Josiah DeGraaf

@audrey-caylin Yes; mentors can make great antagonists–and I really like the way you use that antagonism to make the protagonist doubt the mentor’s loyalty. The mentor sounds like an influencer to me.

The primary difference between a foil and influencer is how directly the character tries to move the protagonist to their position. Since it…[Read more]

@audrey-caylin Great to hear that! What do you think made this lesson the most interesting lesson yet for you?

Haven’t read either of those books unfortunately, but both look like good examples!

@jane-maree Heard of that book before but haven’t read it. That definitely sounds like method #1 though!

@audrey-caylin Nice work with those characters. I like the form of poetic justice that you’re using with Holly by allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. And then role models like Skye are always great for protagonists to have.

@jane-maree Good setup there. I think I got the basic gist of it. Great way to use examples to develop a character arc.

@jane-maree Yep. Often we look up to people precisely because they’ve been able to grow a lot in the past. Great examples!

@jane-maree Yep. Often we look up to people precisely because they’ve been able to grow a lot in the past. Great examples!

@overcomer I think either could work. You could make one the primary theme and the other a major supporting theme, or you could say they’re the same theme viewed from opposite angles. Your theme could then be purpose with the focusing question of “How do you discover and embrace your destiny?”, or, from another angle, the theme could be…[Read more]

@overcomer Don’t worry about it! Glad to hear you’ve been learning so much from it. 🙂

Welcome to the forum @Kina-Lamb! Great to see more family members on the site. 🙂

@arella-noreen Haha! I’ll take that in creepiest, stalkerish way I can then. 😉 It certainly is true about writers tho… Just as long as you never admit to someone that you modeled that character after them!

Welcome to the forum @arella-noreen! Great to have you with us. I like the premise of your novel–superhero novels are really fun. Have you read Into the Fire or Steelheart? Both are pretty fun superhero stories, especially the former.

@overcomer That seems to hit the big themes of Magician’s Nephew very well. Nice work!

@kate-flournoy Looks good. One thing to clarify would be that, since there /can/ be some overlap between the Foil and the Influencer, is that the Influencer needs to be directly trying to persuade the protagonist to come over in order to be a proper Influencer. Simply opposing the hero does not necessarily make someone an Influencer; it just means…[Read more]