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♠Soul♠
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Conflict. Stories without conflict are boring. But with challenging obstacles, there is now something for your character to overcome, which is more entertaining than said character just casually achieving whatever their goal is. And we read/watch:listen to stories for entertainment. Making them doubt themselves would more so be for character development and a potential part of a character arc, maybe that would be a big obstacle too depending on what you do with your story.

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4 minutes ago, Sooks said:

Conflict. Stories without conflict are boring. But with challenging obstacles, there is now something for your character to overcome, which is more entertaining than said character just casually achieving whatever their goal is. And we read/watch:listen to stories for entertainment. Making them doubt themselves would more so be for character development and a potential part of a character arc, maybe that would be a big obstacle too depending on what you do with your story.

Well, what about those characters that just achieve said things and stuff just happens to them. What do people think of those characters?

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1 minute ago, the actual real soul said:

Well, what about those characters that just achieve said things and stuff just happens to them. What do people think of those characters?

People call them “Mary sues”, boring or overpowered. Unless you’re Saitama.

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I actually am an aspiring writer and I'm currently working on my own fantasy war novel, and struggle is a big part of storytelling.

As for making the main characters doubt themselves, that's not always the case, but there's a good reason why it's often the case, and this article on TV Tropes sums it up quite nicely:

Classical Anti-Hero - TV Tropes

Basically, because pre-modern writings were usually plot-driven rather than character-driven, the heroes were often confident, bold heroes whose struggles were external and, if they had any flaws, they were in service of a theme or moral of the story rather than character exploration. Characters that were not this fall under the "classical anti-hero" trope; these were characters that had self-doubt, characters that had real vulnerabilities that they struggled with internally and worked hard to overcome. As stories became more character-driven, classical anti-heroes became more interesting because they fit the format and allowed for a lot more depth in storytelling, to the point where "classical anti-heroes" are more common in popular media than classical heroes to the point of pretty much phasing out classical heroes. The only ones left would be characters like James Bond, and even they often have a little bit of classical anti-hero in them whenever the story wants to do a bit of character exploration. 

 

25 minutes ago, Sooks said:

People call them “Mary sues”, boring or overpowered. Unless you’re Saitama.

Saitama still struggles a lot; it's just that his struggles are internal and aren't, "Can he beat the bad guy?" In fact, him being overpowered is the source of his biggest internal struggle: his never-ending boredom and depression from his OP nature. Beyond that, he struggles with getting recognized for his feats and even has to choose between finally getting recognition or ensuring that the public doesn't lose faith in the other heroes that actually gave their all. He also deals with the fallout of saving everyone in a way that unintentionally causes a ton of property damage (the meteor incident). 

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18 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

Saitama still struggles a lot; it's just that his struggles are internal and aren't, "Can he beat the bad guy?" In fact, him being overpowered is the source of his biggest internal struggle: his never-ending boredom and depression from his OP nature. Beyond that, he struggles with getting recognized for his feats and even has to choose between finally getting recognition or ensuring that the public doesn't lose faith in the other heroes that actually gave their all. He also deals with the fallout of saving everyone in a way that unintentionally causes a ton of property damage (the meteor incident). 

I should have captioned that with the fact that I have never watched one punch man.

18 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

I actually am an aspiring writer and I'm currently working on my own fantasy war novel, and struggle is a big part of storytelling.

Well, with all your knowledge you seem like you have it in the bag.

I would love to get into creative writing, I just don’t seem to have many ideas...

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53 minutes ago, the actual real soul said:

Is there any reason you'd give your main characters really hard obsticles and constantly making them doubt themselves? What would be the point in that story?

Basically what @Sooks said. Conflict is the core of any story. Without conflict be it internal or external(or in most cases both), a story cannot function plain and simple. That conflict can be as simple as joining a music club but not actually knowing how to play an instrument or as deep and complex as how to end the vicsous cycle of war and hate that contiously plagues the dualistic paradoxical nature of humanity. If you don’t have conflict then you have no story. Speaking as an aspiring writer, myself, storytelling like all other forms art exist to express ones ideas and perceptions of the world. We engage in art to feel emotions, to explore ideas, and express ourselves in ways we never thought possible. We want to relate to these stories and characters. We want to get attached and invested in their journeys. What makes characters relatable as @vanguard333 said is how they struggle. A character’s flaws are what make them human because well everyone is flawed. No one is perfect and looking at our own flaws and relating them to the struggles of a fictional character can help us come to terms with our own struggles and hardships. Seeing characters struggle and eventually overcome hardships similar to our own is nothing short of inspiring in a way that’s just hard to describe with words. We’ve all had that feeling. It’s one of the primary reason fiction exists in the first place. To convey ideas and messages you can’t quite do elsewhere and to me that is just a beautiful thing

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2 hours ago, the actual real soul said:

Is there any reason you'd give your main characters really hard obstacles and constantly making them doubt themselves? What would be the point in that story?

Well, something has to happen.

As for what the point is, it depends on the story and its particular message. I'm one of those old fashioned types who things stories should be about the moral and that the characters, plot, and everything else should be in service of that. Since real life involves a lot of conflict you need some in your story in order for the moral to seem applicable to reality. While stories are usually made up and can portray whatever events the author wants, they still have a capacity to penetrate reason. There's no logical reason to assume an ethic which holds up to in-universe scrutiny is better than one which faces no in-universe scrutiny, but that seems to be how we process these things regardless.

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9 hours ago, Sooks said:

I should have captioned that with the fact that I have never watched one punch man.

Well, with all your knowledge you seem like you have it in the bag.

I would love to get into creative writing, I just don’t seem to have many ideas...

I see. You should; it's a great show. Because it's a parody, it's great even if you don't watch anime (I should know; it's the first anime I ever saw unless you count an obscure jointly Canadian & Japanese animated show called Spider Riders that I watched as a kid). 

Thanks. Yeah; I've watched a lot of videos on writing and worldbuilding to help with my writing, and I've written multiple stories already that I scrapped because they were bad (though I do recycle one of them someday); a joke among authors is that your first 8 books are always garbage; get them over with quickly. The first video I'd recommend you watch if you want to get into writing is a video made by Ellen Brock (a freelance novel editor) titled The Four Types of Novel Writers, as different writers have different approaches that work best for them, and you should figure out which approach works best for you. Here's a link to it: The Four Types of Novel Writers - YouTube

I see. Well, let me just say this: don't be quick to dismiss any ideas you might have; it's easy to think an idea might be dumb, but some authors argue that there is no such thing as a dumb idea for a novel so long as you put thought into it and explore it properly. One bestselling author once got into a debate with someone over this, and he ended up making a bet with the person that he could take any two dumb ideas the person suggested and write a well-received and bestselling novel out of it. The person told him, "Alright; combine the 9th Roman Legion with Pokémon." The author did so, and his story, Codex Alera, became a bestselling and well-received six-book series. 

 

9 hours ago, the actual real soul said:

Damn, that's a lot of nice insight...

Are you referring to what I said? If so, thanks. As I said, I've watched a lot of videos on writing and worldbuilding to help with my writing. 

 

9 hours ago, Ottservia said:

 What makes characters relatable as @vanguard333 said is how they struggle. A character’s flaws are what make them human because well everyone is flawed. No one is perfect and looking at our own flaws and relating them to the struggles of a fictional character can help us come to terms with our own struggles and hardships. Seeing characters struggle and eventually overcome hardships similar to our own is nothing short of inspiring in a way that’s just hard to describe with words. We’ve all had that feeling. It’s one of the primary reason fiction exists in the first place. To convey ideas and messages you can’t quite do elsewhere and to me that is just a beautiful thing

I agree with your whole paragraph; I'm just quoting the part where you reference me for space.

Indeed, a big part of what makes characters is how they struggle. To add to this and to be extra clear though: it's the choices the characters make in their struggle that make them compelling and relatable. There have been quite a few stories in recent years that present a façade of dramatic depth by essentially hurting the main character a lot, but the character doesn't truly struggle as the character doesn't make any meaningful decisions or struggle internally, so all you get is a façade of story depth.

Essentially, struggle is key, but it isn't the act of throwing bricks at the character that makes things interesting; it's how the character reacts to the bricks being thrown at them and what they do to keep more bricks from hitting them or others in the future that makes the story interesting. 

Also, speaking of relatability, one interesting bit of character writing advice I saw was that relatability can certainly be good, but when writing a character, it is not something one should strive for. What one should strive for for making a great character are the following:

  1. The character be dimensional
  2. The character be fascinating
  3. "..." Compelling
  4. "..." Believable

Things like, "relatable", "likeable", and "sympathetic" can be good things to have, but when a writer goes in saying, "I want this character to be sympathetic" that's dangerous as it can easily be misused and result in weaker characterization and story. 

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