Michael Stanton

Character’s story goal is to find his place in the world. It’s a coming-of-age. Yep, a disillusionment arc coming-of-age. 😛 I didn’t do it on purpose so don’t ask me how it happened. lol
Anyway. His more tangible goal is to find the one man who was kind to him after something particularly tragic happened in his past, and he believes that wherever…[Read more]

Character’s story goal is to find his place in the world. It’s a coming-of-age. Yep, a disillusionment arc coming-of-age. 😛 I didn’t do it on purpose so don’t ask me how it happened. lol
Anyway. His more tangible goal is to find the one man who was kind to him after something particularly tragic happened in his past, and he believes that wherever…[Read more]

@Ethryndal *gives you moral support and commiseration* I had to rewrite my entire WIP as well. It seemed impossible at the start, but now I’m almost done and though it still makes me want to tear my hair out sometimes it’s really not so bad. It gets better, dear. It does. We promises. 😉

@hope That’s a great point that hasn’t been brought up yet! Those sorts of instructive moments can definitely change someone. They’re a bit trickier to use in novel form since it’s really easy for that to become a preaching moment, but I think it can be done when you do it in a way that’s true to the instructor’s character. I think I discuss that…[Read more]

@hope That seems like a good character arc–I like it! I’m not completely sure, though, on what distinguishes the beginning experiment from the transitory experiment. Is it just how she applies the experiment, or are the experiments themselves different?

@Dragon-Snapper READ MORE BOOKS. 😛 Do you like fantasy? Read The Songkeeper Chronicles, by Gillian Bronte Adams. The third book isn’t out yet but the first two are awesome. Do you like Saxon culture and coming-of-age? Read The Edge on the Sword, by Rebecca Tingle. Do you like medieval stories? The Red Keep and Rolf and the Viking Bow, both by…[Read more]

@anna-brie Creating Character Arcs is my favorite book she’s written so far on writing. I have both books in paperback and find myself referring to them quite frequently, so that would probably be a good investment to make.

@anna-brie Ah; I get what you’re going at then. I agree that respecting authority seems to tie everything together.

@dragon-snapper Hmm… Yes, I think you’ll want to make a couple adjustments to that. One thing about a focusing question is that I think it should be a bit broader than you currently have it. The issue with the answers you have is…[Read more]

Thanks guys. 🙂

@Gretald
@Northerner
@Daeus

Hello peoples… I don’t usually post on here for myself, but I have a request this time. Nothing major, just something I feel like I need a lot of prayer on. 😛 Long story short, I’m going to be singing the offertory for the church we attend in the Easter service. And I forgot that the congregation is usually twice its normal size on Easter. I…[Read more]

@audrey-caylin I think that would be a good way of doing it. In that case, it would probably more be the first step she’d be taking, and one you would develop more in the sequel.

I would say the novel as a whole would still be a positive character arc even if half of it is a negative arc. If you think about it, you can really divide a novel into…[Read more]

@anna-brie Those look like a good set of focusing questions and answers. And I agree that it sounds like you really have two different (but related) focusing questions there. I think my favorite wrong answer for the first focusing question is #2 since sympathetic but wrong answers have the potential to create really complex and powerful themes.…[Read more]

@anna-brie Glad to hear that this video helped you distinguish your theme from your message! And yes, Weiland’s advice on character arcs is great for uniting plot and character. She has some of the best resources out there for that topic.

@anna-brie Haven’t read the book myself (tho I think one of Jaye’s books is sitting on my Kindle somewhere…), but that seems like a pretty good breakdown. Some themes are definitely hard to describe in one or two words. It could be that you actually have two separate themes that are being woven together as well in the book (we’re not covering…[Read more]

@anna-brie Great goal! I think most writers generally try to include theme in some form in their story, but intentionally studying theme is one of the big things that separates the beginners from the greats.

@Daeus um… not sure. I’ll have to check.

@Daeus it’s an MBTI thing. Eh dear… how to explain it. I’m still working on it myself, but as far as I’ve been able to tell so far it’s the functions resulting from the combination of the other functions— the four dominant functions reacting against each other together create shadow functions. I’ll get back to you when I understand it better. 😛

@Graciegirl *flings cape out with a dramatic swoosh* Never say never. I’m determined to master them if it’s the last thing I do. 😀