Kathryn Comstock

Welcome back. 😉 I appreciate the spoilers. xD My spring break is coming up this next week and A Time to Die is at the top of my reading list for that week. Great work with those scenes. Sounds like a great way that Brandes initially forces the protagonist to choose a specific Experiment in Living, and then continues to test and push her in that…[Read more]

@jenali That sounds like a great example. I love how many mothers are being mentioned in this thread!

@overcomer YES. One of my favorite things is being able to see storytelling principles of a sort in my own life. Thanks for sharing! And I agree that faith is certainly another major theme in Lord of the Rings.

@anna-brie Sorry to hear that. :/ Unfortunately, I don’t recall seeing any posts here either…

@hope Yeah, characteristic moments are harder when you’re plotting over a full trilogy. That story actually looks like a flat arc to me with just a really poignant third plot point. To turn it into a disillusionment arc followed by a positive arc, I…[Read more]

@jenali That does sound like a depressing book. Course I guess that isn’t exactly new to Dickens. =P Good example. Sometimes catharsis means giving another character a positive fate if the negative arc character can’t achieve any epiphany.

@dragon-snapper Yep. The more developed an antagonist is, the more likely he’s going to have a character arc. We’ll be discussing that in a bit more detail later on in the series, but the short answer is that either arc type can work–it all depends on the specific story you want to tell!

@dragon-snapper Haha, we did mention it in the video, but I think it’s a great example of catharsis! Setting up the end of the story with hope for the rest of the series was a great way of handling catharsis in that movie.

@Northener Just at the Kingdom Pen email; I’m the one who heads that up. 😉 It’s kingdompenmag@gmail.com!

@Northerner @Emma-flournoy Hey, y’all! I just emailed Emma this, but I need Northerner’s email. 😛 😀 As soon as I’ve got that, I can do the thing!

@dragon-snapper Got it. Sounds good!

@dragon-snapper Great to hear! Glad it’s been helping. 🙂

@dragon-snapper Good. I like those experiments. My one suggestion would be to include some physical consequences for those experiments along with the psychological experiments. I’m copy-pasting what I said to Audrey on this:

“One thing you may want to begin thinking about if you haven’t already, is how that’s going to outwardly manifest in you…[Read more]

@dragon-snapper Good set of focusing questions and answers there. I like the diversity of answers. I presume you’re defining pride slightly-differently than most definitions in order to defend a positive use of it?

Thanks for the questions @audrey-caylin and @hope! I’ll be sure to address them at today’s meeting.

Also, everyone should have gotten the link in your email, but just in case anyone missed it, the Q&A will be going live at kingdompen.org/theme-mastery-qa

@ethryndal That’s awesome. Like I said to Audrey, it’s awesome to have role models you see and interact with on a regular basis–especially when they have to overcome struggles like chronic health problems. Great example!

@dragon-snapper Certainly! Here are three different answers I came up with.

– Pride is simply a way of recognizing your strengths and helps you build a confident persona.
– Internal pride doesn’t affect someone as long as they make sure they don’t act pridefully toward others.
– Pride is always destructive and will ruin all your relationships in life.

@jenali Haha, that’s great you’ve already been applying this to characters. Putting characters in a position where they can see the harms their actions are causing is a great way to induce change.

@jenali Yes; that is the unfortunate truth about what happens when you learn new concepts in the middle of the writing process!

The character arc outline here looks good. I like the fact that you included an example of someone he can look up to in the midpoint arc. Using other characters as examples is a great method of bringing about change, and…[Read more]

@jenali Great thoughts. I love your example of you and your siblings, because it’s definitely true! The people we spend a lot of time with have the ability to influence us a lot.

@jenali Looks like a good basic setup there that you’ll be able to develop after video 6.

Haha, yeah, that’s a tricky issue. We’ll be addressing that more in a couple videos later on in the course–one on writing non-protagonist major characters, and one on weaving multiple themes together into one story. I will say that it normally works best…[Read more]