This (remote & asynchronous) class is about developing all sorts of characters but does so through an examination of the most fun kind--villains!
It's about how to create complexity in characters--sometimes building it (counterintuitively) through flatness, sometimes through the opposite. And we also get to do some deep thinking about the nature of evil and what it can mean to empathize with those we also abhor. It's one of my favorites!
Starts Mar. 15.
And you know, when characters are not V-illains, but just regular people who make harmful choices, it's really interesting to think about what sort of value system they have and how/whether they messed up according to that system, especially if it's not the same value system as another character--or the reader. Sometimes moral frameworks clash in ways that are very generative for stories.
#WritingCommunity #WritingClass #writing #Characterization #WritingCraft #AmWriting
@allisonwyss I aspire to write only regular people making harmful choices, but it can be hard. Creating characters who are evil for evil's sake is like a cheat code for creating conflict.
One of my favorite tropes, and I do this constantly in my own writing, is to take the flaws of my protagonists and say, "what if the antagonist has the same flaw, but they respond to it way more dysfunctionally?" The dark mirror/shadow trope, I believe it's called. Like Buffy and Faith from BtVS.
Oh I love that. The same basic flaw CAN manifest in different and interesting ways.
And then shadow self is definitely something I love to talk about in relation to all kinds of characters, really. It's such a great way to surface the inner stuff that's going on.
Allison Wyss
Shauna GM