Storytelling 101 @storytelling-101 - Tumblr Blog

A post in my own interest

First and foremost I would like to apologize for the sudden lack of activity on this blog. As I am an wirter as well as an artist, I have found my way into an art community recently.

This community is located on a discord server and has undergone a few drastic changes since the beginning of the year. Since I have helped making a lot of those changes happen, I have unfortunately neglected this blog among other things.

However, what started solely as an manga community last year transitioned into a full-blown creative community that wants to push artists, writers and other creators alike forward.

I am part of the stuff there and among other things will be responsible for helping out writers. So I want to extend a heartfelt invitation to every follower of this blog to join our server. Our writer section may still be small but it is sure to grow within the coming weeks!

If you are interested to take a look then you are more than welcome to do that! You can join the server with the following invite link: https://discord.gg/AcXWTPpHDQ

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Discord Server #DIscord Community #Writing Community #Personal Post

Practice With Prompts

Prompts (Week 34)

"I'll be frank with you then. Over those few weeks you lost way more than just a bit of body weight." "You know, even making a bad decision is better than making no decision." "That's what you get for thinking it was a good idea to bet who of you could withstand the most expired food."

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Practice #Prompts #Week 34

hi! this is hard to explain but i’m trying to write my first proper story and i’m suddenly overthinking whether i’m writing in past or present tense. do you have any advice for that?

Hi and thanks for the ask!

As someone who tends to overthink things on a daily basis, I can imagine how troubled you might be about this. So I’ll try to make your decision at least a little bit easier.

In my opinion, choosing the tense you use is very much dependent on your personal preference. Although present tense seems to be more popular with today’s writers, personally, I prefer past tense. Apart from the question about popularity, though, there are different advantages and disadvantages for both choices. I’ll highlight the advantages and disadvantages for present tense only, since the opposite is obvious for the past tense.

***

Advantages: Present tense has a more immediate feeling to it. Writing in present tense gives the reader the ability to experience the story in time with your characters. The moment a character changes, we experience that change in them as well. It also immerses the reader in the character’s emotions for longer than the past tense does. Moreover, handling tenses in general is a lot easier if you write in present tense rather than past tense.

Disadvantages: It’s a lot harder to manipulate the time inside a story. With present tense you usually only use past tense for the few things that actually happened in the past. That also makes it harder to create complex characters because phrases like “has always been” and the like can’t be used, since they would greatly disrupt the present tense’s main use. What’s more, the present tense author is experiencing the story at the same pace the characters do, so it is almost impossible to create a feeling of suspense. Even though you as the author, of course, know what will happen, phrases like “hadn’t known yet” and similar lines don’t fit well into a present tense story. Another possible trap the present tense sets, is misleading authors to write about mundane and trivial events that serve no plot function but would, of course, happen in a naturalistic sequence of actions.

***

I hope this somehow answers your question and makes it easier for you to decide whether to write in present tense or past tense.

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Present Tense #Past Tense #Tense Usage #Ask

Hello!I don't know if this is the kind of ask you can reply to but...how would you go around to find reference for a certain time period? Let's say I want to set a story in a time range from 20's to the 70's, what kind of resources would one look up for clothing, general atmosphere, customs etc. I'm not really talking about big historical event, but day-to-day life.

Thanks for your question! Don’t worry about asking something like this, since I’m open for any kind of ask. If it is something I can answer, I will most likely do so!

To answer your question: This is a very broad subject, so it’s hard to fit it all into one post. So I’ll focus on the, in my opinion, most important parts.

In these times, the most logical choice would probably to search on Wikipedia. However, that is something I personally wouldn’t recommend. Although articles are reviewed from time to time, there is no guarantee that the content is accurate. But, I would still recommend searching on Wikipedia to look up the sources on the bottom of the page of your needed topic. Sometimes you’ll find really good resources down there!

A method I’d rather recommend is getting an actual book (either physical or digital) about your wanted time period. There’s a whole lot of them called “The Writer’s Guide To” and covers periods like Everyday Life in the Middle Ages, Everyday Life in Colonial America, Everyday Life in the 1800s and much more. In those books you’ll find the information you probably need in a condensed form. Another option would be to look for autobiographies and memoirs as well as journals and diaries from said time period. They do give a rather subjective view of the everyday life, but it is often better than nothing. You could also go and take a look at sites like bbc.co.uk which often have reliable articles on such topics. The British Museum e.g., also offers websites with content on specific periods (like Ancient China, Medieval Times, etc.), as does the Fordham University and the Norman Rockwell Museum.

There are also posts here on tumblr that focus on time periods, but I’d also take those with a little grain of salt, since you never know how qualified the person behind the blog is. However, there are also those blogs with link compilations to trustworthy websites, so giving those blogs a go might be a good idea as well.

As I said before, this only scratches the surface of this topic, but I hope this answer your question at least a little bit!

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Research #Time Periods #Ask

Character Development — Part E

Mental Information is essential to know what goes on in the head of your characters. It helps you to find out how they will react in certain situations. Of course, sometimes characters write themselves as the story progresses. But at times you’ll probably find yourself stuck and in that case it is helpful to have something to go back to and find a clue as to resolve your problem. Also, since Mental Information and Emotional Information are really close to each other in terms of the source, I will cover them both in this post.

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Story Bible #Character Development #Character Creation #Character Sheets #Mental Information #Emotional Information

Practice Makes Perfect — Practice With Prompts

The thought of it sucks, I admit it.

Having to practice something again and again to get a decent result isn't what most of us wish for. However, it is often the only way to improve the skills we wish to have. What applies to language learning, cooking, art and a ton of other things, applies to writing as well. You can't expect to write every once in a blue moon with the result being an award-winning novel or screenplay. Unfortunately, that's not how humans work. We tend to forget things we don't recall again and again. If I had to give a (bizarre) example: Your memory is like the logarithm of 0.5 – over the span of a few days to one or two weeks you forget about 60% of what you crammed into your head on day X. At sixth months you only remember about 20-30% of what you once learned.

Don't get me wrong, we never forget things completely. But it's like those things get buried under all the new, shiny, and interesting stuff in the far back corner of your head. So, to maintain your ability and not waste your time having to "get back into" writing, writing prompts is a very neat and useful thing to do. The good thing about prompts is, you don't have to write much. Around 400 words suffice and even if it's a bit less or a bit more, it is absolutely fine. This isn't something you will want to publish online, but something that helps you practice. So it doesn't even matter if it makes not much sense. It's just there to help you improve. Nothing more and nothing less.

So, for that purpose I thought of giving out prompts to help you practice. Those will either be one or two sentences of dialogue or a short setting you can work with.

Prompts (Week 31)

"Why are you yelling at me?" - "Because you don't listen!"

"Could you explain to me, as comprehensible as possible, why you would try to break into your own home?"

Your character is man in his early forties, who can be quite anxious. Your story begins in a hotel, where he upsets a lot of people.

Although I said those prompts are only for you and only for practice, if you do feel confident and you want to share your short work with others, then feel free to submit it to this blog!

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Practice #Prompts #Week 31

Short Excursion

Before I continue the reference posts for character development, I would like to do a little excursion today. To be more precise, I want to take a closer look on pacing. Pacing is both incredibly important and incredibly difficult. I’m sure at least some of you have, at some point, felt that parts of your story or a story you read came off as too rushed or drawn-out. And this is where pacing becomes so important.

Actually, in a standard narrative, all parts of the story have the same kind of pacing. They all have about the same length and there isn’t any part that is more important than others. A good example for this is classic fairy tales. Those usually progress at a steady pace, especially because they usually aren’t extremely lengthy anyway. Changing the pacing from steady and rhythmic gives a story the chance to express its theme more clearly. Of course, lengthening certain parts will make other parts shorter.

Example:

A girl is running an errand in an unknown town although it’s late at night. She wants to quickly get the errand done, so she asks a man for the quickest way to her destination. Subsequently she walks through some narrow back alleys all alone. Nothing happens and she safely arrives at her destination. She delivers the package and takes the same route back that she came. This time, however, she is attacked by the man she asked for directions. The man then is apprehended by the civil defense who were alarmed by the sudden noise and is put into jail.

This would be the standard narrative, where every part has the same length and everything is equally important. If you change up the pacing for certain parts now, the short tale gets a whole different genre:

Example:

Suspense

A girl is running an errand in an unknown town late at night, so she asks a man she met outside for the quickest way to her destination. Following his description, she walks into a dark narrow back alley. The uneven pavement, where the light from the narrow windows doesn’t reach, makes her stumble time and time again. The strong wind, foreboding an oncoming thunderstorm, funnels down the side streets, leaving a howling and slightly wheezing noise in her ears. The cold makes her shiver and her uneasiness grows with every step. She feels her heart beat faster with every second and when she can’t stand the strain anymore she starts dashing through the dark alleys. However, nothing happens and she safely delivers the package before taking the same route back she came. On her way back, she feels oddly secure. Although the path was so unnerving the first time, the girl is convinced that nothing bad will happen this time as well. The wind is still strong, blowing her hair into her face not only once. The whistling sounds don’t bother her as much as before. Even the shadows dancing on the uneven ground don’t alarm her. That is, until the wheezing sounds behind her get louder. She stops in her tracks and whirls around, only to find that she is still alone. Her body shakes not only from the cold now. Her heartbeat accelerates and all the stressing and crushing feelings from before come back at once. She starts running again, looking back every few steps to see if someone is following her. Her face turns pale and her body almost turns to ice when she suddenly runs into someone and in the faint light recognizes the man she asked for directions earlier. The man attacks her mercilessly but is apprehended pretty quickly by the civil defense who were alarmed by the sudden noise.

As you can see, the parts that would successfully act as a catalyst for suspense are lengthened while other parts became much shorter. Of course, if you put even this very short story into different genres, then you’ll need different kinds of details which may differ for every genre.

i.e., if the genre were action, the scene that would be lengthened is obviously the attack on the girl. However, there wouldn’t be much to write there if the girl weren’t able to fight back. Another example would be romance. The parts that would need to be longer are the first and second meeting of the girl and the man. Of course, here, time would play a significant role since they wouldn’t possibly fall in love in mere seconds. Also, in the second meeting, he wouldn’t attack her if he didn’t have a plausible reason for that. The man wouldn’t just mercilessly attack the woman he loves.

So, the bottom line of this post is, by changing the pacing of a story you can either clarify your genre or emphasize parts you want to put importance on.

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Pacing

Character Development — Part D

So, following the General Information is the Physical Information about your character. As mentioned before, this category is pretty much the most important one to be fleshed out properly, because your character will very likely be introduced by their appearance the very first time they appear.

Physical Information

Height Rather self-explanatory. The height can be noted down in your preferred measurement unit like meters/centimeters/foot/inch/ ... or a fictional unit. You can put a conversion into a common measurement unit i.e. in brackets for comparison purpose.

Weight This is the same as with height. You can either choose a universal unit or use a made-up one.

Body Type/Shape Body type, in this case, refers to type such as the common female types apple/pear/hourglass figure. The shape depicts the level of fitness of the character. This can reach from lean/skinny over muscular to curvy/fat. If you want, you can also add if your character is ectomorph, mesomorph or endomorph.

Species This comes in most useful if you write a fantasy story. The species would illustrate if someone is human/beast/demon/dark elf/ ... or anything you can think of.

Ethnicity Ethinicty is one of the most sensitive points in the character sheet, especially because it covers such a wide range of information. Determining someone as i.e. Banjarese/Hani/Komi/ ... gives a lot of information about a person’s ancestry, history, homeland, language and cultural heritage. However, be very careful when filling out this point, because it can happen very quickly that the character becomes an annoying avatar of a stereotypical representative of your chosen ethnicity.

Current Health A rather important but often overlooked point, I think. It gives you a lot of information to work with. Is your character currently ill? Where did they contract their illness? Is it likely to become an epidemic or pandemic? Or has your character a chronic illness? Is it lethal or just interfering with their life? You can also add the other extreme. Has your character outstanding health? Do they ever get sick? Do they have an unusual regenerative ability?

Hair Color Of course, here goes the color of your character’s hair. This can be a natural color like black/brown/blond if you aim for a more natural feel. But it can also be an unusual color like blue/pink/green/ ... if you want your story to feel a bit more like a fantasy story. Naturally, those can also be colors acquired through hair dyeing. You can simply put the original hair color i.e. in brackets.

Eye Color Like with the hair color, this can be common ones like brown/blue/green or exceptional colors like pink/red/yellow/ ... if you like. As with hair dyeing, unusual colors can also be acquired through colored contact lenses. Try not to give too many characters outstanding eye or hair colors because they will become the norm if used too much.

Skin Tone If you write an ordinary story, I would recommend to stick to skin tones that are present in our world. Strange and uncommon skin tones like blue/green/red/ ... won’t go too well with humanoid characters, so those colors should only be used for non-human characters.

Face Shape This is also a point that will look very random to most people. However, the face shape often tells a lot about a character. Those with round faces i.e. are often softer in personality and usually also have rounder body shapes. Moreover, for every face shape there are a variety of stereotypical traits that people think of immediately. So if you want your character to have some kind of specific impression on others, you can also utilize the face shape on top of body type. Of course, there can be exceptions to this rule.

Distinguishing Features Do they have any special birthmarks or tattoos that makes them easily recognizable in a group? Did they sustain any visible scars or some other kind of disfigurement? All this info goes here!

Facial Expressions Do they show their emotions on their face? If so, do they show everything or are there emotions the character hides no matter what?

Resting Face This could, of course, also fit into the facial expressions, but I think it is very meaningful to know if someone is constantly smiling/frowning/scared/angry/ ... even if they don’t feel the emotion at that specific moment. Because they could be easily misunderstood that way.

Smile Another point that would also fit into one of the two points above. However, like with the resting face, the type of smile says a lot about a person’s real thoughts or intentions. Do they smile often? And what type of smile do they show (gentle smile/smirk/sneer/...)?

Eye Contact Do they usually keep eye contact? If yes, does the character constantly keep eye contact? Or do their eyes shift/break from time to time?

Posture The posture can also tell a lot about a character’s background. Is it stiff or relaxed? Do they stand upright or slouched? An upright and slightly stiff posture could i.e. indicate that a person is from a noble family since they are often urged to keep such a posture all the time.

Gait Not many people know that, just like a fingerprint, the stride is unique for every person. So knowing if a character’s gait is confident/lazy/slow/fast/ ... can come in handy, especially for mystery stories.

Gestures Do they often use gestures? Are they using them compulsively? Or maybe they only use them when they are excited or agitated?

Distinguishing Tics and Mannerisms Like already mentioned before, this is another part of tics and mannerisms and a bit different from the one in the general information. While the ones in the general information cover more or less the mannerisms that hail from the mind, these are the ones that have a definite physical component. It includes habits like biting their lip during certain situations, rubbing their arm when they are nervous and anything along that line.

Accent The accent describes almost everything regarding the voice. What falls under this point is i.e. dialect, intonation and pronunciation.

Pitch Another component of the voice, but slightly different from the accent, is the pitch. This can also be a stand-alone identifier. The pitch can be described as i.e. melodious/gravelly/deep/smooth/...

Speech Impediments Although this could also be considered part of the accent, like the pitch it is something that can easily identify a character. This point could contain things like apraxia of speech, stuttering or dysarthria.

Preferred Curse Word This is just what it is. In my opinion, a curse word here and there livens up almost every story. It also tells a bit about a character’s upbringing. Tame and harmless curse words usually indicate a different upbringing than crude or vulgar curse words.

Style of Speech Rather self-explanatory. How does the character talk? Do they sound formal and stiff with complex grammatical structure and heavy use of subject-specific vocabulary? Do they use formal speech that would rather be used in written texts with a lot of figures of speech? Or does the character speak casually to others, regardless of who it is with easy sentences and commonly used words? Maybe they talk intimately with everyone, almost like a child, with very easy to follow sentences and slang words or abbreviations?

Tempo of Speech This too is quite self-explanatory. Does the character talk rapidly without pausing? Are they talking at a measured tempo? Or do they talk very slow as if choosing every word very carefully?

Distinguishing Speech Tics This point shares some similarities with speech impediments, but speech tics aren’t necessarily a speech disorder. What could also be included in this point are repetitive speech patterns that i.e. appear at the beginning or the end of almost every sentence. Like the catchphrase in the general information, Japanese media is a very good example. If watched/played in their original language, anime and games do often have characters that have a recurring pattern at the end of sentences. One good example comes from the game Final Fantasy IX, where the villainous characters Zorn and Thorn use the words ojaru and gojaru to finish their sentences in the Japanese version. The German version has a similar pattern with ..., sag ich and ..., zag ich.

Accessories Accessories cover anything that is carried around on a regular basis. This can be jewelry, hats, a cane or a pipe or anything else. Those things might also be important keepsakes from people the character cherishes.

Glasses Even though glasses could be counted as accessories as well, I listed them separately because aside from being a fashion item, glasses can also be a measure against a physical disability. Does the character wear glasses? Do they even need to wear them? And if they do, when do they have to wear them? Are they able to see without them?

Body Care This point tells a lot about a person’s upbringing, living environment and habits. It illustrates if a character cleans up regularly, washes their clothes and takes care of their body in general. I.e. a person who is on the run will very likely look disheveled, untidy, dirty and famished.

Preferred Outfit/Preferred Style The clothes a character likes to wear the most might also tell you a lot about the character’s personality. Though it will not always represent the exact same type as the personality, you can often estimate someone personality based on their clothing style. It can be a certain outfit they like to wear all the time or a specific style like grunge/casual/goth/sportswear/business casual/hip hop/streetwear/etc. which acts as a visible representation of the character’s personality.

As you can see, there is much more to comment on than with the general information points, so it might be obvious how important the physical information is. Next time we are going to cover the Mental Information.

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Story Bible #character development #Character Creation #Character Sheets #Physical Information

Character Development – Part C

Seeing how I myself struggled over the years to find some reference in terms of character sheets, I decided to share my personal one with all of you. This character sheet is of course not the ultimate guide you'd never find anywhere else and I suppose that some people may want to add or remove some parts. However, in general, I think of this as pretty much complete. I will also give a short commentary on various points. Because what I struggled with most in the beginning was being clueless about what to write for each point.

We will start with General Information and I will post the others one by one after this.

General Information

Name The given name of your character.

Surname Your character's last name.

Nickname And abbreviation or another name somebody gave them (aside from their proper name).

Birth Name Did your character get married or was adopted and received a different last name? Did they apply for a name change at some point in their life? If so, what was their intial last name and/or given name? This info goes here!

Nationality The country/kingdom/empire/etc. your character comes from. This is not necessarily where they live now!

Gender In here fits any info about gender, be it male/female or agender/non-binary/etc. This will also be the spot where you can fill in the genders for (maybe) non-human characters or fictional genders like in the popular alpha/beta/omega universe.

Age This is, of course, where you put in how old your character is. If they pretend to be older/younger you can put the real age i.e. in brackets.

Birth Date The day, month and year your character was born. This can also be some made up dates like 63th of Quanko in the year 2410.

Birth Place Not the exact spot but the village/town/city that they were born in.

Astrological Sign This can either be western signs like libra/cancer/etc., eastern signs like rabbit/tiger/etc. or astrological signs you thought of yourself.

Childhood Home Where did they live as a child/until they left home? How long did they live there? What did it look like?

Current Residence Opposing the childhood home is the current residence: The place your character lives when your story starts. This can be a street (if they didn't leave the town/city), a different city or even a different country. Give this as many details as you need!

Home Description What does the character's home look like? Is it a one-room apartment? Or maybe a house? How is it furnished (modern/vintage/rococo-style/...)?

Neighbors Does your character have neighbors? What are their names, ages and occupations?

Occupation This is where you describe your character's job; in detail if you need. What do they do? Do they like their job? Is it satisfying? Will they keep their job until they retire?

Finances Don't confuse this with income. This point illustrates all kinds of source of income from different places (salary/child support/earnings from rental properties/...). How much can they spend in a month/year according to those earnings?

Income This point concentrates purely on the size of salary from the character's main job. So, how much do they earn in a month/year?

Skills This differs greatly from the point abilities. Skills are things a character acquire after repeated learning. So, if they train martial arts/archery/calligraphy/..., the character will probably master that skill after some time.

Abilities In contrast to skills, abilities don't necessarily need to be learned. They are more likely dormant or active capacities that the character was born with. This can be things like dexterity/courage/quickness/cleverness/etc.

Sexuality As with gender, this can, of course, be heterosexual/homosexual and everything in between or something completely different.

Distinctive tics or mannerisms This will come up with the physical information again, but the ones for this point are things that can be recognized pretty quickly. Possible mannerisms could be a character who never let's anyone touch their bag. Or maybe someone who always tucks a pen behind their ear.

Current Hobbies A pretty simple point: What do they do in their free time? What do they enjoy even though they might not be able to do it very often?

Dominant Hand Although this seems a bit random, this point is especially interesting for mystery writers. This also isn't limited to the hand they write with but also other things like opening a bottle/throwing a ball/holding a knife or fork/etc.

Handwriting Rather self-explanatory. What does their handwriting look like? Is it sloppy/neat/careful/curvy/block letters/etc.? Can they write at all?

Catchphrase Not exactly necessary for every story, but what is the phrase your character would say most often throughout your story? This is often used in anime (i.e. Prince of Tennis or Sailor Moon).

Favorite Foods & Drinks Your character's favorites are more or less endlessly expandable. Favorite foods and drinks are usually what's of most interest for your story, but you can expand it with favorite colors/weather/day of the month/clothing/season/etc.

Favorite Saying This shouldn't be confused with the catchphrase. The favorite saying is more likely a quote of someone famous or someone close to them according to which they live.

Appointments Appointments covers everything that your character attends on a regular basis. This can be long-term treatment, voluntary work, lessons, etc.

I hope this will be of help to some of you. We'll see each other again when we cover the physical information!

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Story Bible #Character Development #Character Creation #Character Sheets #General Information

Character Development — Part B

Tertiary Characters

The reason I didn’t mention tertiary characters in the first part is that they are, simply put, not important enough. Those kinds of characters typically appear, at most, twice or thrice in a story and are in most cases the protagonist’s means to the end. Generally speaking, they are almost fully interchangeable. Of course, there are factors that can’t be changed, like a female character in or from a place only accessible to women. But other than that, in all likelihood, it doesn’t matter if the woman has brown or blond hair. Or if her name is Paula, Hillary or Yasmin. Tertiary characters are often just a little more than generic and accordingly don’t need that much detail as your other characters. Simply basic information like the name, age, gender, occupation and such are more than sufficient. Of course, characters can start out as tertiary characters and become secondary or even primary characters over the course of time. That, however, is very rare.

Character Creation with Character Sheets

So, as mentioned before, I, personally, use character sheets to plan out my primary and secondary characters. Those sheets include general information, physical and mental as well as emotional information and data about relationships.

General Information Starting with general information, this category holds any kind of information that can be perceived in a first meeting, read on an ID card or doesn’t fit into any other specific category. Those include but aren’t limited to first and last name, age, gender, birth date, current residence and so on. You can put down as much info as you like, especially if it’s about favorites (food, music, sports, etc.).

Physical Information Following the general information is the physical information, so to speak almost everything that is perceivable by any of your five senses. Those include but aren’t limited to eye and hair color, body type, height, skin tone and anything similar. Work this category out in detail because, like with humans in real life, your characters will most likely be introduced and judged on physical appearance at first.

Mental Information The third category covers anything in regard to your characters’ thought process, education and the like. Events and factors that have an impact on your character also fit in this category. Those include but aren’t limited to any type of memory (happiest, saddest, clearest, etc.), personality types (introvert/extrovert, leader/follower, etc.), type of childhood, secrets and so on. Fleshing out these details might seem a bit exaggerated, but it helps add depth to your character and give reason to their actions.

Emotional Information Emotional information is something that is almost unknowable to anyone other than the specific characters themselves. Most of this category can’t be perceived in any form from the outside unless your characters openly show or say what they are feeling. Those include but aren’t limited to what makes them happy/sad/angry/scared, their biggest fear, their greatest desire, their idea of perfect happiness and anything along the line. This kind of information may never be revealed in your story, but it will provide you with a better hold on your character’s state of mind.

Relationships As stated in the part about the protagonist, deuteragonist and antagonist, every character has some kind of relation to your protagonists. Defining your characters is a great deal, but setting the relationship those characters have with the protagonist or any other character in the novel, puts them in a comprehensible relation. If you have a kind, a mean and an indifferent character, then it doesn’t tell us much about what they are to each other. Sure, by stereotype the kind one would be the protagonist, the mean character the antagonist and the indifferent one the deuteragonist. But let’s assume that the indifferent and maybe reluctant character is your protagonists. In that case, the roles' relationships aren’t as clear as you first thought they would be, right?

Example: The story starts with an indifferent, reluctant boy who has no motivation to go on his journey to save the world because that duty was pushed onto him by the council of elders from his village. Another boy from his village is seemingly kind but cunning and mean, who sees himself as the hero’s rival because he thinks he is much more suited to save the world. However, over the course of time, he gets angrier and greedier for power – exceptionally mean, to put it bluntly – because the chosen boy went on the journey nonetheless and receives help from many people. And the situation escalates when a kind woman joins the boy, who seems to be the key to saving the world.

In this example, at first, the protagonist would be indifferent, the deuteragonist would be the mean and the antagonist the kind character. That changes throughout the story though, and the antagonist and deuteragonist change roles, giving birth to a deuteragonist that evolved from a former antagonist and a deuteragonist who slowly grew into the antagonist. So the relationship defines the characters in a specific but different way than their roles do. Since character roles can overlap or even change throughout your work, a relationship illustrates the character’s positioning to each other in a more precise way.

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Story Bible #Character Development #Tertiary Characters #Character Sheets

To everyone seeking help

I am always ready to help if someone needs it and I will provide answers to the best of my knowledge. However, I am not someone one can look for to think up plots or characters. That is something every writer needs to come up with themselves. Because in every piece of work there is a piece of the writer as well. So if I were to provide a whole plot or characters for someone else, then it wouldn't really be that person's heart flowing into the story.

#Writing Help #Writing Tips #Writing Experiences #Personal

Character Development — Part A – Character Archetypes

Protagonist, Deuteragonist, and Antagonist

Every story needs certain types of characters that typically become archetypes. That means those characters have a universal set of traits and behaviors that can be recognized as such and will let your reader recognize them as said types. The specific characteristics are mostly used on an unconscious level when forging characters because archetypes are generally well-received.

So, the different character roles in your tales will most likely fit into some kind of cliché. However, that isn’t necessarily bad. Just as character roles can overlap, archetypes might, too. The most important character in the story is almost always the protagonist.

The protagonist is the main character, after all. Probably 80-90% of the plot will center around them and is usually written as a likeable guy/girl the reader will care about after some time. Because, if you don’t have a main driving force then there is no plot. Every other character role is defined in relation to them. When thinking about characters this one should always be the first you flesh out.

More often than not the antagonist is created as the complete opposite of the good-natured, likeable hero. That is to be expected, though, since the antagonist’s sole purpose is to oppose, thwart and threaten the main character. Of course, it is possible to turn things around: make the protagonist a character that seems nice on the outside, but is a pure evil antagonist on the inside and vice versa.

Whichever it is, their opposite sides and goals are the main source of conflict between them. Although the antagonist usually isn’t seen much, he is still indispensable for your story.

The secondary characters, often a group with a more or less close relationship to the hero, are called deuteragonists. They join the hero on his journey or provide him with crucial information. In terms of superhero comics, the deuteragonist would be the so-called sidekick. Not only do they add to the plot’s depth, but they also give your protagonist the chance to show different sides of himself.

They also have great potential to carry some other roles, too. A deuteragonist can, at the same time, be the main character’s love interest. Although the love interest is commonly a separate character role, it can overlap with the deuteragonist. Just as the object of the protagonist’s feelings of love, a deuteragonist can also be a confidant (like a best friend) or a foil character (like a rival).

It is also possible for more than two roles to coincide. A love interest can also be a deuteragonist and a confidant. A character as a love interest, deuteragonist, and foil is also conceivable. However, when a single character fills in several roles it will become that much harder to work out an authentic and believable character that doesn’t contradict themselves. That is also why usually more than one protagonist exists. Several main characters can more easily fill out different archetypes than secondary characters whose screen time is often limited.

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Character Profiles

Since I already dedicated the last post to character development, I want to shed a bit more light on this topic.

Imagine your whole novel as making a scarf. The knitting needles to make the scarf are your world. It is what you absolutely need to start your story. The pattern you chose to make is your plot and the threads of wool are your characters. All three things are necessary, but out of the three, both the world and the characters are pretty much nothing you can omit.

The more you repeat and at the same time modify the pattern, the longer the scarf will get. And with more threads, the scarf will become bigger, with less it gets smaller. But you can’t do completely without them. And by weaving your threads the pattern will gradually become clearer.

That is why it’s almost the most important thing to know your characters in as much detail as you can. Knowing how your character will act in certain situations will not only let you write more easily, but it will also add depths and authenticity to your novel.

In the posts to come I want to take a little closer look at the different types of characters.

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On Planning Out Characters

Today, I want to take a closer look at forging characters with you all.

It might seem exaggerated, but your characters are your story's greatest asset. There's no use to the best thought-out, elaborate story with lots of twists and turns if the reader can't identify with at least one character. And writing a likeable character, whether it's a protagonist or an antagonist, is much harder than some might think.

When you think of a likeable character, of course there are things that come to your mind almost immediately. Beautiful characters that are kind and gentle as well as intelligent and selfless. That seems like the perfect character, right? Even though it would be nice if everyone was like this, it would also be utterly boring. So you'll have to dig a little deeper when thinking up characters. And by doing so there are a few things that I would like to highlight.

For one, not every character has to be a beauty. The desire to have beautiful characters isn't unusual and it mostly stems from the social environment most people grow up in. Those who are deemed ugly are mistreated, antagonized or straight away bullied. But even though I won't go into more detail about the social grievance of this topic, I just wanted to point out that there are those who are called beautiful and those who aren't. And society has trained us to think that beauty equals goodness. That, however, isn't necessarily true. Personally, I know far more kind and gentle people who are average-looking or what would be considered ugly than beauties who treat others kindly.

The second part I want to go over is that a character shouldn't be too perfect, even when he or she has flaws! For those of you who are familiar with fan fiction, these too-perfect characters are generally those – mostly self-inserts – who are labeled as Mary Sue or Gary Stu. I have witnessed such characters even in original fiction. However, in my opinion, it is always necessary to add some kinds of flaws to a character, but it's highly unlikely that the character in question is aware of all of them. There might be hidden flaws the character doesn't even realize he or she has, so let them suffer harsh consequences that result directly from their hidden flaws.

Another thing I see frequently is the misconception that knowledge equals ability. Knowing something or how to do something and having the ability to act upon it aren't the same thing. One can have extended knowledge about a lot of things (scholars for example) but no or hardly any ability to put that knowledge into practice. So it is absolutely fine for a character to know lots of things, but more than unlikely that they'll be able to pull it all off.

Something I personally feel is very important is keeping even side characters consistent! I know very well that this seems a bit excessive and that one might think that it's fine to just do whatever because those characters don't appear often anyway. But that's not how you should think of these characters. Though their appearance may be limited, they can become kind of supportive existences that keep your story together. A well-introduced side character can save you a lot of explaining the next time they appear.

What people tend to forget as well is that you should take a break sometimes. That doesn't only apply to the author, but to the characters and the reader as well. We all need breaks to function properly, fictional characters are no exception to that. As fun and exciting as imagining action scene after action scene or drama after drama sounds – it isn't. Of course, sometimes events like that do happen closely after one another, but doing that deliberately will leave not only the characters but also the reader exhausted! Everyone needs a break at some point to take a breather and recharge. Don't think of your characters as robots or something else inanimate but as real living human beings. That will automatically give more life to them.

As an addition to the prior point, remember that your characters need to develop throughout your story. Treat them as real people who grow with every experience, every success and every setback. Stagnant character growth is often considered to be one of the things that most likely make a reader lose interest in your story. And that's because it will get boring – very fast at that. It's not only that the character will seem unnatural but also that they will become predictable to a point that it gets annoying. Character growth is all about surprising your readers with a character's unexpected reactions to familiar situations. Of course, it won't spark interest in every reader, but a lot will start to wonder how the character will behave next time and continue reading.

I wasn't sure if I should include this point because it is one of my pet peeves, but after thinking about it I guess it is kind of important: Don't go on a killing spree! This is directly related to the popular phrase "Kill your darlings." Yes, the death of a character can indeed be the trigger for important events and especially when war is involved death is inevitable. However, don't kill off characters just because you can! Don't let the death of someone - be it primary, secondary or tertiary characters or even one of the masses - be meaningless. Nothing is more of a turn-off for a reader than seeing characters that they love die because the author thought something along the lines of 'someone had to die, so I rolled the dice.'

I guess this last point also applies to storytelling in general, but it is also applicable to characters. Absolutely everything is allowed. I am aware that this sounds strange in an age where every other reader is offended because of something a creator deemed a minor (or no) issue at most. But you should keep in mind that it is you work and that you can write whatever you want. If it offends someone then they don't need to read what you write. It's as easy as that. So don't refrain from telling a story about something just because it might potentially upset a specific group of people. In fiction (as long as not stated otherwise in your respective country's laws), you can do whatever you want. Write what you are comfortable with. Write your characters as warped and dangerous as you like them. Because fiction is a safe space to explore the things that you wouldn't want in your real life.

So, forging a character is much more complicated than throwing a few likeable traits into a pot and giving it a name. I, for example, use a character sheet for my primary and secondary characters where I answer no less than 139 and 88 questions respectively for each character. The questions cover general, physical, mental, emotional and social aspects of my characters and it helps me a great deal to come up with their reactions to different situations.

I'd like to know: Do any of you use character sheets? If yes, how many questions do you usually answer for you character?

#Writing Experiences #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Building #Character Creation #Character Development

I recently got this ask and I thought long and hard what to do about it.

Please don't get me wrong. All in all I am always open to promote other people because I know how hard getting attention on the internet is. However, I think this is something I don't want to do on this particular blog since I opened it purely for advice on writing. Another thing is that there still isn't anything other than a synopsis to read, so it would be hard for others to actually decide if they like the story or not. I will definitely keep the ask though, and if it turns out that others also need someone to promote their works (and have at least one chapter posted), I'll gladly open up a side blog and share your works there!

#Story Promotion #Ask #Personal

Things to take note of before writing — Part 1

Part 1 — Plot Themes

Today I would like to take another excursion that lies outside of world building. In the early days one thing I struggled with was writing a plot that had enough essence to it to be interesting. To put it bluntly, my writing resembled a city with only a single street. There would have been so much more to see and to explore if it just had a few more streets. But with my limited knowledge and technique I was unable to produce more than a single track. As a consequence, some things didn't make much sense at the end or seemed rushed or to come out of nowhere, so it left me quite frustrated more often than not.

That is why it's important to have more than just a main string for your story. I think the easiest – though not the only — way to achieve this is using several themes. I usually pick three different themes for my stories and classify them as core theme, umbrella theme and support theme. To explain those classes in a bit more detail, I'm taking the themes from my current project as examples.

My core theme for this particular work is romance. This is essentially what your story would be put under in terms of genre. And this theme is also what ties the main characters together. Other themes could very well be mystery, horror, drama and so on.

The umbrella theme here is freedom. This is what drives every character in the story. It might very well mean something different to each of them but their actions are all tied to the desire to achieve whatever this theme contains. Other things that could fall in this category might be romance, friendship or maybe wealth.

The third theme for this particular example falling under the support class is politics. This is what interferes with both the core and the umbrella theme. It is called support, but in fact that's what makes achieving the other two groups difficult. It could also be called the spice for your plot, something to keep things interesting.

Though, when using multiple themes there is something important you have to take note of. Aboslutely do not let all themes have their climaxes at the same time. This would look something like this:

For one thing, this is highly unrealistic. It is said that misfortune never comes alone, but it is still not common. Moreover, this kind of setup is a pain for the reader to get through because the less tense parts all happen at the same time. This will get boring for the reader pretty fast, depending on how long these parts are.

This is what you should rather do! It’s okay if climaxes do overlap occasionally, but that shouldn’t be the norm. In this example there is high tension in other themes while the tension of the core theme declines. This way the story keeps being interesting for the reader. And in addition, they will be able to concentrate more on specific aspects because they can focus on one thing at a time.

For now, this is all in regard to themes and how to use them. Next time, I want to do another excursion and focus on some important points while creating characters for a story!

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Story Themes #Story Building

On How To Write A Story

Since I’m still on compulsory leave from work due to the pandemic, I want to use this opportunity to touch on a different topic than world-building. What I’d like to introduce today are three methods to telling a story.

1. The first one is what I like to call the “Circular Structure.”

A way which, if we’re honest, every storyteller will be familiar with. Maybe you saw it in a dream, or a piece of art — be it music, a book or a TV show — inspired you. But I’m sure everybody has had this experience, where a perfect scene was laid out inside your head that you just knew you had to write. That is, in fact, a very legitimate way to start writing. You can imagine this scene you want to use as the centerpiece of a piece of art. Everything else needs to be arranged around this piece, so that it won’t collapse and still capture the viewer’s attention and excitement. Because we probably all have been there at least once, I doubt I have to spell out what tremendous work writing a story in this manner is, so that the author as well as the reader are satisfied with the result.

2. The second approach might be the most commonly used way and is what I call “Assorted Structure.”

This way of drafting usually starts with a character or premise that the author likes to explore within a storyline. So they start to plan out the characters, the world, the plot and so on before writing even a single line. Although the work before the actual writing starts is tedious and can become boring pretty fast, it also makes writing that much easier in the end. You have all the details already there so all that’s left is putting that data into an appropriate and appealing text. It’s easy to lose motivation during the research process of this approach, so it’s best to only use it if you know you won’t be quitting in the middle.

3. The third technique is widely known as the Snowflake Method. For consistency's sake I will call it “Stratified Structure” though.

In a way, this approach is similar to the Circular Construction. However, while the first method usually already has all the details ready for its centerpiece, it’s different for this one. Here, the author starts with something akin to a blurb, consisting of three or four sentences that depict the whole plot. After that, you take every sentence and write a short paragraph using its content adding a few more details. This kind of process continues from expanding the paragraph to half a page and that to a full page and so on until you’ve added all the facts you need. That way, each branch will fan out more and more, just like a tree. This way the author will stay true to the core of what they want to write while filling it with the details to make the story interesting.

Now, if you were to ask me which of these is the best way to write a story then, honestly, I wouldn’t have an answer.

All three methods have their positive and negative aspects that make it easier or harder for someone to actually compose a story. However, judging from experience, since I have tried out these methods, I would say that it’s absolutely up to your personal preferences.

It doesn’t matter which approach you use or if you combine two of them or take an entirely different and novel style in order to tell your tale. The important matter is that you enjoy working on it and don’t struggle with the technique you work with. Because, and this also stems from experience, if you enjoy drafting a story and maybe get so engrossed in it that you forget everything else around you, it shows. Not only will the reader take over some of your excitement, it will probably also make you feel satisfied with your story even if you re-read it several years later.

So, in the end it doesn’t exactly make a difference how you approach writing. What matters most is that you actually write the stories you want to tell. Because even of someone else has a similar idea to the one you have, no one else can tell it as you do. There will always be differences, so don’t worry and just write away!

#Writing Tips #Writing Experience #Writing Help #Storytelling #Writing Methods #Story Construction

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