Writing Strong Characters of Any Gender

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Aug. 26, 2023



Last time I'd written about gender toxicity and what a trap it can be for creators seeking to write powerful characters. It is not something that only plagues the “strong female character” attempt, but also the “strong male character” and definitely the “strong LGBTQ+ character”.

Too many of these ...



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The Unicorn

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, April 30, 2022



No, this article isn't about the mythological beings. I wouldn't want to steal any single one from Andreas Helixfinger's awesome Sunday article series.

What I want to talk about is the metaphorical unicorn: a character that is too good to be true, too unlikely to be found ...



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When Nothing Is Normal

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 9, 2021



Usually when building a character, we go for their general personality in terms of traits, the routine/general behavior they would display, the routine/general things that would interest them and so on.

If you are writing a slice of life story, or a sitcom style series, or anything that ...



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Writing More Than You Know

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, June 13, 2020



We're all aware of the classic tennet for writers and creators of all stories- write what you know in order for the story to be good.

We've explored before what it means to write what you know, and where this rule should be adhered to: at the core ...



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Cliffhanger With a View

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 21, 2019



I promise, this is not going to be another opportunity for me to take a shot at Game of Thrones.

In fact, this time I'm seeking to use the example to illustrate another way to approach suspense and intensify the engagement of your audience with the story and the ...



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When the middle of your story sucks

Emma_Clare at 12:00AM, Dec. 7, 2018



When creating a story, either for comics or novels, the easiest parts to write are usually the beginnings and ends because hell ,they’re the fun bits right? You burst out of the gate, ready and raring to go, your gaze on that sweet, sweet finale but there’s a ...

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The Benefit of Trauma

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Sept. 22, 2018



Trauma is such a delicious thing in writing- it gives characters their backstories, their motivation, their special slant in a narrative wrok, from novels to webcomics.

However, it's usually considered in the context of how it has made a character ‘damaged goods’. Why they are grim, why they're ...



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The Javert Effect

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, May 26, 2018



Javert is such a stellar and powerful character in Les Miserables that he has his very own trope.

He's the skilled, dogged, unwavering locomotive of a chaser that in the name of the law, the church, the state, the cause pursues and persecutes the hero of a story, and ...



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Mundane Tasks

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, Jan. 27, 2018



Have you noticed that it’s very rarely that in a webcomic (or any narrative work) there’s a category of tasks or activities that people do very often in real life, but extremely rarely in stories?

Watching TV, being on the computer (when NOT being a hacker or doing ...



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Fantasy Is Hard Work

Tantz_Aerine at 12:00AM, July 8, 2017


art by yours truly

It is no secret that as an artist, it is prose that I’m professional at rather than painting/drawing. And historical fiction aside, what I’m told I write quite well is fantasy. So, for a long time I have wanted to talk about writing ...


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