We've all seen the cringy dialogue. The weirdly stereotypical and awkward situations. The sheer effort of the script writer, the novelist, or the comic book writer to write someone they don't know: a woman, or a man.
Too often the problem is very stark when comparing character designs ...
Writing Women, Writing Men
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 31, 2021Layers in Character
Banes at 12:00AM, July 8, 2021
Welcome to my Underground Layers
-Banes, your pop culture references are as on point as ever!
I've talked about story structure here many times, normally in similar ways.
A different approach to character and story, one I haven't used much personally, is what we could call the “onion ...
The Bestest Evar
Banes at 12:00AM, April 8, 2021
The Bestest Evar: Revisiting Mary Sues -
And a Contest!
Way back in the day our friend and my grizzled old mentor HippieVan did a post discussing Mary Sues - and we followed it up with a Mary Sue “contest”.
Many of us comic creator and reader types have probably known the ...
Flaws Every Day
Banes at 12:00AM, Feb. 25, 2021
We're always advising people to give their characters flaws. But why? Is it just so they'll be relatable and not perfect/boring?
That is a good reason, for sure.
Is it so you'll know how they're supposed to react in certain situations?
“I wrote in my ...
The Duo
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Feb. 6, 2021
We've all been told how in story telling, showing is a lot better than telling.
Showing gets hard if your main character is a loner that interacts with nobody. Even harder if he/she is a stoic that emotes very little. The audience will have no way of knowing ...
Gimme Strength
Banes at 12:00AM, Nov. 19, 2020
Plenty has been said about giving characters flaws - we've talked about it around the site, on the Quackcast and out loud, to ourselves, on the bus and in the park.
Characters gotta have flaws!
But something I've thought about more lately, in the years well after starting my ...
No Antagonist, No Arc
Banes at 12:00AM, Aug. 27, 2020
I grabbed the Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey 2-pack and rewatched then after many years. I knew those movies well when I was a youngster, especially the first one. Many, many repeat viewings. Both movies held up REALLY well, and feature “Fool ...
When The Monster Is Too Good For Angst
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Aug. 22, 2020
There's nothing more entertaining than the angst of a monster that was once a human being. A monster that hates who he/she is, that strives to regain all the terrible loss he/she has sustained, to strive to become human again.
Or if it starts off a monster ...
Building a character
Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, May 1, 2020
A key aspect to creating a strong story is having believable characters. They are, after all, a key backbone to your narrative. So here are three tips that can help you put together a well rounded character.
1. Create a backstory
If you’re naming a character then you got ...
On Writing Therapists 2
Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 18, 2020
Therapists are the type of character whose occupation can easily seep into their ‘off the clock’ life. It's not something that can often be helped. Psychologists don't ‘turn off’ their perception of behavioral patterns and personality analyses, the same way you can't ‘unsee’ the rabbits after you ...