So if you're like me you've watched Breaking Bad and absolutely marveled at the story and character development of Walter White as he did what he did "for his family" The series had a lasting effect on me, because 1. It proved that Television is capable of quality writing and programming outside of HBO and 2. Walter White was a certified badass who did what it takes by any means to save his bacon. Recently after a slight shift in MC and story focus I changed my MC Tonya for the worst. She was already working and with people who hate her for having supernatural abilities. Though she was supposed to be a lobotomized and have no memory of her past and no memory of her abilities. That failed and she's been keeping that fact a secret. She and a group of her fellow officers have a battle with the current antagonist's super powered cronies and as they kill a majority of her officers she has no choice but to bust out her own powers to save them. However this proves to be a mistake when the last two officers of her own crew turn on her because she's metahuman. In the ORIGINAL write of this scene everyone but Tonya dies and she battles the main antagonist alone, barely saving her life by making a deal with him. AFTER watching Breaking Bad the two men survive and learn Tonya's secret. They refuse to listen her and now go against both her and the protagonist. Tonya snaps here and orders one of the men to shoot her with everything he has. She lives because she destroyed the bullets with her skin, she wanted to show her superiority to them. She grows worse by the moment by torturing the antagonist's first goon by shaking every pain nerve in his body causing him to go into shock and pass out. By threatening the main antagonist's woman she manipulates him into negotiation. Her first order of negotiation is ordering him to kill her last two men. She then makes her deal with him. Similar to what Walter has done on several occasions. Tonya originally was gonna be a more static character who had a sense of justice and a slight tendency to become emotionally unstable. But as I made slight changes I realized she was becoming a progressively dark character. She's now a compulsive planner and a brilliant calculator of probability, she always plans 5 steps ahead of everyone and if you anger her to a certain point she's probably already planned your death and it probably won't be pretty. She's the type of boss you continually lose trust in as her methods grow more and more questionable and she does anything she sees fit to either achieve her goals or mask her secrets. My character has become Walter White essentially and I'm not sure whether I should change this or embrace it. I feel the change is very welcome to her character who has decades of repressed hatred for people but at the same time... yikes. Have you ever had a character change this radical based on an outside inspiration like a TV show or whatever have you?
I actually have had that happen to me sort of in a way. Actually my story was based off a TV show I forgot I had watched a long time ago. I like to use it as a reference and not take to much from it.
Alli, hasn't changed any specifically because of any TV show or movie, but some people I've showed her to see some similarities to Greg House. Must be the whole drug using doctor with a somewhat poor bedside manner thing because she is pretty damn far from being a mystery solving genius.
Walter White syndrome? That is the best series ever! Except for GoT But like, I don't think people should call it WW syndrome when there is a morally good character (too good, not standing up for himself) to break bad. (Pun intended) because it happens so often, even in real life, when school massacres is done by students is avery powerful example. It just gets to a point where one has taken too much shit and that turns them to someone else.
The only show that really affects how I write characters. Seriously, I know a lot about Walter White as if I actually know the guy, and he's a fictional character! Just goes to show how much development was put into him. White's ego on Breaking Bad has given me a lot of insight on how to develop a proper antagonist. (Because Breaking Bad is about the main character becoming the villain).
am i the only one who is a bit "meh" about breaking bad? to answer the question, nope, i have had other things ive seen or read give me certain feeling that i want to replicate in a story but thats about as far as my "inspiration" goes.
Nope. I honestly do not see what everyone else sees in the show. It's like Dexter. Ignoring the part where you are supposed to root for the serial killer, the characters themselves are rather meh. Could not give a rat's ass about Dexter himself. Boring. His sister was hot though. The first season of Breaking Bad was actually pretty good. Not the greatest, but good. Then... I try not to let similarities or cool things I see in a show or another book reshape my work much. While the idea that every story under the sun has already been told is nonsense, the ones that resonate with people have. Cliches are not bad. They are bad when used poorly. Drawing inspiration from other works is not wrong, however. But examine the character/event in question and figure out what it is about that situation that roused your passion. Then incorporate that into your work. Otherwise you are just jumping on the bandwagon of recent culture or counterculture.
