It's amazing how every video I watch about people telling what to do and what not to do in writing I keep following all the good stuff without even knowing beforehand
Very good presentation of a deceptively simple concept: that arcs should not be nice, graceful curves, but instead should have plenty of ups and downs for a good drama! Thanks, Carl.
I kinda wanna take this idea and use it in a different way! I'm writing a love story and I think it'd make for a fun exercise to look back on my planned chapters and chart where each of the two main characters move on a scale between "I love you" and "I hate you" chapter by chapter.
I found this interesting. I explicit create needs/wants/arcs for all my characters (either up front or during the first draft) but I've never thought about the pace of that change.
I remember some years ago there were movies/TV episode where it would start off with this evil character. We would follow this villain for 23 hours watching him creating all sorts of mayhem and bad-assery. THEN, in the 24th hour we learn that the villain is really an under cover cop. Hooray, now he's an instant hero! It usually happened when some real-life popular actor who didn't want to be type cast as a goody two shoes or something and wanted a role to show his acting range. So they would write a role making him this grimey, nasty assed guy. BUT, the actor still wanted to keep his popularity with the audience. Yeah, have it both ways. "Make them think I'm an asshole, but only temporary, then I can be my sweet self again." There were a lot of these "hey I'm really a cop doing under cover work" at the end. I guess it comes under the same category as "it was all a dream." Of course these characters were acting their roles so I guess they wouldn't count. They were fake arcs within the story, but WE didn't know that until the end. Then again, there was the Jesus crucifixion scene where two other men were also being crucified. One man who was a thief all his life became a "hero" or was saved at the last minute. I bet that was fun. You get the benefits of your life-long stealing, having fun with it, and you still get to be saved at THE very end. Of course those nails had to hurt for awhile. 6:20 would be your graphic depiction of these examples.
With the proactivity arc, how would it be viewed if the character started off somewhere in the middle, to then move down and have flashes of up-lines that appeared more and more often to finally be fully proactive around the 3rd act?
Whenever a jerk on the Walking Dead suddenly started treating people right and helping the group, you knew they were about to die. The L-shaped likeability arc!
Am I the only one that doesn't plan character arks? Or I mean, how do you all really plan them. I'm more like I push my characters to do stuff and then I adapt them based on that. I never did plan an actual ark, never told myself I'm going to write an ark and so far I do hope I never tell me to do that. =) Maybe I'm wrong, but for me it worked to be flexible and to just push my characters forward the way I think they'll act. Things happen, things to them or someone else and they change. IDk=0
I've been mostly pantsing, but I went from a pantsed rough draft used as a skeleton of a plan to crystalize off of, and... mostly pantsing the writing as I go along. Generally, I just let the characters flow how I feel they would naturally, and allow the events to shape and change them as the story progresses. I did run into one issue though, when several chapters in, I looked at one sub-character and found them to be... boring? Everyone else had a clear want to strive for, where they just kind of existed. So I went back, and figured better who they are, and what they want, and adjusted a few prior scenes accordingly. I find them much more interesting now, and using that core want allows me to more naturally explore other aspects of their character, hopefully avoiding them being one-note. So the only real "planning" I guess was when I looked back and realized something was lacking. Other than that, I like to just let things flow as they will.
@@DeckerShadoGaming Yeah, run into that too, the feeling of monotony or boredom. What I did is I looked at a few scenes, and created some new ones. I made those scenes the way they were originally, then I stopped and asked myself how can I make this worse for everyone... and just did that. So I'm something like: Hey! This scene is cute (I like to write pretty scenes), now let's add some disaster and pain. Good, WE DID IT! No we didn't. Add more, and make it even worse. Hurt more, cry more, stuff like that. The trick is not to do this with every scene; that way, we can get too much weird realism or just a depressing story, but it works for important ones. I usually maim my characters physically, mentally, or both, which allows for some growth or downfall.
Looking at Hamlet, you lacks for most of the play proactivity and only gets to do what they want to do at the very end. Guess that is a boring play, someone should tell Shakespeare.
@@aix83 Well, Brandon Sanderson just pointed out that Dune is also just Hamlet, and he is not wrong, Paul is also just waiting around until finally doing something.
It's amazing how every video I watch about people telling what to do and what not to do in writing I keep following all the good stuff without even knowing beforehand
Thank you for the advice Mr. Duncan! I particularly appreciate your use of sliders and graphs here.
Very good presentation of a deceptively simple concept: that arcs should not be nice, graceful curves, but instead should have plenty of ups and downs for a good drama!
Thanks, Carl.
Arc, snarc. Where's the cat?
🤣
Please tell us that the cat is OK. The cat sets your videos apart from the Herd.
Hmmmm! It makes sense to me! I like veering into odd territory with characters, so it's cool to see the arc in that way. :D
I kinda wanna take this idea and use it in a different way! I'm writing a love story and I think it'd make for a fun exercise to look back on my planned chapters and chart where each of the two main characters move on a scale between "I love you" and "I hate you" chapter by chapter.
I found this interesting. I explicit create needs/wants/arcs for all my characters (either up front or during the first draft) but I've never thought about the pace of that change.
I remember some years ago there were movies/TV episode where it would start off with this evil character. We would follow this villain for 23 hours watching him creating all sorts of mayhem and bad-assery. THEN, in the 24th hour we learn that the villain is really an under cover cop. Hooray, now he's an instant hero! It usually happened when some real-life popular actor who didn't want to be type cast as a goody two shoes or something and wanted a role to show his acting range. So they would write a role making him this grimey, nasty assed guy. BUT, the actor still wanted to keep his popularity with the audience. Yeah, have it both ways. "Make them think I'm an asshole, but only temporary, then I can be my sweet self again." There were a lot of these "hey I'm really a cop doing under cover work" at the end. I guess it comes under the same category as "it was all a dream." Of course these characters were acting their roles so I guess they wouldn't count. They were fake arcs within the story, but WE didn't know that until the end.
Then again, there was the Jesus crucifixion scene where two other men were also being crucified. One man who was a thief all his life became a "hero" or was saved at the last minute. I bet that was fun. You get the benefits of your life-long stealing, having fun with it, and you still get to be saved at THE very end. Of course those nails had to hurt for awhile. 6:20 would be your graphic depiction of these examples.
Shinji's graphs would all be flat along the bottom.
Please explain the WKRP photo sometimes seen in the background. If you did in another video - please let me know which one. I miss that show. Thanks
With the proactivity arc, how would it be viewed if the character started off somewhere in the middle, to then move down and have flashes of up-lines that appeared more and more often to finally be fully proactive around the 3rd act?
Whenever a jerk on the Walking Dead suddenly started treating people right and helping the group, you knew they were about to die. The L-shaped likeability arc!
Or the character must sacrifice likability to earn skills.
Am I the only one that doesn't plan character arks?
Or I mean, how do you all really plan them. I'm more like I push my characters to do stuff and then I adapt them based on that. I never did plan an actual ark, never told myself I'm going to write an ark and so far I do hope I never tell me to do that. =)
Maybe I'm wrong, but for me it worked to be flexible and to just push my characters forward the way I think they'll act. Things happen, things to them or someone else and they change. IDk=0
I've been mostly pantsing, but I went from a pantsed rough draft used as a skeleton of a plan to crystalize off of, and... mostly pantsing the writing as I go along. Generally, I just let the characters flow how I feel they would naturally, and allow the events to shape and change them as the story progresses.
I did run into one issue though, when several chapters in, I looked at one sub-character and found them to be... boring? Everyone else had a clear want to strive for, where they just kind of existed. So I went back, and figured better who they are, and what they want, and adjusted a few prior scenes accordingly. I find them much more interesting now, and using that core want allows me to more naturally explore other aspects of their character, hopefully avoiding them being one-note.
So the only real "planning" I guess was when I looked back and realized something was lacking. Other than that, I like to just let things flow as they will.
@@DeckerShadoGaming Yeah, run into that too, the feeling of monotony or boredom. What I did is I looked at a few scenes, and created some new ones. I made those scenes the way they were originally, then I stopped and asked myself how can I make this worse for everyone... and just did that.
So I'm something like: Hey! This scene is cute (I like to write pretty scenes), now let's add some disaster and pain.
Good, WE DID IT!
No we didn't.
Add more, and make it even worse. Hurt more, cry more, stuff like that.
The trick is not to do this with every scene; that way, we can get too much weird realism or just a depressing story, but it works for important ones. I usually maim my characters physically, mentally, or both, which allows for some growth or downfall.
Looking at Hamlet, you lacks for most of the play proactivity and only gets to do what they want to do at the very end. Guess that is a boring play, someone should tell Shakespeare.
Well, as someone who is not a big fan of shakespare, I'll take on this task myself, since no one else dares to.
then again Hamlet has a duration of 2h while fantasy novels frequently get to 24
@@aix83 Well, Brandon Sanderson just pointed out that Dune is also just Hamlet, and he is not wrong, Paul is also just waiting around until finally doing something.
The only cat present is the one in the frame...🐈🥲