Andrew Michael Miller's Thought Backlog
Writer and working Agile professional. Author of Pancho's Fall.
Sometimes it hurts to look back and see things of which you are not particularly proud. As a creative person, it can be so hard to appreciate the work done in an earlier stage in your development. You look upon that work with veteran eyes, nitpicking any elements you made that you would do differently now in retrospect. Sometimes you become ashamed of it and want to hide it. After all, it doesn't represent who you are now, right?
Here's a challenge for you to try to test out your writing chops! Taken from a short story-writing guest lecture on Brandon Sanderson's master class on writing science fiction and fantasy, from Hugo award-winning author Mary Robinette Kowal, this will not only challenge you to understand how to engage audiences quickly, it will help you say more with less words. In the lesson, Mary challenges aspiring authors to write three sentences that tell readers exactly what kind of experience they're in for by picking up your book. Can you rise to the challenge?
As a writer, you have stories to tell, but maybe you're not quite sure how to begin to get all that information in your head onto the page. This is where structure is important, and the best way to determine what your story structure should look like is by understanding the four different types of stories: milieu, idea, character and event. By deciding what kind of story you're telling, you should have a much clearer idea of how to tell it.
One of the most effective and beloved ways to develop characters in storytelling comes in the form of the redemption arc. Suddenly, a switch gets flipped in an antagonist's mind, bringing them over to the side of the good guys just in the nick of time. Audiences eat it up every time, so much so that many people claim the redeemed character as their favorite. But why does the redemption arc resonate so well with people, and what are the best ways to include it in your work of fiction?
So, you're deep into your writing process. Maybe you have a completed early draft of your story and there's just something off about some of the characters that you can't figure out. You figure out that some of them just seem like they're in the story because you want them to be, not because they really should be there. They do the things you want them to do, but maybe it's uninspiring and they just don't seem like real people when all is said and done. Why does this happen and how do you fix it? Here are some things to think about that might help elevate your character writing to the next level.