Storyteller Quest 4

Encouragement

The last quest may have beat you up a bit. Congrats on coming back out for another quest! I knew you were a high-flyin’ buccaneer!

If you ever feel like you need writing help or more encouragement, then please email your quests to me and I’d be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Knowledge

In the last quest, we focused on conflict. Your characters are way more than their conflict!

Flat Characters - Those who do not change during the story. Typically, they are not very complicated.

Round Characters - They are complicated and change for better or for worse; grow or begin dying.

Examples:

In ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ (the movie) Peter Quill and Groot learn to become selfless while Gamora, Drax, and Rocket do not change, (yet they remain interesting because their constant nature helps to drive the story.) In the sequel, all the characters have a growth arc/ are round characters.

In ‘The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe’, Lucy is a flat character (doesn’t change) while her brother Edmund has a complicated change.

Characterization can be divided into internal and external.

External Characterization - How a character looks, moves, speaks and any outward behavior or mannerisms.

Internal Characterization - What a character thinks, motivates them and feels.

Inspiration

Can you think of a time in your life where you weren’t really growing as a person, but the surrounding people were? How did you interact with them?

Can you think of someone who said or did something to you that made you uncomfortable, but it helped you in the long run?

What is something that someone has had that you’ve wanted but you couldn’t stand the person who had it? What kind of person were they?

Challenge

Part 1. Brainstorm a round character based on the conflict you discovered during the challenge on the last quest. Predict possible ways the character will grow based on the conflict. Will they overcome it? Will it change them? Will they avoid it, which will lead to another conflict?

Part 2. Write what the round character thinks about the most, what motivates them to get up in the morning, and what they feel about the conflict. How will what they look like affect the conflict? Describe their physical attributes.

Part 3. Brainstorm two different flat characters and how they, being who they are, will be the best help to get the character into (and possibly out of) conflict. What is their relationship to the round character? How will their relationship, status, possessions, knowledge drive the round character to change?

Part 4. Place the round character into a comfortable setting (for them, based on their internal characterization) then write one of your flat characters into the setting so that the round character feels conflicted into wanting to leave the room for sake of external/internal comfort but also wants to stay because of internal/external desire.

Then email them to me here so I can give you some constructive feedback! Have fun with it!