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illuminara on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/illuminara/art/How-to-Plot-Character-Arc-568264654illuminara

illuminara on DeviantArthttps://www.deviantart.com/illuminara/art/Elements-of-a-Good-Story-529802475illuminara

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mayshing

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Literature

How to Design complex characters using core belief

A character is basically formed by three things: Personality, Beliefs, History After designing the character's story and personality, what will help them stay in character is designing the layers of their core beliefs. The key thing is, these core beliefs are never, ever spoken by the character themselves. They just behave in this belief like it's normal and not even think it's there. Of course you can still choose to have them say it, they will just be a simpler open book type character. Or say it partially hiding its true statement, you can also use a character's core belief statement to make it a story statement if you see fit. A core

Literature

Make unquie characters-ed

Nicallel Wrote: Looking for tips for creating more unique characters ; O In anime style but of course ... I dont know if I should bother posting samples for a question like this ; O? My reply: Unique characters~ Good question. I do have a few principle of my own trying to achieve that. 1. Don't try to be special: The fact is.... everyone is trying to be special... and when you also try to be special, you can end up just like everyone else, and even make similar choices. It's like everyone tries to be cool, and end up all dressing alike. 2. Find out more about yourself: Know yourself, know what you like, dislike, and dig deep into t

Princess-Kay

Literature

How to Introduce a Character

The classical Movie Introduction – Sometimes, you get a hero. Not over time, but right at the start – this is your hero. He's confident, he's suave, and he always packs his shaving cream. Somehow he always manages to get that beard just right, despite the fact that you've never seen him trim. Everything about him is admirable, and you just wanna follow him like a little puppy dog because that's how AWESOME he is. …it might work, but you still shouldn't do it. It's one thing for movies, where you can simply follow someone's action across the screens. In books, you want the closeness that only seeing the character fall on their

Literature

Unstick your Plot - A guide

The Random Encounter – The Guide to Moving Your Story Forward The classical random (there's always a classic.): This is the sort you see in just about any old RPG, or RPG comic, and probably most current ones as well – that person or thing you randomly meet so you can be sent off in a random direction and never have to meet them again. Yeah, it works well enough for games I suppose – but I don't recommend it in a story… get around it wherever possible. One thing I saw in the Wheel of Time books (by Robert Jordan) was having the rumors and such be heard OFFSCREEN, and delivered to the characters by someone they know. You

Literature

Choosing a Companion: A Guide

Choosing a Companion Alright, you've got your hero, your villain, your damsel maybe even a style of transformation and a monster too. Wanna know what comes next? No idea, yet! You should have figured out your companion aaaaaaages ago. There's very little that's more important than a good companion. Whether it's to lend support or kick them down, no hero can do it alone. Even if they really wish they could. The Loyal Companion: Most, though not all, companions fall into this overhead. Otherwise, they'd stab them in the back and run the moment they could. (See further down for that.) This is basically the companion that stands by the hero's

Bambs79

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Literature

Two Strains

I am the botanist, and I take care of the plants. While the rest of the crew were in cryosleep, I was the one who stayed awake, to tend the crops we would need to feed ourselves when the last step of our decades-long mission came and everyone was woken up. At the time I only needed to feed myself, and sustain the growth of the plants for the rest. Our main crop was wheat- a combination of two strains. The first and most numerous one was modified to make it more nutritious, resistant to various bugs, and better able to withstand the specific environmental challenges of space flight. The other -a strain of my own, packed into a tiny corner o

Literature

4 Tips for Attaining Realism in Fiction

4 Tips for Attaining Realism in Fiction Chapter 8 “From Story to Art” – Section 6 “Realism" Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0 “The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” -Tom Clancy When I was in college, I had a professor who explained to me the virtue of embellishing a story when telling it to others for the sake of entertainment. He explained that when you tell someone something that happens to you, it will always be more dull than it was when you were actually there. And since the purpose of telling someone a story like that is their own personal enjoyment, it is important t

Literature

Errant

It started when you recovered from your illness. Or perhaps when you got sick in the first place, or…well, really it began the day you first picked up sword and shield again. Not that you’d have changed that: life as a knight is the only thing you ever wanted. It was—it is, it still is—your honor to defend the folk of the kingdom. To hunt down the unclean things that steal through the dark. It’s a difficult task; the forces of the crown are spread thin these days, and you’re the only appointed knight in the surrounding villages. With the increasing reports of witches and night things about the borders, you

Tutorials and references

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Literature

Unique Character Design Tips

In my opinion, these are the most important factors in any character design: color, concept, shape, simplicity, cohesiveness, repeatability, personality and uniqueness. Color: Any design with colors all over the place creates too many places for the eye to look. Keep your color design very simple and zen. Looking at the colors shouldn't be jarring or confusing. This isn't to say only use one color, not at all, but try to make sure the ones you use are harmonious. Avoid mixing and matching different saturations of the same color or picking colors that clash with one another. My rule of thumb: Stick to no more than three base colors and some

Literature

8 Tips for Creating a Villain

8 Tips for Creating a Villain Anybody Can Write a Novel 2.0Chapter 5 “Characters” – Section 3.1 “Villains” (Previous Tutorial) (Next Tutorial) "The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by. Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I. Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am. Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason. Why: Lest I revenge. Myself upon myself? Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good That I myself have done unto myself? O no, alas, I rather hate myself For hateful deeds committed by mys

Intro to Character Arc

illuminara

Published: Jan 3, 2015

3.1K Views

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Description

So I haven't been around here much lately because of the holidays ... and because I've been creating stuff! Mostly personal, but I got an iPad with my Christmas money and played around with a cool app called Adobe Voice. It's a simple and awesome way to create informative videos, but sadly said video renders cannot be put on youtube, which severely limits the ability to share them on the internet ...

So I created this PDF instead. Sorry about the low quality! I might redo it into something better eventually, but I was just experimenting and wanted a quick way to share the results.

Anyhow, this is an intro/sneak peek at an article I'm working on that will cover the nuts and bolts of how to plot an entire character arc.

Click here to watch this as a video.