Character Development

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  1. What can be learned from Buffy?

    When I first joined this message board, I had just finished watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the series, from beginning to end. I think it was the best show ever made, bar none. Despite some heavy contenders like Breaking Bad, or Jessica Jones—none of them have anything like the perfect mix of creativity, humor, and fun Buffy offers, along with intense drama, sometimes to the point of tragedy. I bought the entire series as a DVD box set, which included behind the scenes for some episodes,...
    By Xoic · Nov 1, 2023 · 1.5K · 64
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  2. Plot driven / Character driven, and a hybrid of the two

    Last night I was introduced to the idea that plot-driven and character-driven don't need to be a binary proposition, you can mix-and-match 'em, or hybridize 'em. That's the first time I recall seeing this idea, and it immediately struck me as true. Several times before I've made similar discoveries, that ideas writers often take as binary propositions actually work better on a sliding scale, a spectrum. Just as dark and light don't necessarily mean only intense blinding white light or...
    By Xoic · Jul 29, 2023 · 1.2K · 19
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  3. Character Web

    I didn't post this video because it's about The Walking Dead. I never really cared much for that show. Watched a few episodes, then lost interest pretty fast. Maybe because there's no identifiable theme? I don't know. I posted the video because it's about Character Web and how to go about creating one. Each character should have a particular stance on the main theme, or possibly a secondary theme for some of them. Otherwise they don't belong and are just along for the ride and weighing...
    By Xoic · Jun 18, 2023 · 853 · 3
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  4. Fantasy 101; Characters

    Characters are the bane of my existence. Are they too dry? Too monotonous? I can never tell. So, of course, I chose fantasy as my genre of choice. The genre that requires the most complex characters. After all, I am the dumbest person you will ever meet. Take my newest novel, for instance. The two main characters are supposed to be insanely different, with similarities that aren't really notable. And yet, I can't tell if that point is actually getting made, or if I make the similarities too...
    By ThatNerdyAuthor · Sep 26, 2022 · 821 · 1
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  5. It's All Good

    My kid sister died about a month ago. I'm still processing it. I tried to capture it below, but I'm so close to it that I can't tell if it's worth reading, or it's TMI. I didn't want to post it in the workshop, because it's not meant as a project but as an effort to understand. I recently touched death, touched it when I held the icy-cold, blackened, hand of my dying kid sister and learned from her the art of dying right. Susan (not her real name) was diagnosed with cancer about four...
    By GrahamLewis · Oct 18, 2022 · 705 · 1
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  6. I need help deciding on a place for a pack of werwolves

    I need help deciding on where and what area or town on the west coast could be preferably close to what I need for the pack land in the werewolf book I am writing . Any help is very appreciated and accepted . so here it is what is needed exactly : 1). west coast town 2). a small town at least 30 mins from any small city were they would have the necessities like a mall or fancy restaurants and of course humans would be here but not in the werewolf town 3). in this small town I'd like to...
    By Lissa93 · Aug 1, 2022 · 641
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  7. In Praise of Imperfection

    In Praise of Imperfection Years ago, I read that, in some cultures, a vase that has been cracked and repaired is considered more beautiful than a perfect specimen. The imperfection tells a story of triumph. “I have suffered, but I have survived.” Battle scars are to be worn proudly. It’s the imperfection that adds depth to the piece. Imperfection is a lot more interesting than perfection. Otherwise, what would we gossip about? But seriously, what is perfectionism but an attempt to...
    By Louanne Learning · Feb 25, 2023 · 636 · 2
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  8. Wild Woman – A message to women

    Wild Woman – A message to women You know her. She lives inside of you. She is your instinct and intuition. She is the experiences and lessons of your ancestors encoded in your DNA. If you trust her, and let her live, you can be your authentic self. Hell with dogma. If you let her come to the surface, you will realize all your original gifts. Folklore is rich in the psychology of women. For this reason, I encourage you to get a copy of and read Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa...
    By Louanne Learning · Dec 3, 2022 · 622 · 4
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  9. Dialogue should be action

    What does this mean? I have a few ideas I'll write about, but I also want to expand my understanding of how dialogue pushes narrative and character interaction, and how it reveals the personalities of the characters involved. It can do all these things and more. As for the more—dialogue, like just about any part of story, can provide exposition, it can be inert, static, or it can even work against the progression of the story. But I'll start with a few things I think I know about it. As...
    By Xoic · Mar 30, 2023 · 548
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  10. The Altered Self

    I hadn't heard of a sci-fi genre called The Altered Self before, or of Evolutionary Horror. And yet some of the most powerful books and movies I know of fit into one or both. I guess it's because I never really looked into sub-genres. But honestly, I don't think truly evolutionary horror would be frightening at all, since evolution takes like millions of years and affects, not you directly, but your very distant descendents. The reason these movies and stories are so intense is because it...
    By Xoic · Feb 3, 2024 · 521 · 2
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  11. Examining the writing in Sail and The Man Who Liked Dogs

    These are my two favorite hardboiled stories I've run across so far, both of them in the same book—The Hard Boiled Omnibus, published in 1952 and edited by Joseph T Shaw. It's a collection of some of the best stories from Black Mask magazine. I've already linked to Sail twice, but I feel I should include links here for both stories: Sail by Lester Dent The Man Who Liked Dogs by Raymond Chandler I find the beginnings of both stories to be the strongest parts. With Sail the main body almost...
    By Xoic · Dec 28, 2023 · 497 · 7
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  12. Writing From Life Experience

    Often when people hear you should write from your own life experience, they think of it on a very surface level—like if you played a lot of football you should write about football. In one sense this is what it means, or rather it's one aspect of it, but there's a much deeper, broader, and more universal aspect that this understanding misses. This is the aspect I want to write about—not the external things you've done (play some sport, live in a particular region or neighborhood, work on a...
    By Xoic · Feb 27, 2024 · 460 · 9
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  13. LocalScriptMan videos

    I already posted several of his videos on the topic of Character Web, but he frequently puts out great videos I want to collect where I can quickly find them. So here's a place to do that, no particular topic. What if Character Sheets weren't awful? He says he used to talk about theme (he sure did, it was all over his character web videos), but now he's moving away from that. It seems like he's working up his concepts into some kind of grand overarching narrative, a sort of universal...
    By Xoic · Mar 3, 2024 · 456 · 1
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  14. The Inner Life (when characters come to life)

    I'm using this entry to collect together certain threads where I've expounded on my ideas about the inner life—of human beings and of characters. Here's the thread that sparked this: Whence the theme? But the underlying ideas connect up with my thoughts on characters having an inner life of their own, which I wrote about rather extensively in these threads: Downloading Characters Characters are not listening to me. Help. Do you feel a responsibility to your characters? ... And maybe a...
    By Xoic · Oct 21, 2023 · 453 · 7
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  15. What a Year!

    As 2022 comes to an end, most of us are reflecting back on the year and others mine as well be in 2023. getting those resolutions ready to be forgotten about by the second week of January if they're lucky to make it that long. I've tried that I don't know how many times and I never felt like I was actually changing. well until this year. The beginning of the year had all the magic; I thought 2022 was gonna be the year where everything just magically turned perfectly. Between trying to be a...
    By AraROO1111 · Dec 29, 2022 · 441
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