I usually dont interact much, but holy moly if your videos aren't some of the best writing advice i've ever seen (even including some big names like sanderson)
I’ve been doing a lot of writing research to help improve my story and I hear a lot of the same terms and ideas thrown around and I always THINK I understand, until I watch your videos. They always clarify the haziness and get right to the heart of things. I’m so grateful you take the time to make these videos despite not feeling well. ❤
I'm so glad these videos help! It took me a long time to understand these things. It doesn't come naturally to me, and so I've tried really hard to explain things in a way that would have made sense to me back when I was watching/reading everything and still struggling to get it.
I like the idea of the MC's initial belief (in a positive arc) being a maladaptive way of preventing the opposite of the motivation; i.e., Shrek's motivation is acceptance, so he has a maladaptive belief (it's better to be alone because people will reject you otherwise) to avoid rejection.
Thank you so much! As a mostly character-driven writer, I do struggle with goals a lot and this video helped me realize I don't need a single 'main' goal since the goal can change throughout the story. And defining the goal as the way to get the core feeling the MC wants to have makes it easier for me to distinguish the goals and how they can move the story forward. I've already identified several goals in my current story and how they serve as the MC's attempts to get this feeling (in Bailey's case, love), and I'm hoping I can raise the stakes of the chapter I'm currently writing by connecting his current goal more directly to his motivation.
This is exactly the kind of content ive been looking for. Would love a series like your plot structure series, breaking down each kind of character arc.
Hi Ellen! Great information as always! I really like those summaries at the end as any video can be a lot of information and I think this helps me with implementing your advice for the next time I write. Thanks again for another articulate and well laid out lesson!
I am so grateful for your videos! They really hadn't helped increase my skill and have encouraged me to write my books. Thank you Ellen! Thank you for providing this information for free to every inspiring author.
Great video Ellen! Character arcs were the very thing I struggle with in writing my story, so I'm so glad you addressed this topic in this way. Please keep making awesome content 👍
I love your videos so much! This really helped me and cleared up some questions. However, once question I have is what do you do with major side characters (who later might become one the brim of main characters)? How detailed should their character arcs be, and how tied should they be to the plot? Amazing video as always Ellen!
Personally I think it's whole up to u and how much of the side characters are really 'side' characters, how involved are they with the protagonist or main characters? ☆~☆ Overall anything can work, best of luck buddy!!!
Wow! Really appreciate your explanation.. I was working on my MC to make him realistic and believable..and i was confused to find his true motivation. Thanks for great explanation 🥰💗✨
This truly brought home the relationships between these concepts. The notes in my second brain (Obsidian) that I take from your videos are some of the best I have. 💜
For example, in a fairy tale, character is musician, witnesses and experinces poverty in his village and is disillusioned with world where he lives, he lost his place in orchestra and wants to give up on music and hates the world for being the way it is. So, he is lured into corruptive arc by a villain who promises him a great cash if he makes a tune for party, like, new source of income, so he is thrilled with luxurios lifestyle, but he finds out in the middle that villain lures villagers into trap and uses him for his evil deeds, so, he decides to be a good guy again, but faces difficulties because he chased his friends and acted as a real bad guy. He was tricked and is a bit villanous, but not that much, so, it would require a change from midpoint and change in character description. He wants his chance to live normal life again if possible and go back to making music that will inspire others, but is under pressure of guilt and shame
Thank you so much, Ellen, this was very helpful! For stories with two main characters, how would one go about weaving two character arcs together? Do you have any advice for this? I've noticed that in romance novels, often authors focus only on one character's arc, while the other (the love interest) just acts as a foil and has no discernible arc of their own. Like if the male character has a lot of trauma to overcome and is acting out because of that, the female character tends to be almost saintly and just supports him through his personal journey. But those kinds of romances are very unsatisfying to me personally because one of the characters doesn't feel like a real person.
Thank you! So timely... i just today realized i need to understand this for my Nano story. #synchronicity Questions: do this for each character? Also, what is THEME & where does it fit with all this? Thank you so much!
Yesterday i was thinking about how no matter how much i studied creative writing, i couldn't get the character arc right, and now there's a video of my favorite writing channel about it. Thanks Ellen, you're doing an amazing job!
Hi Ellen! Thanks so much for another excellent video. I’ve seen these concepts explained several times before, in other videos and craft books, but I think this is the first time the explanation makes so much sense to me. It’s not the first time that’s true with one of your videos! One thing I’d like to see, maybe in a follow up video, are some movie or book examples for the three less common arcs. Although I understand them conceptually, I’m having a hard time coming up with examples that illustrate them.
HI Ellen, could you please make a video on the different genres? I am soo incredibly confused over what literary ficton, adult fiction, fiction and commercial fiction are. As a YA/NA writer can I submit to those genres?
5:20 I've had a really hard time with the motivation. So recently I found out that I should organize it better. The character's internal and external conflicts and desires. Example: Internal desire love. Lie: I'm unlovable. Fear: Rejection. External: Motivation: Find the love of their life. Conflict: People think she's ugly so how could she date? Goal: Always have makeup on. Some sort Some sort of reason why she couldn't decide to just wear makeup in the first place would be interesting. Like Maybe she has severe acne and her parents cannot afford expensive skin care, extra.
Ellen you give by far the best writing advice I've ever heard! The way you break down and explain the concepts is so simple and elegant, and actually makes me excited to write, rather than feeling overwhelmed and out of my league. Thank you thank you thank you!! Please never stop making videos
It took me months of google research and TH-cam watching to find this information. Except, you present this info in such a nicely compacted, condensed way. My 12 pages of feral info... vs your paragraph of pure gold. TY ❤
Your videos are so good. I’ve heard so much about motivation, goal and beliefs. So much. But now I feel like I really get it. You are very good at this. Thank you.
I love this! Thank you so much! It took me a while to realize what my character's goal was and this actually helped me figure it out :) and made me want to rewatch Shrek :)
Your videos are tremendously helpful! New to creative writing but loving it. Have a question. What is your opinion of Save the Cat formula. Am writing with a flat arc main charachter and that formula doesnt seem to accommodate such an arc. Would truly appreciate your comments.
My favorite + - + is definitly Wei Wuxian's character arch in The Untamed/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It was my first time realizing that a character doesn't have to change who they were as a person for a story to be good. And he does change but at his core he is the same person. Plus he is just a ton of fun haha
Hi Ellen. Thanks for all the useful content. I’m writing my first novel and I have four main characters. Do they all need an arc, or can the story be driven by just one or two arcs?
Hi Ellen, I've just found your channel and am so grateful for you! I'm embarking on writing my first novel and have been struggling to know where to start, how to plan etc. This has really helped me understand what questions I need to ask myself in order to write this story. Thank you!
Luke Skywalker is a great example of the light flat arc. Luke persists in the belief that Vader has good in him even as everyone else (including Vader himself) says that Vader is too far gone. It makes things harder for Luke, but ultimately more rewarding.
Could we say that "the belief" is the idea that achieving "the goal" will bring happiness, and "the lesson" is the realization that it won't, because what actually leads to happiness is "the motivation"?
Thank you so much Ellen! Thanks to your video I finally nailed down the foundations of my three main characters' arcs! Now the next challenge is to make all their arcs connected somehow. I think that'd be great idea for a video, how to make the main characters' arcs relate to eachother in a story.
Are there more complex arc versions? For some stories there are more complex moral issues that probably require different arc, or different outcome for characters. I am most probably over-complicating, but it seems that in some stories arcs should have been more changeable or different.
Thank you, for this and all your other work here on youtube. My head is spinning with the mechanics of writing but through watching and rewatching, the pieces are slowly falling into place. After this video, I revisited my current story and created a simple arc overview which I can now write against. If my character veers off track, I simply use the overview as my guide to question which direction they would take next.
So, a flat character arc is when the character rejects the lesson and refuses to change. I'd assume that in a sense, you can first have a positive or negative arc where the lesson is learned but then later proven wrong and unlearned, returning the character back to where it started in that regard making the overall arc flat; i.e. you could have a flat arc that consists of a positive and a negative arc in sequence. Although it's mostly just semantics, I guess, and you could really treat it either way.
I love your videos. They are straightforward, detailed, and really help me think about my stories and writing. I really needed to hear about this topic in particular. I think I finally figured out how to move into my story's climax. Thank you so much for this! As a side note: I'd love to see a video about how the character arc intersects with the darkest hour plot point.
Great video. When I came across the belief centered model as supposed to the lie to truth model I imeadiatly new that it was better, The seperation between goal and motivation just clicked the final piece into place for me. That being said I think ill be using the term desire instead of motivation, as it is not as easy to confuse it with the goal.
Another great video that sparked so much inspiration! You are able to phrase your explanations in a really clear way that opens my mind each time - I want to go back to my novel immediately. Your advices are always so precious. Thank you! ❤
This was brilliant! It literally helped me finish working out these elements for one of my main characters. Now I feel much more excited to write the next section of this first draft 😊
Great vid. Can you cover how much arc to put in a long, episodic, series in book one in your next vid on arcs, please. I find your attention to detail very helpful. I have a full arc for book one and an arc for the series but unsure if I have two arcs for book one as he has a positive arc and a flat arc as he fails to change enough yet in the arc for the series.
Ellen, will you please read my book and tell me where I went wrong🫤I followed just about all the steps for character arc, inciting incident, internal/external conflicts, etc. I was super happy when it was published in May 2023, my very first middle grade historical fiction 😔but one review in Goodreads said it was amateurish writing. After reading that review, I just couldn't continue writing the draft for my 2nd book. Help😢
Ive wondered IF, no mattee WHAT sorta scene, about anything, from ANY character... IF strait writing scenes when writing can ACTUALLY aid in helping write a good even great story in logical, meaningful ways that make sense. In many similar ways to when for example Movies an Shows we often see WEREN'T anywhere near shot linearly an in the order presented
Hello, this has been wonderful in terms of actually understanding character arcs instead of finding videos that talk more or just about character development, so thank you! Would it be possible for you to make a vid to cover the topic of writing for a game, and the differences you see between novels and game writing in storytelling? If not no worries, but I believe I would love to hear your take on it. Have a great day!
Great explanation! I've always found motivation part easy, but struggled with making up clear external goal. After watching the video and reflecting over how the goals look like in some of my latest reads, I was able to think of a few possible goals for my current project's mc. Thank you!
You are the best at explaining the ins and outs of story and character. I know I can trust your videos to be full of useful quality information. Thank you so much! I didn't even think about goal-oriented or motivation-oriented characters. It's a totally new concept to me. Wow! 😃🥰
Hi Ellen, I discovered your videos on writing a couple days ago. I'm so glad I did! I've been doing research to improve my writing recently and I appreciate the way you explain different writing components. This video in particular continues to be a great help to me as I've referred to it for my manuscript. Thank you for these videos, I appreciate you and believe I'm becoming a stronger writer because of your willingness to share your expertise with us!
Sometimes, the main character is the one who states the lesson instead of the side characters. And I actually really like it, because it shows they either are just pretending around others or that they haven't fully taken the lesson to heart. Like in Toy Story, early on Woody states the lesson, "It doesn't matter how much we're played with. What matters is that we're here for Andy when he needs us." But he's just completely pretending for the sake of making the other toys accept their "lesser" positions in the toy hierarchy. Meanwhile, he absolutely thinks it matters how much a toy is played with, and being anything less than Andy's favorite toy means he's losing his value. Or possibly, he THINKS he believes what he's saying, but once his position as the favorite toy is challenged, his true beliefs are revealed and it's clear that he never actually took that lesson to heart even while pushing that lesson onto others.
You explain things so clearly, thank you! I have three main characters who briefly share their journey and then become antagonists. I realized I could only easily assign motivation, goal, belief and lesson to one of them. I'll keep on brute forcing Y first drafts in hopes they begin to take a more recognizable form to the shape it for the second draft. At least I now know what to aim for. Also, the character I whose elements I could recognize has a flat arc dark version for book 1 and a positive arc for book 2 (the final one). I always thought she had a negative character arc but her belief was negative to begin with so that wasn't the case, so thanks for that as well.
Thanks for your tips throughout the years! Idea I'd love to see for a next video: The benefits of using a typewriter compared to a computer for editing your works!
The audacity I have every time I think that I don't *really* have to watch another Ellen video, and then each time you absolutely crush that one problem i didn't even knew I had! It's always that weird feeling that creeps in the back of my head that I ignore because I don't understand how to fix it 😭 Your videos are pure gold!
Well done Ellen! I'd read tons of story structure books but has always struggled to totally grasp this one. I'm just a few minutes into this video but it's already beginning to click. Good work and thank you.
I usually dont interact much, but holy moly if your videos aren't some of the best writing advice i've ever seen (even including some big names like sanderson)
Wow, thank you! That means a lot!
I’ve been doing a lot of writing research to help improve my story and I hear a lot of the same terms and ideas thrown around and I always THINK I understand, until I watch your videos. They always clarify the haziness and get right to the heart of things. I’m so grateful you take the time to make these videos despite not feeling well. ❤
I'm so glad these videos help! It took me a long time to understand these things. It doesn't come naturally to me, and so I've tried really hard to explain things in a way that would have made sense to me back when I was watching/reading everything and still struggling to get it.
I saw the notification, did a little dance and immediately started watching it ✨
I hope you find it helpful!
same!! :)
Suck up…
Haha jk ;)
I need to do the same! I love these videos sooo much. I rewatched the writer types at least 4 times.
I love every single one of your videos! You are so thorough and technical. It helps so much!
I'm so glad!
Not only are these analysis useful, they're structured in such an elegant way that they have a beauty in themselves.
Us doing NaNoWriMo: Augh! Everything stinks! This is awful. Won't someone please help?!
Ellen: I come now in your darkest hour of need!
Ha ha! NaNoWriMo is so hard. Good luck! I hope this helps, even if only a little!
"The lesson will always be the opposite of the belief."
"The belief should cause problems in the story."
I needed these explanations.
your explanation of the motivation is really good, clarifies it and made it click in a way other sources didnt
Awesome! Glad to hear it!
I appreciate you clarifying the difference between motivation and goal
I like the idea of the MC's initial belief (in a positive arc) being a maladaptive way of preventing the opposite of the motivation; i.e., Shrek's motivation is acceptance, so he has a maladaptive belief (it's better to be alone because people will reject you otherwise) to avoid rejection.
Thank you so much! As a mostly character-driven writer, I do struggle with goals a lot and this video helped me realize I don't need a single 'main' goal since the goal can change throughout the story. And defining the goal as the way to get the core feeling the MC wants to have makes it easier for me to distinguish the goals and how they can move the story forward. I've already identified several goals in my current story and how they serve as the MC's attempts to get this feeling (in Bailey's case, love), and I'm hoping I can raise the stakes of the chapter I'm currently writing by connecting his current goal more directly to his motivation.
I'm so glad this video helped you with figuring out the goals! Good luck with your novel!
@@EllenBrock Thank you!
I was just thinking yesterday that I hope theres a new Ellen Brock video soon, and here we are!
This is exactly the kind of content ive been looking for. Would love a series like your plot structure series, breaking down each kind of character arc.
Had to pause the video when I heard your definition for character motivation. "A feeling that the character wants to experience". It's so good!
Hi Ellen! Great information as always! I really like those summaries at the end as any video can be a lot of information and I think this helps me with implementing your advice for the next time I write. Thanks again for another articulate and well laid out lesson!
You are so welcome! I'm glad you liked the summary at the end!
I am so grateful for your videos! They really hadn't helped increase my skill and have encouraged me to write my books. Thank you Ellen! Thank you for providing this information for free to every inspiring author.
Great video Ellen! Character arcs were the very thing I struggle with in writing my story, so I'm so glad you addressed this topic in this way. Please keep making awesome content 👍
I love your videos so much! This really helped me and cleared up some questions. However, once question I have is what do you do with major side characters (who later might become one the brim of main characters)? How detailed should their character arcs be, and how tied should they be to the plot?
Amazing video as always Ellen!
Personally I think it's whole up to u and how much of the side characters are really 'side' characters, how involved are they with the protagonist or main characters? ☆~☆
Overall anything can work, best of luck buddy!!!
Wow! Really appreciate your explanation.. I was working on my MC to make him realistic and believable..and i was confused to find his true motivation. Thanks for great explanation 🥰💗✨
Glad it was helpful!
This truly brought home the relationships between these concepts. The notes in my second brain (Obsidian) that I take from your videos are some of the best I have. 💜
Thanks for this breakdown! Super informative as always
Great explanation. Thank you! (Hope you feel better soon 🙂)
Thank you!
For example, in a fairy tale, character is musician, witnesses and experinces poverty in his village and is disillusioned with world where he lives, he lost his place in orchestra and wants to give up on music and hates the world for being the way it is. So, he is lured into corruptive arc by a villain who promises him a great cash if he makes a tune for party, like, new source of income, so he is thrilled with luxurios lifestyle, but he finds out in the middle that villain lures villagers into trap and uses him for his evil deeds, so, he decides to be a good guy again, but faces difficulties because he chased his friends and acted as a real bad guy. He was tricked and is a bit villanous, but not that much, so, it would require a change from midpoint and change in character description. He wants his chance to live normal life again if possible and go back to making music that will inspire others, but is under pressure of guilt and shame
I was just checking yesterday to see if you posted a new video and I missed the notification somehow and now there’s a new video yayyy!! ❤️
Thank you so much, Ellen, this was very helpful! For stories with two main characters, how would one go about weaving two character arcs together? Do you have any advice for this?
I've noticed that in romance novels, often authors focus only on one character's arc, while the other (the love interest) just acts as a foil and has no discernible arc of their own. Like if the male character has a lot of trauma to overcome and is acting out because of that, the female character tends to be almost saintly and just supports him through his personal journey. But those kinds of romances are very unsatisfying to me personally because one of the characters doesn't feel like a real person.
Sorry, guys, I'm busy today. New Ellen Brock video dropped.
So helpful. Great video! Thank you!
Glad it was helpful!
*Q:* would these four components of character arc apply to the antagonist?
I believe they would
Thank you! So timely... i just today realized i need to understand this for my Nano story. #synchronicity Questions: do this for each character? Also, what is THEME & where does it fit with all this? Thank you so much!
Yesterday i was thinking about how no matter how much i studied creative writing, i couldn't get the character arc right, and now there's a video of my favorite writing channel about it. Thanks Ellen, you're doing an amazing job!
Hi Ellen! Thanks so much for another excellent video. I’ve seen these concepts explained several times before, in other videos and craft books, but I think this is the first time the explanation makes so much sense to me. It’s not the first time that’s true with one of your videos! One thing I’d like to see, maybe in a follow up video, are some movie or book examples for the three less common arcs. Although I understand them conceptually, I’m having a hard time coming up with examples that illustrate them.
HI Ellen, could you please make a video on the different genres? I am soo incredibly confused over what literary ficton, adult fiction, fiction and commercial fiction are. As a YA/NA writer can I submit to those genres?
5:20 I've had a really hard time with the motivation. So recently I found out that I should organize it better. The character's internal and external conflicts and desires.
Example: Internal desire love. Lie: I'm unlovable. Fear: Rejection.
External: Motivation: Find the love of their life. Conflict: People think she's ugly so how could she date? Goal: Always have makeup on. Some sort Some sort of reason why she couldn't decide to just wear makeup in the first place would be interesting. Like Maybe she has severe acne and her parents cannot afford expensive skin care, extra.
Ellen you give by far the best writing advice I've ever heard! The way you break down and explain the concepts is so simple and elegant, and actually makes me excited to write, rather than feeling overwhelmed and out of my league. Thank you thank you thank you!! Please never stop making videos
It took me months of google research and TH-cam watching to find this information.
Except, you present this info in such a nicely compacted, condensed way.
My 12 pages of feral info... vs your paragraph of pure gold.
TY ❤
Thank you!! That's beyond helpful! Love your videos!
So glad it helped!
Your videos are so good. I’ve heard so much about motivation, goal and beliefs. So much. But now I feel like I really get it. You are very good at this. Thank you.
I love this! Thank you so much! It took me a while to realize what my character's goal was and this actually helped me figure it out :) and made me want to rewatch Shrek :)
Your videos are tremendously helpful! New to creative writing but loving it. Have a question. What is your opinion of Save the Cat formula. Am writing with a flat arc main charachter and that formula doesnt seem to accommodate such an arc. Would truly appreciate your comments.
I'm more character oriented, but I have absolutely no idea what my MC's motivation is... at all....
My favorite + - + is definitly Wei Wuxian's character arch in The Untamed/Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu. It was my first time realizing that a character doesn't have to change who they were as a person for a story to be good. And he does change but at his core he is the same person. Plus he is just a ton of fun haha
This is really helpful, I'm really glad you used shrek as an example. My smooth brain appreciates it.
Hi Ellen. Thanks for all the useful content. I’m writing my first novel and I have four main characters. Do they all need an arc, or can the story be driven by just one or two arcs?
Hi Ellen, I've just found your channel and am so grateful for you! I'm embarking on writing my first novel and have been struggling to know where to start, how to plan etc. This has really helped me understand what questions I need to ask myself in order to write this story. Thank you!
Luke Skywalker is a great example of the light flat arc. Luke persists in the belief that Vader has good in him even as everyone else (including Vader himself) says that Vader is too far gone. It makes things harder for Luke, but ultimately more rewarding.
Thanks a lot. With this I am going to get going building my characters before starting writing my next story
Thanks Ellen. You're the first person I've ever supported on Patreon. You deserve it! I hope Toby enjoys his bone :)
I'm so glad I stumbled over your videos. They are great! Good examples and well explained❤
Could we say that "the belief" is the idea that achieving "the goal" will bring happiness, and "the lesson" is the realization that it won't, because what actually leads to happiness is "the motivation"?
This is the best video about character arc. You summarized it very well and put it on a simply way that I can understand it.
Thank you so much Ellen! Thanks to your video I finally nailed down the foundations of my three main characters' arcs! Now the next challenge is to make all their arcs connected somehow. I think that'd be great idea for a video, how to make the main characters' arcs relate to eachother in a story.
Are there more complex arc versions? For some stories there are more complex moral issues that probably require different arc, or different outcome for characters. I am most probably over-complicating, but it seems that in some stories arcs should have been more changeable or different.
Thank you, for this and all your other work here on youtube. My head is spinning with the mechanics of writing but through watching and rewatching, the pieces are slowly falling into place. After this video, I revisited my current story and created a simple arc overview which I can now write against. If my character veers off track, I simply use the overview as my guide to question which direction they would take next.
Best advice on topic that I've run across. I don't say that casually. I've read whole books on the topic and came away with less.
This video was already great and then you started talking about shrek….subscribed!
So, a flat character arc is when the character rejects the lesson and refuses to change. I'd assume that in a sense, you can first have a positive or negative arc where the lesson is learned but then later proven wrong and unlearned, returning the character back to where it started in that regard making the overall arc flat; i.e. you could have a flat arc that consists of a positive and a negative arc in sequence. Although it's mostly just semantics, I guess, and you could really treat it either way.
excellent presentation, thanks Ellen. You get down to the core things we all need to use in our work
I love your videos. They are straightforward, detailed, and really help me think about my stories and writing. I really needed to hear about this topic in particular. I think I finally figured out how to move into my story's climax.
Thank you so much for this!
As a side note: I'd love to see a video about how the character arc intersects with the darkest hour plot point.
Thank you for your videos! You always explain things in a way that clicks for me and leaves me empowered for my own writing ❤
Great video. When I came across the belief centered model as supposed to the lie to truth model I imeadiatly new that it was better, The seperation between goal and motivation just clicked the final piece into place for me. That being said I think ill be using the term desire instead of motivation, as it is not as easy to confuse it with the goal.
I was just wondering, is the motivation different from the overall theme of the story?
Another great video that sparked so much inspiration! You are able to phrase your explanations in a really clear way that opens my mind each time - I want to go back to my novel immediately. Your advices are always so precious. Thank you! ❤
This was brilliant! It literally helped me finish working out these elements for one of my main characters. Now I feel much more excited to write the next section of this first draft 😊
Great vid. Can you cover how much arc to put in a long, episodic, series in book one in your next vid on arcs, please. I find your attention to detail very helpful. I have a full arc for book one and an arc for the series but unsure if I have two arcs for book one as he has a positive arc and a flat arc as he fails to change enough yet in the arc for the series.
Should this type of character arc be applicable to more involved side characters that have an impact to the main characters growth?
Yes, side characters can have arcs that follow these same rules/patterns.
Thank you!!
even as a already published author your videos help out tremendously. Keep up the good work
This was extremely helpful. Thank you so much
I would be curious to learn how to build a small cast of characters for a story who all have character arcs but they work together and intertwine
I have these Three Investigators books. My favorite series as a kid, which give me the desire to write stories. ☺
ELLEN BROCK IS BACK
Great break down on this subject. 👏
Ellen, will you please read my book and tell me where I went wrong🫤I followed just about all the steps for character arc, inciting incident, internal/external conflicts, etc. I was super happy when it was published in May 2023, my very first middle grade historical fiction 😔but one review in Goodreads said it was amateurish writing. After reading that review, I just couldn't continue writing the draft for my 2nd book. Help😢
It's been a very useful video. I really have learnt a lot❤
would it work for a character to start negative and end even worse?
This is a great video! Thank you so much!
Great video! I would love to hear more about character arc ❤
This is the most helpful video on this topic I've seen.
Awesome! 👏👏👏
That motivation bit is incredible
Amazing content! Thanks!
This is Awesome!!! Thank You!!
Thanks a lot for the wonderful advice. Keep doing it.
Sorry I didn't see this sooner! Thank you so much for your support!
great stuff, thank you
Ive wondered IF, no mattee WHAT sorta scene, about anything, from ANY character... IF strait writing scenes when writing can ACTUALLY aid in helping write a good even great story in logical, meaningful ways that make sense. In many similar ways to when for example Movies an Shows we often see WEREN'T anywhere near shot linearly an in the order presented
This was pretty awesome
A key insight, explained perfectly. This brings much needed focus to my storytelling. You are brilliant. Thank you!
Hello, this has been wonderful in terms of actually understanding character arcs instead of finding videos that talk more or just about character development, so thank you! Would it be possible for you to make a vid to cover the topic of writing for a game, and the differences you see between novels and game writing in storytelling? If not no worries, but I believe I would love to hear your take on it. Have a great day!
Great explanation!
I've always found motivation part easy, but struggled with making up clear external goal. After watching the video and reflecting over how the goals look like in some of my latest reads, I was able to think of a few possible goals for my current project's mc.
Thank you!
You are the best at explaining the ins and outs of story and character. I know I can trust your videos to be full of useful quality information. Thank you so much! I didn't even think about goal-oriented or motivation-oriented characters. It's a totally new concept to me. Wow! 😃🥰
Hi Ellen, I discovered your videos on writing a couple days ago. I'm so glad I did! I've been doing research to improve my writing recently and I appreciate the way you explain different writing components. This video in particular continues to be a great help to me as I've referred to it for my manuscript. Thank you for these videos, I appreciate you and believe I'm becoming a stronger writer because of your willingness to share your expertise with us!
Sometimes, the main character is the one who states the lesson instead of the side characters. And I actually really like it, because it shows they either are just pretending around others or that they haven't fully taken the lesson to heart.
Like in Toy Story, early on Woody states the lesson, "It doesn't matter how much we're played with. What matters is that we're here for Andy when he needs us." But he's just completely pretending for the sake of making the other toys accept their "lesser" positions in the toy hierarchy. Meanwhile, he absolutely thinks it matters how much a toy is played with, and being anything less than Andy's favorite toy means he's losing his value. Or possibly, he THINKS he believes what he's saying, but once his position as the favorite toy is challenged, his true beliefs are revealed and it's clear that he never actually took that lesson to heart even while pushing that lesson onto others.
You explain things so clearly, thank you! I have three main characters who briefly share their journey and then become antagonists. I realized I could only easily assign motivation, goal, belief and lesson to one of them. I'll keep on brute forcing Y first drafts in hopes they begin to take a more recognizable form to the shape it for the second draft. At least I now know what to aim for.
Also, the character I whose elements I could recognize has a flat arc dark version for book 1 and a positive arc for book 2 (the final one). I always thought she had a negative character arc but her belief was negative to begin with so that wasn't the case, so thanks for that as well.
Absolutely great video, a very solid explanation of some very important things worth considering when writing a story.
This is really helpful, thanks! The Shrek example clarified things for me.
Thanks for your tips throughout the years!
Idea I'd love to see for a next video:
The benefits of using a typewriter compared to a computer for editing your works!
The audacity I have every time I think that I don't *really* have to watch another Ellen video, and then each time you absolutely crush that one problem i didn't even knew I had! It's always that weird feeling that creeps in the back of my head that I ignore because I don't understand how to fix it 😭 Your videos are pure gold!
Well done Ellen! I'd read tons of story structure books but has always struggled to totally grasp this one. I'm just a few minutes into this video but it's already beginning to click. Good work and thank you.
Insightful video - concept well explained and actionable. thanks
This was incredibly helpful! Very concise, simple, and detailed.
Perfect timing, Ellen. Thank you for the clear distinctions and tips.