Jade Varden Official Blog

You find them all the time in books, lurking around. They are charming, they are sexy, they are dangerous. The hot but scary sociopath has become a common story trope. But how common is this person in life? Do you stand any chance of really knowing a sociopath…and has pop media made this way more of a thing than it actually is? Devil's Snare In story, the sociopath is often highly attractive, intriguing, alluring and mysterious. They are here to draw in the hero, to weave a sexy spell and ultimately, to be bested by the hero. Outsmarted and outmatched at last. It was probably quite titillating once upon a time, but now it has become rather shopworn. Some writers combat this by trying to do something new with their sociopath. Often, a twist is employed where no one, even the reader, knows if this person is really a sociopath. And from a statistics standpoint, probably not. What About Your Friends? Everyone has pretty much met someone they suspect of being a sociopath. If you want to...

He's always there to wipe the tears off the heroine's cheeks, the backup date when the dream date falls through, the ear she can tell all her secrets to. He's hot in a low key way and there is no question that he's hopelessly in love with the main female character, who is utterly clueless to his affection. He's the simp best friend and…he kinda sucks. There may be no good way to put him in your story. Maybe he doesn't belong at all.       Nice Guys Finish Last He's in the friend zone but he's hopelessly in love with said friend, a girl who is typically under the spell of a much cooler guy. He listens to her, he notices everything about her and for reasons, he doesn't make a move until well after the aforementioned dreamboat cool guy breaks her heart. On the surface, this all seems pretty romantic. He finally makes his move right at the end of the story and just like that, the girl suddenly sees him for the first time. They kiss at last. What a happy ...

She's free spirited. She's smart and interesting. She's damaged, but you can fix her.erent. She's the manic pixie dream girl...and she's in stories all the time. Is the manic pixie dream girl anything like a real person? Should you be making an effort to erase her from your stories?   Holly Golightly Kate Hudson's Penny Lane in "Almost Famous," Kate Winslet in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," Helena Bonham Carter in "Fight Club." They're all sexy, they all have a dark side and they're all fearless when it comes to being themselves. These are classic manic pixie dream girls but if you want a true prototype of this common character trope, look to Audrey Hepburn. Hollywood goddess Audrey Hepburn arguably played a manic pixie dream girl in nearly every movie she appeared in and perhaps even originated this story trope on screen. No one quite captures the ceaseless drive to be happy that continues to fail due to the chara...

The dues ex machina. Foreshadowing. Using an allegory. The Roman a clef. Some literary terms sound so cool, you want to figure out what they are just to use them. And then...there's the Mary Sue. Who is this character and how is this a literary thing? Mary, Mary Quite Contrary Mary Sue is a name that many critics will use, often with a bit of a sneering tone. But she sounds kind of sweet and innocent, so what's so bad about her that critics always seem to dismiss this as a literary device altogether? The Mary Sue is a specific character trope, meaning it's a frequent and somewhat static characterization that appears in fiction of all kinds, be it on stage, on screen or on the page. And despite the name, a Mary Sue character can be of either gender, both genders or have no gender at all. So what makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue? For starters, they are ridiculously lucky. And unlike most of us mere mortals, they emerge from the worst of situations generally unscathed. They are oft...