by alkamy | Mar 22, 2021 | Archetypes, Psychology, Writing
Fiction writers are always trying to create characters who crackle with authenticity. We strive to create characters who are both familiar and at the same time unique. The familiar provides a sense of comfort and predictability which helps us understand a character at...
by alkamy | Oct 19, 2017 | Writing
Day 19: Character Arcs Over the past few days, our gaze has been settled strongly on the underlying mechanism of plot that structures your story. You may be wondering: what of our characters? I mean, I did, after all, characterize story as revolving around the...
by alkamy | Oct 18, 2017 | Writing
Day 18: Archetypes Now that we have completed our exploration of plotting, I’d like to delve more deeply into the realm of the archetypes. Archetypes are universal ordering principles. They can be thought of as patterns of behaviors or clusters of attributes that tend...
by alkamy | Oct 6, 2017 | Writing
Day 6: Characters Yesterday we spoke about the conflict of your story. I described it as the beating heart. But that beating heart belongs to someone important: your protagonist. Do you have a strong sense of who she is? Do you know her flaws? She must possess some if...