Character deaths in stories can range from heart-grabbingly tragic to eye-rollingly stupid.
So how do you make sure that the characters in your stories will pluck at heartstrings instead of funny bones?
Let’s find out!
Tag: Harry Potter
Exposition is often seen as the worst thing a writer can do. If you have to directly tell the reader things, such as what a character looks like, their history, or explaining a situation, then you’ve failed as a writer, right?
Wrong! All authors use exposition to some extent. The only difference is that they use it for good instead of evil.
So let’s go over what make good exposition vs. bad exposition.
Writing a fight scene in a story might seem intimidating.
How can you possibly make a bout between two people as interesting as a movie or TV show?
Thankfully, it’s not actually that hard! And there’s some tips and tricks to help.
One of the most fun ways to play card games is by “drafting.”
You get packs of random cards, pick one card you like, pass the rest to people sitting with you, and repeat until all the cards are gone. Then you use what you picked to build a deck.
So if drafting cards is so much fun, would it be possible to “draft” a story?
Beginner writers always ask: how can I write about something that’s already been written?
What do you do when you want to write about a magical school, but Harry Potter already exists? Or a tournament where kids kill kids but Hunger Games already exists?
The answer is easy. It all lies in the twist.
Coming up with a haiku to caption a photo with can be a lot of fun.
But pitting a bunch of people against each other to see who can come up with the best haiku caption for a photo is even more fun!
Coming up with a name for a character in your story is like choosing a name for your child… only harder.
When you come up with a name for your kid, they don’t have a personality yet. No matter what name you pick, they’ll “grow into” it.
However, characters in stories already have personalities, and having the wrong name for your character can cause a mess. For example, writing a story about a modern-day high school where kids are named “Pigwilliam” and “Starex” isn’t going to fly, and neither will having an evil villain whose name is “Flower” (unless you’re trying to be funny).
So how do you create the perfect name? I’m glad you asked!
In real life, people should strive to solve their problems through compromise, level-headed talks, and mature actions.
But in fiction, the complete opposite is true! No one wants to read about a happy family solving their minor issues happily. We want to read about terrible things happening to downtrodden people. We want CONFLICT.
Aren’t humans weird?
Last writing stream certainly brought out some, uh, creative stories!
We started off with a writing exercise where we got a random word, and used it as our topic (our word was “contact”). Then we get five more random words and had to use them at some point in the story. Because nothing quite gets the creative juices flowing like having to connect seemingly-unrelated ideas.
After writing three different opening sentences and the chat picking the one they liked best, this is what I wrote (bolded words are the random words).
I recently re-read all seven Harry Potter books to see if my opinion of them had changed in the past decade. I’d always loved the first four, but could never quite get into the last three. They felt like they were missing the magic (wop wop) that the first four had.
And this time around too, unfortunately I didn’t like Order of the Phoenix, Half-Blood Prince, or Deathly Hallows much more than I had the first time I’d read them. Although there was one thing I did enjoy more about them this time: Voldemort’s Horcruxes.
They were certainly a lot more interesting
than the “mystery” of who the Half-Blood Prince was.
In my opinion, the Horcruxes are the best parts of the sixth and seventh books. Up until their reveal, we never knew how Voldemort survived being hit by the killing curse. Learning that he used actual, concrete magic to do it, rather than just ambiguous magic like “magical willpower” or “the impermanence of evil” gives the stories more depth and makes them feel more real.
But one thing struck me as odd. Even though we learn all about Horcruxes in books six and seven, we never learn one of the most obvious things about them: how do you make one? Yes, we know you need to commit a murder, thereby “splitting” your soul, and then put that “split” part into a container, but there’s more to it than that.