Moonpearl
The Yuri Empress
- Joined
- Dec 25, 2018
- Messages
- 764
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It happens to everyone: the story you so carefully planned turns out forced and uninspiring, your hero is flat and one-dimensional, your complex and interesting characters suddenly stagnate and stop cooperating...
When a predicament like this rears its head and stalls your writing, authors have to think outside the box to find their way around it, right?
What tactics do you use to try and find/fix the problem?
(Edit: Many people are getting confused. If you're not used to investigating the source of problems in your stories in this way, you can just consider the question to be this:
What particular methods do you use during planning to try and ensure effective character development? And do you have any particular tricks for developing a plot that flows smoothly and makes sense when everything you've tried doesn't click?
P.S. I'm not asking for advice, just wanting to swap tips and tricks with other writers.)
Personally I focus on the characters, since I believe that a good story comes primarily from the strength of the leading cast. Well-developed characters will make more interesting decisions that will take the story in a more unique and personal direction.
Here are some of the methods I use when I get stuck. (I put the explanations under spoilers to save room.)
Viewing things from another character's perspective
Planning an AU (also commonly known as the "What if..." method)
Putting them in a moral dilemma
Character building questions
Building playlists
When a predicament like this rears its head and stalls your writing, authors have to think outside the box to find their way around it, right?
What tactics do you use to try and find/fix the problem?
(Edit: Many people are getting confused. If you're not used to investigating the source of problems in your stories in this way, you can just consider the question to be this:
What particular methods do you use during planning to try and ensure effective character development? And do you have any particular tricks for developing a plot that flows smoothly and makes sense when everything you've tried doesn't click?
P.S. I'm not asking for advice, just wanting to swap tips and tricks with other writers.)
Personally I focus on the characters, since I believe that a good story comes primarily from the strength of the leading cast. Well-developed characters will make more interesting decisions that will take the story in a more unique and personal direction.
Here are some of the methods I use when I get stuck. (I put the explanations under spoilers to save room.)
Viewing things from another character's perspective
This works whether I'm stuck on the plot or on how to fix a character. Everyone's the hero of their own story, so I flip it around to see things from the perspective of someone who isn't the main character (or part of the main cast, if they're all giving me a headache), letting them justify their view of the world.
On some occasions, this has led to me changing the protagonist of my story. There was, for example, a story where there were two heroes working together and I originally picked the less competent and informed of them because I thought that the story would be boring otherwise. However, I realised when I viewed the story from the other hero's perspective that his insight and awareness of the world was the only exciting way to let the readers experience the psychological wrongness of the setting. I ended up deciding on a mix of the two.
Usually this just helps me to break through my author's bias to see my characters as complicated and controversial people. A character I had written as a victim for her whole life, being abandoned by everyone she loved while she chased her dream, was revealed to be a self-pitying sellout who had chosen to chase fame at the cost of everyone she loved when I viewed her through her ex-friend's eyes. A wise queen who turned away the sexist and greedy men who came to court her, while appealing on various levels, was justifiably disliked by her court because rejecting them made them take it out on her people.
From there I either use the information to write more 3 dimensional characters, or I fix what made my character insufferable.
On some occasions, this has led to me changing the protagonist of my story. There was, for example, a story where there were two heroes working together and I originally picked the less competent and informed of them because I thought that the story would be boring otherwise. However, I realised when I viewed the story from the other hero's perspective that his insight and awareness of the world was the only exciting way to let the readers experience the psychological wrongness of the setting. I ended up deciding on a mix of the two.
Usually this just helps me to break through my author's bias to see my characters as complicated and controversial people. A character I had written as a victim for her whole life, being abandoned by everyone she loved while she chased her dream, was revealed to be a self-pitying sellout who had chosen to chase fame at the cost of everyone she loved when I viewed her through her ex-friend's eyes. A wise queen who turned away the sexist and greedy men who came to court her, while appealing on various levels, was justifiably disliked by her court because rejecting them made them take it out on her people.
From there I either use the information to write more 3 dimensional characters, or I fix what made my character insufferable.
Planning an AU (also commonly known as the "What if..." method)
This comes in two flavours - totally and completely changing the setting/genre (taking a medieval fantasy setting into a modern card game anime), or changing something in the story. You then plan out what the character would think, feel, wear, do, etc. I usually prefer changing the story because it gives more immediate results.
Examples of story AUs I've used before:
"What if this character listened to their head instead of their heart and married the god instead of the man?"
"What if the dead lover returned and made this character choose between them and their current lover?"
"What if the heroes of the last generation really chose the side of evil and all these characters were born and raised by the evil organisation?"
"What if this character woke up one day in an alternative reality where their husband was evil and the only way back was to defeat him?"
"What if this character was sent back in time to when this other, ancient character was still young?"
You usually find out what your character's core values are when you play around with them like that. Sometimes it helps highlight how strong some relationships are, too.
Examples of story AUs I've used before:
"What if this character listened to their head instead of their heart and married the god instead of the man?"
"What if the dead lover returned and made this character choose between them and their current lover?"
"What if the heroes of the last generation really chose the side of evil and all these characters were born and raised by the evil organisation?"
"What if this character woke up one day in an alternative reality where their husband was evil and the only way back was to defeat him?"
"What if this character was sent back in time to when this other, ancient character was still young?"
You usually find out what your character's core values are when you play around with them like that. Sometimes it helps highlight how strong some relationships are, too.
Putting them in a moral dilemma
I haven't tried this very often because this is a shortcut to the above method, and I much prefer the greater amount of insight the AUs give me. There's also some overlap between the two. But here you just imagine the character having to make a very difficult choice and pick what they'd do, as well as their justification for it. It can be a simple "kill X or Y person they love", or you can google common philosophical moral dilemmas and test them with those.
Character building questions
Nice and simple, I often start out with these. You can google these and find whole sheets with questions, or you can go to generators like on this site: https://www.springhole.net/writing_roleplaying_randomators/index.html
You're not supposed to fill everything you get out, just as much as you can or want to before your character starts to take life.
You're not supposed to fill everything you get out, just as much as you can or want to before your character starts to take life.
Building playlists
Music helps me in a lot of ways when I write. If my story or characters are going flat just because I can't properly imagine how they feel, it can help me connect with them. I also enjoy making music videos in my head to songs, experimenting with forcing different stories and characters to fit the lyrics. If I come across a verse that doesn't work, I'll temporarily improvise a new event to force it to. Sometimes those events are so good that I keep them and they build upon a story or character.
For an example, I guess... I once tried to make a character for a public RP who was an evil sea witch who had, after being successfully attacked and chased out by the mermaid empire, come to land in a de-powered form to try and regain her power. She was a very ugly and twisted person, having sold her beauty to demons to fund her schemes. Her sympathetic point was that she had done it all to try and secure happiness and security for her younger sisters, as she had become the family head at a very young age. Her own sisters then betrayed her. But I, as the baby of my family, couldn't connect with her emotionally enough to plot her character growth or give her any depth.
It wasn't until I tried forcing a way for her to "sing" "Monster" from the Frozen musical that I got anywhere with her. To make her fit the parts from 2:28 to about 3:00, I changed her past a little so that she and her sisters actually witnessed their father (who had been given love potions until that day and had then woken up) killing their mother and escaping. Although she thinks that her father had the right to, she also thinks about the faces of her sisters on that day and how she made the decision not to fall apart because she had to protect them all. That leads into her decision in the "present".
In the end, I had to adapt the song's meaning to her because I couldn't force her to be someone who regrets becoming a "monster". I was able to get insight into her mindset, though, and to turn that hard determination to do anything to protect her loved ones into a strength that hopefully the other characters/players would have enjoyed.
For an example, I guess... I once tried to make a character for a public RP who was an evil sea witch who had, after being successfully attacked and chased out by the mermaid empire, come to land in a de-powered form to try and regain her power. She was a very ugly and twisted person, having sold her beauty to demons to fund her schemes. Her sympathetic point was that she had done it all to try and secure happiness and security for her younger sisters, as she had become the family head at a very young age. Her own sisters then betrayed her. But I, as the baby of my family, couldn't connect with her emotionally enough to plot her character growth or give her any depth.
It wasn't until I tried forcing a way for her to "sing" "Monster" from the Frozen musical that I got anywhere with her. To make her fit the parts from 2:28 to about 3:00, I changed her past a little so that she and her sisters actually witnessed their father (who had been given love potions until that day and had then woken up) killing their mother and escaping. Although she thinks that her father had the right to, she also thinks about the faces of her sisters on that day and how she made the decision not to fall apart because she had to protect them all. That leads into her decision in the "present".
In the end, I had to adapt the song's meaning to her because I couldn't force her to be someone who regrets becoming a "monster". I was able to get insight into her mindset, though, and to turn that hard determination to do anything to protect her loved ones into a strength that hopefully the other characters/players would have enjoyed.
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