Kathryn Comstock

@ethryndal So if I understand you correctly, at the midpoint her change is that she understands that both elves and humans can be either ‘worthy’ or ‘worthless’ instead of putting humans automatically in the ‘worthless’ camp and elves in the ‘worthy’ camp?

@hope Can you also post the Experiments in Living for this? I’m assuming this is different…[Read more]

Welcome to the site @kayla-joy! One of my biggest pieces of advice for you to avoid cheesy/cliched plot is to read as much in the genre as possible–both popular works and good works (which aren’t always the same thing. =P) The more you read in a genre, the more you’ll understand what plot lines are cheesy or cliched–and you’ll also get the…[Read more]

@hope Go for it!

@hope Absolutely! Sometimes I wish that one major event would be enough to change how I live, but unfortunately, that’s not how it works. =P Working a series of events like that into a novel is a fantastic way to replicate that in storytelling.

@anna-brie Ah–I got you now. 🙂 Great job with thinking through how your character would justify their actions!

@anna-brie Those look like a really good set of Experiments! I like them a lot. Could you develop a bit more, tho, how #1 leads to that consequence? I’m not completely sure I’m seeing the connection.

@anna-brie Using other author’s characters for inspiration is great. And being able to put yourself in their shoes like that as an ENFP is awesome! Understanding characters who are very different from you is crucial to being a skilled author, and it sounds like you’re on the right path. 🙂

@anna-brie Yeah, writing with multiple themes can be a tricky. When we polish this course, we may need to move that lesson closer toward the beginning since a lot of people here seem to be working with that. My recommendation here, though, would be to only focus on the theme of righteousness here and the specific message you’re drawing from that,…[Read more]

@gideon-sowdon Daeus took pretty much everything I had to say, so it looks good now! And great idea to think about using an autobiography in addition to a fictional story. Seeing these principles in real life like that can be really helpful for learning how to apply them in your own storytelling.

@audrey That’s awesome–especially since your role model is someone you can see and interact with on a regular basis. 🙂 And yes–I absolutely agree with you on the superhero front!

@audrey-caylin Yeah, Mockingjay especially certainly has a negative arc. In addition to the ones I mentioned in the video, King Lear (really, all of Shakespeare’s tragedies), Oedipus Rex, the Dark Knight, and Morte d’Arthur are all examples of good negative arcs.

@kate-flournoy That makes sense. That is a tricky path to weave. Haha, didn’t realize there was another book that came before this one! But that’s a good way of setting up theme for a series.

@jenali I completely agree! Those types of stories are my absolute favorites, and are a great example of theme making a lasting impact on a reader. Can’t believe I never mentioned that aspect in the video! Great thoughts.

@shaina I completely agree! Those types of stories are my absolute favorites, and are a great example of theme making a lasting impact on a reader. Can’t believe I never mentioned that aspect in the video! Great thoughts.

One other thought as I’ve continued to think about the Denholm ending is that you probably want Harold to decide to resist Eldred’s arguments even after everything seems against him so that he then gets rewarded for the right choice by Denholm coming in. Otherwise, if Harold has completely succumbed to Eldred’s arguments, Denholm’s entrance may…[Read more]

@kate-flournoy Wow. Just reading a summary of that climax is beautiful. I am a firm believer of the fact that the climax makes or breaks the story’s climax, and at least on paper, you certainly seem to have that climax down. Other elements may need some work, but you’ve got the core down beautifully.

My one thought on the climax is that Denholm…[Read more]

@hope I see. Yeah, this gets into the tricky parts of fiction writing where everything isn’t as analyze-able as we might like it to be. =P I could see it as being either a second related EiL, or simply her deciding to expand her current EiL to include more than it did otherwise. In gray areas like this, you should probably go with whatever makes…[Read more]