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Category Archives: Characters
What’s in a Name?
What’s in a name? Choosing names for your characters can be perfunctory or can provide your readers or audience with insight into your characters’ natures, add humor or surprise, or even at the very least break out of ordinary monikers … Continue reading
Posted in Building Characters
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How to Avoid Stereotypes
Coming up with characters can be as simple as looking to our subject matter and asking ourselves who might be expected to be involved. But that only creates the expected characters – predictable and uninteresting. Building characters that are intriguing, … Continue reading
Posted in Characters
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Character Change vs. Character Growth
Main characters don’t have to change to grow. They can grow in their resolve. It is a common misconception among authors that the main character in a story must change in order to grow. Certainly, that is one kind of … Continue reading
Posted in Main Character, Novel Writing, Story Development
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A Brief Introduction to Archetypes – Part 3
Archetypes are the spine of any story, whether you use them in a monolithic manner or sculpt them into more complex variations. Understanding archetypes will help you to ensure your structure is human and complete. In part 1 of this … Continue reading
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A Brief Introduction to Archetypes – Part 2
In my previous article, A Brief Introduction to Archetypes – Part 1, I defined what an archetype is, and what it is not. Here in Part 2, we’re going to expand on that understanding by revealing where archetypes come from … Continue reading
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A Brief Introduction to Archetypes – Part 1
Writers and narrative theorists often speak of Archetypes. When they do, Jung and Campbell and the Hero’s Journey quickly come to mind. And yet, if pressed, most writers would admit they don’t really have a solid grip on what an … Continue reading
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Character Development Tricks!
Here are a few of my best tricks for creating characters from scratch and for developing characters you’ve already created. Coming up with characters is as simple as looking to our subject matter and asking ourselves who might be expected … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Story Development
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What Is Truth? (The Character’s Dilemma)
Characters reflect real people in a purified or idealized state. And so, we can see in them qualities and traits that are hard to see within ourselves. One of the most difficult challenges we face every day are exemplified by … Continue reading
Posted in Characters, Narrative Psychology, Story Psychology
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What Drives Characters?
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 … Continue reading
Posted in Characters
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Archetypes vs. Stereotypes
Archetypes represent human qualities we all share, such as Reason, Emotion, Faith, Skepticism, Conscience, and Temptation. Stereotypes represent the different kinds of personalities we encounter in life. In story structure, archetypes, by definition, are characters defined by their plot function, … Continue reading
Posted in Characters
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