Unfortunatelly. I have to report I encountered numerous difficulties trying to follow
the article linked in the previous post.
Namely point 2 tells me to "
I want you to take all preconceived notions; anything you've read from any kind of fanfic, seen in the movies or on tv--anyone else's ideas anywhere. Take all those and flush them down the toilet. Your mind is empty. Anything you come up with from here on out is your own creation and not some rehash from someone's tired out fanfic who probably copied it from some other cliche` fanfic as well."
Primo: this sounds like mixing up the concepts of "Mary Sue" and "cliche"
(as does setting "Mary Sue" in opposition to "oryginal character", that the article does many a time.)
Secundo: the best I could do after emptying my mind of everything I've ever read or heard was
"Torg, need, food."
So, I assume the perfect character would be pretty hungry...
Tertio: the whole paragraph continues to keep me confused.
I'm to describe a character, and for some reason I can't use their dating habits for that. Not that I'd want to, but the reasoning as to why it's not allowed (quote:"
It's wrong because it's wrong") is beyond my comprehension. So what can I use? Their purpose? Their work? Their family? Their past, future, their favourite drink???
Apparently not as:"
Mary Sue must be able to stand on her own"
What does that mean??? The way I read it is that "If the universe consisted solely of that particular character, it would still make an interesting story" and that's umm,
kinda dificult... Unless the character has multiple shizophrenia, and very vivid imagination... which could work quite good when you think about it...
Anyways, I suspect I misunderstood something, and I'd welcome some clarifications.
And finally a couple of lines later it says:
"
You are filling that out, aren't you? I'm serious guys! If you don't have a paper, then go get one right now. This is a good exercise. I've done it before myself. It helps, I promise!"
No, I'm not filling that out beacuse I can't understand. ;_;
But all these warning labels are making me think that continuing to read without following the instructions would be a terrible waste.
I imagine it's sorta like clicking a link to one of the sabotaged flash thingies, and then, while the flash is loading you read the next post say "OMG! I was looking at the screen trying to find that mouse and then there was that horrible-horrible scream and dead bodies everywhere", and that ruins the joke _forever_...
So I'd like to hear some explanations, or at least a promise that my life won't be forever ruined, because that would suck.
I remain confused.
Sincerely yours.
YarpsDat.