Welcome to our new series designed to focus on one practical way to improve your story each weekend. This week, try coming up with a log line for each of your characters. A log line is a one-sentence description of what each character is all about and can help focus your understanding their motivations and […]
Welcome to our new series designed to focus on one practical way to improve your story each weekend. This week, try coming up with a log line for each of your characters. A log line is a one-sentence description of what each character is all about and can help focus your understanding their motivations and […]
Archetypal characters have a bad name. Many writers think such characters are two-dimensional stick figures that come off more like plot robots than real people. But the truth is that archetypes represent essential human qualities that need to be explored in every story, such as trying to solve the story’s problems through logic as opposed […]
Archetypal characters have a bad name. Many writers think such characters are two-dimensional stick figures that come off more like plot robots than real people. But the truth is that archetypes represent essential human qualities that need to be explored in every story, such as trying to solve the story’s problems through logic as opposed […]
As writers, we all know that characters need drive or their actions will come across as unmotivated. But what is drive, and where does it come from? At a minimum, every character needs a reason to explain the choices they make and the things they do. For example, the ex-con who has made a new […]
From a structural standpoint, characters are just cogs in the machine. They have a job to do in the story as a protagonist, antagonist or any one of the functional roles that must be filled for the story to make sense and move forward. But characters are much more than that! They also need to […]
In this article you’ll discover a technique for drawing characters out of a one-sentence description of your story called a log line. These steps are excerpted from the all-new version 4 of our world-famous StoryWeaver Software that carries you through 200 story development steps to a completed novel or screenplay. Introduction Characters are the heart […]
In this article you’ll discover a technique for drawing characters out of a one-sentence description of your story called a log line. These steps are excerpted from the all-new version 4 of our world-famous StoryWeaver Software that carries you through 200 story development steps to a completed novel or screenplay. Introduction Characters are the heart […]
When a child comes up with a false reason for some small transgression, we know he is just making an excuse to avoid punishment or to side-step a negative emotional response. Adults continue to make excuses; they just do it in a far more sophisticated way. What’s more, we often make excuses to ourselves, convincing […]
Some writers tend to create characters that are more or less the same age as themselves. Other writers populate their stories with characters of all ages but have them all act as if they are the same age as the author. On the one hand, this follows the old adage that one should write about […]
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