Writing Tactic:

What makes White Collar hold up so much better than other police procedurals:

It was part of the "pretty happy shows with gorgeous ensemble casts and a charismatic weird guy" USA network era but it somehow used that to be about stuff that is so REAL

What is justice? Is our system fair? Can you be a criminal and still be a good man? Can you be a good man and still work for the system?

The bad guys are rich assholes, and people defrauding families out of their homes, and unethical pharmaceutical companies. People manipulating energy supply out of greed resulting in blackouts which are showing *harming a dog,* aka how to show something is monstrous in a pg show written by a white person. Class exists in this universe in more ways than having a cardboard concept of a "rich guy."

The bad guys include police, FBI agents, prison staff, judges, senators. Those people cause real harm, obstruct justice, plant evidence, kill people. It's shown how the system protects them and harms regular people.

The harm that causes the main character to go from wanting to be part of the system, to subverting and working against it, is him finding out about an act of police corruption, brutality, and murder--and what's more, that if he became a cop, that's what he could become.

The harm that causes the main character to be outside the white picket fence is that the system failed his family after that act. What happened to Neal's mom? Why did nobody besides Helen step in? They had to check in with US Marshals, did nobody notice this kid didn't have an adult fit to parent?

So Neal turns to found family. And let's be real, heavily polyamory coded found family at that. But he keeps chasing the idea of a girl who will be everything. But he's got all this attachment trauma so he never does. But because found family is real family, even the people who freaking played the characters are still connected a decade later

wishing all artists a very sincere "get weirder with it" this coming year

what is writing you ask

well, sometimes it's being in front of Word and typing sometimes it's spending forty minutes watching advanced tips and tricks on blacksmithing in order to understand a subject you know absolutely nothing about

I have a story with a group of protagonists, like team avatar or RWBY, like the typical group of characters in an action cartoon or something similar. But I can’t find a way to make them all plot important consistently. For most of them I can’t really find a character arc spanning the whole thing. Most of the character development gets blown in the first 4th of the plot and i don’t know how to fix that because the plot is built around character development. Characters will do certain plot important things only because their character developed to a certain point.

ADVICE INCOMING

Hello, Chosenwads! My apologies for not responding to this sooner. I am really terrible with keeping tracks of these.

But my advice to you would to be:

to take a step back and review your work from the beginning. I’m other words your characters to be exact. Sometimes when it comes to writing, people create characters first then work around a plot, or plot then characters.

As writers we all create a Character Bible. This Bible contains information and details about the character you created. It contains, name, physical details, family information, or any information you found important to the story.

Take a look at this and double check if what you had written still coincides with your vision of the story, and if it doesn’t that’s okay, rework the character till it does. There is nothing wrong with omitting characters if they just don’t fit with your plot, idea, or themes.

Second piece of advice would be:

to review the plot it’s self.

maybe take a look at story outlines to help you make out the story just a little more. There are multiple type of story outlines out there that can help and re-inspire you.

Third would be to:

Take a look at your character’s dialogue. Mayen you somehow didn’t write them out as you wanted to and created me morphed them into something else.

Reviewing your character’s dialogue is a great way to find out if this is the case.

It will also help you rework and edit the character if you made changes to their bible.

Fourth would be:

I know it can be forgotten sometimes, but immerse yourself with the character.

Think what about what you would do or what your goals would be and how would you achieve them.

One thing as a writer is to always try “but what if..”

You said your character’s reached their character development try “but what if…”

Okay so character A reaches their goal and character development of being a better person but what if one of the people that helped them along the way backstabbed them and throws out their goal and challenges character A.

It’s a silly example but always ask “but what if…”

If all else fails there is nothing wrong with shelving the project and starting another one and working on it in the future. I’d say never throw out a project but maybe keep it in your back pocket.

I hope this helps! And I apologize for the delay in responding!

Dragon Age Inquisition Tarot, HQ: 1/10

May you find warmth and welcome

in the brighter days yet to dawn!

Merry may your holy halls become

filled with feast and friends’ song!

I know everyone says it’s best to just stick to “said” as a dialogue tag bc it disappears and that’s true and I mostly do but I want to take a moment for my all-time favorite dialogue tag, “lied.” Absolutely nothing hits like “‘I’m here to help,’ he lied.” NOTHING.

Your job is to guard a button that no one may push. Things get complex when both legendary heroes and villains arrive to attempt to push the mysterious button. Everyone seems to have a different idea about what the button does, but they all want to push it.

my dad–also a writer–came to visit, and i mentioned that the best thing to come out of the layoff is that i’m writing again. he asked what i was writing about, and i said what i always do: “oh, just fanfic,” which is code for “let’s not look at this too deeply because i’m basically just making action figures kiss in text form” and “this awkward follow-up question is exactly why i don’t call myself a writer in public.”

he said, “you have to stop doing that.”

“i know, i know,” because it’s even more embarrassing to be embarrassed about writing fanfic, considering how many posts i’ve reblogged in its defense.

but i misunderstood his original question: “fanfic is just the genre. i asked what you’re writing about.” 

i did the conversational equivalent of a spinning wheel cursor for at least a minute. i started peeling back the setting and the characters, the fic challenge and the specific episode the story jumps off from, and it was one of those slow-dawning light bulb moments. “i’m writing about loneliness, and who we are in the absence of purpose.”

as, i imagine, are a lot of people right now, who probably also don’t realize they’re writing an existential diary in the guise of getting television characters to fuck. 

“that’s what you’re writing. the rest is just how you get there, and how you get it out into the world. was richard iii really about richard the third? would shakespeare have gotten as many people to see it if it wasn’t a story they knew?”

so, my friends: what are you writing about?