Josiah DeGraaf

@Aratrea okay! I did wonder, yes. 😀

That’s… wow. Figures I would be the one to come up with something that unnecessarily complicated. lol

This lesson actually really poked me hard. I need to look at this more when I revise. So much that I need to improve on.

So in the end (after over two hours of staring blankly at my words/getting distracted and eating lunch/a lot of other procrastinating) I almost had to re-plot out these three scenes, so they aren’t exactly like this (yet). But…[Read more]

Still using the same book as before. At this point the protagonist’s main EiL is a tentative It’s better to run than to fight.

1st

Action: The protagonist, Will -trying to keep himself alive and not do stupid things that other people tell him to- clashes with Side Character over a decision which Side Character made which Will thinks is not a…[Read more]

*scrunches face* That’s a good question. 😛
Let me try to explain it in an uncomplicated way. The message of my story is that the world is worth saving/being a part of/hoping in not because man is ultimately good, (he isn’t) but because man is indeed not the ultimate answer.
Does that make more sense?

And I can tell you right now I shall be…[Read more]

@aratrea They don’t change particularly, but there is the sense of doubt and growing tension that continues on and builds up over the next few scenes.

@aratrea I would expect they would use electricity for a power source, which these people don’t have. and every thing i’ve found about controlling them gets the signals straight from the brain, something they probably wouldn’t be able to do with no electrical power.

@aratrea I would expect they would use electricity for a power source, which these people don’t have. and every thing i’ve found about controlling them gets the signals straight from the brain, something they probably wouldn’t be able to do with no electrical power.

*internal screaming because everything is amazing*
Okay okay. *settles down (slightly)*

But I kid you not, every lesson has made me realize something totally different about my story and equally crucial. And listening to this one, I realized that what I thought was my Primary theme (Man’s State) is really only a Major theme. I think I may have…[Read more]

One of my foil characters, Skye, has an arc that is different yet the same as my protagonist’s. They blend toward the middle. Skye’s arc is about forgiveness the entire time as she struggles to forgive her sister’s murderer, who saved her and her brother’s lives. After Skye’s anger drives the said-murderer away, and Skye and her brother are unable…[Read more]

Multiple themes… this is for a seven book series I’m going to write one of these days, so far as I’ve figured it out.

Primary theme:

Love

Major themes:

Hope
Freedom

Minor themes: These are basically the subthemes of my primary and major themes

Love
Forgiveness
Courage
Sacrifice

Hope…[Read more]

@Aratrea No, they aren’t related. At least, they weren’t… Though that could be quite fun to mess with. Probably not, though. The word count is already crossing 140,000 as it is, so I’ve no room for adding things. 🙁

@aratrea Yes, they hold to the same views, yet act according to slightly different EiL.

@Northerner that is weird. Okay. I’ll post my first post first…

Okay guys.
@Hope gave me a book with three of G.K. Chesterton’s novels in it as an early birthday present, and though I have only read one of them so far it completely blew my mind.
It was The Ball and the Cross.

Has anyone else read it? If so, can we please discuss how amazing it…[Read more]

1. Lathen: A Volandum healer and follower of the Prince. His EiL is that it is man’s relationship with the Prince that defines his worth, not a name or power or blood or anything else. He helps tend Ethaniel toward the end of the book, as Ethaniel working on consolidating his own recent revelation that any kind of name is meaningless without the…[Read more]

I’m going to go with Jagger in Fidelyon. He’s the… well, the side-kick, I guess (don’t tell him I said that; he’d not forgive me).

Anyway, he’d follow the first type, because his arc mirrors Ethaniel’s. While Ethaniel starts with not having a name, Jagger actually has a disgraced name. But while Ethaniel places importance in gaining a name and…[Read more]

Heroship? That sounds perfect, thanks for your help, @aratrea ! Now I just have to pick one … this is gonna be hard … most all of them have strong connections to my story, and I like them all. I might wind up writing them on slips of paper and putting them in a hat. 😉

Complacency, Dealing with Expectations, and Heroship are definitely…[Read more]

@aratrea

One fun way of connecting major characters is to give them the same goal, but different EiLs so that they are in constant tension about how to do something or what is the best way to get something done. They could be friends or they could be antagonists, but either way one can get quite a bit thematic depth between the interaction of…[Read more]

@Northerner I have no idea where my first post went. Here. Have it again.

Okay guys.
@Hope gave me a book with three of G.K. Chesterton’s novels in it as an early birthday present, and though I have only read one of them so far it completely blew my mind.
It was The Ball and the Cross.

Has anyone else read it? If so, can we please discuss how…[Read more]