Michael Stanton

@Anne-of-Lothlorien the first is beautiful and the second hilarious. XD

@Anne-of-Lothlorien what @Daeus said. 😛

@AnneofLothlorien what @Daeus said. 😛

@anne-of-lothlorien The first “I don’t know” is Mackenzie; the second is Rolena’s sister who came along for the ride.

@dragon-snapper Here’s the picture Anne was referring to. There are more photos on our social media accounts if you’re able to access them!

@anne-of-lothlorien The first “I don’t know” is Mackenzie; the second is Rolena’s sister who came along for the ride.

@dragon-snapper Here’s the picture Anne was referring to. There are more photos on our social media accounts if you’re able to access them!

@anne-of-lothlorien The first “I don’t know” is Mackenzie; the second is Rolena’s sister who came along for the ride.

@dragon-snapper Here’s the picture Anne was referring to. There are more photos on our social media accounts if you’re able to access them!

@anne-of-lothlorien The first “I don’t know” is Mackenzie; the second is Rolena’s sister who came along for the ride.

@That_Writer_Girl_99 in general. I know I sort of left you hanging in the middle of a brainstorming session, and we were going to do that character exercise thing too, and I still want to do that. I just wanted to let you know I hadn’t disappeared off the face of the earth. ;P

@That_Writer_Girl_99 I’m not ignoring you, I promise. 😛 Life got really busy. I’m helping my little brother sell some of his hand made walking sticks at a festival and also selling some jewelry I made, and making more, on top of every-day busy-ness with everything else our family does. Things should slow down by next week though.

Just fyi. 😉

@jess-penrose You may be setting a record for how quickly someone has worked through this course! 😉

Silmarillion is a great book for finding negative arcs in, though you’re correct that Melkor is the villain of the story and not really the protagonist. Children of Hurin is another great example. I’m really fuzzy on the details of Children of…[Read more]

@jess-penrose Haven’t read that series yet (though I think I have the first book on my Kindle), but it sounds like the character arc does exactly what it’s supposed to do there! When readers feel like they’re growing right along with the character, you know you’ve done your work as an author effectively!

@jess-penrose Got it. Makes sense! Actually, thinking about my comment on your homework for lesson 5, perhaps the difference between your MC’s beginning and closing arc is that initially the MC just believes that everything must be sacrificed for justice, and he doesn’t add the “as long as it is not unjust to do so” clause until the end of the…[Read more]

@ethryndal How would you say Emolas is connected to your story’s theme? I.e. what does he consider to be the greatest gift?

I think it may be tricky to have Sley’s EiL come out effectively in the story as one doesn’t normally think of justice when they think of the greatest gifts. However, I think that some well-placed lines of dialogue could…[Read more]

@jess-penrose

Good questions. I would personally try to sketch out the general character arc of the entire trilogy, but keep it rather general at this point. Enough so you know where you’re headed and where you’ll be building off of this first book, but not so much that you’re getting bogged down in details.

With regards to this outline, I would…[Read more]

@jess-penrose Glad to hear you’ve been finding this so helpful. 🙂 Those are good thoughts. Often we are unwilling to change until we’re forced to change, which is why it’s crucial to have a relevant plot in our stories that will do the work of forcing changes in the protagonist.

@jess-penrose Yep–that works! The physical problem doesn’t need to happen to the protagonist as long as it still affects the protagonist.

@jess-penrose By “not require atonement of itself,” do you mean that we shouldn’t commit injustice in order to bring about justice? Or do you mean something else? I’m a bit confused on what you mean by that.

@ethryndal Yes–looks great!

@jess-penrose I like the irony of the MC realizing that he deserves justice as well. Is there a way you could bring about a physical component for the MC’s poetic justice as well? That seems to be the main thing you’re missing.

I like the nuanced version of #4 here–it resolves the potential issues I was seeing with it in the other topic.

@jess-penrose I like the irony of the MC realizing that he deserves justice as well. Is there a way you could bring about a physical component for the MC’s poetic justice as well? That seems to be the main thing you’re missing. I like the nuanced version of #4 here as well–it resolves the potential issues I was seeing with it in the other topic.