It hit me the most clearly during a rewatch of Iron Man, and since I did a post on Captain America last week, I decided to do an Iron Man post today. And maybe next week I'll do Thor. Because it's Marvel and because I can.
Recently I've been discovering an element in stories--and particularly movies--that I feel ramps up both the tension and the stakes of the story, and that swings the hero's character arc forward several degrees. It's a small element--it's usually just a few sentences in the story or a short shot in the movie--but it's powerful.
It hit me the most clearly during a rewatch of Iron Man, and since I did a post on Captain America last week, I decided to do an Iron Man post today. And maybe next week I'll do Thor. Because it's Marvel and because I can.
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The midpoint of a story is often a turning point. While you may not even be aware of what your story's midpoint is, or even that it should be important (I wasn't for much of my writing career), don't decide it's unnecessary fluff and skip on it. There are many purposes of a midpoint but one of the top ones is that it lets your readers know that you, the author, know where this story is going and that you're working hard to get it there--not simply meandering around and having fun in your newly-created story-world. The midpoint is a moment for refocusing the events of the story.
"Why do I want to create problems? I have enough problems in my life!"
Don't worry, these are problems for your character to face, not you. Every story starts with a character with a problem--he needs a job, he's afraid of the dark, his world is in peril--that sort of thing. The subsequent events of the story are usually caused by the character's efforts to fix said problem (and yes, quite often those efforts only make the problem worse). But it's not enough to give your character a problem and call it a day. Your character needs a problem that will resonate with readers--that will cause everyone who reads the story to really care whether or not the problem gets solved.
As a writer, you want your stories to connect to your readers on two levels. One level is the intellectual: the events in your story should make sense in the world you've set it in and your readers should be able to see logical connections between the events. The other level is the emotional; your readers should be able to relate to what your characters are feeling and should feel a full range of emotions themselves as they read the story.
I know I'm not the first person to have this idea and in fact I'm stealing it from other blogs, but I'm starting a series of short posts about common writers' mistakes. These posts will be a bit like my writing prompts: short and sporadic. If you see one, it will mean that either I'm too busy to write a longer post, or I've just read a book with that particular gaffe, or simply that I'm being lazy (because it's easy to write about someone else's mistakes).
One of the best ways to make characters believable is to make them complex. A simple character often comes across as a cardboard character--someone simply filling a role in the story without having his own personality, purpose, or goal. Much to my frustration, I've found this to be true too often with my own characters, so here are some of the things I've learned while trying to fix this problem.
After sifting through various character inspiration boards on Pinterest in a vain attempt to bolster my flagging motivation for my story, I've begun to realise why authors so often spend too much time describing their characters and why their characters still seem flat and boring in spite of it.
Most of the boards I came across were full of pictures of celebrities or supermodels in tight suits and awkward poses. While I have nothing against celebrities, I don't think a hundred pictures of Sebastian Stan give you good inspiration for a character. Here's why: it makes you focus on the what not the who.
No.
Or that's my opinion anyway. But I know it's become more popular recently to end a book on a cliff hanger, especially in a series, so let's look at some of the pros and cons of ending a book on a cliff hanger. |
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