Discrimination against Muslims, especially Arab Muslims, is often attributed to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. However, the truth is that Islamophobia goes back centuries before that. From 18th-century oil paintings of scantily clad harem women to modern TV dramas, fiction has a long … read more »
When designing a romance, the first choice you’ll need to make is who the love interest is. That choice will heavily influence what makes the romance appealing, the type of chemistry between the love interest and protagonist, and what obstacles the romance might have to … read more »
Behold, you thought the story was about this character, but actually it was the cutesy animal companion pulling strings from behind the scenes. Aren’t you in awe of this clever twist? If you’ve ever beheld something like that, you’ve seen a puppeteer in the wild, … read more »
I am a (shamelessly) devoted reader of Mythcreants, so first I want to thank you guys for the always wonderful advice! Now, to the meat of the sandwich: I keep wondering this, but do ALL character flaws need to be overcome? In my book, the … read more »
Storytellers love character archetypes. They feel ancient and symbolic, and they’re just fun to play with. A while back, we mentioned archetypes we think stories are better without. To banish the rain on our archetype parade, here’s five we want to see more often. Read more »
We talk a lot about character competence, and one of our listeners had to remind us that we’d never really explained what that means. So this week, we explain ourselves. We talk about what competence means, why it’s important, and how competent various characters should … read more »
While incompetence is the villain’s bugbear, boredom is the death knell of a protagonist. A protagonist must carry the audience through the story. If the main character is boring, it can damage the story beyond repair. Read more »
What’s this? We’ve fallen through a portal into some kind of strange podcast universe. Oh well, might as well talk about stories where a character is transported from the real world into a fantasy setting. This podcast is Wes’ first time as an official co-host, … read more »
Your protagonist should be the most important character in your story. They have the emotional question to resolve, or they’re the key to solving a major crisis. But without meaning to, authors can overshadow their own protagonists with other characters. Naming all the ways this … read more »
Bad characters abound in our media, threatening to overwhelm our bastions of good storytelling. Or at least that’s how it can seem when you turn on the TV or flip through a random book. Many of these characters come from flawed archetypes that writers use … read more »
