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CHARACTER=ACTION Give your characters unique actions and decisions. SHOW their character, who they are, how they feel and how they view the world, through their actions.
Daniel Calvisi • Story Maps: How to Write a GREAT Screenplay
In every scene, remember, a protagonist is presented with a mini crisis, and must make a choice as to how to surmount it. Meeting with a subversion of expectation – a blow to their established plans – a character must choose a new course of action. In doing so they reveal a little bit more of who they are.
John Yorke • Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them
Archetypes are an invaluable tool often overlooked by writers. By their very nature, they force you to delve deeper into your characters, to see them as not just “Character 1” or “Librarian” but as a type of person who responds in very specific ways to the conflict within your story.
Victoria Lynn Schmidt • 45 Master Characters, Revised Edition: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters
Personality-wise, she reminded Greta of one of those exotic vegetables she was drawn to at the farmer’s market but didn’t know how to cook. Kohlrabi, maybe, or a Jerusalem artichoke. Not very approachable. Not sweet or overly familiar. Not easily boiled down or buttered up. Not corn on the cob. Greta felt an instant kinship with Sabine, since she,
... See moreJen Beagin • Big Swiss
There’s a small crowd forming at the very center of the layered rugs and in the middle, of course, is Charlie Milford. Stella’s half brother. Party boy. Serial charmer. I don’t think there’s a good time that Charlie hasn’t organized, signed up for, or crashed without explanation.
B.K. Borison • Business Casual (Lovelight Book 4)
For any world in which the technology, lingo, or rules are not familiar to the average viewer, these characters can be invaluable relayers of exposition.
Blake Snyder • Save the Cat
As E. M. Forster reminds us, in Aspects of the Novel, certain characters are intentionally one-dimensional. Still others serve a functional role in our stories. But the characters we are meant to care about must be round: complex, contradictory, capable of evolving, and thus surprising the reader in a convincing way. This standard applies not just
... See moreSteve Almond • Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories
A mama’s boy, loner, intellectual, voracious reader and gourmand, Dimitri was a man of esoteric skills and appetites: a gambler, philosopher, gardener, fly-fisherman, fluent in Russian and German as well as having an amazing command of English. He loved antiquated phrases, dry sarcasm, military jargon, regional dialect, and the New York Times cross
... See moreAnthony Bourdain • Kitchen Confidential
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