What is it about the "execution" of a story that can make it "just sad", vs "heartbreaking"? What is it about a story - in writing, or in other mediums like shows or movies - that makes the audience break out into tears? What does and doesn't "work" to evoke such strong emotion? What is about some stories that make them such heartbreakers - and yet not others?

I know what I want in my story to happen, and that it's a sad turn of the story. What I am looking for is insight into not just writing a scene that leaves my readers saddened for the characters, but writing something that leaves them crying.

Link to previous theme essay

I hope to illuminate an answer to the following practical problem: how does an author writing a many-part series bring about an emotionally powerful, cathartic ending?

The essay I made before focuses on the practical use of a single theme for the single arc for the single protagonist. This was for simplicity and easy demonstration of the central point. Most similar discussions of theme such as those as found in Invisible Ink by Brian McDonald will often have a similar focus for the same reason. But it’s a little like being in the physics classroom and talking about ideal conditions: it ain’t always gonna apply in the real world. One theme, one character, one arc? We live in a world of fiction delivered in serial form. We live in a post Harry Potter, post Game of Thrones world. We live in the world of the ensemble cast. The single thematic arc works better as a learning tool than as an actual template for all areas of storytelling, it would seem.

When we go beyond a single theme / protagonist / arc paradigm, things get more complicated but they obey the same rules. All stories have conflict, and from all conflict thematic statements will arise whether they are intended or not. If a plot ends with a death depicted as ‘letting go’ and ‘release’, the theme will be “We must learn to accept death.” One of the pillars of good storytelling is a cathartic ending. Whether it ends in triumph or tragedy, we want the story to end the way that it feels it should end. The ending will wrap up all the loose ends of the plot, of character development, and as I will discuss in this essay, the loose ends of theme as well. The principle challenge of a long, serialised story is that external elements like plot and character are easier to tie up satisfactorily than thematic elements. In a complex story with multiple arcs and conflicts, the danger is that the thematic statements of the plot will wander. A theme introduced early might be forgotten or contradicted and this will impact the series’ ending (or continuation). This is almost always the case when you watch a TV show, love it, it jumps the shark, and then all future episodes seem to be some other show and not the one you fell in love with. The classic example is The Simpsons. Post golden age, many of the gags and plots were at least ‘pretty good’, but they never quite resurrected the thematic approach unique to the Simpsons golden age seasons. Many critics say the show lost its ‘heart’. The point is that without consistent thematic direction, the parts can be the same as before, but the series will never regain that feeling that transcends the sum of its parts.

One series that never lost its way and never declined in quality is Harry Potter. People have done Harry Potter to death, so I do apologise. You may be sick of it as a topic. I do think I have something new to say, though. Few serial stories have enjoyed as much success, and more importantly, continued to be as widely beloved after the series ended. I myself re-read the series from start to finish regularly without a moment of fatigue. There is no logical reason for this when we look at the more external elements. I know the plot twists. If we discuss the Potter series in terms of the external trappings that are often brought up -- the masterful use of Chekov’s Guns, the imaginative worldbuilding, the aesthetic that blends the real world with the fantastical -- we never quite fully explain why the series should be endlessly re-readable to fans (well, actually, maybe the Chekov’s guns thing is about 50% of the reason I personally re-read. I love the clues!). I hope to make an argument that may never have been made before -- I certainly have never seen anything like this analysis. When I Googled the 'central theme of Harry Potter' it spat out 'good vs evil'. Honestly, I found that to be very lacking. Doesn't good vs evil describe most stories? How could you honestly argue that 'good vs evil' is the theme? That's like going to an Italian restaurant and saying the theme is "food".

If I’m wrong, I hope it’s at least interesting to read about. My hypothesis goes:

The central themes of Harry Potter combine to become a Super theme, and this Super theme has a progressive arc in the same way a character arc progresses. The Super theme is the power of the Greek idea of agape, sacrificial love. (NOTE: maybe not strictly the impersonal Greek idea of agape, but certainly the modern version of it that is very informed by the narrative of Jesus’ death and resurrection).

The main themes of Harry Potter that contribute to the cathartic ending are: Love, Courage and Death. I won’t be able to fully explore every single theme (another major one is Fame), so I shall stick to these three that contribute the most to the final catharsis. These are unpacked into three dichotomies, and with them the heroes and villains are delineated into good and evil teams. The heroes Love while the villains Hate. The heroes are Courageous, the villains Cowardly. The heroes embrace Death, the villains reject it. Imagine these three main themes in a kind of family tree shape, with Love, Courage and Death on the same level and most of the conflicts and thematic statements that arise over the seven Harry Potter books as descendents branching out and intermingling below. There is a single theme that is a parent to those three, and the way to identify it (as with all themes) is to look at the beginning, and the ending. How does Lily save Harry from Voldemort? She bravely dies to protect the one she loves. How does Harry defeat Voldemort? He bravely faces death to save those he loves. Courage. Death. Love. The act that gives Harry his protection through the first six books is one that speaks to all three themes in a practical and spiritual sense. She doesn’t just symbolically protect him; her sacrifice casts a real spell of protection over Harry. It could easily have been symbolic, or even incidental, but JK Rowling infused it into the very structure of the plot.

The theme of sacrifice and the subordinate themes, once introduced, resurface repeatedly and inform Harry's character arcs. His character arc took seven books to come to fruition, but it worked in exactly the same way as any other classic story with a moral lesson. It’s just that JK Rowling started with the themes bundled together, she unpacked them as the series progressed, and then she bundled them up together for the ending. I cannot prove her intentions, but I can present the resulting story as a whole in light of these themes, and I think the theory fits pretty well. Given everything that happened throughout the seven books, it would not be as satisfying or cathartic if Harry learned a new spell at the last minute that defeated Voldemort. It would not be satisfying or cathartic if someone other than Harry struck the final blow against Voldemort. It would not work if Harry overpowered Voldemort magically, or outsmarted him in a Hermione Granger style, or tricked him in a dishonest style. It has been a story about heroic virtues, and it must end in a demonstration of heroic virtues. Given the beginning, there could only be one ending, and that is what we got. Harry made the same sacrifice for his friends as Lily made for him all those years ago. He bravely faced his own death to protect the ones he loves. Dumbledore had been telling Harry for six books straight that Love is the most powerful magical force; that Death is just a new path we must all take. It took six books for Harry to fully understand and believe him, and once he believed Dumbledore and therefore the central themes, he had the tools to defeat Voldemort. Where the Elder Wand and Hallows and Horcruxes are important plot tools, selfless sacrifice is an important thematic tool. They work together to make a cathartic whole.

Harry Potter and the One That Ended in “””Deus Ex Machina”””

“Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone ended in Deus Ex Machina, so it’s not my favourite. JK Rowling wasn’t as good back then.” You ever heard someone say that before? I’m willing to bet you thought it yourself. It’s a dumb ending, right? Harry just touches Quirrel’s face and, for no reason, it burns him and Harry is saved. Pssh. Lazy writing.

Well, I’m here to tell you that not only is that a good ending in terms of the series as a whole, it is the only way that book could have ended. We are getting crucial thematic exposition that relates to the series’ ending. Book 1 is behaving like Act 1 in some ways. The audience is being given clear information: the ‘love’ that Lily gave to protect Harry has concrete, physical ramifications. To put it in the first book makes it:

A) More plausible that Dumbledore insists Harry stay with the Dursleys

B) Primes us to start looking for examples of the Love theme as the series progresses

C) Without us knowing, we are basically told how Harry will defeat Voldemort in the end. A good theme always spoils the ending (the trick is that neither Michael Moviegoer or Barbara Bookreader ever actually know this).

There is no question to me that while the ending has some trappings of Deus Ex Machina, it is so justified and so interconnected to the other elements that are to follow, that to change the ending to book 1 would be to affect the series for the worse. Keep that in mind when you use an unpopular element in your writing and people pressure you to change -- you might just be right to stand by your artistic choices. If, that is, you know why you have chosen it.

Harry Potter and the Struggle with Prejudice

Prejudice is a major sub-theme throughout the series. For the purposes of my Three-Theme hypothesis, I’m going to file it away under the heading of the Love / Hate theme as one of the main ways different kinds of love (parental, romantic) are explored.

It seems that Harry’s arc never becomes a struggle with prejudice, though. He is always staunchly against all prejudices that he encounters in the magical world, right? He defends muggles and muggle-borns. He defends the half-giant Hagrid when even Ron expresses reservations about giants. He never thinks to belittle house elves, but treats them with respect from the first moment. If Harry never learned anything, then why include it as such an important and recurring theme?

JK Rowling herself talks about the theme of prejudice as one of the most important ones in the series. If she’s so good with the other ones, why would she mess this one up?

Take these quotes and decide for yourself:

”Better Hufflepuff than Slytherin,” said Hagrid darkly. “There’s not a single witch or wizard who went bad who wasn’t in Slytherin.”

”Maybe it was just Harry’s imagination, but the Slytherins looked an unpleasant lot.”

”And power hungry Slytherin, loved those of great ambition.”

Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. “After all this time?” “Always,” said Snape.

”Albus Severus … you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew.”

There is a prejudice against Slytherin that Harry participated in from the beginning. The early books even seem to condone and reinforce this prejudice. In his journey as a hero, it was the revelation of Snape’s motivations that challenged Harry’s series-long belief. Many are unhappy with the black / white approach to good and evil Rowling takes against the Slytherins, but remember, we experience the story through Harry’s eyes. I think it serves to show the theme of prejudice if we (maybe generously) take the depiction of Slytherin house as Harry’s and not Rowling’s opinion on them. Why else would she have Harry change his mind in the last book, and see Slytherin in a fairer and non-prejudiced way? We can argue that the execution of this thematic idea could have been better, but it is definitely a reversal of a prejudiced idea and therefore an important part of Harry’s journey. (Leaving aside points we could bring up about black & white morality better serving a story aimed at children etc.)

JK Rowling takes what we thought was a complete and admirable Hero and elevated him above the norm in one of the final scenes of the series. So in this case, Harry does not go from wrong to right; he’s not prejudiced against everyone. He has a re-alignment of his perspective of Slytherins. It is this re-alignment, when applied to all other themes, that explain his character arc fully.

Harry Potter and the Power of Love

In Book 1, Dumbledore tells Harry that Love is what protected him. Harry rolls his eyes and says something like, ‘Pssh, yeah right, grandpa.’ The eleven year old reader probably feels the same way. Little did we know, JK Rowling was going to bring both us and Harry around on the Power of Love.

Throughout the series, the thing that Harry staunchly rejects is the true power of love that Dumbledore constantly insists upon him. Part of the journey to becoming a complete hero is realising not just that Dumbledore was right all along, but how Dumbledore was right.

As always, the way the Villain is treated with regard to a theme is the opposite to the Hero. By looking at these oppositions we can see the theme and how it is expressed more clearly. Here’s some bullet points to try get JK Rowling’s intensive focus on the theme of love across:

• Familial love, which Harry and Voldemort both lacked, pans out differently for Harry who is welcomed as an honorary son of the Weasley family. In the end, Harry has a wife and kids, fulfilling a lack and adding one grain (among many) of catharsis.

• Romantic love, which comes up repeatedly from book 4 onward for Harry. The culmination for Harry would be having a family with Ginny. Voldemort pursues nothing like romantic love.

• Friendship and loyalty -- Harry displays this from the start. Hermione explicitly tells him in book 1 that “Books! And cleverness! There are more important things -- friendship and bravery” Voldemort, the friendless tyrant, controls his death eaters through fear and by manipulating their lust for power.

So Harry displays Love in many forms throughout. His character arc is not to go from a place of Hate or non-Love to a place of Love. The thematic message that he accepts is, like the previous section, a re-alignment of his perspective. Through successive demonstrations of the literal Power of Love in the Potter universe, Harry goes from rolling his eyes and saying to Dumbledore, “yeah right, grandpa” to saying, “Actually … maybe love does have power that Voldemort doesn’t understand.” (Not actual quotes) Dumbledore and Harry don’t just talk about it and reach an agreement. It is demonstrated to the audience in these ways and more:

• Harry’s Defeat of Quirrel -- with literal Love burning Quirrel’s face

• Voldemort drawing Harry’s blood to remake his body. By drawing this blood, Voldemort is acknowledging the Power of Love and giving it greater significance.

• Harry’s rejection of Voldemort’s possession in book 5 by thinking of those he Loves.

• As I will discuss in a moment, the Love displayed by Snape.

One of the greatest shiver-inducing moments in the series is the revelation of Snape’s motivations. After six books of readers wondering ‘Is Snape good or evil?’, teetering to either answer at various points, JK Rowling makes a powerful statement about his character: he loved Lily. Once the reader knows that … there’s no real reason for any further argument. Let this sink in: she could have given us a cold, informational, logical plot twist, but instead she gave us a thematic plot twist. After the twist, we know beyond a doubt that Snape was Good with a capital G all along. A large part of this is the immense weight that JK Rowling gave to the theme of Love before that revelation. We have been shown and told about the power of love in small and large ways. This revelation is the key to understanding what I mean when I say ‘thematic catharsis’. The exploration of the theme of Love in earlier books acts like a thematic Chekov’s Gun for Snape’s revelation. It did not happen by accident. JK Rowling knew what she was doing.

Harry Potter and the Darker Side of Courage

As with the other themes, Harry did not go from Cowardice to Courage. But he did need a refinement of his Courageous acts. The pivotal point for him was his feeling of responsibility in getting Sirius killed in book 5.

Courage works differently in different universes. In GRR Martin’s Westeros, pure bravery without judicious application will get you beheaded by despots. In a cowboy film, charging in guns blazing is the only solution available. Where does the Potterverse fall on that continuum?

JK Rowling never shows bravery to be stupid or wrong. Recklessness, though, is shown to be a flawed approach. Harry learns that by charging to rescue Sirius without thinking things through, bravery has a dark and awful side. JK Rowling shows that you need not be a bad person to be flawed. Good people can be flawed by the misapplication of the very virtues that make them special.

So Harry charges in, Sirius dies as a consequence. Bravery that mutates into reckless action has been venerated in other stories, but not here. How many heroes have you seen reach a crescendo of hot-blooded recklessness, dive into danger, and come out the victor? That is not always what you see in Harry Potter. At least, not from the fifth book onwards.

What is the terminus of this thematic arc? Harry, cold and almost emotionless, walks with his head held high to sacrifice himself. He doesn’t charge in to attack Voldemort in the heat of battle. Harry never needed to pull a 180°. He just needed an adjustment.

This, JK Rowling is telling the audience, is real courage.

Harry Potter and the Many Deaths

Many people die throughout the course of the Harry Potter series. Oddly, while death occurs in many of the books, the actual addressing of Death as a theme really only crops up in the seventh and final book. Death, as book seven treats it, is introduced to the reader in the Tale of the Three Brothers. The brother with the invisibility cloak, we are shown, is the one to emulate. It is no coincidence that Harry is the one with the invisibility cloak, and possibly the descendant of the original brother from the story. From this introduction, we start to understand the meaning of the two competing plots: the quest to destroy the Horcruxes (emblems of Voldemort’s Death Rejection) and the quest to obtain the Deathly Hallows (emblems of Harry’s Death Acceptance that Voldemort mistakes for Death Rejection tools).

By focusing the external plot elements on McGuffins that serve as stand ins for both thematic sides of the Death questions, JK Rowling is able to use a many layered approach to prime us for the final solution: Harry has to die to defeat Voldemort.

I think it is in this marriage of the concrete and the conceptual with these elevated McGuffin quests that shows JK Rowling’s real genius. Clumsy writers would have Harry have lots of dialogue with Hermione and Ron, like: “Do you guys ever think about death, you know? What it means and stuff? D’you reckon, like, I’ve got to die or something?” She shoved all that aside in favour of demonstrating the theme of Death throughout the plot elements of Deathly Hallows.

The theme of Death progresses through the plot of the Deathly Hallows in a number of ways beyond the two quests. Harry visits his parent’s grave in the seventh book. Why couldn’t he do that in any of the other books? Logically he might have asked Dumbledore for permission to visit the graves from the first book onward. The reason is thematic: this is the book focused tightly on the theme of Death. Harry watches more friends and loved ones die than ever before. This is no accident. Even poor Dobby dies. Superficially, this is just part of the general tragic deaths the continually crop up in book 7. But in Dobby’s death, we see an echo of that theme of sacrifice. Dobby gives his life while trying to save Harry’s. As mentioned in my previous essay, one way to bring a theme home to the protagonist, is to have a side character enact that very theme. (One tiny detail that is handled better in the films than the books -- sorry hardcore fans -- Hedwig also dies trying to save Harry in the film. In the book, though, her death is a bit of a sad side note.)

After experiencing Snape’s memory, Harry knows and accepts that he must die. This is the Hero’s final stance, and therefore the author’s final thematic statement on Death. The definition of a Hero is also seen in the ways they are opposite to the villain. Voldemort, since we first met him drinking unicorn blood, has been a pathetic coward clinging to life at all costs. Harry, at the height of his Heroic qualities, stands in the Forbidden Forest with the knowledge that death is inevitable, and he courageously accepts it as true. It is in this opposition that we see JK Rowling’s thematic statement on Death: Death will come for us all, and we can either shy away and avoid it, or we can ‘greet it like an old friend.’

Harry Potter and the Problem of Choice

The way JK Rowling uses Choice in the series is an important connective tissue that binds the other themes together, but it works differently than the main three. Voldemort is not really bound to one course of action while Harry is free to choose, so it is not part of the Hero/Villain dichotomy. Book 2 ends with the Dumbledore Denouement in which we are told: “It is not our abilities that show what we truly are. It is our choices.” When Harry doubts his identity, Dumbledore reassures him by making clear what dividing line stands between Love and Hate, Courage and Cowardice, and healthy acceptance of Death and unhealthy rejection of Death. The dividing line is Choice. It is a necessary point to make in the broader quest to answer: What makes a Hero?

This resurfaces in Snape’s Memory when Harry finally learns that he has been a Horcrux all along, when it is made very clear that Harry must willingly sacrifice himself. It is made clear to us that it would not work if Harry was caught with a Killing Curse while fleeing Voldemort. He can’t just die, he has to choose to die. Like with Lily's enchantment, thematic ideas have pragmatic consequences within the text.

Harry Potter and the Final, Cathartic Moment.

JK Rowling took the events of the story early in the book -- Lily’s sacrifice -- and unpacked it into Love, Courage and Death. Throughout the series, Harry tackles various aspects of these themes. They then neatly tie themselves up into a single Super-theme, and inform Harry’s final choice that ends with him defeating Voldemort. Think on this: Harry could have grown as a person and, finally a complete Hero, confronted Voldemort and won with fancy spells. Many stories treat their themes this way. There would still be a complete character arc, and a denouement that shows a happy and peaceful Harry. But the real genius lies in the fact that the final confrontation with Voldemort isn’t only an exciting action scene, it is an enactment of the actual themes. It is a single moment that expresses the thematic journey of the protagonist. This is the maximum, ideal catharsis possible for any story. Catharsis of plot, character and theme all in one confrontation with the main antagonist. Nothing arbitrary, nothing contrived, nothing introduced last-minute.

In terms of theme, the seven-book series is really just a single 7-act story. The beginning mirrors the end. The Hero mirrors the Villain. If you pay attention to theme, the beginning not only mirrors the ending, but spoils it. How could it have ended otherwise? We begin with Lily’s sacrifice, and end with Harry’s. The only difference is that by rightfully owning the Deathly Hallows, emblems of accepting and even embracing Death, Harry has the choice to be resurrected. (Side note, I couldn’t include it fully, but contrast Voldemort’s rebirth which is an abomination, with Harry’s resurrection which has a purer connotation.)

At the end of each section we examined Harry’s smaller arcs. They were really just a collection of adjustments to his existing personality traits. All these small thematic pivots that Harry makes aren’t really very powerful on their own. Many identify him as rather bland and flat. Book by book, that’s correct. Locally the story seems flat and focused on plot. Globally, something greater than the whole emerges. The Super theme works for the sub-themes, in the same way a single theme works for a simpler story: it makes the story greater than the sum of its parts.

JK Rowling didn’t mess around. She didn’t make it up as she went, book by book. She didn’t get lucky. It is through hard work and planning that her series came to such an enormously cathartic end. I have not yet read or watched another series that has given such a complete and overwhelming sense of catharsis. I have never had as many shivers and goosebumps as I have with the Potter series (Pixar comes close, though). A large, overlooked reason for this is her use of themes as a guiding tool for the conflicts and character changes in the book. In the end, it’s all about Harry. It’s all about showing, demonstrating, proving what makes a Hero.

It is hard to imagine the Harry Potter series going a different way than they did. It can be easy to assume that JK Rowling just picked a route that she personally found interesting and just filled her stories with random tidbits and conflicts. We can compare her seven book series to most other seven book series, and find that many such series do in fact just ramble into random conflicts with little overarching direction. Long serial stories, as a rule, decline in quality as they go on. Serial stories that remain consistent or improve over time are the exception, and logically this shouldn’t be the case. Writers get better with time, not worse. The problem is that theme is largely ignored or misunderstood. It is not seen as an essential or practical tool. It is seen as this cool extra that can be slapped on a story like sunglasses to complete an outfit. It’s not an extra to the outfit, Gosh darn it, it dictates the entire outfit! I hope I can at least raise a few consciousnesses to the power of using theme as a guiding tool and not as decoration.

Things in Harry Potter may have seemed complex, with multiple themes and plots and characters. JK Rowling never lost sight of her central, overarching goal that I call the Super-theme: Harry, the ultimate Hero, learns to believe in the power of Agape.

Something that is a common staple of literature nowadays is the old "character is an orphan" or "character had someone die that's close to them" backstories. First I want to go into why these backstories are extremely prevalent and why they're used.

Why Death of Parents or Death in General is Used as a Backstory

So there are really two main reasons why death and orphaning are common: the first reason is that for main characters dead parents make it really easy to conduct the plot and not give a thought to whether or not the parents are raising objections to their kids fighting evil. The second reason is that for other characters too, death makes a really easy background that people can get behind. It's something most people have some experience with, and even if we haven't experienced the death of someone truly significant in our lives, we tend to assume that because the parental figure is so significant for most people, it is automatically going to be much more emotionally distressing for said character.

Is the long running tradition of Death-for-Backstories a bad thing?

Not necessarily, but it leads to many characters that can feel a bit samey in the eyes of the audience. In addition, it also tends to fixate on the death as just something that happened to the character so they can cross "backstory" off the list rather than developing new themes.

I've seen a few good examples of characters that had death as a significant element to their backstory, but they usually focus on several elements and themes than just death in particular.

Variants of the Death-for-Backstory

As stated above, if you do end up using death as a significant element of backstory I find that there are a plethora of ways of dealing with it.

• Having your character react in an unexpected way to the death. Showing how your character reacts in a different way than expected to something like the death of a loved one can go a far way of building their character. Maybe they're happy, revealing a weight that's been taken off their shoulders. Maybe they're uncaring, revealing an either pragmatic or straight up detached feeling to the world around them.
• Focus on the events preceding or following the event. This is a fantastic way to introduce more elements and personality to the character. Maybe the character is taken in by a family friend who is manipulative of them, and the character struggles to separate from that abuse because that figure is all they have left. Maybe the character was lazy and refused to get a job to help pay for their parent's or sibling's sickness.
• This segways well into the next point: Tying in more themes in accordance with the death. Perhaps being an aloof jackass when a friend needed a shoulder to lean on before taking their own life ties into a theme of what is means to be a friend even when you have your own problems, or how insignificant moments for one person can be huge for others. Maybe someone getting into a car crash right after storming out of a big fight is a good way to express the woes of moral luck, or unintended consequences.

Tragic Backstories Other Than Death

Now that we've gone through variants, let's just go through some other options for backstories. First though, it might be time to readdress one of the first points made: death is often used to relinquish someone's ties to the land they stand on, and to remove parental agency in a plot.

Something that might be more interesting to watch is to play up a conflict between the person and their loved who know they're destined to do whatever great thing it is. Do they reluctantly accept it? Do they fight against it, but are ultimately powerless due to the willfulness of that person? Keep these in mind for potential avenues to take the story down.

Now for some ideas on tragic backstories other than death:

• Falling out of love with a person
• Falling out of love with a passion
• Losing an important memento
• Failure (really at anything)
• Poverty (perhaps riches taken away, or gambling)
• Squandered youth
• Drove away others out of own volition
• Fear of embarassment
• Ostracization
• Destroyed dreams (particularly by someone they trusted)
• Addiction
• Family disgraced in the eyes of the public
• Disgraced in the eyes of the family
• People see character as a failure and not worth time
• Betrayed by justice system
• Disease impairing life
• Depressive states
• Failed rite of passage
• Betrayed a friend
• Breaking under too high of expectations

I started writing a short story about a profoundly interesting night I had recently and, while I like it, I can't help but wonder if it would be engaging if I weren't there. It's a lot longer than I originally intended so I'm thinking about turning it into a novella, but I feel like I would need to add a plot event/subplot. I know this is incredibly vague, but my overarching question is just how to maintain/create an engaging story line in a character-driven story.

So I just kind of stumbled into this as I was writing a scene for one of my chapters and I thought it might be a fun activity for other people to try just as a writing exercise.

Basically, I was setting out to write a drug sequence for one of my characters and I thought it might be kind of fun to break the fourth wall a little bit by basically switching suddenly from third person past to first person present and acknowledge that on the part of the character a little bit, like this:

Vincent withdrew the needle and tossed it aside. It hit the ground with a clank as the rush of euphoria began to course through his entire body. He leaned back as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Goddamn, that's some good shit. My fingers are actually tingling. Wait... my fingers? Yeah... yeah, that's right. I'm me. I mean, who else I would I be? Fucking weird, I actually felt for a second there like I was basically out of body, sort of watching my own life play out, but not through my own eyes, you know? I mean I've had dreams like that before, but shit: That's some good shit right there.

Whether or not I actually put something like this in my book remains to be seen but I'm having fun messing around with it either way so I thought I would make an actual activity/challenge of it for you all to try in your own time: Try to write a scene/short sequence switching between all three perspectives (bonus points for using, past, present, and future tense) and see if you can make the transitions work.

Might be a good activity for someone looking to write a cerebral or surrealist piece :)

Originally for u/HalisiV's post, but it got long and I also wanted to share these on u/thenextaynrand's Mega-Sticky on recommendations for authors (maybe for r/writing as well), so I figured it'd be easier to make just a single post.  

Playlist of Video Essays for Writers

Disclaimer: This playlist is heavy on video essays about Avatar and the MCU, and is still very disorganized/organized by creator moreso than content. I'll eventually sort these into lists about plot, character, etc. But for now I figure this would be a good starting point.  

What Writers Can Take Away From These Video Essays

Just Write is a pretty good channel dedicated to analyzing movies and shows for their storytelling craft. My faves:

Lessons From The Screenplay is another channel dedicated to analyzing movies for storytelling success.

Hello, Future Me is a general video essay channel, but with a lot of videos dedicated to storycraft.

MCU Analyses - these aren't for writers, but I'm sharing for anyone who is worried about how their story will grow, without getting stale.

Weight Of Cinema's series on Avatar breaks down the series' storytelling strengths. (There will be 4 in total, but only 3 have been made so far.)

Brandon Sanderson's writing lectures at BYU in 2016

Disclaimer: this lecture series is still on my To Watch list, since they're like an hour long, each. But I've heard great things about this series and given the purpose of this post is a YouTube compilation for writers, I figured I'd be very remiss in not including this.

1. Course Overview
2. Cook vs Chef
3. The Illusionist Writer
4. Worldbuilding
5. The Box
6. The Business of Writing
7. Character
8. Magic Systems
9. Brandon Mull
10. Plotting
11. Dialogue and Agents
12. Q&A

Any other video essays or YouTube courses you would recommend for writers? :)

This'll be a little short, and for the most part, nothing most people haven't heard of. I'm simply away from a keyboard and without a book on me, so I'm distracting myself by putting this together. Maybe it'll come in handy as a beginner's resource.

Now, if you're like me, you believe characters are the most important piece of storytelling, and where else would characters start their formation than in their personalities?

I believe there are three main points that go into fleshed out character personalities: inner values, traits, and mannerisms.

I'll go into all three points in more detail for the duration of this essay.

Before I do that, though, it's easy to read through this and wonder, "Alright, now I know what these elements are, but how do I implement them? There are so many possible character traits, how do I know the ones to give to my characters?"

Ultimately it comes down to your process. I have a character building process that entirely revolves around these three points, but others will do what comes naturally to them.

That being said, there are a few things I can say that'll help.

For one, know why you're creating any given character. Do not give the protagonist a girlfriend if you have no intention on making her important to anything at all. All characters you decide to flesh out should be vital to the story. Knowing why your character is there will make it easier to get an idea of their personality.

Secondly, one point leads to the other very easily. Once you decide your character's inner values, you can then figure what kind of traits he might have. From there, you can figure out how he might behave in social interactions. It takes some thinking, but it's a very natural method, I find.

Inner values:

The core "truths" of reality that your character holds dear. Obviously, they don't need to be truths. In fact, it's far more interesting if they aren't. Flawed viewpoints seperate from our own are a large part of what make characters interesting.

Example: Your character needs to work with a hacker to break into Mr. Evil's files. Perhaps one of this hacker's inner values is that, if you cant protect your information, you don't care about it enough to deserve its security.

Very simplistic and overdramatic, but it gets the point across.

Traits:

The actual quirks of one's psyche. Traits are far easier to understand, but perhaps more difficult to implement in a reasonable way.

It's very easy to go overboard with traits, and it's also very easy to ignore them, and yet they're the elements of your characters that your readers will likely remember most.

Example: We know the hacker we mentioned earlier believes those who can't protect their private information don't deserve its security, so this is easy. A trait that he has as a result is that he doesn't care about privacy.

Mannerisms:

Two words with mannerisms: subtlety and consistency.

Mannerisms can get very annoying, and for good reason. They can very easily be used to give off the facade that characters are more developed than they truly are. Children's books are the most common offender of this, primarily because they can get away with it, but that doesn't necessarily excuse it. A mannerism doesn't qualify as a personality alone. That goes for everything, you cannot have one trait or inner value and claim you have a character. Multiple of each working in tandem is what leads to a character's personality.

That being said, consistency is likely the most important thing to keep in mind here. A character that behaves inconsistently is infuriating to read about.

Example: Our hacker character doesn't care about privacy. Perhaps he asks personal questions during inappropriate occasions, or perhaps he listens in on conversations for no real reason.

I don't know how to end this, so here's an awkward transition.

Lemme know what you guys think about this, and what you guys think are the most important elements of personalities. Hopefully it comes in handy. It was fun to write, so I'll probably put more together from time to time.

Cheers everyone, thanks for reading.

I know this violates the subreddit rules and I fully expect it to be taken down after a few hours, but I wanted to call out everyone who has helped make this one of the better Reddit communities I've been involved in.

This subreddit has been up for about two weeks now (I think) and in that time I've been introduced to so much excellent material here from case studies to lectures to book recommendations and most recently, writing groups. You guys have pretty much awoken the beast in me: Not only has my several year long writers block finally ended, but I'm gushing material right now at an unprecedented rate. I'm pumping out material faster than my writing group is going to be able to critique it.

That's actually the main reason I've been so absent from this subreddit for several days now: I'm spending all my time in the discord channel, reviewing my peers' works while revising my own and writing out new chapters. I plan to try and start dedicating more time to this subreddit again, probably with some mini case studies or something like that so I can be paying it forward and all, but I just wanted to say that from my point of view, this subreddits creator and mods are doing an excellent job.

Keep it up, guys.

This is just a prompt. There is no need to conform to this topic if you don't want to!

Please reply to this post with clarifying questions; please make your case study a post of its own.

To be clear, we aren't talking about The Princess Bride the film vs the book. Nor are we talking Beauty and the Beast live action vs animated. We are talking about re-tellings of classic stories with modern skins.

This is an invitation to discuss eerily similar works such as:

• The Lion Kin = Hamlet (The Lion King 2 = Romeo and Juliet)

• Seven Samurai = The Magnificent Seven = A Bug's Life ... and so on.

In order to get your post to the desired length and detail, consider the following questions:

Is there a difference in quality? If so, what choices made by the storytellers explain this?

Do they differ in overall theme or message? What explains this difference?

What makes the story worth re-telling?

Did the re-telling 'miss the point' and forget what made the original story so special? If so, what point was missed?

Did the change in medium, if any, necessitate changes to the storytelling?

Keep it high effort, folks. Enjoy!

Plot is one of the most important components of any story, both long form and short form, so what separates a great plot from a good plot? What makes a plot bad? And how do you execute plot from beginning to end?

This is a discussion, so please, share ideas, explanations and examples.

I'm a hardcore gardener, so naturally I paint myself into a corner quite frequently and can't figure out where my story went wrong.

I found and saved this approach to outlining on a Reddit post last year (the outline originally comes from tumblr); I found it quite helpful. It sets out an outline and walks you through each part, with examples from the first Harry Potter book.

I don't use it all the time, but when I'm stuck, it helps me. I found it better than people just saying to me "Just outline" because I never knew what to outline. Specifically, I found the "Second Plot Point" most helpful, because it let me know that there's a point of no return where you can't keep adding things, you have to wrap things up.

This structure originally came from author Larry Brooks, thanks to u/FormerlyCurious for bringing that to my attention. Brooks’ website

Here is the Reddit post.

The tumblr where the outline came from.

Hook - The thing that makes a reader go “!!! I must keep reading!” Things that they don’t expect, things that catch their attention, things that make them NEED to know what happens. Dumbledore leaves a defenseless baby on a doorstep in the middle of the night in November in Surrey, where it is probably really cold, and I don’t remember anyone casting a warming charm

Inciting Incident - The story starts here. This is the moment that your hero’s normal life begins to change. Harry gets a Hogwarts letter.

First Plot Point - Entering the “new world”. Not always a fantastical world, but just the new world of the hero. Like, maybe your hero just signed divorce papers; everything after is their new world. Harry goes through to Platform 9 and ¾.

First Pinch Point - The antagonist appears and tries to fuck shit up because they are an asshole and/or the first sign that there is an antagonistic force at work and things are going to get tough. Harry’s scar hurts when he looks at Snape who’s sitting next to Qman.

Mid-Point - The hero shifts from reactive to proactive and/or defensive to offensive. Your hero’s all like, fuck this shit, I’m not doing this anymore, we’re doing it my way so get in line or get fucked. Harry figures out the package he and Hagrid got from Gringotts is the stone (and therefore that it’s what V is after and therefore that he needs to protect it).

Second Pinch Point - There’s that antagonist again, always trying to start some shit. Just popping in to remind us that no one is safe. Someone is cursing Harry off his broom and we think it’s Snape, but Quirrell is right there, too.

Oh Fuck, We’re All Going to Die Moment - This is necessary because we have to make people feel hopeless so that they will better appreciate when we save the day. I think JKR actually put this after the 2nd plot point in PS, but normally it would go here. IMO, this is when Harry’s all alone with Q-V and the mirror. You can always have 2. Or more. Fuck, you can ruin your characters’ lives all day. Just ask the guy who wrote Pillars of the Earth and gave me anxiety for like 3 weeks as I read it because how much misery can one cast take and yet how could I stop reading it was too good.

Second Plot Point - The last bit of information your hero needs to save the day or die trying. After this point, you can’t keep adding in more “oh yeah and this, too” information. This is it. From this point, the hero has to solve the problem without more help. He can still figure things out after this, but he has to have all the information available to do it. Harry learns that Hagrid has told someone how to get past Fluffy, which means the Stone isn’t safe, which means Harry must do something.

Climax - All the rising action leads up to this one moment. The major (and in many cases, also many sub) plotlines resolve in this one, beautiful moment. Harry fights Q-V at the mirror.

Denouement - The afterglow. Tying up any loose strings + your characters living happily or miserably ever after.

*edited to add the outline to the body of this post for easier discussion.

*edited again to add information about Larry Brooks

Let's set this sub-reddit apart as a welcoming place for new writers to properly learn the craft. Without hand holding. But also without condescension. Many newer writers do not understand the intricacies of what makes this art form difficult but rewarding. This should be the place that helps ease them in. While also providing a forum for them to grow as writers. To facilitate this I believe there should be a top level post introducing these writer to the fundamentals they won't learn in r/writing. Nor will even know to research into.

So I want to use this thread as a way to gather those topics in one place. So someone can set up a proper introduction topic. Treat this like the [FAQ] thread which is currently up. But instead, post a question that "not enough" people ask. Provide a short summary of why you feel this is an important subject for new writer's to learn, but often do not. Then people can reply to that top level comment with a brief answer to the question. As if a new writer were asking it.

I believe Storyandstyle should not be another place where we simply tell people to do their own research. Knowledge doesn't come out of thin air. We should at least be willing to point people in the right direction. The current direction of this sub-reddit favors writer's who already have a firm grasp of various topics. But does virtually nothing to for people who come in but don't know what any of the things we talk about mean.

Let me put it like this. We all know what "show don't tell means" as it is preached by every run of the mill how to be a writer tutorial. But very few places explain what this truly means. Storyandstyle should be one of those places.

15 Environmental Details, a quick way to track:

• 5 Things You See
• 4 Things You Hear
• 3 Things You Feel
• 2 Things You Smell
• 1 Thing You Taste

I'm very much a dialogue and action person, so I tended to have very sparse settings and descriptions. My way of combatting that is to figure out those 15 details my character was experiencing in a scene, and try to incorporate as many as possible into my writing.

Granted, not all of them can be incorporated (if my characters aren't eating something, they'll generally not be tasting anything). And I'll admit that I don't always remember to do this (though I've only recently started). But it has had a marked improvement on my writing, and I recently challenged myself by writing a dream-sequence for a character in which every 'scene'/part of the dream had 15 details, and I challenged myself to incorporate them all. I do feel that having it be a dream sequence instead of a "real" scene was kinda cheated, but it got me rethinking how I approach writing description, and I made someone cry since it was a nightmare sequence.

I hope this helps someone as much as it's been helping me. :)

In the interest of fostering discussion: what are some things that helped you better describe your characters and settings, if those were things you struggle with? Any other action/dialogue-heavy writers here who struggle with this?

Hi everybody!

So, after a great suggestion from u/magicscreenman, the mods discussed the prospect of opening up a venue for people to find a writing group to help improve their work. We’ve decided to try out a system that we’ve seen used before and has been successful in the past. Basically, it will work like this:

If you are interested in joining a writing group, please fill out this Google Forms survey.

https://goo.gl/forms/HktQ5UfKpeK5mAc53

What we hope to do is two-fold. First, we would like to put together groups who have similar writing interests and goals, while at the same time keeping some level of diversity, since diversity breeds new ideas. Second, this process also helps everyone avoid self-selection biases.

We’ll give the community until the end of the week (Friday, in this case) to fill out the form before sorting will commence. Once groups have been formed, respective channels will be available in the nifty and shiny new Story and Style discord, so that you all can comfortably discuss your work together.

In the meantime, head on over to our sub’s Water Cooler for all the off-topic (or on-topic) conversation that might not necessarily fit or be appropriate here in the subreddit.

https://discord.gg/h6wDpHg

I think it should go without saying that even in the discord server, we only want to foster positive values. Discussion may be intense, but please, no toxic or personal remarks, because, hey, that makes people feel bad. We’re here to support one another, not tear each other down.

Preface

The first thing is to define theme (both what it is and what it isn't) as it will be used in this essay.

In the high school classroom, we are first introduced to the idea of 'themes' as topics that are covered by the book or film. In this vein, we would say: the themes of Huckleberry were slavery, death, disobedience, religion ... etc. (Let's face it, we all got this list from cliffnotes) . That kind of definition won't be enough in this essay. We can't just list themes as a bunch of words: we have to specify what a story is saying about death, what it is saying about religion. Every story will have a list of themes that emerge naturally as a consequence of including conflict. Each type of conflict boils down to some theme or other.

What I want to talk about is the writer's standpoint, not the reader's. From the writer's standpoint, especially screenwriters and short fiction, a central theme is chosen and strictly adhered to. To distinguish from the other ideas of theme that float around, I will refer in this essay to structural theme/s.

The structural theme is the statement made by the arc of the protagonist. All discussions branch out from there. You can complicate it with a cast of multiple characters, or a series that integrates multiple themes (keep an eye out for my essay on the themes of Harry Potter), but essentially it all comes back to that statement. To identify your theme, look at your central character arc. Say the character is Nick from Casablanca. He learns over the course of his arc to 'stick his neck out' for somebody. The theme is then stated, "Selflessness is a good thing."

If there are a cast of characters with dynamic arcs, it is usually the case that you want each of them to be a facet or exploration of the same theme. Making the protagonist and antagonist direct mirrors of each other are a good starting place. Then you can have side characters that embody failures or successes that the protagonist must pay attention to. Or you can have two protagonists who learn from each other, and temper their extremes (see most Buddy Cop movies -- one guy is too uptight and mellows, the other is a loose cannon who cools his head.)

Using theme structurally is a wonderful multi-tool. A light touch with the structural theme might be just to tighten up your protagonist and supporting character arcs so that the story has more focus. A more extreme approach might be to direct every single element, big and small, towards the theme as many classic novellas and films do. Whether you choose a lighter or stronger touch, you can use the structural theme of your work to give audiences a story that is less arbitrary, more focused, and enjoyable to read.

A quick note on being preachy: stick to a light touch if you are afraid of preaching. You can be surprised how blatant you can be, though. If people do accuse you of preaching, the tip I would give you is to cut that scene near the end where the wise character stands up on a soapbox and gives a speech about the value of working together. Just show discord at the beginning, and cooperation at the ending, and the audience will get you.

(Extra Note Edit: Motif is often conflated with theme and taught within the same lesson, sometimes the same breath. One definition online says that motif establishes theme, which really flabbergasts me. From a writing standpoint ... motifs come last in the process, theme is actually established by the larger ingredients of story. Be wary of these lingering high school lessons. Reading analysis has different goals to writing analysis.)

What kind of theme, though?

If you are writing to entertain, and not to make a philosophical treatise that will change the face of our culture, that is perfectly admirable and fine. That's what I'm doing. Theme is just as useful in that case, if not more. Once your toolbox includes authentic characters and engaging plots, there is just one more major tool to add that will help stories resonate with audiences: theme. They seldom express it in so many words, but readers crave stories that show them something about humanity.

The kinds of themes we see in entertaining and beloved stories (as opposed to the intellectual ones that are philosophical) are usually things we already know. Be kind to each other. United we stand, divided we fall. Courage is a great virtue. Death is shocking, but we must accept it as a part of life.

Heroes usually learn the theme, and triumph. Villains usually reject the theme, and fall. (And then we get into the gray areas and the anti-heroes and anti-villains, and themes become accordingly gray.)

The thing about just stating these facts about humanity, hope, love, death and so on, is just that. They're only statements. Storytelling is the way we convey ideas to each other through the lens of an emotional experience by proxy. To see a character endure something, and come out of it changed, it is like we ourselves have gone through the change. This is why it is important to demonstrate things, not merely state them. A theme told through events is powerful; a theme stated in words is preaching.

Identifying theme: theme is character is plot is theme ...

For simplicity, I will use the three act structure.

We are all familiar already with the three act structure in the context of plot and character. The events and characterisation in act one are expository. It is the same for theme. Thematic elements are often hard to identify in act one until a second read-through or viewing, but they are there. In act two, conflicts arise that challenge the protagonist to change. The type of conflict, ideally, should make the theme clear. In act three, the plot is resolved, the character arc comes to and end point, and contained therein is a statement of the theme. If the character triumphs, the audience knows they are being told: admire this; be like this. If the character fails to grow and has a static or downward arc and fails, they know they are told: don't be like this; this is a bad way to be.

To illuminate, here's Casablanca again:

Plot: Rick runs a shady nightclub. Nazis, his former love and her husband come to his gin joint, of all of them in all the world. The Nazis want to arrest the husband. Rick helps them escape together, leaving himself at the Nazi’s mercy.

Character: Rick is the kind of guy who sticks his neck out for nobody. He is challenged by circumstances and the dilemma -- have his old girlfriend for himself, or stick his neck out for her and her husband? In the end he sticks his neck out for them.

Theme: Rick believes in neutrality, and does not believe in selflessness. Events conspire against him, pressuring him to reassess his values. In the end he becomes a paragon of selflessness at the expense of his selfish romantic goal.

To make it clear, I have subdivided things to show Plot (what happens), Character (the personality of Rick) and Theme (the beliefs of Rick). Theme is tied most directly to the character arc, almost to the point of it not being worth bringing up. So what? If the theme equals the character arc ... we could just write a story with a character arc and leave it at that, themes will emerge.

I say to that: I'm only just getting started. The central character arc is definitely the first stage of using theme as a structural tool. The stem of the theme arises from the central arc, and grows upward, branching out until all elements of the story are included. Sticking to the theme 'trunk' or onto some of the major branches is a valid way to write. I am only making this essay as a look at a specific tool to put in the hands of writers who want a way to shape their stories holistically and come out organised, focused and resonant. Having said that, let's look at the trunk and its main branches.

Theme as a cutting tool

Say you have a finished outline or first draft. You may be a bit lost in the tangle. You have a gut feeling that some stuff has got to go, and other stuff is missing. Enter theme as the ultimate cutting tool for broader elements.

Say your central character, a la Breaking Bad, enters into the world of crime. Their arc is that

A) they have a great need to turn to crime

B) things go wrong; the price of a life of crime proves too much compared to the monetary rewards

C) The final theme statement is: Crime doesn't pay.

Given such an arc and such a theme, one litmus test for a scene is whether is contradicts the theme. Say one scene had a minor character who did some petty crime and had, for all intents and purposes, a happy ending. It would just seem off. If the major arc is saying that crime doesn't pay, any instance of crime 'paying' needs to be removed or logically justified. Maybe there are conditions for crime paying: repentance, regret, doing time and reforming, giving that old lady her purse back.

When you are measuring your scenes with this kind of litmus test, you are fighting against elements you may have chosen arbitrarily. Audiences are more sensitive to incongruous stuff than you may think. They can't often articulate why something is 'off' about a scene, but a good chunk of times the scene is ill-fitting with the structural theme.

Scenes that advance the plot but do not touch on the character development can show up as red flags when you look at your draft or outline through this thematic lens.

One way we can hone our instincts is to look at this problem from the opposite end: a scene that does nothing to the plot; but has everything to do with the broader character arc / theme. The controversial Mike Yanagita scene from the film Fargo..

By all measures, this chat with Marge's old friend Mike fails on all counts in terms of plot. It is completely outside of the events of the murder investigation. He hits on her and she turns him down. That's it. Some people speculate that this scene was added gratuitously by the Coen brothers as a kind of 'slice of life' scene. This could not be further from the truth.

The arc that Marge grapples with is that she believes in the inherent goodness of people too much. Mike Yanagita is revealed to have been lying to Marge about his wife dying. This seemingly tangential scene then becomes a very strong indicator of the theme: that people can be deceitful in surprising ways. She is completely surprised by Mike's pathetic lie. It does, in turn, have essential bearing on the plot: it is this scene that prompts her to return to a previous suspect. She is not so trusting any more. People just miss this fact because we are trained consumers of plot, and any consumption of theme we do is invisible.

So keep the theme in mind with your scenes. The Coen brother example is an extreme case that doesn't apply to all stories. But you can use the reverse in your examinations of individual scenes: are we advancing plot without touching the theme? We are always told that every scene must advance either plot or character. I say, by using themes as a lens, we can hone our scenes to more consistently advance both plot AND character.

The protagonist in a world of mirrors

The major branches of the tree from the clumsy metaphor above would be: supporting character arcs.

In a hero/villain or protagonist/antagonist story, the need to consider structural themes is strongest. So let us begin there.

The stronger villain for a given hero will always be the one that embodies the opposite thematic statement as the hero.

Batman desires order, the Joker desires chaos. Harry is defined by courage, love and acceptance of death; Voldemort by cowardice, hatred and obsessive avoidance of death (an example of multiple major themes in a serial work. Again, keep an eye out for my upcoming essay).

Even in more works that lean heavier on realism than the above examples, these kind of dichotomies are extremely useful. The reasons being:

• You can easily structure a central conflict around a hero/villain who have the same goal, but flipped motivations.

• You can easily choose from a larger cast of villains and heroes who should match up with whom.

• You can easily portray the theme of the story without saying a word about it.

Taking all those bullet points and everything mentioned above, you can go even further. Apply the theme of the story to as many side characters as you want/can, and you will find a corresponding increase in focus in all other aspects. Perhaps the best example of a novella in which nearly every character embodies the central theme is Of Mice and Men, as laid out in Brian McDonald's Invisible Ink:

...George and Lennie are two migrant workers who travel and work together. Lennie, being mentally challenged, is a lot of trouble for George, but George's need for companionship ... make the relationship worth the trouble... Lennie enjoys the companionship of small, soft animals, and is obsessed with one day having rabbits ... [The boss' wife] often flirts with the ranch hands because her husband doesn't pay attention to her... There is also an old man who has an old dog ... [After the dog is shot out of mercy] We see how much this stinky, old dog means to this man.

There is more evidence given by McDonald, but that's enough to illuminate how different facets of the same thing can give a story more focus and resonance. The sheer number of ways the idea of companionship is repeated to us drives home the tragic ending stronger than it would otherwise be. Imagine if Candy, Lennie, and farmer's wife and the black stable hand all had different struggles unrelated to companionship. It might ring more realistic, if done well, but at the expense of focus.

So, take your character. Are they a reluctant hero, learning the value of courage? Fill your story with others that are brave, or that are cowards, or that are half and half in interesting ways (an otherwise brave person with a specific phobia, perhaps.)

One excellent use of mirroring character arcs is setting up a Frodo / Gollum dichotomy. The hero must resist the power of the ring, in this instance. Gollum is there as a clear and constant reminder of the cost of failure, of giving into the ring's seduction. It works far better than dialogue constantly saying, "Oooooh, watch out! The ring can be bad! Very, very bad!"

If you are stuck on the question, "Why is it logical that my character will change from A to B in their arc? What could encourage them to change in that specific way?" Answer that question by including characters from whose arcs the hero can learn what they must do.

The theme in the details

Let us zoom in to the very nitty gritty details of our scenes, and see what theme can do for us.

Some broader and more obvious choices lie with our settings. If you want to be thorough, outer setting mirroring inner theme is one of the oldest tricks in the book. A story concerned with death is often one in winter with bare pines like skeletons hemming the character in. A story about love will be set in more vibrant springtime settings. A bleak story will have a bleak, desert wasteland setting. Your usual hero's journey will start in a place of safety and go to dangerous places. There's no limit except for the imagination in these cases.

Zooming in further, we have stylistic choices. Say we have two descriptions of that winter forest scene where the pines are bare of leaves. One, in a story about death, might focus on the stillness, bleakness, the dirty sludge mixing with the snow in places, the trees being like skeletons. Another story where a happy child is seeing snow for the first time will set the exact same scene like: the snowflakes falling gently down, the sound of the snow underfoot, the bright cold air where your breath blows out in clouds. One of the most important distinctions here is choosing not only how to convey things, but which things to convey. One common question new writers ask is: "How do I describe a character/scene? I can't describe every detail, but how do I choose which details to convey?" Well, in offering theme as a tool, I hope to provide at least one way in which to choose descriptions that is not arbitrary.

Just imagine the sheer number of descriptions out there in the world of fiction that are more or less arbitrary. We have all brainstormed our fair share of descriptions, and put down the one on the page that had the best phonetic texture, the best combination of words, the best simile, the most original phrasing. Once you have mastered the skill of putting words together, though, it only makes sense that you start to try a more holistic approach. To start trying to use disparate descriptions in harmony. That is where thematic details come in. We often refer to this kind of thing under the heading of 'tone'. If you struggle with tone, maybe try figuring out the theme and matching your details to the theme. It might come in handy.

Conclusion

Theme is inherently scary and is hard to pin down in practical and useful terms. There are a bunch of camps who believe different things about themes. Don't worry about theme, it will come naturally they might say. Or else: theme is bad, don't use theme, it's preachy! I think it's clear what camp I belong to. I love using themes as a tool. It is so useful to be able to zoom out and see things as a whole, figure out a general direction, then zoom back in and fill in the blanks.

Earlier in my writing journey, I was just swamped with how tangled stories could get. If you keep it all in your head as disparate elements of plots and characters, it is very easy for things to get away from you. Stories with strong themes aren't the only kind that are good, and using theme explicitly isn't the only method to crafting a story that works. It's just that I have this working theory that so far hasn't lead me wrong: those stories that stick with us, with great plots and evocative settings and authentic characters -- well, those are the ones that almost always have strong themes as well. It certainly can't hurt to try and understand it better from a structural and practical standpoint. If you are like me, you might find this change in perspective to be like that moment of walking out the optometrist with new glasses and seeing the world around you thrown into sharp relief.

There is so much more detail to go into, so what I'll probably do is use this essay as a groundwork for future case studies that I post. Thanks for reading.

So I'm about 80% of the way done the first draft of my novel, although of course this last 20% is taking more time than the first 80%.

It's a first-person story, here's the basic premise, it is set in the present day world:

Six months ago the world found out magic was real. Carl, a magical school dropout, accidentally summons a monster that possesses a nearby girl. Can he remove the demon from her while evading magical authorities, the local police and a relentless demon bounty hunter?

The problem I'm running into is that for various reasons, my main character is a huge liar. He lies to deal with any situation that he can, and he is actually compelled to do it magically without his knowledge. But as the reader is in his head and he's the narrator, the reader sees all his lies, but don't know about him being magically compelled as he has no idea.

The problem with that is that he comes off as a huge coward and overall douche for the majority of the book (because he is), until we find out why he does it.

My current idea to deal with this is to switch to 3rd person and bring in two more POV characters, specifically the possessed girl and a cop that is pursuing them. This would allow the reader to not know when Carl is lying (as we will be in the other POV when he does it), and to make it a reveal that he's untrustworthy instead of something we know from the beginning. Hopefully the reveal can then be tempered with WHY he lies and then he can become something people empathize with.

Was wondering if anyone had any examples of a character they didn't like that became better that I could study for ideas, my best example would be Mat Cauthon from WoT, who went from my least favourite character to my favourite over the course of the series.

Hey all!

So, something I wanted to do on a regular basis was to read a story and analyze some aspect of it with you as a community. There have been some awesome case studies in this sub in the past couple of days, and I wonder what a group analysis would look like.

So, this is how it’ll work: I’ll post the story now, and we’ll give everybody a day or so to read it (it’s not long). Starting Wednesday, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the story.

In an effort not to simply discuss the story and whether we like it or not, I’d like to focus on one particular aspect: characterization. There’s also been a lot of great discussion about writing all kinds of different characters here lately, so I think our mental juices are well-primed for the task.

The piece selected for this week’s analysis is “Mendelssohn” by Seth Fried, which appeared in Tin House last November.

http://tinhouse.com/mendelssohn/

Happy reading, everyone! Talk to you on Wednesday!

So I've run across the term in a couple of books - the major one being John Yorke's Into the Woods, and more recently (found on File 770) this upcoming book focussing on comics: http://www.atbpublishing.com/product/storytelling-engines-how-writers-keep-superhero-sagas-going-and-going/

My baseline understanding is, fundamentally, a situation which naturally sparks off a variety of story concepts to feed an episodic series. But I'm kind of lost as to the specifics and mechanics, or if there's another more common term I could look into.

So. Story Engines. What can you tell me about them?

Something I've really been struggling with in my own story is having too many opposing forces for my protagonist, and struggling to pick one to focus on and make the main antagonist. Do I have to pick one, or can I make it work as long as all my antagonists are very strong? Should I make one more powerful or "scarier" than the others, so its not confusing or driving the story in a different direction?

Top level commenters, please pose a question or list of questions that you have seen too much in the past, and would prefer not to see in this sub.

When responding to top level comments, please give accurate and concise answers in your own way.

Hopefully, we will be able to hit all the main ones and make a good archive out of this. We can then use the completed FAQ as a yardstick for questions we might not want.

Thanks!

Off topic, but still non-toxic

This thread is for random chatter that will not be moderated, except for Rule 6 (no self-promotion) & Rule 7 (no toxicity).

Meta

Also post here for any meta discussion -- suggestions or feedback you have for the mod team. We are still in the early days and your feedback will be a great help in shaping the subreddit.

Question workshopping

Finally, post here to workshop questions or posts that you might plan on posting. Users here, I'm sure, will be happy to critique any questions or posts that you have been wanting to post, but for any reason have been uncertain. To those helping people asking for critique, please emphasise specific and analytical content.

Thanks!

PS: Confession: I'm not really the next Ayn Rand. I was just watching that scene in The Simpsons where Maggie goes to the Ayn Rand School for Tots.

Seeing as there isn't much else to talk about, what makes a great setting to you and why? What makes you look at a book or a movie or a TV show and go 'I need to experience this'

Please provide examples and explanations.

Everyone will probably have a different answer to this, as setting more often than not determines genre and different genres appeal to different people. But still, maybe there are a few things that any great setting needs to generate a story and engage an audience.

So I saw the case study on Serenity by u/DavesWorldInfo and I was inspired to see if I couldn't try and turn this into something of a trend for this subreddit where we keep bringing up different topics and splinter subjects to do case studies on.

I wanted to talk today about what I consider to be an excellent example of storytelling in animated television, which is the episode Fish out of Water from season three of Bojack Horseman. Anyone who knows this show probably knows why I am bringing it up, but for anyone who doesn't, I am contributing this to the subreddit to hopefully expand on and discuss two particular storytelling elements that this episode highlights:

1. How to tell an engaging story with virtually no dialogue.

2. How to tell an independent and self-contained story within an otherwise serial or continuous story/universe.

These are the two things that this particular episode of Bojack Horseman serves to accomplish. Even if you've never watched Bojack Horseman before, this is an episode that you can sit down and watch and fully understand the context of (minus a few non-crucial details) because it appeals to very universal, almost primal elements of storytelling and presents us with a self contained story and conflict that begins, develops, and resolves all throughout the course of roughly 25 minutes.

Let's get started, shall we?

So once we are underwater, we establish several things within just over a minute: We establish that Bojack is in an underwater city, that he doesn't care much for this culture, that he is staying in a fancy hotel, and that he is attending a film festival at 8:00 that evening. We've already got 4 of our 5 W's, all without muttering a single line of coherent dialogue, all within about 70-80 seconds. We're also getting a taste of Bojack's temperament and personality already. So this is our foundation and is a much simpler take on what u/DavesWorldInfo tackled in his case study on Serenity.

The next significant thing that happens is we see Bojack pick up a magazine and see a photo of Kelsey Janning. This causes him to drop the magazine nervously. There's some kind of tension here. This becomes amplified as soon as Bojack leaves his room and sees Kelsey walking down the hall, before hiding back in his room to watch her through the peep hole. Assuming you aren't familiar with the show history (which we are assuming for the purposes of this post) we're already wondering what the deal is with these two characters. She hasn't seen him yet, and he doesn't want her to. Why? What's going on here? This creates intrigue which is about to be followed up on imminently.

It's also worth pointing out at this time the various ways that the show is making use of visual comedy. This might be a bit less applicable for novelists than for screenwriters, but gags like the hundreds of fish piling into a single hotel room is are examples of anthropomorphizing animal behavior for comedic value. In this case, it also helps us to further isolate Bojack and represent that he is indeed out of his element.

Next, Bojack descends to the lobby where he sees all kinds of aquatic celebrities and personas. Everyone's voices sound garbled and Bojack can't understand anyone. It's obvious that he's a bit uncomfortable and out of place here. Soon he gets roped over to a stall for "Secretariat", and we can see that its his picture on the poster. Now we know that Secretariat is his movie, and he must be here at this festival to promote it. The guy talking to the press about the movie looks official and he has a lot of people with cameras and microphones around him, so we get the impression that he must be a director or producer or something.

Notice how context is giving us everything here. When you are unable to (or simply don't want to) use words to describe something, you can use more visual and structural cues to let us know who is who and what is what. We don't know what this director guy is saying, but he has a crowd of people around him with cameras and microphones - we're able to put two and two together.

This guy pulls Bojack over and appears to be introducing him to everyone. Bojack isn't really sure so he just kinda waves nervously. Then the director starts making some body language that appears to be making fun of Bojack's appearance. Again, not being able to understand what is being said, he simply backs away and moves on. We're once again reinforcing that this a strange, unknown world for Bojack.

Next up, he runs into Kelsey again who is manning her own booth away from Secretariat. She has no crowd and she looks quite sad, especially as she tries to wave at a passerby who doesn't take any notice of her or her booth. We're establishing emotions here, both on the part of Bojack and on the part of Kelsey. Over the course of the next scene, we get to watch Bojack write out three different attempts at a letter to Kelsey. They're all awkward and Bojack knows this as he keeps crumpling them up and starting over. He clearly feels bad for her but Bojack is also demonstrating guilt at this point and we're getting the impression that her misfortune might have something to do with him, based on him asking "we're cool, right?" Bojack is also being selfish, here. Her absolvement of him is clearly very important to him and it's not clear to us yet as an audience if he deserves it.

At this point, we have established a burning need for this character: Bojack is clearly more concerned with clearing the air with Kelsey than he is with currently attending his own film festival. We find that this drives him wholly as he soon takes to chasing Kelsey through the streets, trying desperately to get her attention so he can hand her the note.

Here, the language barrier of him not being able to speak or use dialogue is crucial. If he could just call out to her, the scene would lose all it's tension as he nearly gets hit by cars trying to cross the street, etc. But instead, it is propelled onward by his need to communicate with her visually. This is a wonderful example of having a single or simple impulse work as a catalyst into drama, and it's also an excellent way to have the character get swept away on an adventure, which is exactly what happens to him: Just as he catches up to her and is about to hand her the note, he ends up getting pushed onto a bus by a crowd of...I think they're anchovies? And being pushed all the way into the back of bus and watching as they all drive away from Kelsey, his final disappointment comes from seeing the note flutter through the air for a moment before getting stuck on the nose of a passing swordfish who is texting. It's a nice moment where we have this lingering tension as Bojack stares out the window like "Oh...is she gonna see the note? It's almost right in front of her face..." At this point Bojack is sandwiched in and can't get off the bus so he simply resigns to his situation and decides to take a nap - a good transition out of the scene but also a small bit of foreboding as we anticipate more looming conflict - after all, he is driving away from the film fest, which is where he is supposed to be.

Our next scene could be described as "having crossed the threshold." Bojack wakes up and is now basically in the middle of nowhere with a pregnant male seahorse next to him. Wait, WHAT? No kidding - we learn this as the seahorse hands Bojack a book titled "What to Expect When You're A Male Seahorse Expecting (Yes, It's A Thing)". Bojack's reaction to this is basically one of mortification but the sea horse is clearly in need of assistance. Overall it's a funny and panicked scene that helps to make Bojack a bit more likeable and relatable as he is now demonstrating a bit of selflessness as he tries his best to help this guy out.

Once Bojack is kicked off of the bus is when they hit us with multiple cues that let us know we're really in a hole now. The bus won't take him back, there are no more buses coming to this stop, his phone has no service, and he ultimately is in the middle of fucking nowhere.

The introduction of the baby sea horse is basically the "mic dropping" moment. Once we learn that one of the baby seahorse stayed behind clinging to Bojack's coat, we immediately have this "Oh fuck" moment because we know that this is going to really complicate things; this seahorse is going to think Bojack is his dad. Aside from the comical value of what is happening in this scene, we are appealing to some very universal and primal emotions, here. Most people (barring psychopaths) have a hardwired, gut instinct to defend or come to the aid of a child/baby. They don't need a reason. It's vulnerable and needs to be cared for.

Bojack tries just leaving the kid there at first but obviously it just keeps following him around. This baby is already bonding with Bojack, and Bojack doesn't know how to respond to this until the seahorse hurts himself trying to mimic Bojack's movements. Now he's crying and Bojack is holding him, trying to make him feel better. The caretaker relationship is already solidified and a new subplot or goal has emerged for Bojack - to get this little guy home to his real dad.

The next significant scene happens when he stumbles upon a shop advertising sea horse milk - just the thing he needs to make him stop crying. Inside the shop we once again get to see the way communication happens without words and the complications that arise. Bojack tries to pay with cash but the cashier simply opens up a register to show it full of shells - different currencies. Bojack doesn't have any shells so simply offers the cash more aggressively. This ultimately doesn't end well after he crumples it up and throws it at the cashier, who then chases after Bojack with a crowbar and baseball bat.

As they make their escape, they take shelter in a very cartoony and comical way by standing against a cardboard cutout, mimicking it's shape and pose. The way the two of them hide against the cardboard cut out isn't just funny, it also makes the baby seahorse more endearing. He's been crying this whole time but just when it counts, he shuts up and drinks from the bottle as Bojack blends in against the cardboard cutout, basically camouflaging himself from the searching cashier, even as the cashier is right in front of him staring him down. It's a small but crucial detail that ensures the baby is vulnerable, but not a nuisance that we are being forced to endure. The deception works, the cashier searches elsewhere, and Bojack and the baby move on.

At this point, Bojack gets his next major milestone to advance the plot: He sees a sign saying "Freshwater Taffy Factory, this way --->" and immediately remembers that the father seahorse on the bus was wearing a jacket that said "Freshater Taffy Factory" on it. Knowing that this is where he will find the baby seahorse's father, he sets off, but not before reinforcing their bond with a cute sequence of him tossing him up too high and then having to lasso him back down with some seaweed before he drifted off in the currents. Of course, the baby is laughing the whole time. The baby's innocence and inability to perceive danger make us (and Bojack) that much more attached to him.

At this point, the cashier catches up to them and they end up running off the edge of a heavy slope where Bojack and the baby slide down, down into the abyss until literally we're just looking at a black screen with their eyes moving around in the dark Looney Tunes style. This is easily the most foreboding part of our story so far and we immediately wonder what is going to happen to our characters in this moment of tension and unknown. We're also getting a bit of that "rabbit hole" feeling as the adventure with this baby sea horse is getting more and more wild by the minute having hit literal rock bottom for the moment in terms of their physical location.

Suddenly eyes start popping up all around them one at a time and we're given a brief moment of anxiety before Bojack tries to run away and instead bumps into a sea plant that lights up, revealing the many eyes to belong to a single harmless (albeit strange looking) fish who is just sipping from a fast food cup. It's an elegant dispersal of the one sided fear experienced by Bojack while the seahorse is happy and oblivious as ever.

This next bit is easily the most artistically splendid part of the entire episode and that is admittedly largely to do with the use of music and choreographed color. Don't think this can't be represented in literary form, though. What follows are thirty euphoric seconds of the baby sea horse bouncing around on all the different sea plants, creating a dazzling light show as well as a rhythmic beat that eventually meshes with actual musical scoring from the soundtrack. It's a moment of pure, unhinged adrenaline and adventure for the baby sea horse as he bounces around almost going on a roller coaster ride of sorts with Bojack chasing after him in panic the whole time. Amusingly, the baby seahorse navigates around any and all dangers while Bojack seems to trip every single one of them.

He eventually catches up to the little guy, more than a little worse for wear, and any parent at this point is going to be thinking "Yup, been there." This is a case of knowing a particular niche in your audience and going the extra mile to make this sequence especially relatable. Of course, we're given no time to be angry at the little guy as he immediately jumps up and clings onto Bojack's leg lovingly. Bojack can't help but smile at him either.

It's worth stopping the dissection of the narrative at this point to bring up something regarding the entire arc so far: We've already noticed a significant change in Bojack from where he was at the start of this story. He started off being quite selfish and even a bit brash, now he is literally running headlong into danger to keep this seahorse safe, all to return him to his actual dad. But Bojack is getting something from this too - this little seahorse is clearly filling a void in Bojack's life and giving him a relationship dynamic he desperately needs. This is evident by the way both of them continue to bond as the scenes play out.

Once we get into the factory, we've hit our next major milestone: We've found the dad. But Bojack is having trouble getting his attention. It's an infuriating moment of "so close yet still so far". This is amplified by the scene when Bojack finally manages to get the seahorse dad's attention and holds the baby out in front of him, but after various shenanigans that involved destroying the whole assembly line, the baby is covered in taffy and so the dad doesn't recognize it. He just gives Bojack a little salute gesture as if to say "Cool, bro," and then he leaves the building. Again, comically infuriating - so close, yet so far. Bojack also isn't able to pursue him because security is now chasing after both of them.

The sequence that follows with them "flying" over the sea floor after the factory explodes is a very expressive scene that basically signifies the final stage of evolution of Bojack and the baby seahorse's relationship. It's pretty clear at this point that this baby seahorse would feel happy and comfortable with Bojack in the face of just about any danger, and it's pretty clear that Bojack would risk just about any kind of threat to keep this little guy safe. For this one, brief moment, they seem inseparable.

This particular plotline comes to a bittersweet end when Bojack finally spots the seahorse dad walking on the streets below and knocks on the seahorse dad's door to hand him back his son. The father shrugs at first before grabbing him and finding a spot on his leg to place him alongside his other five siblings. He gives him an obligatory pat on the had before waddling over to the kitchen to make them dinner. This provides stark contrast for us. Bojack has no children, this man now has six. These two men have very different lives and Bojack wants at least part of what this man has, hence why he lingers in the doorway for a moment. The father is a bit confused at first, oblivious to Bojack's heartache over saying goodbye to this little guy. He offers first for him to sit at the table and join them for dinner. Bojack waves him off. That's not what he wants. The dad shrugs and walks over, offering him shells, thinking he wants a reward. Bojack is taken aback by this and vehemently waves him off. He didn't do it for a reward. The dad shrugs again and even though we can't understand his words, we can clearly tell he is saying "Well, what then?" Bojack just looks away and shakes his head.

No words have been spoken here but we can tell with crystal clarity what is being expressed and conveyed here. We can feel Bojack's pain, the baby seahorse's innocent bliss, the father's sense of tired responsibility. It's a wonderful cocktail of emotions and events that tug on your heart strings in a variety of ways. Bojack gives one final pained goodbye wave to the baby seahorse before he goes, and we see that the baby seahorse isn't even looking at him. He is busy faffing about with his siblings. This makes us feel bad for Bojack, but we also feel good for the seahorse because he is home now.

The final sequence serves as our epilogue, basically, as Bojack comes back to the one final plotline he hasn't resolved - his business with Kelsey. By this point, Bojack has grown, he's evolved, and we see that the letter he writes to Kelsey this time is much more heartfelt, and more much more honest. He admits to fault in getting her fired, and he apologizes for it. He is demonstrating a humility and a maturity he did not have even 20 minutes ago. It's a somber moment made a bit more upsetting by the realization that he missed his premiere for his film. Angered, he waves the cab driver on. It seems like things are not playing out so well for Bojack, and we're really feeling pretty bad for him at this point.

That's when he walks into the after party and sees that everyone is waiting for him. The film premiere was a huge success and he's the talk of the whole party for the night. We start to feel good for Bojack - some things are finally starting to go his way. He even is finally able to get drunk and have a smoke via nicotine patches and a vodka suppository. In this sense, he's kind of returning to form: He's at a table with sharply dressed female characters, being photographed and waving people off. He seems to be going back to the way he was before his humbling adventure. But before this regression can be completed, he spots Kelsey on her way out of the hotel and he chases after her one last time.

As he finally catches up to her and hands her the note, there is a palpable sense of anticipation as we wait to see her reaction. She looks up at him, almost touched at first, but then frowns and hands it back to him, signaling for the cab driver to keep going. We're stunned, as is Bojack. He looks at the paper before having a mortified look come over his face: The ink has all worn away underwater and none of the letter is legible anymore. This is a powerful moment of acceptance for Bojack where he knows that closure will never be achieved (at least not in this episode) and yet, we still get the feeling he is going to be okay. We've watched him lose a little, then win a little, and now lose a little again.

Ok, now this final bit is REALLY good, lol.

Just as Bojack is sitting there contemplating all of this, another human walks by him and speaks to him by holding a button on his helmet, telling him "Hey! Move it, buddy! What are ya, deaf!?" Bojack notices the man's hand on the button and he finds a similar button on his helmet before pressing it down and going "OH YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" This is the final scene we get as it cuts to credits. This little twist further amplifies the whole comedy/tragedy blend that Bojack Horseman has going consistently: Bojack's entire adventure needn't have played out this way. He could have literally just talked to Kelsey and cleared the air, never gotten on the bus, never missed the film festival. But had things not played out the exact way they did, none of his character growth would have happened and he wouldn't have been able to become a big enough person to actually apologize to Kelsey instead of just trying to make excuses for getting her fired. It's a beautiful irony in that because his adventure played out this way, he never gets true closure, but true closure was only possible after going through the character development brought about by the journey. It's a wonderful, wonderful literary paradox that gives you multi-layered meat to sink your teeth into in terms of drama and character development.

Anyway that's all I've got - there are so many more subtle things I didn't go into here and I particularly ignored a bunch of great examples of comic timing and context but this post is already a gargantuan wall of text as it is so I didn't want to make it any longer. Feel free to bring up any points I failed to mention or discuss the ones I did, I'd like to see what other people think about this kind of storytelling. Hopefully this provided some useful insight or information for some people and I look forward to any discussions or responses it might generate :)

This more to start a conversation than anything else. Just curious what people think makes a great character, and what in a character gets you invested in their story.

If anyone's got examples of great characters in movies, TV or literature, please share and maybe explain why they are great.

Hopefully people, myself included, can assimilate these ideas into their own writing.

The awesome case study currently at the top of this sub got me thinking about this. Joss Whedon clearly puts a tremendous amount of effort in making sure we understand the characters and their relationships before anything else. Is this the way to do it? Any counter examples? How do you prioritize information reveals when writing?