Writing Advice
If you don't have whipped cream, a little dollop of vanilla yogurt on your stack of pancakes is just as good. I used greek but I'm sure other yogurts would work as well.
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Thanks for the tag! <3
5 Things I Like Writing About
Imperfect friend groups
Subtle magic
Powerful + dangerous women
Isolated settings
Food <3
Open to anyone!
Thanks for the tag @elsie-writes!
5 Things I Like Writing About
Bitchy characters
Dnd-esque magic
Waterside trade cities
Characters with close platonic bonds
Milf villains
I'll tag @echowritesstuff @writingwithfolklore @bargainbincheese @bard-coded and anyone else who wants in :)
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So Iâm not going to give you too much of an info dump but real quick context-
Iâm working on possibly a vampire book that I plan to either be an anthology of different PoVs or have multiple POVs per book(think ASOIAF although that isnât really the inspo tonally). And in developing my characters there are lot of ideas I have for their past detail, potential plot future points, inciting incidents depending on what period of history the first book will be.
And I like a lot of what I have but think that Iâve created too many ideas and I donât know the best way to narrowing things down/pin point my ideas to what I can realistically work on without overworking myself.
So TLDR: do you have any suggestions for once you have a lot of ideas knowing which ones to focus on?
Hi! I know exactly what you mean and I have the same problem all the time. I think the most important part is to figure out who is carrying the story, really.
While you may have several characters with POVs, there's probably only like one or two that are carrying the meat of the story--the big overarching change to the world. Consider your big inciting incident, the change the world goes through, and who is directly impacted by it and looking to solve that change? Those are your key players.
Now that we have that, we know who to spend the most time on, and who to explore the most details of. Other characters can definitely still be explored and have moments to shine of course, but they shouldn't be the focus.
Reminder that any and all backstory should be revealed when it is necessary in the moment (not before to set up the moment) and action carries character. In just knowing this, you'll be bogged down a lot less by all these ideas and details to get onto the page. If it doesn't come up naturally through action and in the moment it needs to, then it might be unnecessary to include overall, y'know?
I think the last thing to keep in mind is to plan it one book at a time and build from there. You can narrow down your ideas by categorizing things by what you need right now, what you'll need next, and what you'll need at the end of all of this. Develop the main characters you'll need in the first book, figure out their story, create a really solid book on its own before you start on figuring out the next, and the next.
I hope that helps! Let me know if you need more help.
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Writing Fictional News
             Eee this is one of my biggest pet peeves in movies, games, stories, anything⌠As someone who reads and edits a lot of news articles for my job, I can tell soo instantly when fictional news articles or broadcasts were written by someone who has never written news before. Iâm constantly saying, âhmm, theyâd never publish that.â
             So hereâs what you gotta know about writing (fictional) news stories.
1. Theyâre to the point⌠but not like that
This is the biggest thing I see in fiction that has news in it. People tend to write headlines that have the worst, gory details. For example,
âStudent Sadie Walker murdered by 50 stabbings last night.â
While dramatic (and informative), I donât see this as a news headline. The same situation (Sorry Sadie) may actually be reported as,
âYoung woman passed away after involvement in stabbing late last night.â
             While news articles are to the point and informative, remember that theyâre written for the general public. We often donât get the super gory details (at least, not in the headline).
2. They have a pretty specific voice
While most journalism is meant to be free of bias, news is the most importantly objective. This tends to result in articles written in a more formal tone. They also follow a structure: the most specific details to the most general.
             Imagine youâre writing a piece that youâre expecting the reader to drop out at any moment. The headline is the attention grabber so your first line has the most important details of the story, so that someone can read it and know the jist.
Following our example, the first paragraph might be,
âLast night in June County a young woman was found unconscious, having suffered severe injuries. The woman was identified as Sadie Walker, a 21-year-old student attending June County University nearby. According to police reports, Walker had been walking between campus and the student dorms around midnight when she was struck and stabbed 30-50 times in the chest and back. Walker was found by a peer returning home an estimated hour after the attack and taken straight to Red Mill General hospital, where she passed away shortly after. The perpetrator is still unknown at this time.â
      Remember the 5 Wâs and 1 H. Your first few lines should inform the reader of Who, What happened, Where did it happen, When did it happen, how it happened, and maybe why if you knowâthough since news is so timely, often the answer isnât known right away.
3. Where the article is found in the news is telling
While a story like our example might make the front page of the paper (especially if nothing else is really going on in June County), only one story can make this top spot. Some papers are divided between the top and bottom of the page, known as âabove the foldâ and âbelow the foldâ. Itâs a bit more traditional format, but the âabove the foldâ spot is the best one, because thatâs the story people see when theyâre passing by the newsstand, while âbelow the foldâ is another important story making the front page, but one would have to pick up the paper and unfold it to read it.
Not to mention all the stories found inside the paper. Consider how important your article is--not to your characters/plot, but to the general society your fictional newspaper is serving. Would your MCâs win at the local dog competition make the front page of big city news?
Any other news writers on here? What did I miss?
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I want to write a book called âyour character dies in the woodsâ that details all the pitfalls and dangers of being out on the road & in the wild for people without outdoors/wilderness experience bc I cannot keep reading narratives brush over life threatening conditions like nothing is happening.
I just read a book by one of my favorite authors whose plots are essentially airtight, but the MC was walking on a country road on a cold winter night and she was knocked down and fell into a drainage ditch covered in ice, broke through and got covered in icy mud and water.
Then she had a âmiserableâ 3 more miles to walk to the inn.
Babes she would not MAKE it to that inn.
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Character Agency
Your characters should have agency. That means they have the power to influence whatâs happening around them. We talked a bit about agency last time, revolving around how many female characters get agency stripped away from them. But overall, agency is important for any character to make them active participants in their own stories and feel necessary to the plot.
             So hereâs how you enable your characters agency:
1. They make active decisions
Okay this is the obvious one in theory, but still manages to sneak by in stories undetected. An active character with agency makes things happen through their decisions, instead of just their reactions. Take these two examples of a scene plan:
John is walking home when he is caught by a sudden storm. Looking to hide from the rain, he ducks under the cover of a bus shelter. Inside is Mya, and they strike up a conversation about their shared sucky situation.
Vs.
John is walking home when he is caught by a sudden storm. Luckily he brought an umbrella in his bag, and draws it out. Then, he sees Mya getting drenched by the rain ahead of him. He jogs to her, offering to share the umbrella. They strike up a conversation.
In the second example John isnât just reacting but making a choice thatâs changed something in the world. He may just happen to run into Mya, but it was his decision to run up to her, to offer her his umbrella. This action is a great indicator of his personalityâheâs kind, trusting, and thoughtful even towards strangers.
Thatâs the most important part. A character who just reacts to everything doesnât show off any personality, whereas action lets you demonstrate who your character is at their core (especially in difficult situations that call for difficult decisions).
2. Their actions have consequences
Similarly, the decisions your active character makes arenât really decisions if they donât impact any part of their world. For good or for bad, every decision your character makes should have a consequence. This could be shown through their relationships with others, their environment, or even their own mental, physical, or spiritual state.
If weâre going from the example above, John sharing his umbrella with Mya maybe starts their friendship, but her jealous, toxic boyfriend sees them through his window, making her and now his life difficult.
Itâs a decision that has multiple consequences throughout his lifeâa new friendship, and also a new enemy. And Mya is also facing consequencesâfrom her decision to walk with him, and his decision to offer her the umbrella.
Make sense? How do you ensure your character has agency?
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Do well by your female characters
             Back in film school you wouldn't believe the amount of scripts I read from my (mostly male) classmates that featured the same character; a kind, helpful woman reflective of the male protagonist who showed up when he needed her to offer warm words and support, allowing him to overcome obstacles and go for what he needs.
             I hope she doesnât sound familiar to you.
             One of them was a coworker, another a train station attendant, another the best friend who lived next doorâit didnât matter, they were all the same character, uninvolved in their own lives, created to help a man get to his goal. Letâs be wary of this trope, and stop robbing our female characters of their own agency. We can do this in a few ways:
1. They arenât convenient
One confusing fault of the female characters I read in my peersâ scripts was that she was always around right where the protagonist needed her to be. It didnât matter if he was having a crisis in the alleyway, or by the museum, or in his own house, sheâd show up like sheâd been summoned.
She needed a place to beâa life outside of him. A job, school, hobbies. Sometimes when he needs herâshe shouldnât be there.
2. They have an actual personality
While being warm, kind, supportive, and empathetic are all admirable traits people do have, Iâve never met a real person where thatâs all they were. Like building any character, she needs flaws, interests, something to her that isnât just for other peopleâs benefit. Consider what traits she has that arenât just ways she serves others.
Allow her something just for her. Something selfish.
3. They have and work towards a goal
Related to her not being convenientâsheâs got her own thing going on. Like any other character, she has goals and objectives, motivations, something to work towards. As much as she supports the protagonist, she also takes from him to fulfill her own goal.
Give her wins, disappointments, a little something going on. Something to gain from her interactions with him.
             What else bothers you about common female character tropes? Or what did I miss?
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When to Cut a Character
Last time we talked about getting rid of whatâs not serving your story, but sometimes it can be hard to tell when something just needs a bit of adjusting to work, or needs to be cut entirely. This is a very case-by-case occurrence, but there are a few tell-tale signs for when a character just isnât necessary.
1. You struggle to remember to include them in scenes or dialogue
If you often feel like youâre adding your character into a scene just because we havenât seen them in a while, or even find yourself forgetting they exist at allâthey are just as, if not more forgettable to the readers. This is a big sign you can cut them out, and save yourself the effort of including them in random scenes.
2. Their dialogue/purpose could be given to someone else
The best way to check if someone (or something) is necessary is to try to take them out. If you find that you can give a characterâs plot importance and dialogue to someone else (or split across multiple characters), you can cut the character. By trying this with all your characters, youâll find that only the absolute necessary ones remain. Besides, a smaller cast of characters is often easier to develop and juggle, allowing them all to shine throughout the story.
3. They only really show up as a plot device
While maybe not necessary to cut out completely, characters who only show up at the most convenient times to provide some plot device or deus ex machina tend to land flat. When I catch these in my own work, I cut them out to force my main characters to solve their own problems.
One big example of this (and spoilers for the movie Passenger (2016)!) is when the characters, who are the only ones awake on the ship, need access to a certain room they donât have the clearance for. This door proves an obstacle for the entire movie. Then, we reach the third act and need to end the movie so one of the other passengers who has access to that door wakes up because of a sudden malfunction, helps them through the door, and then dies soon after.
Given that was in a blockbuster movie, Iâm sure you could get away with doing this, but I personally would have cut out that character and figured out a way for them to solve the problem on their own. (I think even if they had woken him up intentionally, giving them action and agency to solve this problem, it would have been better, but I digress).
There are tons of purposes for characters which is what makes this so case by case. If youâre unsure about a character being necessary, try taking them out and evaluate what is lost. If nothing is lost, or whateverâs lost can be made up by someone else, maybe the cut should be permanent.
               Any other signs a character is worth writing out of the story?
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Kill Your Darlings
               This is another one of those common pieces of advice that gets traded so often itâs somewhat lost its meaning, similar to âwrite what you knowâ. Kill your darlings doesnât mean âkill your favourite charactersâ, or even âtake away what your characters love mostâ (though thatâs good advice for your midpoint.)
               Kill your darlings means âget rid of whatâs not serving youâ. That may be a character you like but ultimately adds nothing to the plot (or adds something another character could easily also add), a plot point that is exciting and fun but takes the story off the rails, or even as specific as a line of dialogue you love but just doesnât fit into the conversation anywhere.
               It means, even if you love it, if it isnât serving your story itâs gotta go. Cut out the fluff. Kill your darlings. In work thatâs intended to be professional, this is incredibly important (fanfic writers and people just writing for yourself, you get to do whatever you want haha).
               To make this easier, I keep a separate document I call the âgraveyardâ where I put everything I cut out of my draft. Scenes, lines of dialogue, or even ideas I had to strike all end up in the graveyard where theyâre safe. This way, if I ever want to use them in another project (or they end up working out after all), theyâre somewhere I can find them again.
               Whatâs another piece of advice you find gets taken out of context or misunderstood?
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Happy St. Paddy's day everyone! Throw back to my old Folklore Friday series :,)
Folklore Friday: Leprechaun
Happy April Fools day! I donât have a trick up my sleeve for you, but I do have a trickster. Today weâre talking about Irelandâs most mischievous little creature, the Leprechaun.
Leprechauns are said to be fairies who look like tiny old men, standing around two to three feet tall. They often wear little pointy hats and aprons. In traditional folklore they work as cobblersâmaking shoes with tiny hammers.
And of course, everyone knows about the leprechaunâs hidden treasure. Often stored and hidden in a golden pot at the âendâ of the rainbow, leprechauns are known to hoard gold and treasure. If you find and catch a leprechaun, itâs said he has to tell you his hiding placeâas long as you keep him in your sights. If the leprechaun can trick you into looking away, heâll disappear without telling you anything.
Iâve also read that the leprechaun may grant wishes if caught, though itâs unsure if this is a âgenieâ situation or not, as theyâre known for being mischievous and playing pranks. Though it should be noted they arenât said to be wholly good or evil, theyâre just only loyal to themselves (Iâd probably place them around chaotic neutral for you D&D fans). Theyâre also very smart, and will do almost anything to prevent being captured by a human, so those who do should be very cautious when trying to talk to the slippery little guys.
While we often associate the leprechaun with green, before the 20thcentury itâs said that they were depicted wearing red! Some theories suggest the style and colour of clothing may depend on where the leprechaun is from. Either way, they usually have the same pointy shoes, buckles, and buttons. Itâs also said there have never been a report of a female leprechaunâone theory being leprechauns are actually just discarded children of fairies.
Leprechauns are said to live in underground caves or in hollow trees. They love Irish music and dancing, and are expert musicians as well as shoemakers. Iâve heard they needed to become shoemakers out of necessity as they dance so much. The word leprechaun comes from an old Irish word that means âlittle body.â These guys are just packed with Irish culture and prideâtheyâre hard not to love!
Today of all days you should be especially cautious of these guys. Their pranks are beyond human detection, and you definitely donât want to get caught in a lifetime of bad luck.
Donât just take my word for it!
leprechaun | Irish folklore | Britannica
Leprechaun | Myths and Folklore Wiki | Fandom
Irish Leprechaun Facts & Myths - Irish Folklore Stories From Ireland (yourirish.com)
Myth of the Leprechaun (celtic-weddingrings.com)
Folklore Friday: The Leprechaun Is Irelandâs Biggest Little Fairy - Shamrock Craic (shamrockgift.com) (Very in-depth source!)
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Bringing this back this year. Happy Ides of March everyone!
Writing Prophesy (Ides of March)
All you classic lit fans out there know what yesterday was! Thatâs right, itâs the ides of March, the day Julius Caesar was betrayed by his closest friendsâif only he had listened to his wifeâs prophetic dreamâŚ
And thatâs what weâll be talking about today--writing prophesy into your stories, and how to use it in a way that feels earned and exciting. If youâve ever tried to write a prophesy into your story, you probably already understand why it can be really difficult. While stories donât survive off surprise, a certain amount of the unknown keeps us interestedâwhich can be hard if someone has prophesized all the events.
However, having your prophesy not coming true at allâunless some amount of lore or intention can explain it, feels incredibly cheap. Can we really claim itâs prophesy if it doesnât come true?
So hereâs how Iâve gotten around this issue (you have a couple options).
Option 1. Make the prophesy so unbelievable that itâs surprising it actually comes true.
My last project started with a very simple promise, that someone was going to die. The story revolved around his friends attempting to find a way to save his life, with an amount of success that it felt hopeful, believable that they were all going to get through it okay. So of course, when the prophesy comes true at the end⌠itâs still surprising, still a satisfying ending, and allows the prophet some integrity.
There was a certain amount of mythology behind it. How do you save someone from their fate without muddling a bit with the universe? So consider how you can make readers believe that the prophesy can be circumvented. Is it through gods? Magic? Powerful beings? Wishes? Otherworldly creatures? In your world, what has power over fate, over prophesy? Make it believable, and weâll have hope, only for the big reveal at the end, that prophesy always comes true.
Option 2. The prophesy comes true, but not in the way you think it will.
I also mixed in a little bit of this in my last project, and Iâd recommend that you do combine your options to maximize the effect. This one is pretty obvious, you say the donut is going to get eaten, you assume by the main character, instead itâs by the goat. Encanto does a lot of this with Brunoâs gift, we see a vague prophesy and assume it comes true in one way, but instead it comes true in another.
Think about how you can create assumptions by the readers, and set up an expectation that seems so obvious until something alternative happens.
I would caution against choosing to be super vague in order to do this. If itâs vague, itâs not very surprising because really anything could happenâyouâre setting up the expectation for anything to happen rather than controlling the narrative. So, make it specific, but leave room for something surprising. In Julius Caesar we know he will meet his end on the Ides of March, but he never would have guessed it was by his closest friends.
As well, to have prophesy you need a prophet. This is the character that foretells the future, or senses the omens to come. Consider what gives the prophet their gift. Were they born with it? Cursed? Gifted? Was it a sort of sacrifice? The one thing Iâll caution against is the âblind prophetâ stereotypeâthereâs a great video about stereotypes surrounding disabled characters Iâd recommend watching HERE if youâve never heard of this.
What does prophesy add to your narrative? Does it create suspense? Tension? Mystery? Sometimes itâs an added component to the narrative, sometimes itâs the center stage.
Prophesy can be a really clever story element if you use it well and create expectation without spoiling the rest of the story. Good luck! And happy Ides of March!
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Failing with Momentum
               Last time we talked about antagonists so this time weâre talking about conflict. Sometimes I think writers are afraid to allow their characters to fail. Trust me, thereâs a big difference between characters making poor decisions that seemed good in the moment (or failing), and being the protagonists in slasher horror movies. Your characters can be a bit stupid, and fail often, without ruining your plot or characterization.
1. Fail Forward
               One way we do this is by allowing them to fail forward. This means that your plot actually relies on their failure, rather than just on their successes. They get totally rejected for the school dance, but that leaves them out in the hall to witness something they werenât meant to see. They get caught sneaking around in the bad guyâs lair, but now they know their accomplice is actually on the other side.
               This takes reworking of your entire plot, so consider while crafting your outline how a failure can get the character to where they need to be rather than a success.
2. Everything comes with consequences
Another way to allow your character to fail is to not reveal that theyâve failed right away. Most decisions we (and characters) make arenât so black and whiteâright or wrong. It shouldnât be obvious right away when a character has done something stupidâwe reveal that it was stupid later on, when consequences come back to haunt them.
So another way to say âlet your characters failâ is just âlet your characters face consequences.â Maybe a decision isnât necessary stupid, or âbadâ. Maybe it allows them to achieve something they really needed to. However, it should also come with unintended consequencesâa negative to the positive.
3. Failing is a chance to show their strengths
When something (usually caused by the antagonist) stands in their way, itâs just another chance for them to demonstrate what theyâre strong at. Say the antagonist kills the person who has all the answers before the protagonist gets to talk to them, now they have to pivotâmaybe they dig up the information through research, or find someone related to talk to, or reach out via medium to the spirit realm, whatever.
This pivoting is the kind of challenge that allows your character to grow. Their path isnât a straight-shot, easy romp through a meadow but one filled with twists and disappointments and frustrations and challenges. They are forced to do things they maybe never would have, and this leads to them thinking about themselves or their worlds differently.
What other ways are there to fail forward?
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When your Antagonist is Also your Protagonist
               If thereâs one thing humans are all really good at, itâs getting in our own way. Most stories have at least some element of protagonist against themselvesâwe create this block between our protagonist and what they want when we create their flaw.
               However, stories that rely on this conflict with self have to do a bit extra work. Internal motivations and antagonists are a bit more challenging, but still a valid way to introduce conflict into a story. Hereâs three considerations for when your antagonist is also your protagonist:
1. What is preventing them from what they want?
This is the same question we ask ourselves when creating character flaws, but I think it deserves repeating here. There has to be something you can name that is standing in the way of your character, or this wonât work. It must be deeply ingrained, difficult to overcome, and effective in preventing them from getting what they want.
Maybe what they want is to ask out their crush, but theyâre horribly shy. Or they want to take down their evil ruler, but theyâre secretly in love with them. Itâs important these are traits they canât just snap their fingers and fix. Like, if your character really wants to win a weightlifting contest, the thing standing in their way canât be that theyâre just too weak, because people can work out and become strongerâthat doesnât make for a very compelling story, and it also doesnât explain why they couldnât have just done that sooner.
Thereâs a reason your character doesnât already have what they want.
2. How will you use that to introduce conflict?
In order to be effective, this trait has to act as the antagonist, which means at every turn, they have to be thwarted by themselves. Maybe your character comes face to face with their crush and physically canât talk and it comes off as awkward and weird. Or theyâre approaching their evil ruler and canât seem to pull the trigger.
Their inability to get over their trait should be frustrating and challenging for them. If it helps, think of it like a little invisible guy hovering over their shoulder and forcing them to do the opposite of what they want to do.
3. Other ways of standing in their own way
Characters can also be thwarted by their own minds in other ways. Some stories take the route of reality being unreliable, whether through drugs, mental illness, or a magical/fictional reason. Memento, the movie, is sort of an example of this, where because of Leonardâs memory condition, heâs unable to know who to trust or what the truth is, and what's a lie.
One of my favourite video games is Fran Bow, where the distorting of reality is both the problem and sometimes the answer.
               What are some other ways the protagonist can act as their own antagonist?
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When Your Antagonist Isn't a Person
Last time I talked about how to character create an antagonist (check it out here if you missed it!) but what happens when your antagonist isnât a person?
               Antagonists donât necessarily have to be another character (or even one singular character). Rather, an antagonist is anything that raises the stakes and creates conflict for your protagonist. You will likely find this antagonist in your worldbuilding.
1. What your world may say about your antagonist
               In a survival story, your protagonist will likely be out in the wilderness aloneâthus, their antagonist may be creatures, starvation, dehydration, exposure (freezing, sunburn). Or something like a giant storm, or other natural phenomenon/disaster.
               In an urban setting, the antagonist may be the âsystemâ itself; politics, institutions, a way theyâve been disadvantaged or otherwise put down by their world. (Often these systems can be represented by a person, if you so choose).
               And a futuristic world opens up to technology being an antagonist; things arenât working as theyâre meant to, AI has gone wrong, or itâs gone too rightâthe technology is taking away from what the protagonist wants.
2. Goals and Motivations
Your non-human antagonist may not have goals or motivations, or very basic ones. Does a nasty storm exist to destroy humans? Probably not, it just is as it is. A creatureâs goal may be to eat, itâs motivation being that itâs hungry.
However, a system or institution may have deeper goals/motivations. For example, Amazon is a company built to make Jeff Bezos money. Your institution may have a goal it presents to the public, and a true goal (usually monetary, but could also be religiously or politically motivated).
3. Additional sources of conflict
Sometimes non-human antagonists need some extra support to make your characterâs life suck. A dangerous storm brewing in the distance is great, but you may also need some additional sources of conflict to keep your character moving until it reaches them.
If your character is taking down Amazon, they may be targeted by police, or drones with guns, or people who live off an Amazon salary, or require the convenience of it.
Often stories without one human antagonist tend to have multiple little antagonists. Survival stories are great for the amount of different conflicts you can throw at a character. You may even introduce small conflicts between other characters, even if those characters arenât fully antagonists.
Next time Iâll talk about character vs. self, what do you do when your antagonist is also your protagonist?
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5 Tips for Creating Intimidating Antagonists
Antagonists, whether people, the world, an object, or something else are integral to giving your story stakes and enough conflict to challenge your character enough to change them. Today Iâm just going to focus on people antagonists because they are the easiest to do this with!
1. Your antagonist is still a character
While sure, antagonists exist in the story to combat your MC and make their lives and quest difficult, they are still characters in the storyâthey are still people in the world.
Antagonists lacking in this humanity may land flat or uninteresting, and itâs more likely theyâll fall into trope territory.
You should treat your antagonists like any other character. They should have goals, objectives, flaws, backstories, etc. (check out my character creation stuff here). They may even go through their own character arc, even if that doesnât necessarily lead them to the âgoodâ side.
Really effective antagonists are human enough for us to see ourselves in themâin another universe, we could even be them.
2. Theyâre⌠antagonistic
Thereâs two types of antagonist. Type A and Type B. Type A antagonistâs have a goal that is opposite the MCâs. Type Bâs goal is the same as the MCâs, but their objectives contradict each other.
For example, in Type A, your MC wants to win the contest, your antagonist wants them to lose.
In Type B, your MC wants to win the contest, and your antagonist wants to win the same contest. They canât both win, so the way they get to their goal goes against each other.
A is where you get your Draco Malfoyâs, other school bullies, or President Snowâs (they donât necessarily want what the MC does, they just donât want them to have it.)
B is where you get the other Hunger Games contestants, or any adventure movie where the villain wants the secret treasure that the MCs are also hunting down. They want the same thing.
3. They have well-formed motivations
While we as the writers know that your antagonist was conceptualized to get in the way of the MC, they donât know that. To them, they exist separate from the MC, and have their own reasons for doing what they do.
In Type A antagonists, whatever the MC wants would be bad for them in some wayâso they canât let them have it. For example, your MC wants to destroy Amazon, Jeff Bezos wants them not to do that. Why not? He wants to continue making money. To him, the MC getting what they want would take away something he has.
Other motivations could be: MCâs success would take away an opportunity they want, lose them power or fame or money or love, it could reveal something harmful about themâharming their reputation. It could even, in some cases, cause them physical harm.
This doesnât necessarily have to be true, but the antagonist has to believe itâs true. Such as, if MC wins the competition, my wife will leave me for them. Maybe she absolutely wouldnât, but your antagonist isnât going to take that chance anyway.
In Type B antagonists, they want the same thing as the MC. In this case, their motivations could be literally anything. They want to win the competition to have enough money to save their family farm, or to prove to their family that they can succeed at something, or to bring them fame so that they wonât die a ânobodyâ.
They have a motivation separate from the MC, but that pesky protagonist keeps getting in their way.
4. They have power over the MC
Antagonists that arenât able to combat the MC very well arenât very interesting. Their job is to set the MC back, so they should be able to impact their journey and lives. They need some sort of advantage, privilege, or power over the MC.
President Snow has armies and the force of his system to squash Katniss. Sheâs able to survive through political tension and her own army of rebels, but he looms an incredibly formidable foe.
Your antagonist may be more wealthy, powerful, influential, intelligent, or skilled. They may have more people on their side. They are superior in some way to the protagonist.
5. And sometimes they win
Leading from the last point, your antagonists need wins. They need to get their way sometimes, which means your protagonist has to lose. You can do a bit of a trade off that allows your protagonist to lose enough to make a formidable foe out of their antagonist, but still allows them some progress using Fortunately, Unfortunately.
It goes like⌠Fortunately, MC gets accepted into the competition. Unfortunately, the antagonist convinces the rest of the competitors to hate them. Fortunately, they make one friend. Unfortunately, their first entry into the competition gets sabotaged. Fortunately, they make it through the first round anyway, etc. etc.
An antagonist that doesnât do any antagonizing isnât very interesting, and is completely pointless in their purpose to heighten stakes and create conflict for your protagonist to overcome. Weâll probably be talking about antagonists more soon!
Anything I missed?
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When to Reject Feedback
             Last post I talked about taking suggestions from editors, so today I'm talking about when not to take their (or other readers') suggestions. While your readers may have a lot of experience and wisdom, ultimately you know your story best and you know what you want it to be.
This is also the first step, know your work, know exactly what you want it to be before you reach out for feedback. This way, you know what suggestions are helpful, and which are leading your story to a place you don't like.
               Iâll start with a story. I wrote a short creative non-fiction in one of my creative writing classes about grappling with my family dynamic before and after my Grandma (and our matriarch) was hospitalized. I intentionally left parts of it vagueâhow was I supposed to distill all my thoughts and feelings and the history of my family in a simple enough way for others outside of my family to understand, when I was in my family and hardly understood it? I thought the vagueness gave room for a conflict of love and rejection. Alienation and belonging. I didnât want to force the reader to feel anything concrete or specific about my grandma, I hardly knew how I felt about her.
               I took this piece to my prof, and she advised me that it would benefit from more specific details. Some things she suggested adding were histories I wasnât privy toâeither I hadnât been born yet, or I hinted to knowing but only really from context; I wasnât in the room.
               I took her advice and rewrote it with these more specific details. I had to make up some stuff, which I didnât really like, but she loved it.
               Next semester, I took the same (edited) piece to a different creative writing prof in a different class. She read it, told me she liked it, but that it could benefit from a bit more room for interpretationâfrom some vagueness.
               I laughed and told her that I agreed, and pulled up my original draft. She was in far favour of the original.
               TL;DR, this is all to say that I donât believe in taking all advice as gospel. Some people will absolutely love the way youâve written it, others will think it needs changing. These two profs were both incredibly experienced, published authors who had won awards, gone through masters degrees, etc. etc. They were both very credible people to go to for advice.
               But they had slightly different sensibilities when it came to writing, and while I didnât agree with everything my second prof said, I did err more towards her way of writing than the first. Emphasis on the ânot agreeing on everythingâ, that little part of me that disagreed is my unique writing sensibility.
               So seriously, reach out to people for feedback and advice, but that by no stretch means you have to take all of it. If thereâs a part of your writing that you really love, that you did intentionally, and that you feel is integral to your work youâre allowed to keep it. There will be readers who like it as it is.
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Taking Notes from Editors
I did a post on giving and receiving feedback, but now that Iâve been an editor for a little longer, Iâd like to do a follow up on taking feedback specifically from professional editors.
               While ultimately writers are the rulers of their work and can make the final decisions on it, there's a lot of growth in your manuscript to be found by trusting your editor and taking their notes. As an editor, itâs my job to make your work as good as it can possibly be. Itâs also my job to maintain your style and voice and make sure everything you do best shines the brightest.
               Weâve studied and practiced this goal. So the biggest thing I want to impart on you is:
1. Trust your editor
Go into the process with the mindset that you'll accept at least 85% of the edits your editor suggests. When another editor works on my writing, I accept about 95% of it, sometimes %100 (for shorter pieces).
Writers sometimes get hung up on the smallest changes an editor tries to make. Be careful not to be too precious, allow your work to be explored from a different perspective and lens.
You can always keep a separate doc that has your original piece, it doesnât go away or get ruined when an editor works on it. While it's your work in the end, it's helpful to go into it with an open mind. Often feedback you may have never considered is the key to really elevating your piece. Make some room for your editor's opinion and expertise, trust your editor.
2. Choose your battles
If you are going to reject a suggestion, I recommend it be something really worth going to bat for. Choose your battles, and choose only the biggest ones. You ultimately know your work best, so fight only for the stuff you believe is integral to keeping the same.
This will be an easier battle to win if youâve already accepted the vast majority of other suggestions. Does it really matter if your main characterâs name is Jolene or Veronica? Maybe not, so take that suggestion so you can afford to keep her queerness, or the subplot about her mother, etc.
But going back to the trust your editor idea, donât think about it as a battle. We are not on opposite sides, weâre both fighting for the same thingâto make your work the best it can be. Respectfully acknowledge a suggestion you donât like, give it a day or two to think on it, and then decide if thatâs something youâd really like to advocate for.
As an editor, when a writer has a solid justification for rejecting a suggestion it helps me understand their work better, and builds trust between us.
3. Itâs okay youâre not perfect
Sometimes as a writer receiving feedback, my impulse is to be embarrassed Iâve done something âwrongâ. Then, of course, I go to defend myself or justify it or attack. We donât like feeling threatened, and it can cause some high tempers and nasty disagreements in the editing world.
Itâs really important that you recognize that impulse to defend yourself, and choose not to react to it.
By that I mean, if you feel yourself getting defensive over a piece of feedbackâtake a deep breath, donât answer it right away. You donât need to explain yourself. Think on it for a bit, just try it out. See what happens when you make that change. If you still hate it, think about why. If youâre just rejecting it on impulse, youâre probably in that âdefendâ state.
               Youâre not being attacked, and youâre not a bad writer. Itâs okay if youâve made a decision that didnât land, or a mistake thatâs kind of embarrassing.
               As an editor, I can assure you that I donât judge my writers. Ever. When I make suggestions, itâs from a pure âjust trying to helpâ standpoint, and I really appreciate when my writers are open to my suggestions and ideas and accept or reject my suggestions with friendliness and grace.
               Iâm not a super experienced editor in any way, but if anyone has any questions about the editing process, the job, or anything else about it, I will do my best to answer!
Next post we're going to talk about when to reject a suggestion or feedback because the editor/reader isn't always right. Follow to catch that when it's out!
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