Writing Gods

[Story_Marc]

This was voted for this week, so this is what I can give. If you want a say in next Sunday's video, vote in community tab.

 

[SailusGebel]

Thank you!

 

[Jemini]

I don't know whether this is because dealing with old mythological lore and portraying god characters in my stories has been a staple of my writing style for a long time, or if it is because there was genuinely something off about this video, but it just felt like this video was not quite up to Story_Marc's usual performance.

All I can say is that nothing about it really felt all that ground breaking to me (could be because of my afore mentioned heavy exposure to the topic,) and it felt a little like the video was just droning on and failing to really be engaging (is the part that makes me feel there might be a little bit of an issue on Marc's end for this.)

EDIT: Ok, actually, I AM going to say there is very much something missing in this video. It doesn't even mention the relationship between distance and power in a god's portrayal. Having the god appear and have speaking lines in your story tends to diminish them, and there's also a factor of the earlier a powerful figure's speaking lines are, the more they are diminished by it.

As such, there is an importance for keeping distance in mind while dealing with gods in your story.

At least having a mention of this concept would have been a lot better for the video. As it is, it feels like the video just lists off a bunch of common things that are part of a god character's lore and brings up that you should maybe consider including those things in your story, but it does nothing to really think about how god characters are handled.

There are stories that make a mockery of gods, such as Kono Suba. Having Aqua in the early panels of the video shows the dynamic opposite of the distance factor in portraying a god's dignity. There are several points this video COULD have gone into in regards to handling of god characters like that, the importance of distance or exposure in terms of the god's role, and many things like that.

These things are the things I'm used to seeing from Marc's videos, but this video felt a little phoned in by comparison.

 

[Story_Marc]

I don't know whether this is because dealing with old mythological lore and portraying god characters in my stories has been a staple of my writing style for a long time, or if it is because there was genuinely something off about this video, but it just felt like this video was not quite up to Story_Marc's usual performance.

All I can say is that nothing about it really felt all that ground breaking to me (could be because of my afore mentioned heavy exposure to the topic,) and it felt a little like the video was just droning on and failing to really be engaging (is the part that makes me feel there might be a little bit of an issue on Marc's end for this.)

Combination of both, though more the latter than the former most likely. I wasn't trying to do anything groundbreaking. Honestly, I seldom try to do anything groundbreaking -- I just find most people are missing tons of pieces as writers, so I share the pieces I have. But regardless, I feel you're correct. A friend said I didn't seem like my usual self too.

When I made the episode, I was feeling discouraged as I feel the channel is as stagnant as ever. My mind's been slowly shifting back to when I thought about everything as a waste of time. It's why I'm going to take a short vacation in a few weeks. I'll be on vacation from my day job too, so going to use the time to take a step back and think about what can I do to improve the channel's performance while staying true to my vision.

 

[Jemini]

Combination of both, though more the latter than the former most likely. I wasn't trying to do anything groundbreaking. Honestly, I seldom try to do anything groundbreaking -- I just find most people are missing tons of pieces as writers, so I share the pieces I have. But regardless, I feel you're correct. A friend said I didn't seem like my usual self too.

When I made the episode, I was feeling discouraged as I feel the channel is as stagnant as ever. My mind's been slowly shifting back to when I thought about everything as a waste of time. It's why I'm going to take a short vacation in a few weeks. I'll be on vacation from my day job too, so going to use the time to take a step back and think about what can I do to improve the channel's performance while staying true to my vision.

Lol, it looks like I picked a horrible time to edit my post. A lot probably got added to it in the time it took you to write this just now.

Anyway, I can understand this, and I do really appreciate a lot of the videos you've put out previously. I have no idea why your videos are not more popular, a lot of the tips you give are not just incredibly useful, you're also one of the only people I know of who even talks about some of the concepts you have brought up.

Anyway, if you ever feel like making a follow-up to this video in regards to how to handle gods in your story, feel free to message me and consult. I'm not going to say I'm a high authority on the subject or anything, but portraying god characters with dignity is kind of my bread and butter. And, in learning how to portray them with dignity, I'm also quite used to seeing the reverse as well, either intentionally for the purpose of mockery or unintentionally and having the story just go wrong in regards to it's handling of gods.

 

[Zanafar]

Neat. A topic that's pretty relevant to me since one of my stories revolves around a goddess MC.

Good baseline tips. It'll be up to authors to think of ways to add their own twist or subversion for each point.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

In my stories, the gods are generally playing a four-dimensional chess game using cats ... er protagonists and antagonists with free will ... as playing pieces, unable by law or custom, to confront each other directly, or to directly interact with mortals who have either not explicitly asked for their intervention (said mortals usually becoming temporary avatars or simply vessels for their energies) or somehow invoked their presence (some magical items, obscure spells etc.).
Only the Creator god (who rarely ever interacts with ANYTHING, and when she does, she does so as a very quirky person who "accidentally" teaches lessons or directs heroes to do stuff they might not have done on their own; essentially a "benevolent trickster") is above this restriction, being the one who IMPOSES it on others (and her own rules are why she rarely intervenes - and almost never does so in a form likely to be recognized until long after her role is done).

I also tend to base my gods' behaviors on Greek and Norse gods who had very human motivations, foibles, and passions, even if on a far grander scale (from what little I have read of Chinese, Indian and Japanese gods they also were fairly human but also had overriding concerns like honor, shame, tradition, or extreme hierarchy that do not strictly translate to the mortal realm and distance them)