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How to write a character-driven plot

The Character-Driven Plot Wheel

1. Emotions drive actions.

Make your hero act on their deepfelt emotions. This not only adds meaning to their actions, but also helps communicate to readers your hero’s core emotional struggle.

2. Actions trigger consequences.

When your hero acts, give their actions consequences that affect the plot, themselves, and/or the surrounding characters. For example, driven by curiosity, maybe your hero opens Pandora’s box; maybe they act recklessly and someone dies; or maybe they stand up for what they believe in, but at great personal cost. Consequences raise the stakes and empower your hero with agency.

3. Consequences compel change.

Use the consequences of your hero’s actions to create a crucible of growth — challenges and situations that force them to take the next step on their character journey. That step may be forward, or backward, and it may be large or small; but something inside them changes.

4. Change influences emotions.

When a character goes through a change, even a small one, allow it to affect them emotionally. Maybe they feel increasingly frustrated or guilty. Maybe they’re afraid, having just taken another step closer to abandoning their old way of seeing the world. Or maybe they finally feel peace.

Regardless of the form it takes, remember to reflect your hero’s change in their emotions. Then let their emotions drive action, to trigger consequences, which will compel further change.

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

And there you have it! That’s how you write a character-driven plot.

So what do you say?

Give the wheel a spin.

— — —

Your stories are worth telling. For tips on how to craft meaning, build character-driven plots, and grow as a writer, follow my blog.

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some things i’ve learned while studying in quarantine

drink more water instead of more coffee.

weekly goals are bullshit. set yourself 3-day goals. you’ll be less laid-back.

don’t just mindlessly stare at words. before you start studying, know your approach to it. have a plan.

summarizing the concept in your own words is the key part of taking notes. don’t just copy things down, convert them into your own way of talking, your own vocabulary, no matter how dumb and unprofessional it sounds.

don’t let the “studyblr aesthetic” fool you. studying doesn’t have to be pretty. summaries and notes can be messy as long as they’re comprehensible. you can always rewrite and reorganize them later. (honestly, you better do. and you better keep them.)

don’t throw away the papers you’ve solved your problems in. staple them to the fucking textbook. you need to see them constantly. cause you’ll need reminders of how far you’ve came, when you’re feeling discouraged.

don’t be an armchair analyst for your issues. if you have an idea then act on it.

remember: the exact point where it becomes difficult, is where your growth begins. take a deep breath, and try to focus on the paragraph in front of you.

get off your high horse and understand that if you’re a zero, you won’t go to 100 in a couple of days. first, you’ll need to reach 30, then from 30 to 60, and then from 60 to 90. nobody is 100 everyday. that happens very rarely.

you need to have fun everyday. you need to have peaceful time every single day. even on exam night. especially on exam night, actually. so make sure you’ve studied enough so you can have some time to yourself.

once you’re on a roll and in need of some challenge to stay on track, start writing down your studying hours. tell yourself you’re not allowed to do less than 80% of what you did yesterday. whatever the hell it was, even just one hour. so if yesterday you really studied for like, say 8 hours, today your goal is to study for at least 6 and a half hours. if you can’t keep up with that, make it 70%, or 60%. 

be forgiving of yourself. be kind to yourself. even if you bounced back and lost your streak. start again. as slowly as you did before. take your time. it’s okay, you were there once you can get there again.

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THE CHICAGO POLICE HAVE ARRESTED JUSTIN COSBY AND ARE LYING ABOUT HIS LOCATION

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I live for terrible art. Note: I don’t like art that is intentionally or ironically terrible, I like things that are just so earnestly inept and/or bizarre that they fail as what they are trying to be but horseshoe back around into glorious postmodernistic portraits of their creators.

I went to a Goodwill today (my friend needed help carrying a couch and we practiced good social distancing!) and I found a DOOZY of a book. It’s called Decoded Dog, so I picked it up thinking “oh cool, a book about dog behavior or genetics or something, relevant to my blog an interests!” - I was NOT PREPARED for “A Canine Mystery Novel”

Then I turn it over and BOY HOWDY did I strike gold.

So it’s speculative fiction about a dog pandemic that takes a hard left into the guardrail about 2/3rds of the way through and becomes a big pharma conspiracy thriller with what seems to be (from the brief skimming I did in the car on the way home) a concerning amount of anti-vax sentiment. The author is a PhD geneticist and standard poodle enthusiast, so there are literal whole pages passive-aggressively espousing the merits of poodles written with the poetic nuance of a hard-science dissertation. The rest of the book is mostly pages upon pages of dense, stilted exposition trying desperately to explain graduate-level virology to an audience that would buy a “canine mystery novel”. The author also apparently rescues poodles with Addison’s disease, so there is a ton of information about canine Addison’s shoehorned in throughout - like, enough that it feels like paid product placement but for an adrenal disorder.

Overall, this book is topical, timely, dogs. 14/10 absolute masterpiece that I am so excited to dive into whole hog, please stay tuned for a review of the whole book

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one of like three statement givers with half a braincell

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*tom nook voice* isabelle pass me my golf club

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I made a quiz, its 36 questions, and y’all, I play-tested this, I got feedback, I hyper-analyzed, its good. I wasn’t like, I was gonna just let hogwarts houses die but apparently y’all be like,,, not knowing what a slytherin or hufflepuff is no shade and if all these quizzes are gonna ask you this question anyways: this is it. Idiot tested. Idiot approved

take it here! or copy paste if you need to https://uquiz.com/oz0xOu

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“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.

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what about no

there’s been a lot of people comparing wiggly to cthulu but consider:

cthuwu

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The Suffering Game

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it’s the bad man elias again!!!

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whats good i stayed up on a sunday to draw apocalypse girlfriends i reger t no thin 

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Bad quality but i had to put my Elias out there

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joyous candlenights

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fitzroy half trancing:

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Duck’s search history, probably