For action oriented male and female MCs, what are your biggest turn offs and turn ons?

emax100

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What I mean is, for a male MC in an urban fantasy setting whose role centers largely around action movie type fights and in going to war with supernatural and/or otherwise evil adversaries in a Hercules/Thor/The Hulk type setting, what would be examples of turnoffs and turnons about that type of MC? In other words, can you list, say, five tropes and/or forms of character development that would make you turn offed by said male MC enough to where you find yourself dropping the book in the garbage and five tropes and/or ways to develop such a male MC that would get you instantly interested and wanting to turn the pages to find out more?

Same goes for female action oriented MCs a la Xena or River Tam. What are five things an UFC book or tv show or movie could show about her that would make her character enough of a turnoff so that you don't want to read the book and what, conversely are five turnons that would make you instantly hooked and start reading intently?

Sidenote - I am aware that similar questions have been asked before, however a. Given that new writers come on all the time, this is one of those questions where if a similar is asked a couple years later all kinds of new perspectives come up and b. I am also interested in knowing turnons about such action oriented male and female MCs because let's face it, this is UF and there will always be violent battles that have to be fought, someone has to do it, I presume most of us would like people from both genders doing the fighting and so we may as well establish what we also want most to see in that end.
 

rwm4768

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I like the character, whether male or female, to be talented enough to deal with all the urban fantasy craziness, but not so strong that it all comes easily. I think Butcher does this very well. Harry Dresden is usually in over his head but has just enough talent to pull through in the end.

I like flawed heroes and heroines, but not necessarily antiheroes. I like a messed up person who's still heroic at their core. Once again, I feel like Butcher is perfect in this regard. AW's own Stacia Kane also does a great job of writing a deeply flawed but ultimately likeable main character in her Downside Ghosts series.

I like them to be a little funny. Harry Dresden has his funny moments. The hero in (AWer) Kevin Hearne's Iron Druid Chronicles is often hilarious, especially some of the references. My favorite was using the Eagles' song Witchy Woman as a ringtone for a witch.
 

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I can't stand the male or female that every single person in the book wants to hook up with. Everyone wants to be them or be with them. It's irritating and annoying. They are perfectly flawless in every way. I stop reading more often than not because of that.
 

Rechan

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Turnoffs beyond the obvious (Mary Sues, Bland Personality, The Superman, etc)

They are the baddest badass that ever assed badly. They know it and let Everyone it. Know who's a badass? This character. There's confidence, and then there's believing you can sharpen a knife on your cocky smirk.

Just mean. Snark for no good reason, excessive cynicism, or overall unlikability.

Wears leather pants. Who fights in leather pants? Seriously.

They spend two pages gushing about a certain beverage or food (tea, coffee, alcohol, chocolate) every book.

Spend three pages gushing about their pets.

I can't stand the male or female that every single person in the book wants to hook up with.
That, right there.
 

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I hate inconsistency in a person's background. They should not be a master carpenter one chapter and then be an expert in publishing the next.

Characters should be exactly that, a character with good points, bad points, strengths of knowledge, but not omniscient. It's not very believable when the character suddenly knows everything about a topic.

Looks are not everything, why does the character need to be the best looking one in the room?

I was told once by a writing teacher in school that every paragraph should have something to do with the story. I do not need to read someone's therapy on paper about something that had nothing to do with the story, but was the author working out a personal problem.

I just want to live in your world, caught in the words that spin that existence for me, so take it easy on me and make it a world I want to be in.
 

dantefrizzoli

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I can't stand the male or female that every single person in the book wants to hook up with. Everyone wants to be them or be with them. It's irritating and annoying. They are perfectly flawless in every way. I stop reading more often than not because of that.

He took the words right from my mouth. I think a main character should have some flaws, and an overly zealous, perfect person means that there can be no character development that will be worthwhile. A character that has flaws from the beginning and builds from them catch my attention constantly.

One of my favorite authors, Raymond E. Feist, has an excellent way of building off of characters who are flawed in almost every way. By the end of his series you are rooting for the protagonist to overcome their flaws to overcome some large issue.
 

7luckyclovers

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I don't like characters that never ask for help. Or ones that bitch about accepting it. I mean it's great that an MC knows how to take care of themselves, but no one can do it all. Also characters that make things look too easy. Give me an ugly, co-dependent, bumbling dork that can grow into something amazing by the end and I'm sold.
Hell, how about an ugly, co-dependent, bumbling dork of a side-kick who turns out to be the hero that saves the day?
 
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Kweei

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I think everyone summed it up nicely. I love a good UF story, but if the main character is someone that has zero flaws or is unbelievable, I'm out. I'm not interested in someone that everyone seems to want to hook up with, or who is so badass that there is no effort. They have to be likeable, sympathetic, and driven. If they don't care about anything, why should I?
 

Hoplite

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You know how in James Bond films the bad guys are always crappy shots? They are supposedly black ops turned mercenaries, professional killers, with automatic rifles, and they outnumber Bond. Yet Bond is able to take them all out with his trust PPK without breaking a sweat.

It works in a campy film that doesn't take itself seriously, but not in a work you want people to take seriously.
 

PeteMC

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I second the sentiment about supposedly highly-trained mooks who couldn't hit a barn at ten paces. Ridiculous.

Given we're talking action orientated characters, my pet peeve with this is the heroes who fight with hand-to-hand weapons for no apparent reason. If you can hurt it with a sword or an axe, you can hurt it a hell of a lot better with a Glock or a rocket launcher. If you can kill vampires with fire, break out the flamethrowers.

I had a little play with this in my current book, where I have a good-ish angel who fights with a flaming sword because, you know, tradition. I also have a fallen angel blow someone's head off with a Desert Eagle .50 because, you know, screw tradition :evil
 

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Great thread.
I have an idea for an urban fantasy based around a former cop, booted out of the force for corruption but essentially trying to do the right thing (think Vic Mackey in the Shield), any bad tropes I should avoid?
 

rwm4768

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Great thread.
I have an idea for an urban fantasy based around a former cop, booted out of the force for corruption but essentially trying to do the right thing (think Vic Mackey in the Shield), any bad tropes I should avoid?

There are no bad tropes. There is only bad execution. If what you write reads like nothing more than a bad attempt at a common trope, then you're in trouble. But if your take on it is fresh and expands beyond that trope, you're fine.

Tropes exist because there are many storytelling elements that draw on what people like to see in stories. You don't avoid something just because it's been done before. Everything has. You simply find a way to make that trope your own.
 

PeteMC

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I'm going to go out on a limb here and take a wild guess that it was a self-published book.
 

rwm4768

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The MC kills dozens of faceless, nameless mooks. It's even worse if the mooks are described in video game terms ("Two more barred her way, and they had to be at least level twelve. She spun and slashed them both apart"), and yes, I've read a book that's like this.

That could work if you're actually in a video game, but it baffles me that an author would write that in a normal fight. In first person, I could also see an avid gamer referring to enemies with levels.
 

Jacob_Wallace

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The inverse ninja law. A bunch of elite mooks should be still be elite despite there being many. Having the main character assault the base filled with supposedly elite mooks and winning without sweat and without explanation (it's cool if he has magic or something).

On the topic of mooks, I hate it when a MC slaughters his way through hordes of faceless goons, but when it comes to the main villain or just anybody on the villain's side that has a name, he has some moral objections to killing. As if he never killed before.

Also, refusing to kill due to moral objections, only to damn the villain to a far worse fate; like being sealed away while fully conscious for the rest of eternity. It makes sense if they HAVE to do this for whatever reason (maybe he has a ghost form that's even more dangerous), but if it's just for morals, it's kinda dumb.
 

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One trope I've seen in some UF I've read, is that the supernatural female characters the male MC encounters are always otherworldly beautiful. It gets old.

Another subtle turn off trope I've noticed in UF and regular F, even other books too: The male MC has a choice between two women. Woman "A" is what he actually desires in a woman, but he can't be with her because something about the choosing her is immoral. (Too young, best friend's little sister etc)

Woman "B" is a more moral choice, but always less attractive and less feminine, and has a more developed personality. Woman "A" is actively interested in him, and Woman "B" is not.

After watching the hero endlessly turn down the hot chick for the plain chic, it just gets old. Really, a guy, never chooses the pretty one, ever? Really, personality actually wins every time? I just finished a book last night that had this, and I realized I felt like I've been reading this trope my whole life.
 
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ckmartin

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Along with leather pants, female MCs who can sprint in high heels. It annoys me on TV as much as in books. In reality, you'd probably get a vigorous tottering towards your villain. Again, it is probably because of 'hot chick' stereotyping - a pretty and feminine heroine can't have practical moments in case it breaks the fantasy.
 

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I hate when female protags are able to easily physically kick a male's ass. I've trained in MMA for five years, and while I could probably win a fight against the average Joe, there's no way any male that knows a lick about fighting will let me physically get the upper hand. I exhaust myself trying to position out of their holds because males simply have that much more upper body strength.

While I'm a junkie for the movies Angelina Jolie plays in, I can't stand to watch her do hand to hand combat with a million male security guards as she tries to escape some high-security place. Quick moves might give someone the upper hand (think Melissa McCarthy in Identity Thief with throat punches, lol) is much more reasonable.

Aside from that, you guys nailed the others. Slutty clothes/high heels.
 

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Ass-kickers who feel no pain. They gallop on with eleventy broken bones, kill all the baddies, and the next day they're all "oh, maybe I'll take an aspirin" and then they go out and mow the lawn, put in an acre of new fencing, and repair the roof.
 

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It's been touched on here already, but...

When some average girl, who has never been in real combat before kills like four trained baddies in her first fight, I get so annoyed. I guess it's the same for a guy who's never fought before, but it bothers me more somehow with a girl. I want characters I can relate to, and I just know that if four trained assassins marched in right now, I'd be dead. Unless your MC has a grenade launcher or magic or (better yet) uses some witty way to escape, I wanna see them really struggle in their first fight.

Also been mentioned here, but when the really hot heartthrob leader picks the average Joe MC over a dozen more talented, hotter possible LI's...ugh. You have to have a really good reason for him to do this if it's gonna work for me. Something better than "I could tell s/he had a nice personality when they were standing in a crowd of 45 other people."

OH and when every one of your good guys has a smokin hot body, flawless skin, gorgeous eyes...let Hollywood do that to them. As writers, we get to be more creative.