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cheritzteam · 7 months

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[Cheritz] Answering Customer Questions regarding the use of A.I. in <The Ssum> Season 2 and More

Hello, this is Cheritz.

Some of the photos of our newest Ssumone, June, have not been polished enough to the game standard, and we will be updating them as soon as possible. We apologize for the disappointment caused by this issue.

On that note, we would like to clarify the topic on the use of A.I. in art in June’s photos.

First of all, we express our sympathies to the fan base who have been worried about the recent issue over the use of A.I. in games and movies, as it has been linked to copyright issues, job security, and more.

As you may have already been aware, <The Ssum> had to showcase an unparalleled amount of text and images to create a long-term romantic experience for you, and in Season 1, we used real-world images and free stock images to achieve the goal. While keeping the subscription price as low as possible in relation to production costs, our team have been working on the game with a limited number of staff to make <The Ssum> viable in the gaming market on its own.

In Season 2, we decided to apply the 2D art style to meet the feedback received by the fan base, we used retouched images sourced by A.I. which got data exclusively from a commercially available sources of packs to avoid any conflict with copyright issues for the art work that do not involve characters’ faces.

It was never the case for our team to replace the art staff with machines, but rather because most illustrators in the game industry have preferences on drawing main character illustrations over backgrounds or objects. For that reason, the art team was more focused on drawing 2023 commemorative artwork for <Mystic Messenger> and SD images on social media. Also, because Cheritz has been running four-day work weeks since the start of 2023, there was an internal consensus to tap into A.I. to balance work and life for staff. There were no cuts or layoffs of art staff for Season 2 projects.

The team feel terrible about unpleasant surprises some of you may have gone through by us not announcing this before the release.

Additionally, we have learned that some of the users feel disappointed that the new character in <The Ssum> has a connection to one of the main characters of <Mystic Messenger>.

The team has been constantly getting requests for 2D-art style images and involvements of <Mystic Messenger> characters, and more text content to <The Ssum> since its release. Our team is aware of the users’ support for <The Ssum>, however, we did not expect the new change would sadden some of our loyal fan base.

We will do our best to make it obvious that the launch of June is not an extension of <Mystic Messenger>, but rather as an extension of the launch of <The Ssum>, where the games from the same company share a universe but are on their own game systems and charms.

In addition to the currently released June, we have a new character currently under development, and we plan to release the rest of Season 1 in 2024 with some of the improvements applied.

We understand this clarification would not satisfy everyone, and we feel awful that these changes made some of you feel disappointed. We will pay close attention to the negative impact that the A.I. has brought to the gaming industry, and we would like to find a viable way to reach out to you through our games.

The team would like to thank you for your continued support of <The Ssum> and other Cheritz games, and we truly appreciate our fans’ feedback.

We hope this announcement has made your heart a little lighter and given you clarity.

*To clarify rumors about the author of <Mystic Messenger>, please let us address it as well here. The main writer of <Mystic Messenger> is Ms. Ri, the founder of Cheritz, as revealed in the Otakon video. Ms. Ri is also the writer of <Dandelion>, <Nameless>, and is the main writer of <The Ssum> Season 2.

Thank you.

-Cheritz Team

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thewriteadviceforwriters · 14 days

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Unleashing the Power of Inspiration: Crafting Original Fiction from Beloved Books and Movies

As writers and authors, we often find ourselves captivated by the worlds created in our favorite books, TV shows, and movies. The characters, settings, and narratives leave an indelible mark on our creative minds, inspiring us to weave our own tales of wonder. However, it's essential to strike a delicate balance between drawing inspiration and avoiding the pitfalls of outright copying. In this article, I'll help you explore effective strategies for infusing inspiration from beloved sources into your own fiction book while maintaining authenticity and originality.

Checklist for Effective Incorporation of Inspiration:

Before we dive into the details, let me provide you with a handy checklist to ensure you're harnessing inspiration in a responsible and imaginative manner:

Identify key elements: Analyze your favorite book, TV show, or movie and pinpoint the aspects that resonate with you the most. These elements could include character development, plot structure, world-building, or even the emotional journey.

Seek multiple sources: Broaden your horizons by drawing inspiration from various sources, rather than solely relying on one. This will help you create a unique blend of ideas and themes while avoiding the risk of replicating a single work.

Understand the essence: Delve deeper into what makes your favorite works truly special. Analyze the underlying themes, motifs, and messages conveyed. By grasping the essence of these stories, you can extract the core elements that resonate with you and apply them thoughtfully in your own work.

Adapt, don't copy: Rather than replicating specific characters or plotlines, focus on adapting the essence of your favorite works to suit your unique story. Ask yourself how you can capture the emotions, atmosphere, or philosophical questions that made those works impactful and translate them into your own voice and narrative.

Combine with personal experiences: Infuse your story with your own life experiences, emotions, and observations. By blending external inspiration with your personal perspective, you can create a rich tapestry that reflects your unique voice and vision.

Embrace originality: Strive to bring something fresh and innovative to the table. Instead of emulating your favorite works verbatim, use them as a springboard to explore uncharted territory, experiment with new ideas, and develop your own creative style.

When incorporating inspiration into your fiction book, it's crucial to approach the process with a keen eye for adaptation rather than replication. Take a moment to reflect on what specifically draws you to your favorite books, TV shows, or movies. Is it the intricate world-building, the captivating plot twists, or the depth of the characters? Understanding the essence of what makes these works special allows you to extract the core elements that resonate with you and apply them thoughtfully in your own narrative.

For instance, let's say you're enthralled by the rich and immersive world-building of a particular fantasy series. Instead of attempting to recreate the exact setting or magical system, focus on the underlying principles that make it captivating. Is it the intricate interplay between magic and politics? The complex relationships between different species or factions? By identifying these foundational aspects, you can adapt them to suit your own fictional universe, infusing it with a unique twist that aligns with your overarching vision.

Similarly, examine the characters that have left a lasting impact on you. What qualities do they possess that make them memorable and relatable? Is it their internal conflicts, their emotional journeys, or their growth throughout the story? Rather than replicating these characters outright, delve into the essence of what makes them compelling. Then, apply those qualities to your own characters, infusing them with your unique perspectives and distinctive traits. By doing so, you'll create a fresh cast that embodies the spirit of your inspiration while remaining authentic to your story.

It's also essential to complement external inspiration with your personal experiences and observations. Draw from your own life to add depth and authenticity to your narrative. Incorporate elements of your own emotions, struggles, and triumphs, weaving them seamlessly into the fabric of your story. This infusion of personal touch not only enhances the originality of your work but also allows readers to connect with your characters and themes on a deeper level.

Ultimately, the key to effectively incorporating inspiration lies in embracing originality. While it's natural to be influenced by the works that have touched us profoundly, it's equally important to bring something fresh and innovative to the table. Use your favorite books, TV shows, and movies as a springboard to explore uncharted territory, experiment with new ideas, and develop your own creative style. By doing so, you'll create a fiction book that not only pays homage to your sources of inspiration but also stands on its own as a unique and captivating piece of literature.

Drawing inspiration from your favorite books, TV shows, and movies can be a powerful tool for any writer. By conscientiously adapting the essence of these works, combining them with your personal experiences, and infusing them with originality, you can craft a fiction book that resonates with readers while maintaining your own distinct voice. Remember, the key lies in taking the inspiration and transforming it into something entirely new, breathing life into your own imaginative world. So, go forth, let your favorite stories inspire you, and create masterpieces that will captivate readers for generations to come.

#thewriteadviceforwriters #writing #creative writing #writeblr #on writing #writing tips #how to write #writers block #writers and poets #writing inspiration #author #writer #writer community #book writing

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dduane · 10 months

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I always see advice about first drafts being okay to have rough sequences and character decisions, but one thing that keeps sticking me is it always feels like I need to have character voice figured out when I start writing. Do you have any advice to offer in developing character voice? Or at least, how not to worry so much about that when writing the first draft?

Hmm.

First of all (for those who may not be sure what this is about), let me add a link here to the Masterclass page on character voice, which is a useful basic resource.

Actually developing characters' voices is such an idiosyncratic process! So describing my approach to this may or may not be useful to you. But I'll give it a shot.

(Adding a cut here, because this runs long.)

When a character's about to first come on stage I spend some time just thinking about who they are: their upbringing, their life situation (pre-action and during-), their general emotional makeup... their pre-existing internal stresses, and how those are likely to interact with the ones I'm about to inflict on them. I take a look at where their particular position in their culture would normally place their speech and the way they're expected to think and act. Then I'll examine whether or not those expectations are ones they'd normally fall in with, or adopt unquestioningly... or secretly (or openly) dislike. As usual, drama is about conflict. A character who likes or loathes something about a situation, or about somebody else (or themselves), is going to find ways to routinely express that—not just in dialogue, but in affect, attitude, and reaction: all the aspects of voice.

I may make notes on these issues along the way if the choices I'm making for the character(s) are complex enough that I'm afraid I'll lose track of detail. But after that I've found it's usually best to just get on with it and start writing, as it's in producing the first draft that it seems to me the characters' voices develop best. It's like the difference between thinking about what you'd do if someone pulled a gun on you, and actually finding out in realtime what you'll do. The two situations are likely to differ profoundly; and not only other characters, but you, may be surprised by what you "see" and "hear".

That said— Sometimes as the first draft progresses, or when it's done, I'll go over a character's interactions with the plot and other characters and get a sense of something ringing just slightly hollow—of the character feeling less than fully present in their scenes: or of them (and their reactions) somehow just not being enough for the situations into which you've thrown them. Normally a realization like this suggests to me that there's something missing in my conception of them... and hence, something missing for them too: something that's not coming through properly in their voice, or not coming through at all.

If this happens, it can be a sign that either I got lazy in the character's design, or missed something larger that was going on, due to being too close to the situation they're in. So what I normally do at such a time is find a quiet few minutes to interview them.

...And let's be clear here that I'm not one of those writers who honestly believes (in the psychological, psychiatric, or developmental senses) that their character has some kind of existence outside their head.* My position is absolutely that every part of this process is make-believe, sourced in my own brain. And, yes, it's important to treat the whole creative process, and everyone/everything inhabiting it, with the dignity one normally accords to everyday reality in a physical universe. But sometimes—even to engage correctly with what we laughably call Real Life—some distance is required: space in which to stand back and see the forest in which the "tree" you're examining stands.

The interviewing state is one way you can get a little distance. You find an empty chair (in the room, in your head, doesn't matter) and sit your character down in it, and ask them what's going on. And you keep asking about it—sometimes in multiple sessions—until you get answers that ring true enough for you to grasp and solve their problem, and yours.

Nor do the questions have to be particularly event- or other-character-focused. Generalities may be more useful. I've had good results with two questions in particular: "What do you know about yourself that I don't know?", and "What do you not know about yourself that you need to?" Sometimes this will seriously open the floodgates... so, like good interviewers everywhere, it's smart to have a notepad handy. :)

I had this situation crop up with one of my oldest characters, who'd begun the series in which he appears as...well, frankly, kind of a dick. And yes, I knew this was going to shift as his character arc went where it was going (poor guy!). But at the same time, his voice in the second book of the series—then in its first draft—wasn't correctly reflecting either who he was, or why it was eventually going to be right for him to be going where he was going. He was too flip sometimes, too facile other times, too flat and matter-of-fact at other times still; and his rawness-around-the-edges was offputting. And I liked him! ...so the thought of what other people were likely to make of him, made me nervous.

This problem plainly had to be sorted out, pronto. So I paused work on that book for a day or three, and sat him down in the chair, and eventually got around to asking question two. And wow.... did that ever yield results! All I'd needed was the distance afforded by this technique to allow him to tell me what the problem was—and what I plainly already knew without being conscious of it—and what to do about it as I went forward (and backward, in revision). And I'm still mining the results.

...So you may like to try out that approach, if you run into problems, and see how it serves you. Hope you find it useful!

Meanwhile, as for how to worry less about where voice issues are going as you draft? ...It's been long enough since I had any similar concern that I'm not sure how to advise you. But it seems possible that, if you can cozy up enough to the concept that draft is where at least some people think the development of character voice belongs, over time you can overwrite the concern.

Anyway: hope all of this helps!

*After a book's out, of course, this situation shifts. Once other people get hold of your characters and start making them real, all bets are off. :)

ETA: if you found this useful, maybe you'd like to stop by Ebooks.Direct and take a look around to see if there's something you'd like to pick up? Please & thank you! :)

#writing #writing advice #character voice

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ptoodle · 10 months

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Very rarely do I see people ship Fern and Huntress Wizard but when I do I can’t help but feel like they have a fundamental misunderstanding of both Huntress Wizard and Fern’s nature. Like on the surface it’s “haha!!! Plant boy and plant girl!!!! Huntress Wizard likes Finn and Fern is Finn but a plant so they’re perfect for each other!!!!” which just like, completely ignores everything core to Fern’s existence and Huntress Wizard’s complicated feelings toward love.

Fern is just more than just “Finn but plant”. He is LITERALLY Finn, but tainted with a curse. He is built out of fucked up evil twisted magic. Fern spends his entire existence finding his own identity and trying to reconcile Finn’s natural desire to do good with the corrupting nature of the grass curse. Fern’s struggle is internal, and he don’t have the emotional capacity for romance until he sorts his own shit out (which unfortunately due to the curse, he’ll never be able to do).

There's also the matter of the huge gap in emotional maturity between Finn and Fern. The Finn inside the Finnsword missed key moments of emotional development that our Finn experienced from season 6 to 8. Fern wasn't molded by key experiences like The Visitor, Crossover, Hall of Egress, Flute Spell, Don't Look, or The Music Hole. In particular, the massive emotional growth Finn underwent in Flute Spell is what allowed him to start a functional relationship with Huntress Wizard, and Fern lacks that growth. Fern is essentially a version of Finn stuck in season 6, and lacks the emotional intelligence to properly handle a relationship with anyone, let alone somebody as emotionally sensitive as Huntress Wizard.

But enough about Fern. I’m not a Fern expert, and this is only my B-rate interpretation of his character. The REAL egregious mischaracterizations of a Fern x Huntress Wizard ship lay in people just not understanding Huntress Wizard properly. For starters, you have to understand that both Fern and Huntress Wizard are two very magical beings, but their magics come from different sources. Huntress Wizard is a wizard (surprising, I know) and Fern is a CURSE. Fern is an unnatural, malicious magical force. Huntress Wizard would be off-put by Fern’s existence because he is a perversion of the natural world that she ties herself deeply to. Huntress Wizard assumes the role of a sort of “keeper of nature” in the forests of Ooo (as seen in her quest to slay the Grumbo for being invasive in The Wild Hunt), and Fern is a disruption to that natural order. A relationship between the two would never work because Huntress Wizard would be uncomfortable with Fern’s very existence.

There’s also the matter of why Huntress Wizard is attracted to Finn, and how Fern lacks many of the qualities Huntress Wizard likes Finn for. For starters, there’s the matter of emotional development I talked about before. Finn is extremely well-put together during the time he spends with Huntress Wizard in Flute Spell, and it’s easy to see how deeply he respects Huntress Wizard and her objectives. Finn isn’t determined to help Huntress Wizard with her mission to talk to the Spirit of the Forest out of a blind infatuation for her, but out of his natural drive to help people. Finn is very in-tune with his emotions (and can handle rejection like a champ), and Huntress Wizard can see that in him. This emotional in-tuneness is part of why Huntress Wizard so deeply respects Finn. Huntress Wizard seems to value her ability to stay true to her feelings (which even she struggles with; see my Flute Spell megareview for more) is drawn to his honesty and selflessness. Unfortunately for Fern, whether it is because of his lack of emotional development or because of his curse, cannot handle all his conflicting feelings inside him and doesn’t have the same kind of emotional stability that Huntress Wizard is attracted to Finn for.

I could go on and on and list even more reasons to why Fern x Huntress Wizard wouldn’t work, but those stray further into the “headcanon-ey”school of thought and I’m trying to be more objective with my character analysis as possible. I know being complexly objective is impossible and you have to leave a little room for individual interpretation but overall the entire ship is built on a very flimsy basis of “what if the two plant people liked eachother” and that’s it. There’s way more to these characters that make them special, and reducing them to just their visual similarities does a disservice to their character depth and creative potential.

#huntress wizard #adventure time #finn mertens #adventuretime #finn the human #fern the human #fern mertens #wow I never realized how many adventure time episodes start with ‘the’#why is the formatting all weird #that’s the price I pay for writing this all on mobile

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writingquestionsanswered · 10 months

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Hey, thanks so much again for being an invaluable resource!!

So I’m rewriting my fic from scratch again (OTL) and the plot is going to be rather complex. After some major on-foot travel (with appropriate timeskips), three different types of climax will happen around the same time, all caused by two well-meaning villains and their ‘gangs’ as it were. The 3 main OCs will have 2 canon side characters be a lot of help, each group hopefully with about 50/50 importance.

With this, what are certain factors in general writing I can be more lax about versus those I should tackle more carefully?

(Hopefully I asked this well haha, hopefully not too specific.)

Fan-Fiction: Things to Keep in Mind While Rewriting

1 - What Type of Story You're Writing - Just as with original fiction, there are all different types of fan-fiction stories. As with original fiction, fan-fiction can be character-driven (centered around internal conflict), plot-driven (centered around external conflict), or a combination of both. The story you're describing is likely a combination of character-driven and plot-driven, so you may want to keep Basic Story Structure in mind while re-writing.

2 - Canon Format - While you certainly don't have to follow canon format when structuring your story, it may be worth considering. If the canon source is a TV show, you may want to structure your story like an episode, season arc, or mini-arc within a season. If the canon source is a movie, you may want to structure your story like a movie. And, if the canon source is a book, you may want to structure your story like a novel.

3 - Avoid Over Complication - You have a lot going on in your story... three main characters, two villains with their own gangs, and three separate climaxes. It's not that this can't work, it's just that it's going to take some effort (and maybe a little trial and error) to make it work well. Most stories have only one climax, though sometimes the "dark night of the soul" plot point is thought of as a pre-climax or false climax. But three different climaxes happening at the same time is a lot. The one way this might work is if they're all related/stemming from the same event. Otherwise, you're dividing the reader's attention so much that none of the climaxes can have much impact. You may want to consider combining two of the climaxes into the main climax and use the other one as the pre-climax/dark night of the soul beforehand.

4 - Consider Reader Expectation - If you're going to post this story and care about people reading it, you may want to think about what readers will expect from this story based on things like canon, popular fan-fiction, and stories you've written in the past. While you definitely want to surprise and wow the reader, it's also a good idea to do so while not straying too far from their expectations.

5 - Just Do Your Best - When you ask what factors in general writing you can be more lax about versus those I should tackle more carefully, my best answer is if you want this story to be good, you should tackle all aspects of writing carefully. Things like story structure, plot, character development, description, pacing, balance of dialogue/action/exposition, world building, etc. aren't things you pick and choose. They're all critical pieces of a well-told story. However, it's also important not to overthink any of it, because when you let yourself get too bogged down in worrying about plot, story structure, world building, etc., all it does is hinder your ability to write, which isn't helpful either. So, all can do is be aware of all these things and how they work, then do your best to deliver on them based on your current ability as a writer, the needs of the story, and the expectations of the reader. :)

Have fun with your story!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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#writing tips #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

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yellowjacketslesbian · 1 year

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Reasons you should be watching Yellowjackets as a lesbian:

Let’s start with the obvious, shall we, the canon lesbian ship (VanTaissa). Which includes a masc/butch lesbian and a lesbian of color! Like we love to see the representation! Their relationship also feels authentic in a way rarely seen in media. Their scenes really shine with the underlying playfulness of young, first love.

Did I mention they’re played by an openly nonbinary lesbian actor and a queer actress in the 1996 timeline and Taissa in 2021 is played by another queer actress! And the cast has been allowed a lot of involvement in making their characters stories even more authentic (though the show runners and writers already do an amazing job).

Speaking of their story, one of my favorite things about the show is that their relationship and queerness isn’t treated as an obstacle to overcome, as it is many times in media. In fact, relationship is really a source of joy and strength for both characters when they’re stranded in the wilderness. Also, it should be noted that both of the lesbian characters have well developed storylines and motivations beyond their relationship.

And in 2021 we learn that Taissa grew up to have a beautiful family with her wife (who isn’t Van) and get to watch her campaign for state senate as an out lesbian. Enter the internal conflict of wanting to root for Taissa’s marriage in 2021 while simultaneously wanting a decades spanning love story for Van and Taissa.

On the topic of Van, she’s one of the best representations of masc/gender nonconforming lesbians I’ve seen in my lifetime. The show allows her to be sweet and soft and emotionally vulnerable in a way that masc/butch lesbians are rarely allowed to be on screen. (I could go on about what that portrayal personally meant to me, but that’s a whole other thread)

However, the show’s overarching queerness and exploration of lesbian identity goes far beyond the canon relationships. Jackie and Shauna are two best friends on the show who have an underlying (and very obvious) romantic tension to their friendship complete with longing glances and homoromantic friendship breakups.

Let me put it this way, if you even remotely liked Jennifer’s Body, you will be head over heals for JackieShauna. And don’t even get me started on the visceral portrayal of Jackie’s comphet in the pilot (or do if you want a dissertation). And there’s also queer coding in so many other characters (stares at Lottie and her purple laced docs and Nat and her everything).

Also, I cannot stress enough how incredible this show is even beyond it’s queer elements! Like from the 90s vibes to the incredible writing to beautiful cinematography, it’s worth the watch. Like it’s a riveting psychological horror mystery that explores the brutalities of girlhood with heart and humor.

Did I mention Showtime renewed through season 3 before we even got a trailer for season 2, so we’re guaranteed at least two more seasons! (Not to mention Showtime has a long history of supporting lesbian and queer narratives)

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izzyspussy · 2 years

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Why is there a Second Act Breakup?

A little (long?) while ago I saw a post by somebody who said they weren't typically a romance fan but had been reading a lot of romance lately because it was so readily available to them. They said they mostly liked it, but they couldn't understand the point of the ever-present Second Act Breakup and were frustrated by it.

Listen. I know it was rhetorical. So that's why I'm answering that question generally rather than directly. Not to vagueblog lmao but. Here are some reasons the Second Act Breakup is utilized in romance.

Strengthening the Characters Individually

Contrary to the most obvious assumption, a romance book is not actually only about the relationship. That's the story, sure, but it's only interesting because of the characters - so the characters are what the book is really about.

The first act of a romance is used to put the characters together and begin building the relationship. In the second act, we want character development. That is, not just character growth (i.e. change, be it positive or negative) but exploring character depth.

When the characters are separated - by a breakup, distance, whatever else - that gives us more room in the narrative to expand them.

A second act breakup also lets us show that the characters can still be individuals even when the focus of the story is their relationship.

For example, in Marry Me (a movie not a book, but they generally follow the same genre conventions) part of the reason for the second act breakup is that Kat is nominated for her first music award for a song she wrote and must perform with her ex. This conflict allows for Kat to continue to have priorities in her life other than her love interest, here her career and personal accomplishments.

For another example, in Beauty And The Beast Belle and Adam have to break up so that Belle can choose Adam. Even though they've already gotten to know each other as equals, no longer captor and captive, and have demonstrably fallen in love Belle still has to leave and come back to show her autonomy as a character and that her feelings for Adam are true. It also keeps her character consistent with regards to romance not being her highest priority, her strong relationship with her father, and her bravery and self-sufficience.

Switching Character Focus

Often, the first act of a romance focuses on the hero and what makes this relationship worth writing about in their life. At the second act breakup, we have a clear plot-relevant reason to switch to the love interest. It's now the other character's problems' turn.

This is most obvious in romances where a main source of conflict stems from the exes. Act one would be conflict from the hero's ex, and then act two is about the love interest's ex. But it can be anything!

To use Marry Me as an example again (I just saw it, so it's fresh on the brain), in act one the main character conflict is Kat's history of being wronged by her partners and her recent and explosive breakup. In act two, the focus is on Charlie's insecurity and fear of heartbreak. Kat's conflict with being in love with Charlie has been surmounted, and now it's time to deal with Charlie's conflict with being in love with Kat.

The second act breakup also makes room for side characters to take bigger roles, or to have their own relationships.

Switching from External to Internal Conflict (or Vice Versa)

Much the same as the character focus switch, the second act breakup provides a way to change focus from an external conflict to an internal conflict, or vice versa.

Say act one is about the hero thinking the love interest is out of their league, but there is also the conflict that the love interest's family disapproves of the match. Trying to explore both of those conflicts to their fullest potential concurrently will be very muddled and make for an unpleasantly complicated read. A second act breakup provides a way to focus on one, and then switch to the other.

In Marry Me this switch is from the external act one conflict that Kat's and Charlie's lifestyles clash and they have to find a way to coexist and relate to each other smoothly, to the internal act two conflict that Charlie thinks he is not glamorous enough for Kat.

A Complete Arc for the Antagonist

As previously said, a romance is not just about the main relationship. The other characters and the conflict(s) keeping the relationship apart in the first place all need to find satisfying conclusions. Especially in a romance with a clear villain, if the story ended right when the main characters got together that would leave the rest of the plot unresolved.

The Shape Of Water doesn't really have a second act breakup, but it does have distinct act one vs act two conflicts with the act two conflict being to complete the villain's storyline, so I'm going to use it for my example of this anyway.

In act one, the primary conflict is that Elisa and Amphibian Man are different species. In order to fall in love, they have to overcome a language barrier, the taboo of an interspecies relationship, and later the potential of incompatible anatomy. Those conflicts are, narratively speaking, solved in the (literal) consummation of their relationship. Technically, the conflict of his captivity is already solved as well!

But it wouldn't be very satisfying if the story ended there, even though they are happily together. We need Shannon to come between Elisa and Amphibian Man again so that he can be definitively defeated.

Occam's Razor

Last, but not least, the simplest - and most important - answer.

Why is the second act breakup a romance genre convention? Because romance fans like it.

If you're not a romance fan and you don't "get" it, well that's because you're not a romance fan and you don't get it. It has nothing to do with the value or function of the plot device itself and everything to do with your personal taste!

#jack facts #writing process #my fic #essay #romance #writeblr #romance writing

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gogogoats · 1 year

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Dragonblade Chapter One - A Deep Dive

20 years after the Jane and the Dragon TV series worked its way into our hearts, the novel we have been waiting for, Dragonblade, has been delivered.

The views expressed in this synopsis/analysis/review/whatever it is are entirely my own, and as a long-standing Gunther fan who sometimes struggles with change, they are neither perfect nor unbiased. I will do my best however to be fair.

Where we left off in the TV series:

Jane: 12 years old, intelligent, hard-working, concerned for her friends’ wellbeing and open to their opinions, confident but prone to occasional self-doubt, stubborn and determined enough to see her way through a challenge. Easily provoked but with enough good sense to see reason in the end.

Gunther: 14 years old, self-absorbed and aware that he isn’t popular with his contemporaries. His moral compass has been stunted by his upbringing but is present nonetheless and the main source of the internal conflict between his need for his father’s love and his desire to be a good knight. At the end of the TV series he has begun to find creative ways to undermine his father’s schemes, and develop a tentative friendship with the castle staff, but is not yet established as a reliably good character.

Jester: 14 years old, creative, sensitive, loyal to his friends, uncharitable to those he dislikes, devoted to Jane but level-headed and patient and willing to call her out on her own bad behaviour. A voice of reason and wisdom in most situations.

Pepper: 12 years old, emotionally astute but naïve, prone to believing what she hopes is true and not letting the facts get in the way. Maternal, protective and caring, and very supportive of Jane.

Rake: 13 years old, shy, awkward, kind-hearted, nervous and jumpy. Smitten with Pepper but ineloquent. Slowly edging towards a romantic relationship with her.

Smithy: 14 years old, steady, reliable, quiet but not unsociable, firm, practical, strong and kind. A good and loyal friend, even tempered but not without his limits.

Where we pick up in the novel:

Chapter One: Breakfast with Friends

We have jumped ahead five years, although the characters’ ages have only advanced four years. Jane is 16 now (and somehow so is Gunther?) and she is sitting at the dining table in the garden with Rake, Jester, Smithy (18) and Pepper while Dragon sleeps on the castle wall. Jane is now a knight, which was her life-long goal and the main focus of the TV series.

She is in a snappy mood but it’s very early morning so perhaps that explains it. The conversation centers around her large appetite, and when Smithy makes an idle observation, two things happen. The first is that everyone reacts as though him speaking is highly unusual, and the second is that, somehow, the entire group of individuals all wonder to themselves if he was flirting with Jane. There is no reason given for why they all think this. He is slapped by Jane and kicked by Jester for what was a (truly!) innocuous remark, and it’s no wonder he seldom speaks, if this is the penalty. If Smithy was flirting then why not Rake, who began the conversation?

Gunther arrives with news, to a frosty reception. He is no longer welcome at the friends’ shared table, and Jane silently dwells on old slights which were already addressed five years ago. Jester engages him in conversation with a barbed comment, and Gunther prods back. Rake misunderstands their banter and Pepper, seemingly out of nowhere, takes the opportunity to praise his sexual prowess. It’s an uncomfortable moment for both the gardener and myself. Gunther handles the situation by telling Pepper to “Spare [Rake], indeed spare us all.” Thank you, Gunther.

Gunther’s news is that someone called “Haroldus” is enroute to the castle. We the reader do not know who this is, but the castle staff are clearly well acquainted with him, and most are pleased to hear of his coming. Smithy is concerned for his pig. Jester is especially a fan, calling him a source of “intelligent conversation” and a “master orator”.

Dragon is also unaware of who Haroldus is, despite him visiting only two years ago. This is explained away by Dragon apparently sulking in his cave for the duration. The word “orator” is thrown out again, this time by Jane, although apparently said orator wasn’t worth mentioning once he left so Dragon has never heard of him.

The scene ends with a Dragon-sized fart joke.

We flash back to Jane explaining to an unimpressed Sir Theodore how her sword was broken by Dragon (while he used it as a toothpick) in a semi-amusing scenario. Theodore mentions the financial toll Dragon takes on the castle and Jane is dismissed with an order to bathe before inflicting her presence on others.

End chapter.

Overall impressions:

As readers we have been dropped into a pre-existing world with little preamble. I thought I knew these characters well and expected reading this novel to feel like pulling a favourite blanket around me on a cold afternoon, familiar and comforting. Instead it seems that enough has changed with the passage of time that I don’t quite know them anymore, or that they don’t know yet how to be themselves, and the sensation is more like misjudging a step. Not a disaster, but unsettling just the same. Jane is crude and snappy, Theodore is less good-humoured, and all of her friends seem to have lost a degree of the kindness and sweetness I have always associated with them. Perhaps there is a reason for this, which will be revealed in future chapters. The narrative also seems to be finding its feet, swinging between sex jokes and fart jokes as though unsure what its audience wants.

There are mistakes littered throughout, such as Jane’s “main” of red hair, which add to my discomfort while reading. I am aware that these errors continue through upcoming chapters and will try to limit my comments on them unless they are truly erroneous. No promises though!

Changes to canon: Gunther’s age, Pig’s gender (he may be a new pig)

Time passed: no more than an hour

#jane and the dragon #JATD #dragonblade #dragonblade spoilers #book review #dragonblade deep dive

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dumpster-lizard · 10 months

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We need more shipping positivity out here so I'm gonna go off about all the Ghirahim ships I can think of and why they're rad. Now, if you purely like vanilla ships, you might not like these for the same reasons I do! I love toxic and/or angsty dynamics, and love the darker sides of all these ships so I'm going to focus a lot on those parts. I'll look at the vanilla perspective where I can too. If you like this and want me to try another Zelda Character (preferably a villain) shoot me an ask and I can do this for other characters!!

GhiraLink - The OG- I feel like most people who ship him with anyone shipped him with Link first. I certainly did. There's a ton you can do with them man. Link is tied to Zelda as Ghirahim is tied to his master and both are pawns in the greater scheme of things. You can do so many ways - personally I do prefer the darker route that plays into the creepy obsessive side of the character. The softer versions of the ship are nice too, though personally I like it better when you can see Ghiras development in these depictions. They can find solace in each other post game- and if you hc Demise was a bastard to Ghirahim this is also an opportunity for him to unlearn all the bad shit. Ghirahim becoming Link's new sword too? agh, Good Soup.

GhiraDemi: Master/Servant dynamic is ALWAYS a winner in my book. The adoration Ghirahim has for Demise is fantastic, and makes for a great dynamic whether it's returned or not. Again, I do like the darker route here, cause they are both mean bastards- I like the idea of Demise rubbing off on Ghirahim... but also think it would be rad if Ghirahim was deeply disturbed and violent BEFORE they met. Let them be terrible together, let them be CODEPENDANT! The angst potential for this ship is absolutely fantastic, and regardless of the level of toxicity you prefer - you KNOW he didn't handle it well when Demise was sealed, and he was left alone for centuries. I

DemiGhiraLink: Real ones know. Kudos to the folks who have made it their own and put different spins on it.

GhiraFi: I've drifted away from this ship, but it's still the parallels that get me. How they are functionally for the same purpose but so different? Have they always been like that? Which one changed? There are so many stories you could give them that could provide a variety of rich histories. I personally love the angst portion here. Love a good betrayal. Adore the scenarios people come up with where Ghirahim speaks to Fi during the events of the game, whenever she's separated from Link. And, of course, depending on whether you think she was changed, he could realize there's something wrong, this isn't the person he knew, and he would never get the closure of explaining himself. Or, if she remembers... Ghirahim being cold to her to avoid his feelings so he can do his job. Maybe a solemn understanding on Fi's side.

GhiraZant: Two super different guys dedicated to the same master. Both are massive creeps in their own right (see Zant's confrontation with Midna after the water temple), but have way different motives. Zant wanted to be a king. Ghirahim wanted to serve a king. I can see that being a good source of conflict. Perhaps they could find solace in each other if they ever understood they were being used.. or just magnify each other's obsession with their master. I suppose it depends on how much either of them remember. Does Zant remember the end of TP? Does Ghirahim remember the end of SkSw? The timeline of Hyrule Warriors is pretty unclear. Of course, there are AUs where Zant finds Ghirahim in TP...

GanGhira: Very similar to Ghirademi, but give Ghira some internal conflict about serving this mortal who's so different from his perfect master. Would he hold Ganondorf to higher standards? Would he just settle? Would he admire Ganondorf with the same fervor he did for Demise? Or, perhaps he sought Ganondorf out purposefully to continue his master's legacy. I have a lot of thoughts of a sword spirit mentoring a younger Ganondorf though sword fighting, dark magic, and seeding a deep hatred for the Goddesses. And it wouldn't be difficult, Hyrule really does create its own enemies.

GanGhiraZant: Combine the above two and add in Zant's dynamic with Ganondorf, and you've got some good soup babes GhiraVaati: I like Ghirahim, and I like Vaati (understatement of the century). And these two could NOT be more different. Vaati is essentially the hylian equivalent of a fae that decided he wanted to be a god and has a serious issue with authority. Meanwhile, Ghirahim is drawn to authority to the point he "waited his whole existence" for the chance to bring his master back. Now, perhaps Ghirahim would admire Vaati for this - ignoring his minish origins. But if we throw Ganondorf in the mix, I'm talking rivalry, I'm talking petty fights, hohoho it can get UGLY! Good opportunity for Enemies to rivals to friends to lovers here.

Getting into ships I'm not too knowledgeable on --

GhiraZel: Look. Heroine/Villain ships rock. Especially if you go with the HC Ghirahim betrayed Hylia and/or was her original sword. Perhaps he has some lingering regret about that. Perhaps he has mixed feelings about sacrifincing her- or perhaps he redirects his feelings into something more malicious. This isn't a ship I'm personally drawn to but there are quite a few possibilities and Godspeed to the folks that ship this, you rock.

GhiraVolga: Look a dragon getting possessive over what he deems a valuable treasure just gets to me ok. Two monsters, both keeping a barely restrained facade, but one that can turn into a fire-breathing monster at will? It's been a while since I indulged in this ship, but I know firsthand there ARE fics out there that explore this better than I can.

GhiraImpa: Could be an interesting history with these two. Considering, Ghirahim certainly have very intense feelings towards her in game. To the people who ship this rarepair I see you and I love you.

I know I definitely missed some, so feel free to send me any other rarepairs so I can send them some love too!

#I dont really think this needs tags #it'll probably show up in searches anyway #this is a nice challenge to do if youre interested #If yall remember the GhiraDemiLink au im talking about you deserve a veterans discount #its funny- i read ghiralink fics before but it was that AU that actually drew me to tumblr way back

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domini-porter · 10 days

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so glad you’ve started the next story already! i was wondering, i noticed that while you’ve written from maura’s pov in the past all your most recent stuff is from jane’s. coincidence? intentional? i’m always curious about why writers lean towards one over the other.

Yay, thank you!!

For me, it comes down to the type of story, largely. I started out (yearrrrrrs ago, in the Ancient Days when R&I was first airing) with stuff that alternated perspective, but now it’s mostly (exclusively?) from Jane’s. Why? Because I’ve discovered a deep love for writing genre fiction. And a lot of that is plot and action-oriented, and of our wives, that’s Jane. Both character-wise, and by virtue of her job—she’s the one who goes places, who talks to people, who can’t sit still. Maura, by contrast, is often in her office, doing things that require quiet focus and patience. So it’s kind of the natural choice for Jane to be my perspective character.

For me, Maura’s the more complex character; some of that is bad character development by the writers (of the series; I’ve never read the source novels) and some of it is her identification as the Smart One, which is trickier, since the easy default for a Smart One is Bad With People and I honestly find that to be kind of a repetitive and not-very-dynamic narrative beat. (Also I really really hate her soap-opera backstory and have railed against it for like a dozen years now; I either try not to mention it or just excise it altogether, like in my current series.)

And anyway, I find it easier to identify with and understand Jane, as a soft sporty butch myself. She has more easily-accessible internal conflict, which makes it more fruitful to get inside her head as opposed to Maura’s, which I freely admit I just find harder to do. Plus I always love pretty femmes, so it’s not hard for me to describe that kind of romantic pursuit (and AH just made thee dykiest possible acting choice every time, so thanks for making that easier, too).

From a craft standpoint, I just don’t like omniscient perspective (where you follow each character with the same window into their inner thoughts). I find it either boring (either too little or too much insight into everyone on the page) or lazy (omniscience can mean not having to do the emotional characterization). I don’t mind multiple perspectives (where each chapter is from someone else’s point of view) and I’ve done that before, but the stuff I’m doing now is pretty straightforward long-form novelistic writing, and doesn’t really have room for that kind of stylistic choice. (I used to write experimental fiction so this is a preference I’ve arrived at after lots of messing about.)

There are definitely drawbacks to this choice, though, in any story—when you have a singular perspective it means nothing can happen in the plot without that character being there, or being told. I have moments in each one of these books (I know it’s not wattpad but at a certain point I think you’re allowed to call your 350-page story a book, why not) where I come to a screeching halt because I’ve planned something big without Jane present, and now I have to figure out how to communicate that action without just a straight exposition dump or breaking the story itself by suddenly switching perspectives (don’t do this, unless it’s a fundamental part of the structure of your piece).

Long story short (from me? UNLIKELY): Jane’s basically more convenient as a driver of action, and Maura’s too oblique. There are writers who write Maura’s internality beautifully and I’ll let them do that work for me to enjoy!

Thank you for asking! Do I love talking craft? Hmmm, hard to say.

#writing #craft talk #rizzoli and isles #fanfiction #ask

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battyaboutbooksreviews · 3 months

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🦇 Read Between the Lines 🦇

❓ #QOTD What's your favorite 90s romcom? ❓

✨ The Vibes ✨ 🩷 Enemies to Lovers 🩷 Sapphic Romance 🩷 Books About Books 🩷 Lesbian MCs 🩷 Contemporary Queer Romance 🩷 Book 1 in a Series 🩷 Opposites Attract

[ Find my review below. ]

🦇 Books have always been a part of Rosie Taft's life. That happens when your late mother once owned a Manhattan bookstore you've now inherited. The only thing missing from Rosie's life: a romance to rival the ones she reads about. Though she has a flirty online friendship with lesbian romance author "Brie," they've never met; never turned those flirtatious remarks into deep, romantic gazes in reality. Jane Breslin works for her father's property development business by day, but by night, she lets her hair down and steamy side out as a romance writer. When the business terminates Rosie's bookstore lease, their world's collide and online identities are revealed. Can Jane pen her way back into Rosie's heart for a happy ending?

💜 By some coincidence, I watched You've Got Mail for the first time a few months ago. There's something about the sweet simplicity of 90s rom-coms that can get a heart all warm and cozy. Obviously inspired by the same premise, Read Between the Lines is a modern-day, WLW spin. The enemies-to-lovers, opposites-attract fills you with hope as you wait for all the pieces to click into place. Once they do, the romance feels easy, natural...but realistic in the sense that so many problems are ignored in exchange for that bliss. For a moment, Rosie and Jane exist in a comforting, sweet bubble, but as in real life, you can't ignore reality forever.

🦇 I adored Lacey's Stars Collide (and I'm eagerly trying to get my hands on her upcoming release Cover Story), but it's obvious this was one of Lacey's first lesbian romances. So much of the chemistry between Rosie and Jane was built off-screen, through the texts they exchanged long before the story started. Unfortunately, that makes it seem like there's not a great deal of chemistry between Rosie and Jane once their true identities are revealed.

🦇The source of conflict feels a bit exhausting. Rosie remains hung up about the fact that Jane's family's company is the reason she's losing her bookstore, but Jane herself isn't the reason. Rosie struggles to disassociate losing her bookstore from Jane the entire time. Deciding to leave the family business, while a point of character development for Jane, shouldn't have been a solution solely for Rosie's benefit. None of the problems (internal and external) either woman faced built enough tension to give the story momentum.

🦇 The smut scenes are...not great. Some of the word choice is repetitive ("swirled and plunged" included, which is just...please don't), and there's more of a focus on logistics over emotion. Fade to black paired with a little post-coital pillow talk would have worked just as well (and perhaps felt less rushed, distance, and awkward). Again, it feels like this was Lacey's first WLW romance, in which case, you can see the growth in later novels.

🦇 Recommended for fans of You've Got Mail, Cleat Cute, and Fly With Me.

Quotes ❝ Her online crush, her real-life crush, and the woman who’d crushed her dreams were all the same person, and her mind was still struggling to snap all the pieces into place. ❞

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is-solarpunk · 1 year

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Solarpunk Writing Prompts #2

Here you can listen to original podcast

Here is the source of the podcast's transcript you can read below

Solarpunk Prompts - The Refugee Camp

Hello world. I'm Tomasino.

This is Solarpunk Prompts, a series for writers where we discuss Solarpunk as a literary, artistic, and activist movement.

Or, as RoAnna Sylva describes it: Solarpunk is a genre of ecologically-oriented speculative fiction characterized both by its aesthetic and its underlying socio-political vision.

In each episode we look at one story prompt using that genre lens, offering commentary on the prompt, some inspirations from the world today, and some considerations for writers.

Most importantly, we consider how that story might help us to better envision a sustainable civilization.

If this is your first time here, I'd recommend checking out our introduction episode first, where we talk about what Solarpunk is, why you should care, and why this series came into being.

This episode's prompt is titled: "The Refugee Camp".

There is a full-fledged town built from a refugee camp which was set up there two decades ago. The inhabitants speak their own creole, a mix of more than five languages, and have very shaky relationships with their neighboring communities or states, each of which considers it a lawless territory and might be plotting to take over.

I think the refugee camp is a fitting place to start our prompts. They are the standard setting in our world for communities just coming through tragedy. When there is war, famine, flooding, or any number of challenges to a people they often find shelters in foreign lands, sometimes thrown together with other groups fleeing their own hardships.

Refugee stories are also plentiful in science-fiction: Superman is a refugee from Krypton, The Doctor is a refugee from Gallifrey, or Arthur Dent, a refugee from Cottington in the West Country. These are all individual stories, though, and not the camp and community we are striving for. Instead we might look to Battlestar Gallactica, or Babylon 5, or the Nantucket trilogy for examples of entire communities of refugees. And, indeed, those are vibrant and capture a bit of the colorful characters and internal conflicts that arise in such places. But Solarpunk can depart from this view of refugee camps as places of despair.

In our prompt the camp has grown into a full-fledged town. That suggests a thriving regrowth emerging from this mixed culture and reflected in their creole dialect.

Is that a realistic vision to take, though? Is this just Solarpunk being naïve and blindly optimistic?

Let's take a look to real refugee camps in South Sudan and Uganda, where the r0g_agency, a Berlin-based nonprofit, has been working with communities to help them develop innovation hubs. Five of these communities have linked together to form #ASKnet, a program that offers training in open-source hardware and software, entrepreneurship, media production, gender equality, and financial literacy. They also run repair cafes, giving hands-on experience and learning, and reducing waste and preserving natural resources.

This is just one program that is built and run by small community organizations.

How about Communitere? It was founded by individuals who saw the amazing rebuilding efforts after natural disasters like the 2004 earthquake in the Indian Ocean which caused the deadliest tsunami in history. The world responded with one of the greatest relief efforts in record time, all at once. But then medicines spoiled before they could reach the sick. Food rotted before it could find the hungry. This failure of local logistics is what inspired the organization.

What do they do? Well, they don' “intervene”. Instead, they provide spaces where communities can implement their own plans and choose from a variety of tools and models that Communitere makes available. They provide training, processes, toolkits, and space. They empower the communities to build their own futures. And now they're up and running in Haiti, Nepal, Greece, and the Philippines.

These are both stories of information sharing and empowering local communities. They succeed by building together both local talent and infrastructure and focus on sustainability.

And they mean sustainability in many forms:

environmental sustainability - processes that work with the unique local environment

economic sustainability - processes that can continue without ongoing external funding

and cultural sustainability - respecting and empowering local cultures

When you start thinking of these refugee camps as places where people are building new things, new homes, new lives, new opportunities, then the writing opportunities open up for you as well. Gone are the two dimensional sketches of a dirty camp full of broken people. These people are alive and empowered!

In a different genre setting we might lean into the shantytown aesthetic, or the lawlessness of the area might become an easy setting for crime stories. I challenge you, with this prompt, to steer clear of those well trodden paths, and focus on the community as a vibrant, living thing.

Speaking of shantytowns, I'm reminded of Cory Doctorow's setting in the book, Makers, with it's unique community of hackers, and the unique way they used language… Which brings us to the next aspect of this writing prompt: Creole.

According to Collins English Dictionary: A Creole is a language that has developed from a mixture of different languages and has become the main language in a particular place.

These are fascinating growths of blending cultures and can powerfully illustrate the fundamental aspects of a community:

who they are

what they believe in

and how they respond to a changing world

Think of the unique flavor of the Belter language in the Expanse. Every odd word choice, or word borrowed from Chinese or Indic or Slavic, is a reminder of what these people are. In some cases this unique language use even extends to meaningful gestures.

The way these languages develop is so interesting in its own right that there is an indy card game where you collaboratively create one with friends. It's called Dialect, and it won IGDN's Game of the Year in 2019 along with a host of other awards. In that game you 2-4 of your friends will create what's called an Isolation, basically a community set apart from others for some interesting reason, and then play out their history across three different ages. The game then ends with the Isolation no longer being isolated, whether for good or for bad.

As the game descriptions says: "Dialect is a game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost."

It's a fascinating way to spend 3-4 hours with friends, and incredibly insightful into this exact process.

Now, before we go let's take a look at that prompt one more time:

"The Refugee Camp"

Okay.

It's time to wrap up, but before we go, lets review our guidelines for Solarpunk writing one more time:

Community as Protagonist (No "Chosen One")

Infrastructure is Sexy (No simple solution)

Human/Environmental Context (Not Man vs Nature)

Thanks for staying with me today. I hope you'll join me for the next Solarpunk Prompt.

Links mentioned:

r0g_agency

Communitere

Dialect

Music from:

ExMemory - Solar Grid

#solarpunk #writing prompt #solarpunk writing prompts #solarpunk loredumps #solarpunk here and now #solarpunk real stories #community as a protagonist #infrastructure is sexy #but there is no easy solutions #human/environmental context

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sincerelylaurel · 1 year

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how to write great characters

source: masterclass

in fiction writing, character development is the process of building a unique, three-dimensional character with depth, personality, and clear motivations. character development can also refer to the changes a character undergoes over the course of a story as a result of their actions and experiences. like real people, fictional characters have hobbies, pets, histories, ruminations, and obsessions. these characteristics inform how a character reacts to and feels about the things that happen to them. it’s essential to your novel that you understand all aspects of your characters so that you are equipped to understand how they may react under the pressures of events they encounter.

develop characters who reflect your interests

you’re going to be spending a lot of time with your characters, so the fiction rule “write what you want to know” applies to them as well. don’t be afraid to invest your protagonist with familiar qualities, but prioritize your passions and make sure that your main characters emerge from the setting and topics you’ve developed so far.

reveal their physical world through detail

different writers focus on different details to evoke character, whether deliberately or not. Balzac focused on his characters’ physical appearance. Dashiell Hammett never fed his characters, while Charles Dickens fed his extravagantly. some writers are interested in revealing character via clothing, as Flaubert did, while others attend to mannerisms or physical appearance. whatever details you choose, it’s important for you to know your characters' physical world intimately, and how they relate to it.

give them the right skills

your characters should have skills that will allow them to function in your setting. if you’ve chosen to set your novel on the moon, then make sure your character has a space suit or learns how to use one.

create memorable characters

when creating important characters that the reader is going to meet more than once, be sure that they’re memorable in some way. try to give each one a quirk or quality that can be used later to help readers recall who they are. this could be a title like “chief of police” or a physical attribute like “ginger-haired.”

give the reader access to their inner conflict

one way to create intimacy with your reader—and to get them to care about your main character—is to use internal monologue. this means letting the reader see a character’s thoughts as they happen, which exposes that person’s inner conflict, motivations, opinions, and personality. internal monologue not only reveals character: it’s a neat way to convey information about your setting, events, and other characters.

subvert your reader’s expectations

the most interesting characters will surprise your readers. think about it: we don’t have to pay attention to things that are stable. but when something unexpected happens—a wolf comes out of the woods, for instance—we pay attention.

#writing #writeblr #writing inspiration #writers on tumblr #writing advice #writer #writing techniques #my writing #franz kafka #sylvia plath

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blues-valentine · 1 year

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what type of angst do you think they will use on jiara for season 4? the writers are incapable of letting their couples be for more than one season. I fear they'll end up being like a jarah 2.0 with a break up and a third person causing trouble every season

Jiara is actually the couple that I'd expect to get a lot of internal issues from especially with JJ’s upbringing so the time jump bothered me because I think a lot of ground work could have been done with just JJ navigating what it means to be in a romantic relationship because as Rudy said in one of the interviews, JJ doesn’t know what it means to be a boyfriend since he is never been taught the way to do it. Plus, this is also Kiara’s first ever relationship.

Regardless, I think there’s still a lot of ground issues that could affect Jiara’s relationship internally while also working towards that character development. Their parents being a big one. A huge source of angst could be Luke being back knowing JJ has money now and demanding part of that income. We know Luke, once physical abuse stopped working he started being extremely emotionally abusive so if he doesn’t get what he wants he will dig into JJ’s insecurities and this might result in him second guessing his relationship with Kiara and wondering if he is enough for her future. JJ’s mom is something that they haven’t go deeper into. If she did abandoned him, then it makes sense that fear will manifest in the form of Kie.

Another plot with JJ is Barracuda Mike and if all those debts will have an impact on JJ’s plot for season 4. It seems like it. If he does end up being too caught up on all the ‘favors’ he has been accumulating then it can led to JJ’s fears and wondering if he is eventually going to end up like his father. It will be painful to see but this is something he needs to fully overcome.

Let’s continue with Kiara's parents. That time jump made it seem like they are somehow on speaking terms but I would hope her relationship with her parents isn’t as nice as it meets the eye, what they did to her was truly mess up and I would expect them to be in their best behavior to earn that forgiveness. I would want Kie to struggle with her parents. Now that she seems financially okay, will her parents be still trying to control her future? I also want her to wonder what to do for her future. She’s 19 post time jump so enough to start wondering if she’ll want to do something outside of OBX.

If Jiara is truly broken up post time jump, which I don’t think so. It’s enough to guess the reasons might be from the ones mentioned above and this could also provide enough angsty material. They’ve broken up and still love each other but are in that period where they’ll need to overcome some personal issues. I live for reunions so I wouldn’t be too mad.

Point is, there’s enough of material for jiara angst without having to involve a third person. For Jarah, Topper made sense on season 1. The next season was pushing it but it made sense. Now on season 3? It was unnecessary and boring. I hope the writers realize that they don’t need a third person for Jiara conflict. Although, jealous JJ for one episode because of a person he knows doesn’t even presume a real threat for him but he can’t help throw eyes across the room would be great for my shipping heart.

#outer banks #obx season 3 #obx #jiara #kie carrera #kiara carrera #jj maybank #jj x kie #kie x jj #asks

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dailycupofcreativitea · 2 years

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Back in high school, when I was obsessed with Yu-Gi-Oh!, I took a class called “Writer’s Craft” where we learned about creative writing. One of our assignments was a book report, and after a bit of back and forth with my high school teacher, she finally agreed to let me do a manga instead of a book, provided I write about some of the unique elements of manga/graphic novels that novels don’t have (like visuals and speech bubbles).

This resulted in a nice little report that I think I can happily call my “love letter to the series”. I poured my heart into writing this report and I think it summarizes everything I really love about Yu-Gi-Oh!

In light of what happened recently, I’ve decided to post it here in case anyone would like to revisit the series and in case anyone wants a reminder as to how awesome Yu-Gi-Oh! truly is.

The report is called: Uncovering a Timeless Treasure: A Craft Study of Kazuki Takahashi’s Yu-Gi-Oh! Series.

Kazuki Takahashi’s popular graphic novel series, Yu-Gi-Oh! (English: King of Games), follows the adventures of a timid young boy named Yuugi Mutou who, after solving the Millennium Puzzle, awakens an alter-ego named Dark Yuugi who protects Yuugi and solves all of his conflicts through the use of Shadow Games that reveal a person’s true nature. When the alter-ego is later revealed to be the spirit of an ancient Pharaoh, Yuugi and his friends fight to help the Pharaoh regain his memories while battling in Shadow Games against opponents who wield the other six Millennium Items. In a few words, Yu-Gi-Oh! can really be summed up as “children’s card games and Ancient Egypt”, a phrase that the fandom is all too familiar with. The novel’s paradoxically round characters, insightful character thoughts, complex game mechanics, and its ability to relate to its readers through the theme of friendship help it stand out from hundreds of other shonen novels which, in addition to its beautiful visual aesthetics, makes it a treasured childhood favourite of graphic novel fans around the world.

Fast-paced, strategic games are what make Yu-Gi-Oh! stand out amongst a plethora of fighting novels. There is complicated strategy, doubt, and dynamics in the games that keep the reader on the edge of their seat. Reading about luck versus skill in a heated game is exhilarating and it offers a different way of fighting without really fighting, proving that breaking away from clichéd genres is always effective. Kazuki Takahashi himself states that “The games that the characters played were not played facing monitors, but facing other people. The opponents they played were the mirrors that reflected their hearts. In a basic sense, they fought each other’s spirits” (Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World; 220; vol. 7). As well, games eradicate power imbalance between characters, making the game much more unpredictable and tense, not to mention fun to read. There’s no joy in watching an overly powerful character beat a weaker one, regardless of who is winning; rather, fair fights are much more thrilling. For example, after eliminating his opponent’s source of cheating, Dark Yuugi thinks to himself, “Heh heh…no more tricks! This game will be decided by luck!”

Despite knowing that levelling the game would possibly end his own life, he continues to play, putting the readers on the edge of their seats with the knowledge that the main character may die. These games also provide a medium for villains and heroes to fight on par with each other and interact in a way that will bring great character development. The intimacy of the games connects light and darkness in one mixed duel, forming an internal conflict which reflects and gives the reader a whole new perspective on the external conflict.

The theme of friendship is what makes this graphic novel relatable to its teenage audience. Takahashi uses this theme regularly to build character, cause conflict, and inspire readers by making friendship the driving force in each characters’ duels and relationships. So many times, when we thought that the characters would fail, it was their teamwork and strong bonds that helped them get through the pain; truly inspiring. For example, Joey’s lecture to Yuugi about the strength of their bond shows us just how much of an impact friendship had on each of their lives, how it saved them from damnation, and how it brought them out into the light.

If it was not for Yuugi’s unconditional love and companionship, his friends would have gone down dark paths, but he saved them from their fate. Their friendship is a bond that can never be broken, and although it is constantly tested, its strength helps readers realize that their relationships are valuable.

One of the most intriguing parts of Yu-Gi-Oh! is its paradoxically round characters; that is to say, its “evil heroes” and “good villains”. Normally, one would expect heroes to have certain traits such as noble, heroic, kind, and merciful. However, the main hero, Dark Yuugi, is far from these traits despite being considered “heroic”.

The picture and dialogue just scream “heroic” (Yu-Gi-Oh!; 19; vol. 1).

In the beginning of the series, Dark Yuugi constantly cheats during his games in the pursuit of justice over mercy. This is especially prevalent during his TRPG game with Millennium Ring holder Bakura Ryou, in which he exclaims, “If you can cheat, I can too!” (Yu-Gi-Oh!; 63; vol. 7) and considers it completely justified. He also applies a “penalty game” to those who lose, cheat, or let their evil get to them during his Shadow Games, which is incredibly ironic as he displays those same traits. However his reasons are usually justified, as after winning against a greedy man he calmly states: “In a Shadow Game, your heart’s weakness is what ultimately causes you to lose! You had no love for your pet, nor for those precious sneakers, but only for money!” (Yu-Gi-Oh!; 30; vol. 2). Although seemingly evil, Dark Yuugi plays the role of “angel of judgement”; that is to say, he “passes judgement” onto the wicked and puts them in their place, making him ultimately good. As well, Yu-Gi-Oh! villains aren’t completely evil. For example, Dark Bakura—despite being the series’ most ruthless villain—displays compassion for his host body during his duel with Dark Yuugi.

This unexpected result causes the readers to view Bakura in a positive, almost heroic light despite his evil intentions, especially when the hero beings to compare himself with the villain.

This paradoxical roundness prevents the readers from forming solid opinions about any one character due to the fact that each character has the potential to be evil or good, giving the author the flexibility to create more complex characters who are not burdened by stereotypes.

Unlike many other novels, which tell most of the story through narrative, Yu-Gi-Oh! accomplishes plot, dynamics, character, tension, dramatic irony, and so much more through the use of multiple thought bubbles. Plot is typically implied or stated through this technique:

(Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist; 55; vol. 10)

After Joey was knocked unconscious, the readers became confused as to what had happened. However, Joey sums up what happened with only a few words disguised as natural thought, so the reader understands the plot without being directly told what it is. As well, we are able to enter the heads of multiple characters and explore their goals and interests, as in the example of Kaiba:

(Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist; 75; vol. 18)

He bluntly “tells” the readers exactly what he is planning to do without sounding overly clichéd or unnatural, a difficult feat made easy through the constant use of thought bubbles. Through character thoughts, readers are also able to understand the current situation through the character’s perspective. This can change the way we view the character, the situation, and other characters, which can affect who we sympathize with. For example, Dark Marik thinks to himself during his Shadow Game that “This dark cloud is nothing less than my own hate…my desire for revenge…it will never lift until I kill Yuugi and drag him down into it…into the dark…” (Yu-Gi-Oh! Duelist; 91; vol 18). Multiple uses of ellipses show us that his train of thought is slow and meticulous, almost as if he is savouring every thought. As well, because his thoughts clearly display a level of darkness unknown to the readers before, it also eradicates any sympathy we had for him about his past.

A graphic novel is nothing without its graphics, and Yu-Gi-Oh!’s visual aesthetics definitely add to the beautifully written piece. Through variations of dialogue bubbles such as spiked ones and round ones as well as the use of onomatopoeia across multiple pages, we can “hear” the story at different volumes and feel different atmospheres. One minute we are following the light, quiet banter of the characters; the next, we are interrupted by a loud scream. The constant, unpredictable change in volume surprises the reader time and time again, as we never know when to expect the next scream or whisper, and keeps the story from falling into a boring monotone. As well, it brings the characters to life; we can almost hear Dark Yuugi’s cheers, Bakura’s laughs, the spinning of a turn-table, and many other interesting sounds. However, the main source of entertainment comes not only from Kazuki Takahashi’s dialogue visuals, but from his stunning drawings.

Just look at this beauty! (Yu-Gi-Oh! Millennium World; 2; vol. 6).

His visuals give Takahashi freedom other authors don’t have; he can focus more on developing complex characters and plot and less on developing setting and appearance, as they are given to the reader through his drawings.

Despite its plot holes and childishness at times, Yu-Gi-Oh! remains a timeless classic amongst readers and manga authors alike with its well-blended trinity of love, friendship, and death as well as its unique focus on games, providing an enjoyable and heartening story that has left a lasting impact on the hearts of its fans.

#if you read it #then i hope you enjoyed it!#yugioh #yu-gi-oh!#bakura #yugi #joey #kaiba #marik #manga analysis #literally i love this series SO MUCH #I even used to play the game all the time #i still have yugioh cards but i dont play anymore #anyhoo back to my regularly scheduled dbz content

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