I’ve seen bullies in many stories. Some cliche, some written well.
- What are your tips on writing bullies?
I’d say the best thing you could do when writing bullies is to make the bully realistic. The problem with mean girls in episode stories is the fact that their only goal in life is to ruin the MC’s relationship. Mean girls should have their own personality, their own goals and dreams.
- What are some cliches you hate?
When the nerd falls for the bully. Being a bully doesn’t make you cool, hot, sexy, anything. It makes you a jerk. Bullying does affect people’s mental health, and nobody’s going to look at someone who makes their life hell and say omg, my bully’s so hot, bully me. A good way to write this is to make the bully actually have changed.
- Anything else on the topic of writing bullies?
5 Likes
My tips on bullying are that there are many different kinds of bullying and some are more common at different ages so if you wanna go the extra mile and research that in terms of child psychology then that would be rad. Exclusion bullying can happen as early as Primary school as it is when clique mentality forms.
Now when writing a bully don’t just make them a petty name caller because after a while the MC probably wouldn’t care so you need to keep the bully doing different things such as spreading rumours, photoshopping pictures of the MC and sending them to people. Make them completely relentless, you want the reader to dislike this person.
When it gets to the stage of you wanting to make the bully liked you have gotta make it difficult, make them work for redemption. The reader would decide whether they would forgive the bully. But what the MC decides is up to you, just don’t make them a pushover.
Victims of bullying can develop the need to prove themselves to the extent that they themselves become bullies as they see it as “defending themselves” because they have been putting up with bullying for so long that it becomes a default. Problem with defending yourself all the time (in situations where you don’t need to) is that you come across as unpleasent. This is an MC that I want to see in stories. Instead of the typical MC who becomes really shy, that does happen but not the way it is shown in these stories.
If the MC is in their teens then they are likely to be angry about it.
4 Likes