stories a power trip and use of authorial fiat. Consider:

1. The villain has to be a threat. It might get awful tempting to step into their shoes or make them an author’s pet.
2. The villain has power. If you’re on a power trip, then it’s going to be awful easy to fall into the trap of Mary Sue-ing them.
3. Villains are great for angsty backstory and redemption tales, which can be awful tempting to play with a wee bit much.
4. Villains get a lot of attention, and it’s fun to have attention – and thus one may Mary Sue the villain.
5. Villains are bad guys and lack moral restraints (in some cases). It can be fun to write a character without inhibitions or to fulfill one’s fantasies.
6. Marketing. It seems everyone loves a bad guy/girl/woman/robot.

If this starts reminding you of some characters here or there, then you understand what I mean. Ever see a particularly foul character be strangely popular with some people? You get the idea – far more dangerous you may make your own.

Dark Mary Sue’s actually irritate me more than regular Mary Sues – they seem to lean more towards wish fulfillment, provoke even more excuses, and drag the story down – especially if the hero is just someone for the villain to push around.

Things To Watch Out For

So here’s a few signs you have a Dark Mary Sue on your hands:

1. The hero/heroine are constantly outsmarted by the villain and are basically a punching bag.
2. The villain is so charming, suave, debonair, and likable they don’t need an Army of Evil – they should just be able to make a good case of why they should rule everyone.
3. The villain has inexhaustible resources, yet there’s no reason in your world to have said resources.
4. The villain is so lucky, you figure they should just try and win the world in a game of Poker.
5. People dislike the villain as they’re too perfect. THe perfection is more annoying than their actual crimes.
6. The villain is giving voice to things the author thinks a wee bit too much.

See these traits in your villain? Get out the Mary Sue detector and give them a careful examination. YOu may have a Dark Mary Sue on your hands.

Closing

A Dark Mary Sue is a real kick in the worldbuilding, as well as just a poor thing to create as an author. It’s also a bit easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.

Have I see these? Oh, yes I have, and they’ve always crawled up my nose. There’s something partially sad to see an author make a bad guy the author’s pet and have it affect their work or misdirect their talent. Also there’s only so often you can hear “He/she is just misunderstood” before you want to say “no, this character is a psychopathic a-hole.”

I also think that Dark Mary Sues can eclipse good villains or morally ambiguous heroes – the areas of really good writing and worldbuilding. I can think of a few characters like that I’m quite fond of, and I’d rather not see their bad names besmirched, if you know what I mean.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach.  He blogs on careers at http://www.musehack.com/, publishes books on career and culture at http://www.informotron.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at http://www.stevensavage.com/.