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@whalekeeper oooh I like that! However…I like to think a lot of my charries fall under both umbrellas. Many of them are trying to survive the evil that’s been done to them, but they’re also having to overcome their own inner demons, sometimes heightened, or because of the evil that’s been done to them, make sense?
Where do those characters fall, do you think?
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@koshka of course….nothing wrong with kidnapping someone to save them
right???
@elishavet-piydon You’re so very welcome!! 💕💕
I really liked how descriptive it was, and how you showed the comparison between the two boys…but otherwise, i don’t think I have any suggestions! It sounds amazing!!
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@whalekeeper Wow, this is really interesting!!!
like @godlyfantasy12 said, I think many of my characters kinda fall into a place in between.
Personally, I feel as if the Passive is more popular/attractive for many people because it shows what can/will happen when someone is faced with something hard yet chooses to rise above it. It plays into people’s desire to rise above the challenges they face in life.
But if they fell under one or the other, the two MCs in my main novel, Leon and Riker…each of them would fall under a different one
Riker, I feel, is more Passive (refuses to let his pain, greif, guilt, the abuse he’s gone through, etc, change him), but he does have to come to terms with his guilt and forgive himself
Leon, on the other hand, feels more Active to me, as his struggle with hatred (even coming close to murdering someone😅) leads him to think/do things he’d never do before, and he has to fight back against the hatred and choose forgiveness
but yeah, I think this is really interesting!!!
@whalekeeper Interesting idea! Yeah, like @godlyfantasy12, I think most of my characters are a combination of those two.
Where'd I get ya this time? The liver? The kidney? I'm runnin' outta places to put holes in ya.
Hmm, interesting. It makes sense. There are many ways and categories for character development and arcs, which is a good thing as there are many authors as well.
I think with people saying their characters are both Passive/Active they are actually referring to a character being Active in the A Story and Passive in the B Story. I have several like this, so perhaps I would clarify that differently, such as A-passive/B-Active. Hmm.
I’ve divided my charie’s into Positive, Flat, or Negative arcs and then Static or Dynamic character. For instance Vulkasin is Positive Dynamic, while Wilkins is Flat Static. However it can get confusing, such as with Daithí who is Negative\Positive Dynamic. Using Active or Passive as a third clarifier could possibly help smooth some things.
Also, I wonder if the attraction of a Passive character over an Active could come from the fact that most of today’s authors/readers would be living Passive arcs themselves. They’re most likely not pursuing their villains on the field of battle, but they are probably fighting their own fights in their day to day lives.
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
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@whalekeeper @keilah-h @mineralizedwritings @godlyfantasy12 @koshka @elishavet-pidyon @lightoverdarkness6 @smiley @anyone-else-idk-heh-XD
Soooooooooooo just wrote this scene….
and *cough cough* my baby is about to go through it…😭
TRIGGER WARNING(S): MENTIONS OF DEATH/TORTURE, THREATS OF VIOLENCE, A BIT OF VIOLENCE (IN THE FORM OF A SLAP/KINDA CHOKING)
Hands bound together behind his back, legs tied, body already aching from fresh bruises he’d been given, still lightly bleeding from the dog bites and other injuries he’d suffered, Riker sat in a chair in the interrogation room at the camp.
Hans walked in a circle around him, hounding him as a wolf would its prey. A slow, sadistic smile spread up the sides of Hans’ thin face. “So, you were involved all along.”
It was time…time to fight and never surrender.
“It took you this long to figure that out?”
“Don’t mock me, Schind. Unlike Fin, you were able to cover your tracks well, but you made a mistake by helping Erich escape. If you hadn’t, maybe you would have been able to make it…but you let your compassion get the best of you.”
“Is compassion so wrong to you?”
Hans laughed. “You still haven’t figured it out, Riker. Compassion, concern, generosity, it all stands in the way of the betterment of the Reich. Undesirables must be eradicated, and we must not feel sorry for a single one of them. I killed Fin, and I won’t hesitate to do the same to you.”
This was it. This was where it all ended. This was the end to Riker’s story. “…I’m ready.”
Hans stared at him for several minutes. He let out a loud, deep laugh. “That is where you are still so naïve, Riker. Fin didn’t work alone…and I can only assume that you didn’t either. You won’t die until I am ready to kill you.”
Riker stared at Hans, knowing he wouldn’t surrender…knowing he couldn’t surrender. “I’ll never tell you anything.”
“I have ways of getting you to talk…I’ll make a better future for Germany…for my sons, unlike the one I was left with.”
“None of this is going to change anything in the past, Hans.”
Hans’ hand came, swift and hard. His handprint was left on Riker’s bruised cheek. His coal eyes blazed with fury that knew no bounds. He gripped Riker’s collar and pulled him up, practically blocking off Riker’s airway. “I will get all of the information I need out of you. Every single man and woman that has helped you with your treasonous, idiotic resistance work will be killed, and you will watch them die to see where all of your efforts at earning atonement has gotten you. Once I am done with all of them, I will kill you, Schind…slowly and painfully. I will kill you in all of the ways that will be the most painful to you, and I will make sure it is slow so you can hear yourself scream…so you can realize how vain your efforts were…so you can realize how stupid it was for you to ever think that you could make up for what you’ve done by doing the so-called “right thing”.”
Hans threw Riker to the floor, and Riker gasped, trying to catch his breath back.
He’d fight…he had to. He wouldn’t cry…he wouldn’t buckle.
“We’ll see where your treason gets you, Schind.” Hans snarled. His boot met Riker’s rib.
Riker groaned and rolled over; his vision blurred for several seconds. His head spun from the pain…from the blood loss of previous wounds.
“We’ll see how long you last,” Hans turned to the guard posted by the door and nodded, “so let the torture begin.”
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@acancello forgot to tag you….I posted a scene above 👆😉
@freedomwriter76
Thanks! I just read it! Thats so sad😭
"Would you kindly...?"
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@acancello yw!! Aww, tysm for reading!!! 💕💕💕 ughhhh, ikr? 😭😭
@freedomwriter76 RIKER!!!!!
WHEN DOES HE GET AWAY?!?! HOW DOES HE GET AWAY?!?! I NEED MORE!!! I NEED ANSWERS!!! *shakes Freedom by the shoulders*
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GAHHHH! *Pounds table*
ThIs! THIS is why I both read and write Middle Grade.
*Table falls apart*
And Hans?
Be glad I can’t get to you through this screen.
*Storms out slamming door*
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the Gork@freedomwriter76
Thanks for the notes, it helps.
But as for your excerpt, WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE BABY?
I mean, I guess he assumes silence and thus saves the lives of those he can. Or at least I hope he is able to because something tells me the guilt associated with “betraying” someone else would be the worst kind of torment to him.
Although…
…
*Is remembering something*
…
Uh oh.
Are you still bumping off a lovable boy soldier? And showing Riker the medal? O.O
You have listened to fears, child. Come, let me breathe on you... Are you brave again? -Aslan
Oh btw, to anyone who is interested I am thinking about starting a RP for animal characters. I have the forum typed up, just not submitted. If there’s enough interest to start it going I will. =)
First Grand Historian of Arreth and the Lesser Realms (aka Kitty)
Fork the GorkI thought about my whole character arc thing for a little while longer (went to the pool and mulled over it in the unfortunately cold water) and found another type which might be considered an “in-between” but is really just Passive.
I should think of better names than Active and Passive, if I’m going to be so passionate about this…
There’s this… trend? Yeah. It’s when a character has been fooled into believing a less-than-good thing about themselves, whether they believe they’re not good enough, or not worth anything, or too weird.
So… it’s actually a super common trend for character development, especially in the middle school to YA fiction genre.
And you can see the appeal. It still classifies as character development, but only in that the character realizes they’re better than they think. It’s a positive message about humanity that lots of people love to see… although it can only go so far. But gimme a second, and I’ll get to that.
You would at first put that in the Active category.
Buuuuut you have to think about it this way: in the end, the character realized they were awesome all along.
Awesome all along. Which means, they weren’t flawed.
Okay okay, I get it, they were “flawed” because they believed something that wasn’t true. But that isn’t a flaw. That means there had to be a lie, the real flaw, in the first place. Where did that lie come from? Who invented the lie?
If it was a host of outward influences, and the character needs to overcome that evil by learning of their own awesomeness, I would personally classify it as Passive.
Because an insecurity isn’t a flaw. It’s the result of a flaw… which might not have come from your character. It may have come from someone else.
This is… a difficult arc to write well. Probably because of the culture surrounding it from this modern genre, which, to be blunt, is rarely written well in any shape or form.
It’s important to acknowledge the fact that everyone has flaws, and causes terrible sin. Selfishness, greed, cowardliness… We need to address these real flaws in writing, in our likable, still wonderful characters.
Characters don’t just have insecurities. That’s unrealistic.
(Hehe, look at me, saying we shouldn’t be unrealistic, when I literally just lead a Socratic discussion at school this morning about how characters aren’t meant to be realistic… I’m such a hypocrite…)
But you know, writing a character with a Passive arc isn’t a bad thing. I’ve seen it written magnificently.
Like Kaladin Stormblessed…
Oh my goodness…
If I, Whaley With-No-Last-Name-Cause-This-Is-The-Internet had a fictional crush…
*Cough cough*
It just needs to be balanced with some real flaws. That’s the gist of it.
So far of what I’ve seen… I’d say your characters are usually Passive. Like Paxton for example, because basically he has to survive. 😂 And Ara and November (…and Arthur?) have insecurities. So it’s more of a reactive arc than a “I need to change everything about myself” arc, yeah?
It’d be interesting to analyze the rest of them 😂
@freedomwriter76
I agree
Ah so you have one of each! Smart choice 😎 Gives you some creative routes to take with each of them.
Yeah, balance is important. Plus, like I said to Freedom, more options!
Oh, so you mean the whole Active/Passive protagonist thing in the three-act story structure? This is why I need to think of different terms for this idea 😜
Interesting. What do you mean by Dynamic and Static? Is static a similar concept to a flat arc, where there isn’t any definitive change?
Well, my “Active” arc could happen just as easily at a work desk as on a battlefield. It’s the active change of inner personal values. The Passive arc is where the character already has those values, but is being attacked in some way. I imagine these arcs to happen anywhere and in any way.
I do agree, though, that authors find it easier to write Passive arcs. Maybe because they’re more willing to write about their own insecurities (and are more aware of them) than their flaws?
But like I said, Passive arcs are often good – I have a few examples of them in my own writing. This is just me trying to figure out where they often go wrong 😂
Speaking of…
Can an Active arc go wrong? How?
“Everything is a mountain”
@elishavet-pidyon NO!!! NOT J****!!! NOT THE BABE 😭
ALSO EVERYONE!! I was lying down and got hit with a small excerpt (not gonna share the exact excerpt cuz it needs editing and such lol)
but ya know how u get hit with bits and pieces of dialogue, etc? This was kinda like that, so I wrote it down.
Basically, I was thinking about this advice I’d read or heard about, when you’re focusing on something traumatic, or big, etc, (or when you’re just writing a characters POV) focus on one detail, or a few in particular. Don’t try to focus on EVERYTHING. Have something specifically stand out.
Something maybe only that character would notice. And maybe later even you discover ur charries noticed different things and can converse.
ANYWAY! So I was thinking and this small thing popped into my head!
So it’s when Lyn finds her Uncle…
I wanna share it…okay I’ll just share it
Also umm…trigger warning-Blood/death and disturbing imagery?
It was strange. For all the horror of discovering her uncle’s body, splayed out in such a grotesque, gruesome manner, all Lyn’s mind could fathom was the way Zolten’s blood pooled around him.
Bright crimson, like that of jam or jelly, it seeped into the carpet, texturing it wet and sloppy. Her uncle’s face was ashen…as if he wore tons of makeup.
Oddly enough, Lyn was reminded of her earlier meal that day, of tarts spewing red from their middles and topped with cream cheese.
All at once, she felt nauseous.
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