@@seanmurphy7011dude this would be way less sad/funny if you ever had anything even remotely substantial to say in retort, instead of hanging around a supposedly useless channel to announce to everyone how little you care for it like a pouting, passive agressive 14 year old girl
Characters are not people? Impossible. How am I expected to not make the villains just my high school bullies and the love interest just my ex girlfriend?
Don’t worry. You can still make your main character the quirky relatable center of the universe who gets rewarded for being socially incompetent. The hero you always knew you deserved to be
Someone I know once began a story way back, about a war in space. Early into the action, one of the main characters got suddenly killed off; no payoff, not even any parting words cuz it was a shot to the head, and another main character hadn't even gotten to confess his love to her. So when I called this out, author went: "that's what happens in war, people die." Again, *one of the main characters, early into the action.*
In regards to the Puss in Boots thing, I never really saw the ending as him "arcing his way out" of PTSD/thanatophobia, but rather learning to cope with them well enough that his fear of death doesn't rule his life and prevent him from living it properly. I think that's the purpose of the last line the two characters exchange- establishing that Puss has come to accept that this is his destiny one day, like everyone else
it helps that fear of death very often is one of those issues that does just sort of go away with the right life experiences. I used to spend every waking moment thinking about my demise, terrified of making any connection, and then I just realised and internalised how unhelpful that worldview was and things changed very quickly. my other mental issues have been a much longer battle but that one really did mostly clear up over the course of a month
it's definitely normal to sometimes be afraid of death! talking it out really does help. i feel like it's one of those things where you eventually just realise like, oh, everyone ever deals with this and we all still keep living, yknow? and then the flareups become more of an event than a constant @@plantinapot9169
@@mxnevermind The fear of death is an interesting subject because of it's connection to regret too. All regrets, in some way, link back to a fear of dying without living life "properly." I think more people fear how death makes them think about their lives rather than dying itself.
"I don't want my stories to be realistic, I want them believable." It's not "suspension of disbelief", it's "WILLING suspension of disbelief" and that distinction is so ridiculously important.
@@jamesholdername Then it is non-fiction (or something along the spectrum). Writing biographies is ok, writing biographies about fictional characters is ok too. Biographies are about being accurate. Personally, I hate reading biographies, but they sell so well that we know many people like them. Some people don't like fiction, and only read or watch biographies, documentaries etc. A person I know can't put themselves to watch or read anything with the smallest bit of fiction, but that is an extreme. Just know that if you commit to realism, you will not be able to steer the wheel, put more profound meaning, or make anything fun or engaging. Your goal would be to act as a news reporter, researching the life of the characters way after they died, or once they are old.
@@allan710 No, you can make something fun even if it's realistic. If i write about femboy furry vsause trying to kill mars or something but it's realistic, it can still be fun, engaging and have profound meaning(s). Also, in-universe biographies are a thing.
@@jamesholdername I mean, the setting doesn't say how realistic it is, right? You can make a story of a watermelon that loves using laughing emojis and drives balloon-shaped sheep an extremely realistic, gritty story. I think the key part is "[...] but it's realistic [...]". How would we do so? What it means to make some story realistic?
@@allan710 In short, depth and details, A LOT OF DEPTH AND DETAILS. Realism (to me) is also about being closest to real while not being real, mimic reality while not destorying "the point" and/or being non-fiction.
Honestly, if you study history you find out pretty quickly just how often it deviates from truth and realism! It might be the single most helpful insight to prepare me to accept the advice in these videos. Otherwise I would absolutely be one of those people who felt like it was cheating to think in terms of character arcs and plot instead of just character.
I heard someone, somewhere say: Characters aren't people, Dialogue isn't talking, And stuff happening is not plot. I heard someone else describe attempts at writing stories as being like people making a toaster, that looks like an amazing toaster, but it doesn't make toast. Someone telling you how their day went is narrative. An ikea manual is a perfect concise and economical narrative on how to build a book case. It has a start, middle, end; a character, goal, steps to take, obstacles and conflict, but it's not a story. Like the toaster, it looks amazing, but just doesn't make toast. And if it doesn't make toast, can you really call it a toaster?
The solution to the mental health problem is that actually yes people do improve their own mental health. It's called therapy. Therapy doesn't have to come in the form of therapy though, you can give a streamlined version of everything a therapist gives in the form of discussions with other characters, events, self-discovery, new food, walks in nature etc...
interesting to think what therapy actually is. I (a fricking imbecil) don't believe in therapy, i believe in self-improvement, because all my mental issues was because i hated the state i was in BECAUSE of my former actions, and making progress to a better version of myself fixed all those problems. But thats just me, i don't have deepset traumas or memories or hard-to-change physical habits behaviors, i was just not living up to what i knew i could be.
@@krampus5531 so therapy is usually just someone helping you with this process and making sure you don't miss any areas of self-improvement you might not have noticed. If you didn't have that experience with a therapist then I'm sorry, you might have just gotten a bad pull. Glad you could work it out on your own though
@@krampus5531 That's not valid reason to not believe in therapy. Therapy _is_ self-help. It's admitting there's a problem, and that you aren't sure what the next step to a better version of you is, so you speak to a professional that can help you figure that out.
Ngl I read that as Last Spinjitzu Master. I kinda hope he covers something like Ninjago and other toy shows just to see him unpack some of the common writing mistakes in them and what keeps people around besides consumerism lol
Shakespeare's arcs are honestly often pretty shit. Dialog is fantastic, but arcs? Eh. A few of the plays have halfway decent descending arcs, but plenty of them are just lacking any sort of progression in the characters.
So, the irl arc of mental health is not about fixing it, it is about learning to live with it. The moment we go "brb cured" it destroys my immersion, whereas some guy yelling "Nooooooooo!" Doesn't. The reason is that the latter is a exaggeration and simplification of a feeling I can relate to. The former is... completely antithetical to my experience. Here's the real problem with mental health as a theme in stories: most people cannot relate. Trying to explain neurodivergence is hella difficult because people can't emphatise. They may be able to understand it rationally if they think hard enough, but at that point they aren't enjoying a story, they're watching a documentary. That doesn't mean that you can't work in arcs, but you got to understand the scope of that arc. Fun fact, there's actually plenty overlap in relatable wants and needs. A simple example is that Bob wants to belong, so he thinks in order to belong he has to be normal and to be normal he has to go to concerts, get that sales job, marry the normal girl across the street. Now, Bob has ass/adhd. Concerts bombard his brain into exhaustion, his job requires him to mask all day, and the girl across the street and he just don't really get each other. Bob isn't going to make it like this. But Bob wanting to be normal, predictably, is Bob wanting to belong somewhere. His need is to be accepted. Which he misconstrued as requiring to be normal. Instead of trying to be something else, he needs to find places that accept him. That can be many things. Maybe he quits his job, or maybe he opens up to his co-workers and they not only try to better facilitate him, but his boss decides Bob's expertise can be useful in a different role so now Bob helps develop strategies instead of doing 9/5 pitches. Maybe he breaks up with the girl across the street, or maybe they go into marriage counseling because they believe there is something genuine there worth saving. There's stories you can tell without "fixing the brain." You just have to work harder to make them relatable to a general audience.
Same goes for dialogue and mannerisms. Sometimes writing can sound cringe, but we know the majority of times people don’t have tight conversations like characters. Part of the fun in writing character speech is flavoring, giving them perfect comebacks and catchphrases. Look at JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s fun to watch because they’re so unlike real people, but that’s we the fans adore. Not every story should be that weird, but don’t be afraid to get a little bizarre.
9 months late but you can also do the exact opposite and make your story appealing if you execute it correctly. A lot of the good humor in Smiling Friends for example is just improvised conversations.
@@thehydrationman5500 oh yes, I love that too. Especially in The Suicide Squad (the good one). Whatever someone talks can say a lot about them and how they think.
Stranger or more complex? In fiction we generally just focus on a couple things for an arc in a way that simplifies the real-life version it is based on
Man, "characters are not people" has been a favorite writing quote of mine for a while, and I love the way you explain it. This is my favorite channel for writing tips and advice.
Yes! It's similar to 'Stories are not life' or 'One's life is not a character arc'. There's seemingly an abundance of ppl who subscribe to these ideas which is strange but not surprising. Even more peculiar are the ppl who subscribe to these ideas without even realizing it.
@@browniebear stories are not life, but they are, if you choose it to be so, a representation of life, because one's life is literally a character arc. To do nothing, to improve, to fall into obscurity, they are all developments of your life, unless you literally go with the flow, which means you're not even a really a character but a background, Villager B. And even if you go the path and make everything extremely outlandish, who narrates it? Someone, during some part of their life, reacting to the change around them with change of their own. I find it weirder that you call us the weird ones. I find it both sides logical if you look through biased lenses, which everyone views the world with their unique pair of biased lenses. Understanding THAT concept is, IMO, one of the keys to writing a good story.
It should also be noted that, when writing about mental health, rather than having your character arc their way out of their mental health issue completely, their arc can include coming to terms or simply learning to live with it. They can still have their ups and downs, and which one (and what degree) of those states you end the story on is up to you and depends the overall tone & message you want your ending to convey, but the key here is that they don't need to outright defeat it for their story to have a profound or satisfying conclusion. Bojack Horseman is a great example that comes to mind for this.
Your bit about Puss in Boots was exactly what was going in my mind the moment you started talking about mental health, representation isnt here to transcribe literally everything and in realistic detail, its just there to show the experiences the people you are representing go through, its to show them in a as much as you can unbiased light, just ecperiences, not the whole being
I don't think Puss experiences ptsd, I think he just has general anxiety about death brought on by the sudden realization of mortality. Which is just kinda normal for most people, and like most people, curable to an extent. He doesn't necessarily fear death at the end, nor does he write it off entirely.
You legit saved my motivation to write. I suffered from so many of the novice writing problems you mention in your vids. my characters were complex, discombobulated messes with no drive or reason to exist. I was so burnt out from trying to fix them with quick hacks and the like, and i was ready to give up on storytelling. But then this funny little alien showed up in my recommended and changed the game. Now with an emphasis on theme, im honing old characters, laser focusing them on the theme of the story and their part in it. I'm motivated to write again because I see hope in conveying true meaning through my story and characters that no other writing youtuber has given me, so thank you.
Im a social worker and the way you describe it reminds me a lot of being a Care Coordinator. Youre not trying to find "why are you like this" but rather, what do you believe? What do you want? Because yeah people are complicated abut if theyre guided on one things they do become like characters in the way they grow, learn, and improve on their world. One thing a good writer can do to make a character more "human" is have them relapse or fail a few times but grow from it and go back towards their goal.
Honestly the revelation you had about how to work around a stalemate of ‘they don’t have motivations because they’re depressed’ was really cool to see. All of this was great work in equal measure, though, and it’s nice to see how you link these newer videos back to your foundational concepts and re-contextualise them as you expand your paradigm. I have enjoyed each one the videos of yours that I’ve watched, but I respect the desire to keep this channel aligned with your most current beliefs and purposes. We must be aware that we all go through a continual learning process. The ones who don’t think are the ones who stagnate.
The best example of mental health I've seen in recent memory is the series 'Welcome to the NHK'. It follows the journey of a severely depressed, paranoid and anti-social individual who seeks salvation through a number of quick fixes until finally breaking down and realizing his need to care about others and make the necessary start to gradual progress. It was a wild ride but it was fairly accurate to what it takes to get out of a clinically depressed state.
NHK is fantastic. The messed-up relationship between Sato and Misaki really intrigued me. I loved how they handled those characters. No sugarcoating, just an outside view of the lives of struggling people. The manga and light novel are great too
I'm still so glad I randomly stumbled unto Welcome to the NHK when I was looking for a completely different story theme and tone-wise; Welcome to the Ballroom. One about a hikikomori learning how to live and the other about a high schooler finding his passion and following it through till the end. Both were very important to me, but in different ways and times
I 100% agree with characters aren’t people. Characters are there to serve a narrative purpose. The way you did Flim Flom is pretty much the way I’ve been doing my characters. Especially my superheros and villains. My main hero (Heavy Steel) and villain (Dynamo) have some basis from me, BUT they are NOT self inserts. They both have goals and some personality traits that I myself don’t have and don’t like. I made them this way cuz they serve my narrative and theme. That being the destruction and benefits of big ego.
I'm writing a novel about learning to live with trauma and this still holds true. One thing I'd say is important to add is that if the theme is mental health related then the goal doesn't have to be Conquer The Mental Illness. It can be (as we see with Puss in Boots) but if those are the only stories we make about mental illness that's a) Bad as collective representation (media portrayal of neurodivergence heavily affects how ppl relate to neurodivergent folks) and b) Fucking boring. Sometimes the end of the arc can be about learning to manage mental illness in a healthier way so as not to take out negative emotions on others, or going to therapy, or disproving a deeply negative self-concept. There's a bunch of different ways to address it :)
I'm writing a novel too, and trauma plays a role in the formation of the main characters beliefs about himself and the world. A lot of it has to do with cognitive dissonance, and trying to make sense of why a series of traumatic events happened to him, and if this reflects his own morality as a person. E.g.: 'x bad thing has happened to me. It's happened more than once. This must mean that I deserve this. What's the alternative explanation?' It's ultimately about learning that you can't always find a reason or logic for the absurdity of the world. Determinism and free will is a key concept in this. Is there ultimately a reason for suffering trauma, so should we accept it as part of life's journey? Or should we break away from such a mentality to build something better, and move beyond trauma? Edit: A core point is that the first round of trauma struck him at a young age. When you're younger, you're still trying to make sense of the world and your place in it. Trauma at that age can be damaging and shake your view of your self and life going forwards
Also regarding representation - it can be valuable to see cases where a character has some mental health struggles but the story just isn't about that. For example maybe they already have worked towards good coping strategies before the story starts, so now while it's a factor in their life they're not as preoccupied with it which leaves room for the story to explore other themes.
@@tetra654 yes, I very much agree. Its a pattern with many different type sof minority rep in media that can get exhausting--stories with queer characters only being about queerness, stories with disabled characters being solely about disability (or worse, the side character whose defining characteristic is the minority group they belong to.)
Another good way to portray mental health disorders without sacrificing your story is instead of the arc being about curing it, it can be about accepting (whether the character or the characters around them), learning to mediate it, or let it spiral out of control due to choosing not to work on it
I think The next best thing to ask after “what does your about character believe about themself.” Is “what does your character believe about others?” Using the example of the depressed character they could think that people are just annoying, and not worth interacting with. Or they could think that everyone else has a much better life, and are way better at functioning in society. Hell, they could go on an arc where they realize that isn’t true, and that these insecurities are completely normal. They could even start making friends who are equally depressed and insecure, because they finally feel on equal grounds with another person that they can open up to.
Your channel is so liberating. I no longer stress out about a character being 'likable' for the audience. I just think about how they would be functional to a narrative. Thank you
I started using your structures and advice in my workshops and holy shit the response from my professors was insane. you really figured out the rules of the game
One time, at the end of an episode, Marge said "Well, the moral of the story is..." And Homer said "Honey, there isn't a moral. Just a bunch of stuff that happened." It doesn't always have to be mental illness to be a legit problem or to be relatable to people with more serious issues. Or ftm it doesn't have to directly address something to speak about it sensitively and intelligently. That's what art is for, at its best.
I am so glad I found your channel. You really delve into the mechanics of storytelling beyond the basic 101 stuff that over-saturates the space. Each of your videos perfectly describes things I've been picking up on for years, but never fully understood.
In the game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, the main character Senua is struggling with some form of psychosis. Her arc is about dealing with the reality of the death of her loved ones and facing her trauma, which turn her psychosis up to 11 into horrifying hallucinations. By the end of the game, shes finally able to face and overcome her grief. Crucially, her mental disorder isnt just cured outright and she still hears and sees hallucinations. In fact the game makes a compelling point about how the distinction between her reality and "true" reality doesnt really matter. Its still an uplifting ending, because she is finally able to face her grief and reach the acceptance stage, finally moving forward with her life instead of living in the shadow of death. I discussed this game with my brother and he said "its still a sad ending though" to which I asked "why" and he said "because shes still crazy," which pissed me off because for one thing, becoming "not crazy" wasnt the point of Senuas arc, and for two, just because she still has to live with a difficult mental disorder, doesnt mean she cant live a fulfilling and happy life.
While I agree up to a point, I'd have to disagree on something you didn't say. You didn't say that she still has a sad life. Not that it's a terrible life that shouldn't be lived by anybody, but not the life that I would want. When I loom at many of the people I see around me, I wonder, "what part of them do I find the most admirable?" It's not their disability or their struggle, EVER. It's their demeanor and character. Of course the ending is still sad. And of course someone who's looking at the story with a different perspective than yours is going to say, "man, she's still crazy". She still sees hallucinations, and she still suffered the same trauma. All that changed was her outlook on it. I think that any media that depicts debilitating things as anything less than debilitating do a disservice to the struggle. She still deals with seeing hallucinations and that is neither helpful or acceptable. BUT she still deals with it. He finds it sad because he understands her struggle. You find it uplifting because you understand the journey of her acceptance and the pain that came from her circumstance and the strength it took for her to overcome that. Both are a valid point to make about the story.
All that to say, the point of any story is to deliver a message to me, the audience. What I get from that message doesn't always correlate with how the characters feel about their arc, or even the most altruistic of viewers. I don't have to deal with Senua's circumstance and knowing what she's going through makes me feel bad for her. Doesn't mean I don't get the point of her arc, but that her arc doesn't define her circumstance. Her circumstance defines her arc. It literally gives definition to her arc. Where it takes place, how, when, etc. It's why when you watch Naruto and you see the fact that they are LITERAL CHILD SOLDIERS, you can really vibe with and respect the desire Hashirama and Madara have. You can respect and admire Pain's visions, even if you can't respect his plan. I can see WHY, even if I don't see what you see.
im trying to write songs bro, and i know screenplay doesnt exactly coincide with that but finding your channel randomly has been so freeing to my own thought process around my own work. Thank you, youre appreciated
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Creating a character has always seemed difficult and absurd to me, because the question I asked while creating a character was: What are the features of this character? But now the question of "what this character believes about themself" changed my entire perception, made the job much easier and more meaningful for me. Thank you for this amazing lesson
Really awesome to see how you are changing the channel to match your vision. I find it funny how almost EVERYTHNG i write now, all the arcs and events and cause and effects and consequences are in flow charts and graphs, how character b's mental health and mindset look in relation to the timeline in relation to the actions he takes and the actions that happen to him, i can write so much faster and easier and see the story clearly in my head. I love using models and structure to write, because it makes sense to me, and i have learned like, an INCREDIBLE amount from your videos on structure. Also i like seeing your face when your talking, it makes it easier for me to follow along with the dialogue because people have a unique way of using body language to communicate ideas, that's just my preference, even though i also like the mindmaps. Hope you don't run into any more pirates, man.
your tip of figuring out what a character believes about themselves is probably the best tip i've heard when it comes to coming up with a character's inner fears and conflict. gonna write it on a post it and stick it to my wall
You could make your old videos 'unlisted' and have a playlist of the unlisted videos or a link to it on your about section. That way they can't be recommended, but are still available as a record.
He posted a Google doc link on a random comment with some of the delisted videos: docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1trQOS3KpI_OjTgllGyrkDwQTzjy3DXUKq1gZmHJdzxw/mobilebasic
Here's how I understand the problem of writing about mental health and psycological disorders: “We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.” -- Carl Gustav Jung. What this quote means is tha real psychological problems a complete inversion of what is desierable to us as storytellers. The way a story works is that some condition confronts the character as a problem and they try to solve it, as in the above quote. Whether they success or fail and why is the conclusion of the story. This is an act of agency; a force of will. But what Jung is saying is that psycholgical problems are actually overcome spontaneously I.E _without_ consicous intent. So it isn't really possible for there to be a story about them in the way we normally deal with the thing: it isn't down to the characters responsibility or _choice._ Alrady that sounds like heresy, both from the perspective of our culture and the fundementals of stroytelling, but there are stories that pull it off just that without even necessarily being about mental health. This discontinuity is, I think, the real reason we fail to represent mental health issues adequately in most stories. Let's try an example. Garfield is a tree. A small tree sappling. They have a hard time getting enough photosynthesis done and the other trees bully them by starving them of light and nurients. Pests and insects attack them and the winters are very harsh. Even if they has a good year and grow a whole yard in height, the other trees always seem to grow faster. None of the other trees seem to think them worth pollinating and they are afflicted with the anxiety of being felled while alone and still a virgin. In most stories, this would be the part where Garfield the tree goes on an adventure to discover their real authentic self so they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps by constructing stilts to get above the canopy or maybe brockering with the humans to take them up in a helicopter and plant them someonewhere above their old rivals. The point is they use their wooden tree brain to do something. Whereas how the problem actually resolves itself is that Garfield is an oak tree. Oak trees take a very long time to grow and naturally other faster growing plants have a leg up on them whilet they're still young. They don't even begin producing acorns until they're 40 years old. (This being the age where life really begins.) While their growth never seems to be enough, it is nevetheless adding up over time until a critical threhold is reached and all of these problems simply don't pose any serious threat to Garfield anymore and they reach the ripe age of 800, having sired entire forests. Garfield never actually had to do anything except persist as he was and wait! But we can still get a story out of this situation by having Garfield try all of the grift about the trunk-enhancement cream and bee hypergamy on the tree incel forums on to discover too late that he was going to be alright all along. It's the tried and true, "The power was within you all along" thematic trope. There doesn't actually need to be anythign wrong with the main character if he can be made to beileve that there is. Though even that is really besides the point because it certainly is not the case that anyone with mental health issues should just sit around and take it. The quote from Jung needs to be taken in the proper context: it is speaking in retrospect. Going forwards, you don't really understand that there is a problem, what it is, that you're struggling in different ways from other people, much less what the solution is going to be. But looking back, having solved the problem, your actions seem quaint and frantic relative to how simple your course of action, if not the actual "solution" to the condition was in hindsight. We can use Local as an example: he use dot have OCD symptoms until he learned how to reign them in somewhat. How did he do this? We he'd probably say he put strategies in place. But where did he find the capacity to put strategies in place? You see mental health is unique from all other classess of human problems in that is an issue of real transformation because it's a situation where the thing that is supposed to do the healing is the very thing that is afflicted. So when a solution comes, there is always an infinite regression. In the end we are forced to confess that the problem resolved itself however much Local may have seemed like an active part in it. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, meditation, and various other techniques are simply rationalizations to get rid of the infinite regression and conceal in plain sight the fact that what is, for all intents and purposes, a miracle, has taken place. It's like saying you wrote down a reminder for yourself to solve your lack of memory and attention. That sounds plausible until you question how it was that you remembered to look at your notes in order to remind yourself. *The only way the solution can possibly work is if there is no problem!* And yet, in cases where it does work, it seems to. I'm not saying that Local need not have bothered with his strategies and it was a waste of time, just that i don't think it worked for the reasons he seems to assume it did. The way people normally say they fixed their mental issues with stratagies, they talk as though there is a mechanical fault with their neurology and so fixing it is a matter of busting out the right tools. where I think it's really more of a matter of voodoo and only worked because the people in question beileved that it would. Insofar as the tools in question are the means that the paitent finds credible, that is what really makes the appropriate treatment. If a sick person is steadfastly convinced that only zen practice can mend his soul, sending him to a psychotherapist is not going to be productive because he won't cooperate with the doctor. This is, pychologically speaking, what the miraculous is: when a psychological issue is resolved, we have no idea who solved it. (Because in actual point of fact nobody did solve it in the same way that the body heals physical cuts and brusies on its own, usually without intervention.) So we say God did it. Jesus healing the sick and the lame is symbolic of the internal transformation that the religious experience brings about. So it should not be so surpising that the alchemists attempted to formulate panaceas from the Holy Spirit or visions of Christ. This is most explicit in cases where Jeses drove out demons. When we have these problems we often say they are "our demons" because they overcome our sense of agency. If you have a trolly at the supermarket that pulls maddeningly to the left, you might get short with the trolly as though it has a will that's workign against your own. A metal problem is treated as a brain that pulls maddeningly in a particular direction, usually the one you don't want. With all that in mind, my conclusion is that we already have the language and means to write about mental health adequately on a thematic level and have for thousonds of years or more. It is, as Local points out, getting the symptoms accurate to our contemporary sensibilities right which is where this issue comes from. Nobody cared if a mental disease is depicted correctly generations ago because in many cases nobody knew what it was or had any social consciousness of it. Awareness of mental health is a shockingly recent phenomenon. So writing a mentally ill character correctly is a problem more on the side of lore/worldbuilding/research; the rules the story is operating under specific to it's plot, rather than the archetypal themes and stroytelling going on deep under the hood.
The irony around 12:00-13:00 is that is exactly how depression works for many. A fundamental issue with how they see themselves and the world. Even chemical imbalance depression NEEDS some form of restructuring to perception to be paired with medication. Medication doesnt change beliefs about yourself or your capabilities. Why is your character depressed? -life is meaningless Why does your character think life is meaningless? And there's your answer. How does your character see/feel about themself is high key usually the main question with depression.
The way I've always handled this issue is: 1) I avoid giving my characters one specific mental disorder. Maybe I'll have a real one in mind when writing them, but I won't actually call it that unless it's important for some reason. (There's a lot of overlapping symptoms anyway, so restricting yourself to writing one specific disorder might be needlessly limiting. A lot of people have a combination of disorders!) 2) You're probably not going to *cure* a mental health issue from one magical act of defiance, but it is very possible to *improve* your mental health this way. Characters can come to terms with their issues, they can make friends who help them cope, they can even go to a therapist and take medications if you want to go that route. The problem will probably never be completely gone, but it can be improved.
Ignore the haters, keep showing the mug, brings personality to the "disembodied voice talks about xyz" type videos. Also I need "characters are not people" in Comic Sans on a tshirt ASAp
"Characters are not people" never made so much sense to me before, and now it is so obvious why it's a perfect definition Humans are complex, like, really, really complex, and a character is a simplified version of what a human is This thing blew my mind, thank you for the awesome video, man
Here’s my personal belief on how to talk about mental disorders in your story, make it PART of the main character’s goal, not their entire personality. Instead of focusing the entire story on how they cure it, make the story be partially about how they deal with it, and how it negatively effects their aspirations and goals. Essentially you’d be kinda interweaving two stories at once, which is difficult but can be done. I struggle with depression and one thing I can tell you is that every single time I have a burst of motivation to get shit done, it feels amazing… then I overthink things, slowly coming to the idea that I might never accomplish it before I either actually struggle and accomplish that thing or start off at square one. Now that isn’t easy for simple character arcs to portray, so instead make the story be more about what the character actually wants to accomplish with their life. I constantly tell people “man it’d be so cool if..” and then never do the thing. It’d be cool if I made designs on my black clothing using bleach or yarn, it’d be cool if I animated something, it’d be amazing if I worked out and ACTUALLY stuck to it. Some of these will actually happen, most won’t. Few months ago I was working out every morning, feeling genuinely happy and excited. I found myself to get growth, my muscles were slowly showing, and my friends even complimented them a few times… then something happened that made me slowly lose that momentum, instead of just getting up and working out I’d say “I should workout today…” and now I’m in this endless cycle of wanting to workout but… just not… HOWEVER, what gives me hope is I remember how it felt. I remember what happiness felt like, and I remember how long it took me to get there (a few weeks of training before it just felt good to do it, almost addictive) so I do have hope that I’ll start again. Same with animating or doing art, I’ve done it before but I’ve just never really FINISHED anything. Nothing I’ve been proud of… so if you were to make a story similar to this, make it about how they actually finish something the character has wanted to do but have zero motivation for it- AND THEN slowly figure out root ways of how they can accomplish that. By the end maybe you get the sense that they’ll become exactly how they started at the beginning, but now they have a feeling that they can better handle it in the future. This is easier in long formed storytelling and not if you’re doing a single film, but it CAN be done. I remember a good example being Manchester by the Sea. By the end he’s not fully cured of his depression, but he’s loosened up just a bit. He could easily go back to where he started in hating his life but he’s got someone now to help remind him there’s shit that can be done. Leave your story with that feeling, melancholic. You won’t ever get over your mental issues, but you can figure out ways to live with them and still pursue your goals. That’s how I’d do it anyway..
Most captivating intro ever. I wish fling flong was sitting on the beach with me, he’s so precious On another note, I’ve been coming to your channel for a few months now, and I can say that you have helped me a lot and also made me question things I didn’t need to question in the first place. Regarding the end of your video, I like the idea that this channel be a textbook: in the end, advice is not one big message to take away. It will only apply in certain situations, like flipping one switch on and another off, or only referring to certain sections of a textbook at a time. Playing supervillain through film critique’s also [cringe] to me now. I believe you are catering to an audience of writers who genuinely want to improve their craft, and not one that just wants satisfaction from seeing existing work torn apart for clicks. Excited to see where you take this channel!
One of my favourite depictions of these types of characters who struggle with mental health was in this fanfiction I read, in which one friend of a friend group pulls away from the group in the last year of school together, and then years later one of the friends finds the one who pulled away, and finds that they have become a drug addict. Their addiction makes sense given the background we already know the character to have from the show (they went through a lot), and it was incredibly captivating as a text because the addict does this sort of pretence of meaninglessness that is found in that poorly written "complex" characters, when actually it's clear that as the character faced rejection in their adolescence, they now were leaning into being rejected, while using drugs to sedate the craving of affection and feelings of loneliness. Idk I guess just in the world of fanfiction where "angst" is a genre that's often continuous, there's definitely a potential to write interesting stories within that that keep characters with motivations and arcs that make sense and can be built on without just being like "mental health bad", "I unhappy permanently" - especially with that try-hard/leave me alone opposing dynamics.
3:52 that was the most coherent and accurate explanation of what goes through my head when trying to tie everything together. Your delivery is fantastic.
I'm glad People are not Characters, too. When you mentioned Chekov's gun, I thought, "Gee, I'm glad I haven't needed to pull that gun I bought last chapter.."
I think that one of the purposes of storytelling is to distill the chaos of life into manageable pieces which allows us to focus on and deal with our problems one at a time.
I think if a writer DOES want to explore different core motivations for a character in order to portray their complexity, the right step might be to make sequels. A protagonist can grow and cone to realize they have another problem at a different stage of life. If you wanna compare it to real people; could you say that every trauma and core belief you have shows itself in absolutely everyday life? Some people don't figure out they have a major phobia until they're like, 30. So I think it's totally valid to simply explore differing facets of s character via multiple stories.
You don't even need sequels necessarily, you can transition from arc to arc and progress in your core themes, but you would need to make those themes related, otherwise, the transition from one theme to the next will be too jarring. But yes, sequels are a good way to explore multiple core beliefs, and if the core themes are more divorced from one another, the reader/viewer will feel it less jarring. What I am saying is, switching themes from arc to arc, is harder to execute compared to switching themes from sequel to sequel.
I absolutely love your stuff man - I've always been a STEM head and I still am, but what I love about it is understanding how things work, what makes them tick. You apply that to writing and storytelling like I haven't ever really seen done before, it's great!
I'd approach writing mental disorders and illnesses like this: by the end of the story or character arc, it's unlikely that the mental illness will be "cured". However, they may now have the tools to deal with it. For example, you could have a character who has social anxiety and has been isolating themself because of it. Through the course of the story they meet people and make positive experiences, and by the end they're finally seeking out interaction with others by themself, because they've learned that even if it makes them anxious, the good experiences will be worth it, and they can push through the initial fear. And if they suffer panic attacks, then by the end they might have learned how to recognize when they're about to happen, and have developed strategies to make them easier to get through. The key is to realize that even if you can't make the character get entirely rid of the mental illness, you can make them find ways to live with it in healthy ways.
15:05 Could old videos be unlisted and moved to a playlist or something instead of just being flat out deleted? I understand not wanting them to be the first impression someone gets of your channel and/or they don't represent your current perspective/values, but I think there was still a lot of good content in them and they're useful as a tool to see how your values and perspectives have changed over time.
Great video. The arrangement of seemingly random character traits into relationships and motivations that all tie into one theme was a really good example. It's great to have someone willing to demonstrate what they're talking about instead of just talking about vague theory or quick tips.
15:21 A simple solution could be to just unlist the videos you don't like and bury them in a playlist that fans who want to watch the old videos can find if they know where to look, but newcomers aren't going to accidentally stumble across.
Why would someone that knows he doesn't agree with those old videos anymore ever wanted to see them again? like the information there is kinda useless now
Thank you for verbalising things that I've known for ages. My English teachers kept hammering down themes and motivations throughout my high school years, whether in the prescribed novels and plays we read, or the poems and short stories we had to analyse. Characters can always be explained because the story always revolves around themes and motivations. Keep up the good work green alien man.
I see your point. I'm heavy into comics and one thing Will Eisner (I think...) said was you're not drawing reality, you're drawing a simulation of reality. Best way I can explain how I understand it is this. Fiction is like a movie set. On the surface it looks real, but, its all just plywood and plaster. None of the extras have a backstory, they just exist as filler to make the set look lived in. Its all an illusion. Your main characters have to have enough depth to come off as real, they
3:04 reminds me of gatsby and daisy in the great gatsby. daisy being a symbol of wealth and success to gatsby and his great desire to achieve both those things
I haven't decided how I feel about the 'characters aren't people' philosophy yet. You can't compare them to 'the average guy' who might be reading or even writing this character's story - because the characters we find compelling usually have something extraordinary about them and aren't average people. You ask "does your life have an act structure, clear set-ups and pay-offs, or chekhov's guns?" with the clear implication that it probably doesn't. I ask you 'why do we find these narrative devices satisfying and compelling in the first place?' and my answer would be that it's because they reflect something about life. Extraordinary people probably DO lead lives filled with satisfying set-ups and pay-offs, with a continuous arc that could feasibly be fitted into an act structure. And even average people, if they looked really hard at their lives, probably have more subtle manifestations of those things, too.
also for me, IDK what character in his use even mean. In which I'll show how not explaining definition will happen at below. I think human traits/personalities/desires are not what made understanding people so compelling. but it's the history that make these human condition. (true, some traits are admirable or cool, but understanding meaning behind confront mask it show is even more compelling) or should I instead call it... 'story'. this video (imo) is little bit stretched about it's philosophy. because it's only look at human traits. and the thing is that if we only look at that, all of documentary and biography is all wrong because it's doesn't represent all of thing this person had. and even day-to-day people we met are just character, because they're representation of what you perceive. he's maybe got more than that, but you don't have to know all of it. because not everything need to be known to function. (both say in relationship and character) in the sense of physic, character is obviously not people, but metaphysics? we will have talk to that for long. (so yea, this video kinda not helpful for me as philosophy student and author)
My take on "characters aren't people" is that a character is either the part of a (fictional) person that is relevant to the story, viewed from the perspective of the story, or a symbolic representation of some important aspect of reality, or a combination of the two. Usually a combination of the two. And I'm pretty sure that even extraordinary people rarely have anything as neat and satisfying as the events of a well-written story, because a story shows you the events as seen from a certain perspective, with some elements hidden, others emphasized, others edited a bit, and still others represented symbolically instead of being directly shown. But any good story is, at its core, something real or realistic told from a certain perspective.
I believe we find them compelling and satisfying because they make sense, not because they're tied to reality or that those kind of things happen often in real life. Life is very very disorganised
@alexu297 That raises an interesting question - why do we find things that 'make sense' satisfying if they have nothing to do with real life? What does 'makes sense' even mean in the first place? I mean real life has to make sense, even if that sense is too complicated for us to comprehend. Maybe we find these stories compelling and satisfying because they're just so much simpler than real life, so you might be right.
That line a Desire is just a means to an end, reminds me of the thought i had talking to some one about the WW80s movie. Yes the wish stone is in the power of the god of lies because every wish is really a lie. I wish i had a cheese burger can be a lie of multi levels. "I don't want to be hungry how can i not be hungry?" Burger. "I get comfort from burgers and want one to feel comfortable now." Ect. I just didn't think that could apply to nearly everything people do until this video. I'll also add a thought i had that i hope you can think about and explain better then me or say how it's dumb is. Horror and comedy work best when they don't talk about the real thing. Pick an idea and never ever say it, hint at it gesture to it, even show it's shadow on a big spot on the wall, but never ever say what it really is. It mite have been talked about other places in witch case i'd love a link or something. I just am winging it based on seeing a bunch of stuff and hating school.
Not sure if you need to have everything for a character boiled down to one core thing, as long as that isn't shoved into peoples faces. That the complexity is behind the scenes, and if the audience cares enough, they can try to unpack that puzzle themselves.
I think that its not as much as that "our lives are boring" as it is the fact that there are many stories in our lives and focusing on all of them at once is just too much and may easily lose focus. It's theoretically possible but a purpose of a story isn't to make someone literally live someone else's life, it's to tell a main simple message --- usually the simpler, the more clear and impactful it will be if written correctly I personally do like to think of my characters as people in a way, it helps me connect to them and truly get to know what they do and like, but when it comes to actually putting stuff on paper, I put in the parts of their lives that matter to the general theme, which I think this video encapsulates perfectly If you want a multi-faceted character, you CAN do that but you need to know what the purpose of said character is in your story at the very core (In this case, as stated, it is the conflict between humility and shallow success) Rearranging stuff and connecting it is exactly the key. The way I like to think about it is that the story and characters already ARE there, it's less so about me making the story from beginning to end as it is me slowly putting pieces into their correct spots and drawing lines between them until I solve what it was always trying to be.
I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS Goodness, I've been hearing "character's aren't people bro" from random dudes on Reddit all the way to R. R. Martin. I want to add that many great filmmakers like Tarantino and Nolan view their works as myths. Tarantino said he writes his stories as books, then translates them into screenplays (source: interviews). Myths aren't about characters, not people.
My favorite depiction of mental illness is Kaladin from the Stormlight Archive. He's got major depression and PTSD and both never go away and his arc isn't learning to "get over" his mental illnesses. But he does have a very beautiful arc about finding meaning and belonging despite the darkness and learning to keep going even though life is going to be hard. And the thing is, Kaladin's arc really has nothing to do with his depression, and everything to do with his core character motivation of self-blame and self-hatred for what he's done in the past. So he can overcome his character struggle of forgiving himself without curing his depression. His arc could still work with a character who didn't have depression or PTSD, but I think his character arc is more powerful and meaningful because it includes that representation without making depression everything the character is about or turning mental illness into a disease to be cured when that's not how it works. His depression does influence his actions and character motivations and his arc, but it isn't framed as "the thing to overcome" but "the thing to learn to cope with" while "the thing to overcome" is something else even more fundamental to him. So he can have a very beautiful arc about living with depression that still feels very cathartic when he overcomes his struggles without making that catharsis curing his depression.
Yes, exactly there are things that characters can overcome and traits that they cannot. Some of my characters are neurodivergent and this isn't something they overcome, rather beliefs about themselves that are holding them back.
On the opposite side of the argument, I think Kaladin feels like representation of depression from someone who has never really felt depressed. I don't mean to minimize Sanderson's experiences if he has had depression, but given by what he says online, it doesn't sound like he really has at any point in his life. Kaladin is endlessly in the darkness. This is the fundamental problem of his portrayal, I think. Everyone I've met that was actually diagnosed with an episode of depression (not depressive personality disorder, to be fair) experienced it along with the joys of life. Sometimes they are having an amazing times, at other times they absolutely hate their life and wish to curl into a ball. Kaladin only ever does the latter, and that's why I think his depression just doesn't feel genuine. Depression isn't just being endlessly beaten down; often, one of the hardest things to accept is that you can feel great and terrible in the same day. In that regard, I think Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is the best portrayal of depression I've found in any media, among great portrayal of the oft forgotten lowest class individuals in America. Suttree is a character who both hates and loves his life in a way that culminates into self-destruction, something that he almost views positively because of how much he hates his actions. Despite that, when he's bumming around, getting drunk and partying, he also feels incredibly alive. Depression crushes him because no matter what he does, nothing ever feels right, no matter how many years he spends trying to figure it out. It's only through a near death experience that he realizes he truly cannot continue living so recklessly anymore, and leaves it behind after visiting the important things and people he found in that time. It's not a happy ending and his grief continues even as he is driven away from his previous life, but it's him simultaneously experiencing that pain and relief that makes it feel so real. That's the complexity missing from Kaladin.
@@dragstra8448 Yeah I don't agree with that. (1) he has major chronic depression and has been depressed since he was a kid, depressive episodes are just not an accurate metaphor that's not the disorder he has (2) he is quite literally in the worst time of his life during the stormlight archive and going through major trauma after major trauma, his depression is at the worst it's ever been and understandably so because his life fucking sucks, and he's dealing with PTSD on top of pre-existing major depression so ofc it's gonna be worse right now and (3) he isn't sad *all* the time. there are moment where he is happy. many moments, actually. Kaladin just *thinks* he's sad all the time. "the darkness" (what he calls it) is always a background threat that might surface and he's scared of it, so even when he's happy he mentions the darkness, and when he's sad he acts like he always been sad for his whole life because *that's what depression does to you* it convinces you that it's the only emotion you've ever experienced and ever will experience I have never had the kind of depression Kaladin does so I won't try to claim to know what it's like or know if it's good rep but I don't think you're right about this. I love Kaladin and I think his writing is one of the best parts of the stormlight archive as a whole
Firstly, please don't tell me how depression works. I've been diagnosed with it for 2 years by an actual psychiatrist. Secondly, I should rephrase what I was trying to say about Kaladin, because I wrote that comment at about 3AM and wasn't thinking clearly enough. Kaladin has all the most extreme things happen to him that cause him to have PTSD and depression. He's loses his friends in war after coming from a terrible background. Now on its own that's not that bad, but stuff like the canyon scene from Way of Kings makes it feel to me less like Sanderson is writing this as a portrayal of mental illness in a world without support for it and more that he's writing it because he's dramatic. Kaladin seeing Syl and deciding not to jump is realistic, him immediately creating his goal to save Bridge 4 is not. His backstory and actions do not feel like they unfold naturally; they are created by a writer who wants to use him for dramatic purpose over actually healthy portrayal of depression. It's not that depressed people like Kaladin don't exist, it's that it's so isolated in its portrayal that, to me, it becomes unrelatable. You do not need to be pulled from your life's work into an army to be depressed. You do not need to watch everyone around you die to be depressed. You do not need PTSD to be depressed. And it's not that Sanderson is necessarily saying that you do need those things, but holding Kaladin as a monolith of writing depression well is really odd to me for that reason. I failed to mention a thing about Suttree. There's a character named Harrogate who becomes depressed by the end of the story in the exact same way Suttree did. That feeling that there's other people who become depressed over the simple or unexplainable things that you do; that's what it feels like is missing from Kaladin. That feeling that it's not this isolated, unique, improbable experience. Also, don't take any of this to mean that you can't find meaning in Kaladin's depression, or that no one has ever experienced it like him before. I just think that there are more universal ways of portraying depression than him that are incredible in their own right. In that regard, Suttree is probably my favorite story. You should read it if you have the time. @@serazaydia
@@dragstra8448 I'm coming in a bit late to this conversation, but I thought I would add my two cents. I think you make some interesting points about what is and isn't exactly realistic about Sanderson's depiction of depression/PTSD via Kaladin. Obviously no, you don't need to go through the kind of hard core trauma that Kaladin did in order to experience depression or PTSD. But there are some key points that I think are worth considering here: 1. No depiction of mental health in fiction is going to be consistently realistic all of the time. Not that this is an excuse for writing mental health poorly or just for dramatic effect, but as was demonstrated in this video, mental health in fiction is by definition going to take creative liberties at some point. However, good depictions are not good simply because they portray each of the relevant the clinical signs with strict realism. They succeed because they blend the depiction in such a way that the character's arc is not only satisfying, but relatable. 2. Different people experience mental health conditions differently, which is part of the challenge of writing it. As such, different people will relate to some characters more than others, for a variety of reasons. You may not personally find Kaladin suddenly going from wanting to jump to then making the goal to save bridge 4 realistic. But I can tell you as someone who has also been diagnosed with major depression disorder, I have experienced this very sort of thing. I mean, maybe it's not common, or I guess "normal" per se. But I have gone from rock bottom to suddenly latching on some goal or whatever, because in that moment at least it was *something* that gave me a sense of meaning. That being said, no, that new sense of purpose didn't then just make all my previous emotional turmoil go away, and in fact, failing to live up to that new standard I'd set for myself would then cause additional problems. This is exactly what we see in Kaladin. He found a new purpose in wanting to save bridge 4... but then encountered more psychological problems because of the expectations he'd set for himself. 3. This is fundamentally what makes Kaladin relatable to me, personally. I remember reading negative reviews for Rythm of War basically complaining that "oh no, Kaladin is sad again, why is Sanderson undoing his whole arc!?" But as we all know, mental health problems don't just resolve themselves within a simple arc. I've been through multiple cycles of getting better, then suddenly spiraling again, and being frustrated as to why it kept happening. Each time, it seemed the problem would get worse, and I would have to relearn how to deal with it. As I've been rereading the Stormlight Archive, I've noticed that it's not that Kaladin keeps facing the same problems over and over again... it's that those problems keep evolving and changing as he does. This, to me at least, is a key part of what it's like to have a mental health disorder. It doesn't just go away because you went to therapy for a bit, or had some ground breaking epiphany. It grows and adapts as circumstances change, and you learn to grow and adapt with it. You become stronger and stronger each time for it, but it never completely goes away... but falling down again doesn't mean you've undone everything you've accomplished already. Again, just my two cents.
Actually, what you just described is how people work. As someone pursuing psycology and neuroscience, as well as someone who has to have taken apart their psyche to deal with extreme mental health problems. Everything has a deeper motivation, till you get to the direct source.Look up the PTMF framework of psycology to understand this deeper.
totally respect your decision to delete videos you don’t agree with anymore etc. from a media preservation standpoint tho, i hope you have backups of them somewhere!
He posted a Google doc link on a random comment with some of the delisted videos: docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1trQOS3KpI_OjTgllGyrkDwQTzjy3DXUKq1gZmHJdzxw/mobilebasic
A very well done depiction of mental health situations in fiction is the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I’ll use the example of Kaladin, who has depression and likely PTSD (though neither of those terms or an understanding of them exist in-universe). Kaladin has depression. Technically, it is clinical depression that has existed within him since he was a child and seems to have no external source. What makes it work is that Brandon uses external factors to drive Kaladin’s arc in a way that works for fiction while still acknowledging that his depression predates these external factors. He loses his brother, he becomes a soldier and loses comrades, and begins showing some of his earliest PTSD signs. These things hurt him in ways that they often hurt characters: he is stricken with immense grief. However, the fact that the groundwork has been laid to show you he already had depression makes it that much more impactful, because the depths he sinks to in response to his trauma are so low. Then, when he learns to care anyway and protect new people despite his depression and despite feeling like he’ll just lose them again, it’s that much more rewardig when he achieves his goals throughout the series. He still has depression through all the books, *but he forces himself to have a character arc anyway.*
oh my god i was just having these exact thoughts days before this came out. and it's like you've translated my head almost 1:1. one other thing to note is that characters are meant to be entertaining. not that people aren't entertaining, but the entertaining moments are spread out so far apart in their lives and most of them are probably coincidences or rare cases of good comedic timing, but the middle is full of quite a lot of nothing. characters get to the point quickly. they can do 4 days of work in 20 minutes. they're also much more willing to do interesting stuff. they'll jump on moving cars, find their fathers killer, they'll look danger right in the face and walk right past because they'll be ok unless the writer doesn't want them to.
Wonderful video Local! Very cool to see you hanging in NZ, I'm not from there, instead its big continental brother, but I just finished a big trip through the country and it was absolutely amazing! Hope you're enjoying it, and thank you again for the epic writing tips my brother 👍
On mental health, I think it's important to remember that even with different mental illnesses, no one experiences them in exactly the same way. Even something as ubiquitous as depression is very wide and varied. Even ignoring the different types of depression like bipolar, mdd, or dysthymia, people don't even experience these types of depression the same way either. For example, some people might sleep more or less sleep due to it. They may experience sadness, and/or numbness. People need to stop acting like their--or someone they know's--depression or whatever is the REAL one.
I like to detach myself from my characters cuz then it would be hard to write a real story about them and seeing them instead as a part of a larger naritive. And your quote "characters arent people" helps alot in this.
All great advice, but I WILL also add that people WITH actual mental health problems can complain about your portrayal of it just because it doesn't match THEIR experience of mental health problems. In my research I've found that there's lots of different symptoms and results from traumas and difficulties that manifest in different ways because PEOPLE are different. PTSD, using your example, can manifest in the way of Puss in Boots did, with fear, anxiety and panic attacks, but in other cases CAN also manifest in the soldier-stereotype of "anger"- people lashing out, and fighting others unprovoked. In the case of depression, there's also high-functioning depression. People can be raised to "do" things all their lives and look like they have everything together, even when they feel like their life is meaningless and pointless. I feel like on top of understanding what your story needs, writers need to understand how different types of people work, and that if you're introducing mental health as an aspect, you need to really figure out how "this character" shows mental health. Basically, "do your research" lol.
I love these :( Can you also talk about the issue of a character only existing as a means to an end for some other character or the theme? I get that "characters are not people" and sometimes characters are really just tools or theme signifiers. But in practice, it always feels weird to have Jessica only exist because the protagonist/theme needs Jessica to die or leave for them to grow. I want to have a Jessica that is compelling on her own, with her own journey/arc - but I also want that arc to have ramifications for another character. Ramifications that are essential to the story and cannot exist without Jessica dying/leaving. The balance is hard because I tend to fall into either of these traps: 1. Jessica's arc becomes "too" fleshed-out, to the point that it starts to distract from the arc of someone who need to learn something. The "death" seems unfair to Jessica, as thought she didn't deserve to die for something like this. 2. Jessica becomes too flat/faint, to the point that when I re-read the draft, she basically exists to compel the character to do something and nothing else. Again, the "death" seems unfair - but in another direction, as thought she only existed to die. I have a character-sheet for Jessica but can't write her as a layered character and make her "death" fair and earned.
Huh, I had a similar realization I regards to writing out a certain character. They were thematically relevant to the story but only up until a certain point, and I realized that then was a good time to end their plot involvement. So then I made their death not just a mechanical write out to impact the main character, but also the conclusion of their own personal arc.
Love your work, another banger. One thibg tho, I totally get not wanting the old videos to misdirect people on what you stand for. So to keep an archive of some sort, cud u just unlist the old videos and keep them in an archives playlist? I assume thatd dodge the recommendation problem, but Im not a content creator so idk. 👊🏻
He posted a Google doc link on a random comment with some of the delisted videos: docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1trQOS3KpI_OjTgllGyrkDwQTzjy3DXUKq1gZmHJdzxw/mobilebasic
ccan i just genuinly say how i love listening to your rants, im one person in the thousands who've subbed to you but ur channel personallly means a LOT TO ME, the info in ur channels are like no other and its because these are your opinions, and holy frig are they well-educated ones that really speak to me, SINCERELY, PLEASE CONTINUE YOUR VIDEOS, and good luck on college.
Local I know I'm just some random internet person, but I'm happy that someone else is also sharing the correct thought process to better writing. But if you truly believe what you say, there is a show that takes this form of writing to it peak. The show is called bungo stray dogs. This show is the pinnacle of storytelling. It's an anime, and you have to watch it subbed to get the proper context. If you really believe in your way of thinking, then see it at its best.
16:26 , i personally like to see you in the video, it breaks away from the black background and scribbles. It also helps me reassess ehat ive learned and makes the video feel less like an info dump. Tis good
The saddest thing I ever saw was when a comic I really liked had a total dud ending and a bunch of fans were like "w-well real people don't have arcs so it's actually good writing that half of the cast just didn't finish or abandoned their personal arcs."
13:01 HELL YEAAAAH! This is validating. I've loved the Enneagram for years, and using it for characters is genuinely so helpful for recognizing their core motivations
It's interesting to me that you said you don't want a parasocial relationship and the solution to you is to show your real face so that people know you're "just a dude." Because in my mind that would lead to a more direct parasocial relationship. Instead of viewers having a perceived connection with a "little alien man" they will now have a perceived connection with "you." You can show your face all you want though, it's your channel. I just found the reasoning interesting.
![[#2024MAMA] ROSÉ (로제), Bruno Mars - APT. | Mnet 241122 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/dgGqD28J6aQ/mqdefault.jpg)
So what we learned is that this guy doesn't know anything about people.
Sean I want you to know that I’m so glad you’ve agreed to be my nemesis
@@localscriptman Your nemesis is competence.
@@seanmurphy7011dude this would be way less sad/funny if you ever had anything even remotely substantial to say in retort, instead of hanging around a supposedly useless channel to announce to everyone how little you care for it like a pouting, passive agressive 14 year old girl
@@seanmurphy7011 th-cam.com/video/SU5XY4Epf2w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=cebzyTovLpSHQRs7
Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Characters are not people? Impossible. How am I expected to not make the villains just my high school bullies and the love interest just my ex girlfriend?
Hello Velma writer.
*shakes fist at people who don't enjoy horseshit*
Based on your comment, if anybody has any exceptions of you, they are making a huge mistake.
I read this as if this were a line from a Terrible Writing Advice vid.
Don’t worry. You can still make your main character the quirky relatable center of the universe who gets rewarded for being socially incompetent. The hero you always knew you deserved to be
Always remember kids:
The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction needs to make sense
Damn straight.
@@Zeeboq David Lynch is as real as they come
@@Mr.9 So true. Love him.
Someone I know once began a story way back, about a war in space.
Early into the action, one of the main characters got suddenly killed off; no payoff, not even any parting words cuz it was a shot to the head, and another main character hadn't even gotten to confess his love to her.
So when I called this out, author went: "that's what happens in war, people die."
Again, *one of the main characters, early into the action.*
@@reptiliannoizezz.413 That's awesome.
There's actually a TV Tropes page for that; look up "anyone can die".
In regards to the Puss in Boots thing, I never really saw the ending as him "arcing his way out" of PTSD/thanatophobia, but rather learning to cope with them well enough that his fear of death doesn't rule his life and prevent him from living it properly. I think that's the purpose of the last line the two characters exchange- establishing that Puss has come to accept that this is his destiny one day, like everyone else
it helps that fear of death very often is one of those issues that does just sort of go away with the right life experiences. I used to spend every waking moment thinking about my demise, terrified of making any connection, and then I just realised and internalised how unhelpful that worldview was and things changed very quickly. my other mental issues have been a much longer battle but that one really did mostly clear up over the course of a month
@@mxnevermind Similar to me, but I’ve never gotten over it, I just don’t think about it nearly as often. Maybe talking about it in therapy helped?
it's definitely normal to sometimes be afraid of death! talking it out really does help. i feel like it's one of those things where you eventually just realise like, oh, everyone ever deals with this and we all still keep living, yknow? and then the flareups become more of an event than a constant @@plantinapot9169
@@mxnevermind The fear of death is an interesting subject because of it's connection to regret too. All regrets, in some way, link back to a fear of dying without living life "properly." I think more people fear how death makes them think about their lives rather than dying itself.
especially since one life still did flash before his eyes, he in fact was STILL afraid, he just managed to keep himself calm and cope
The "what does your character believe about themselves" question is a game changer, it even adds dramatic value for passive characters.
"I don't want my stories to be realistic, I want them believable."
It's not "suspension of disbelief", it's "WILLING suspension of disbelief" and that distinction is so ridiculously important.
But what if i want my story to be realistic?
@@jamesholdername Then it is non-fiction (or something along the spectrum). Writing biographies is ok, writing biographies about fictional characters is ok too. Biographies are about being accurate. Personally, I hate reading biographies, but they sell so well that we know many people like them. Some people don't like fiction, and only read or watch biographies, documentaries etc. A person I know can't put themselves to watch or read anything with the smallest bit of fiction, but that is an extreme. Just know that if you commit to realism, you will not be able to steer the wheel, put more profound meaning, or make anything fun or engaging. Your goal would be to act as a news reporter, researching the life of the characters way after they died, or once they are old.
@@allan710 No, you can make something fun even if it's realistic. If i write about femboy furry vsause trying to kill mars or something but it's realistic, it can still be fun, engaging and have profound meaning(s).
Also, in-universe biographies are a thing.
@@jamesholdername I mean, the setting doesn't say how realistic it is, right? You can make a story of a watermelon that loves using laughing emojis and drives balloon-shaped sheep an extremely realistic, gritty story. I think the key part is "[...] but it's realistic [...]". How would we do so? What it means to make some story realistic?
@@allan710 In short, depth and details, A LOT OF DEPTH AND DETAILS. Realism (to me) is also about being closest to real while not being real, mimic reality while not destorying "the point" and/or being non-fiction.
"It's never 'and' it's 'because'" is such a raw line holy shit
If your story can’t deviate from absolute truth and realism, that’s not a story, but history
Yep you gotta make meaning from the mess, and I think that necessarily requires you to be selective about what you show the audience
Honestly, if you study history you find out pretty quickly just how often it deviates from truth and realism! It might be the single most helpful insight to prepare me to accept the advice in these videos. Otherwise I would absolutely be one of those people who felt like it was cheating to think in terms of character arcs and plot instead of just character.
Even historically accurate documentaries are filtered through themes
history is written by the Victor, who just REALLY likes ICBMs
History also deviates from truth and realism though. Stories need both uncertainty and rules.
I heard someone, somewhere say:
Characters aren't people,
Dialogue isn't talking,
And stuff happening is not plot.
I heard someone else describe attempts at writing stories as being like people making a toaster, that looks like an amazing toaster, but it doesn't make toast.
Someone telling you how their day went is narrative. An ikea manual is a perfect concise and economical narrative on how to build a book case. It has a start, middle, end; a character, goal, steps to take, obstacles and conflict, but it's not a story. Like the toaster, it looks amazing, but just doesn't make toast. And if it doesn't make toast, can you really call it a toaster?
The solution to the mental health problem is that actually yes people do improve their own mental health. It's called therapy. Therapy doesn't have to come in the form of therapy though, you can give a streamlined version of everything a therapist gives in the form of discussions with other characters, events, self-discovery, new food, walks in nature etc...
That's how you get Good Will Hunting.
interesting to think what therapy actually is. I (a fricking imbecil) don't believe in therapy, i believe in self-improvement, because all my mental issues was because i hated the state i was in BECAUSE of my former actions, and making progress to a better version of myself fixed all those problems.
But thats just me, i don't have deepset traumas or memories or hard-to-change physical habits behaviors, i was just not living up to what i knew i could be.
Yeah, arcs are just fixing your mental health issues
@@krampus5531 so therapy is usually just someone helping you with this process and making sure you don't miss any areas of self-improvement you might not have noticed. If you didn't have that experience with a therapist then I'm sorry, you might have just gotten a bad pull. Glad you could work it out on your own though
@@krampus5531 That's not valid reason to not believe in therapy. Therapy _is_ self-help. It's admitting there's a problem, and that you aren't sure what the next step to a better version of you is, so you speak to a professional that can help you figure that out.
When LSM names a character "flingflong" you know you're about to hear a narrative arc to rival Shakespeare
Ngl I read that as Last Spinjitzu Master. I kinda hope he covers something like Ninjago and other toy shows just to see him unpack some of the common writing mistakes in them and what keeps people around besides consumerism lol
Shakespeare's arcs are honestly often pretty shit. Dialog is fantastic, but arcs? Eh. A few of the plays have halfway decent descending arcs, but plenty of them are just lacking any sort of progression in the characters.
So, the irl arc of mental health is not about fixing it, it is about learning to live with it. The moment we go "brb cured" it destroys my immersion, whereas some guy yelling "Nooooooooo!" Doesn't. The reason is that the latter is a exaggeration and simplification of a feeling I can relate to. The former is... completely antithetical to my experience.
Here's the real problem with mental health as a theme in stories: most people cannot relate. Trying to explain neurodivergence is hella difficult because people can't emphatise. They may be able to understand it rationally if they think hard enough, but at that point they aren't enjoying a story, they're watching a documentary.
That doesn't mean that you can't work in arcs, but you got to understand the scope of that arc. Fun fact, there's actually plenty overlap in relatable wants and needs.
A simple example is that Bob wants to belong, so he thinks in order to belong he has to be normal and to be normal he has to go to concerts, get that sales job, marry the normal girl across the street. Now, Bob has ass/adhd. Concerts bombard his brain into exhaustion, his job requires him to mask all day, and the girl across the street and he just don't really get each other. Bob isn't going to make it like this.
But Bob wanting to be normal, predictably, is Bob wanting to belong somewhere. His need is to be accepted. Which he misconstrued as requiring to be normal. Instead of trying to be something else, he needs to find places that accept him. That can be many things. Maybe he quits his job, or maybe he opens up to his co-workers and they not only try to better facilitate him, but his boss decides Bob's expertise can be useful in a different role so now Bob helps develop strategies instead of doing 9/5 pitches. Maybe he breaks up with the girl across the street, or maybe they go into marriage counseling because they believe there is something genuine there worth saving.
There's stories you can tell without "fixing the brain." You just have to work harder to make them relatable to a general audience.
Stopped reading after neroudivergent knew the rest is going to be nonsense after that.
@@maninthemask6275 you proved the comment right.
adhd of the ass?
@@maninthemask6275wtf? Your reply is nonsense.
This comment should be pinned
Same goes for dialogue and mannerisms. Sometimes writing can sound cringe, but we know the majority of times people don’t have tight conversations like characters. Part of the fun in writing character speech is flavoring, giving them perfect comebacks and catchphrases.
Look at JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. It’s fun to watch because they’re so unlike real people, but that’s we the fans adore. Not every story should be that weird, but don’t be afraid to get a little bizarre.
9 months late but you can also do the exact opposite and make your story appealing if you execute it correctly. A lot of the good humor in Smiling Friends for example is just improvised conversations.
@@thehydrationman5500 oh yes, I love that too. Especially in The Suicide Squad (the good one). Whatever someone talks can say a lot about them and how they think.
“Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities, Truth isn't.”
- Mark Twain
Stranger or more complex?
In fiction we generally just focus on a couple things for an arc in a way that simplifies the real-life version it is based on
Man, "characters are not people" has been a favorite writing quote of mine for a while, and I love the way you explain it. This is my favorite channel for writing tips and advice.
Yes! It's similar to 'Stories are not life' or 'One's life is not a character arc'. There's seemingly an abundance of ppl who subscribe to these ideas which is strange but not surprising. Even more peculiar are the ppl who subscribe to these ideas without even realizing it.
@@browniebear stories are not life, but they are, if you choose it to be so, a representation of life, because one's life is literally a character arc. To do nothing, to improve, to fall into obscurity, they are all developments of your life, unless you literally go with the flow, which means you're not even a really a character but a background, Villager B.
And even if you go the path and make everything extremely outlandish, who narrates it? Someone, during some part of their life, reacting to the change around them with change of their own.
I find it weirder that you call us the weird ones. I find it both sides logical if you look through biased lenses, which everyone views the world with their unique pair of biased lenses.
Understanding THAT concept is, IMO, one of the keys to writing a good story.
It should also be noted that, when writing about mental health, rather than having your character arc their way out of their mental health issue completely, their arc can include coming to terms or simply learning to live with it. They can still have their ups and downs, and which one (and what degree) of those states you end the story on is up to you and depends the overall tone & message you want your ending to convey, but the key here is that they don't need to outright defeat it for their story to have a profound or satisfying conclusion. Bojack Horseman is a great example that comes to mind for this.
The Babadook is another great example!
Eda from Owl House kinda counts.
Your bit about Puss in Boots was exactly what was going in my mind the moment you started talking about mental health, representation isnt here to transcribe literally everything and in realistic detail, its just there to show the experiences the people you are representing go through, its to show them in a as much as you can unbiased light, just ecperiences, not the whole being
The idea of connecting all your character’s motivations with a “because”, rather than an “and”, was really helpful. Thanks a lot!
I don't think Puss experiences ptsd, I think he just has general anxiety about death brought on by the sudden realization of mortality. Which is just kinda normal for most people, and like most people, curable to an extent. He doesn't necessarily fear death at the end, nor does he write it off entirely.
You legit saved my motivation to write. I suffered from so many of the novice writing problems you mention in your vids. my characters were complex, discombobulated messes with no drive or reason to exist. I was so burnt out from trying to fix them with quick hacks and the like, and i was ready to give up on storytelling. But then this funny little alien showed up in my recommended and changed the game. Now with an emphasis on theme, im honing old characters, laser focusing them on the theme of the story and their part in it. I'm motivated to write again because I see hope in conveying true meaning through my story and characters that no other writing youtuber has given me, so thank you.
The influence videos can have on people is huge. Good luck!
Im a social worker and the way you describe it reminds me a lot of being a Care Coordinator. Youre not trying to find "why are you like this" but rather, what do you believe? What do you want? Because yeah people are complicated abut if theyre guided on one things they do become like characters in the way they grow, learn, and improve on their world.
One thing a good writer can do to make a character more "human" is have them relapse or fail a few times but grow from it and go back towards their goal.
Honestly the revelation you had about how to work around a stalemate of ‘they don’t have motivations because they’re depressed’ was really cool to see. All of this was great work in equal measure, though, and it’s nice to see how you link these newer videos back to your foundational concepts and re-contextualise them as you expand your paradigm.
I have enjoyed each one the videos of yours that I’ve watched, but I respect the desire to keep this channel aligned with your most current beliefs and purposes. We must be aware that we all go through a continual learning process. The ones who don’t think are the ones who stagnate.
The best example of mental health I've seen in recent memory is the series 'Welcome to the NHK'. It follows the journey of a severely depressed, paranoid and anti-social individual who seeks salvation through a number of quick fixes until finally breaking down and realizing his need to care about others and make the necessary start to gradual progress. It was a wild ride but it was fairly accurate to what it takes to get out of a clinically depressed state.
NHK is fantastic. The messed-up relationship between Sato and Misaki really intrigued me. I loved how they handled those characters. No sugarcoating, just an outside view of the lives of struggling people.
The manga and light novel are great too
I'm still so glad I randomly stumbled unto Welcome to the NHK when I was looking for a completely different story theme and tone-wise; Welcome to the Ballroom. One about a hikikomori learning how to live and the other about a high schooler finding his passion and following it through till the end. Both were very important to me, but in different ways and times
I 100% agree with characters aren’t people. Characters are there to serve a narrative purpose. The way you did Flim Flom is pretty much the way I’ve been doing my characters. Especially my superheros and villains. My main hero (Heavy Steel) and villain (Dynamo) have some basis from me, BUT they are NOT self inserts. They both have goals and some personality traits that I myself don’t have and don’t like. I made them this way cuz they serve my narrative and theme. That being the destruction and benefits of big ego.
I'm not sure if that thumbnail's going to live in my dreams or nightmares, but it's definitely living somewhere.
I am literally sword cat
I'm writing a novel about learning to live with trauma and this still holds true.
One thing I'd say is important to add is that if the theme is mental health related then the goal doesn't have to be Conquer The Mental Illness. It can be (as we see with Puss in Boots) but if those are the only stories we make about mental illness that's a) Bad as collective representation (media portrayal of neurodivergence heavily affects how ppl relate to neurodivergent folks) and b) Fucking boring. Sometimes the end of the arc can be about learning to manage mental illness in a healthier way so as not to take out negative emotions on others, or going to therapy, or disproving a deeply negative self-concept. There's a bunch of different ways to address it :)
Too real, that’s a great way of putting it
I'm writing a novel too, and trauma plays a role in the formation of the main characters beliefs about himself and the world.
A lot of it has to do with cognitive dissonance, and trying to make sense of why a series of traumatic events happened to him, and if this reflects his own morality as a person.
E.g.: 'x bad thing has happened to me. It's happened more than once. This must mean that I deserve this. What's the alternative explanation?'
It's ultimately about learning that you can't always find a reason or logic for the absurdity of the world.
Determinism and free will is a key concept in this. Is there ultimately a reason for suffering trauma, so should we accept it as part of life's journey? Or should we break away from such a mentality to build something better, and move beyond trauma?
Edit: A core point is that the first round of trauma struck him at a young age. When you're younger, you're still trying to make sense of the world and your place in it. Trauma at that age can be damaging and shake your view of your self and life going forwards
Also regarding representation - it can be valuable to see cases where a character has some mental health struggles but the story just isn't about that. For example maybe they already have worked towards good coping strategies before the story starts, so now while it's a factor in their life they're not as preoccupied with it which leaves room for the story to explore other themes.
@@Onezy05 thats really interesting!
@@tetra654 yes, I very much agree. Its a pattern with many different type sof minority rep in media that can get exhausting--stories with queer characters only being about queerness, stories with disabled characters being solely about disability (or worse, the side character whose defining characteristic is the minority group they belong to.)
I went to college with fling flong, my boy is all grown up now damn
Another good way to portray mental health disorders without sacrificing your story is instead of the arc being about curing it, it can be about accepting (whether the character or the characters around them), learning to mediate it, or let it spiral out of control due to choosing not to work on it
I think The next best thing to ask after “what does your about character believe about themself.” Is “what does your character believe about others?”
Using the example of the depressed character they could think that people are just annoying, and not worth interacting with. Or they could think that everyone else has a much better life, and are way better at functioning in society.
Hell, they could go on an arc where they realize that isn’t true, and that these insecurities are completely normal. They could even start making friends who are equally depressed and insecure, because they finally feel on equal grounds with another person that they can open up to.
Your channel is so liberating. I no longer stress out about a character being 'likable' for the audience. I just think about how they would be functional to a narrative. Thank you
I started using your structures and advice in my workshops and holy shit the response from my professors was insane. you really figured out the rules of the game
I also blackmailed your professors for good measure
@@localscriptman What was your reason? Do you love your dog? Did you do it to impress your parents?
@@lennysmileyface I am insane
@@lennysmileyface😂😂
@@localscriptman ohhhh I was wondering what they meant by the note "Please god please I haven't seen my wife and kids in weeks"
One time, at the end of an episode, Marge said "Well, the moral of the story is..." And Homer said "Honey, there isn't a moral. Just a bunch of stuff that happened." It doesn't always have to be mental illness to be a legit problem or to be relatable to people with more serious issues. Or ftm it doesn't have to directly address something to speak about it sensitively and intelligently. That's what art is for, at its best.
I am so glad I found your channel. You really delve into the mechanics of storytelling beyond the basic 101 stuff that over-saturates the space. Each of your videos perfectly describes things I've been picking up on for years, but never fully understood.
Great video, almost lives up to the masterpiece that is “send this to your greatest opp” by globalscriptman
I should have just quit when I was ahead
I just cramped my stomach from laughing at this
In the game Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, the main character Senua is struggling with some form of psychosis. Her arc is about dealing with the reality of the death of her loved ones and facing her trauma, which turn her psychosis up to 11 into horrifying hallucinations. By the end of the game, shes finally able to face and overcome her grief. Crucially, her mental disorder isnt just cured outright and she still hears and sees hallucinations. In fact the game makes a compelling point about how the distinction between her reality and "true" reality doesnt really matter. Its still an uplifting ending, because she is finally able to face her grief and reach the acceptance stage, finally moving forward with her life instead of living in the shadow of death.
I discussed this game with my brother and he said "its still a sad ending though" to which I asked "why" and he said "because shes still crazy," which pissed me off because for one thing, becoming "not crazy" wasnt the point of Senuas arc, and for two, just because she still has to live with a difficult mental disorder, doesnt mean she cant live a fulfilling and happy life.
While I agree up to a point, I'd have to disagree on something you didn't say. You didn't say that she still has a sad life. Not that it's a terrible life that shouldn't be lived by anybody, but not the life that I would want. When I loom at many of the people I see around me, I wonder, "what part of them do I find the most admirable?" It's not their disability or their struggle, EVER. It's their demeanor and character. Of course the ending is still sad. And of course someone who's looking at the story with a different perspective than yours is going to say, "man, she's still crazy". She still sees hallucinations, and she still suffered the same trauma. All that changed was her outlook on it. I think that any media that depicts debilitating things as anything less than debilitating do a disservice to the struggle. She still deals with seeing hallucinations and that is neither helpful or acceptable. BUT she still deals with it.
He finds it sad because he understands her struggle. You find it uplifting because you understand the journey of her acceptance and the pain that came from her circumstance and the strength it took for her to overcome that. Both are a valid point to make about the story.
All that to say, the point of any story is to deliver a message to me, the audience. What I get from that message doesn't always correlate with how the characters feel about their arc, or even the most altruistic of viewers. I don't have to deal with Senua's circumstance and knowing what she's going through makes me feel bad for her. Doesn't mean I don't get the point of her arc, but that her arc doesn't define her circumstance. Her circumstance defines her arc. It literally gives definition to her arc. Where it takes place, how, when, etc. It's why when you watch Naruto and you see the fact that they are LITERAL CHILD SOLDIERS, you can really vibe with and respect the desire Hashirama and Madara have. You can respect and admire Pain's visions, even if you can't respect his plan. I can see WHY, even if I don't see what you see.
im trying to write songs bro, and i know screenplay doesnt exactly coincide with that but finding your channel randomly has been so freeing to my own thought process around my own work. Thank you, youre appreciated
Creating a character has always seemed difficult and absurd to me, because the question I asked while creating a character was: What are the features of this character? But now the question of "what this character believes about themself" changed my entire perception, made the job much easier and more meaningful for me. Thank you for this amazing lesson
3:17 You know, I'd never noticed it before, but it's true. A dog's face viewed front-on really is just a ghost with big hairy balls
i’d love to see you tackle videogame writing
Really awesome to see how you are changing the channel to match your vision.
I find it funny how almost EVERYTHNG i write now, all the arcs and events and cause and effects and consequences are in flow charts and graphs, how character b's mental health and mindset look in relation to the timeline in relation to the actions he takes and the actions that happen to him, i can write so much faster and easier and see the story clearly in my head.
I love using models and structure to write, because it makes sense to me, and i have learned like, an INCREDIBLE amount from your videos on structure.
Also i like seeing your face when your talking, it makes it easier for me to follow along with the dialogue because people have a unique way of using body language to communicate ideas, that's just my preference, even though i also like the mindmaps.
Hope you don't run into any more pirates, man.
your tip of figuring out what a character believes about themselves is probably the best tip i've heard when it comes to coming up with a character's inner fears and conflict. gonna write it on a post it and stick it to my wall
You could make your old videos 'unlisted' and have a playlist of the unlisted videos or a link to it on your about section. That way they can't be recommended, but are still available as a record.
He posted a Google doc link on a random comment with some of the delisted videos:
docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1trQOS3KpI_OjTgllGyrkDwQTzjy3DXUKq1gZmHJdzxw/mobilebasic
Here's how I understand the problem of writing about mental health and psycological disorders:
“We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.”
-- Carl Gustav Jung.
What this quote means is tha real psychological problems a complete inversion of what is desierable to us as storytellers. The way a story works is that some condition confronts the character as a problem and they try to solve it, as in the above quote. Whether they success or fail and why is the conclusion of the story. This is an act of agency; a force of will. But what Jung is saying is that psycholgical problems are actually overcome spontaneously I.E _without_ consicous intent. So it isn't really possible for there to be a story about them in the way we normally deal with the thing: it isn't down to the characters responsibility or _choice._
Alrady that sounds like heresy, both from the perspective of our culture and the fundementals of stroytelling, but there are stories that pull it off just that without even necessarily being about mental health.
This discontinuity is, I think, the real reason we fail to represent mental health issues adequately in most stories.
Let's try an example.
Garfield is a tree. A small tree sappling. They have a hard time getting enough photosynthesis done and the other trees bully them by starving them of light and nurients. Pests and insects attack them and the winters are very harsh. Even if they has a good year and grow a whole yard in height, the other trees always seem to grow faster. None of the other trees seem to think them worth pollinating and they are afflicted with the anxiety of being felled while alone and still a virgin.
In most stories, this would be the part where Garfield the tree goes on an adventure to discover their real authentic self so they can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps by constructing stilts to get above the canopy or maybe brockering with the humans to take them up in a helicopter and plant them someonewhere above their old rivals. The point is they use their wooden tree brain to do something.
Whereas how the problem actually resolves itself is that Garfield is an oak tree. Oak trees take a very long time to grow and naturally other faster growing plants have a leg up on them whilet they're still young. They don't even begin producing acorns until they're 40 years old. (This being the age where life really begins.) While their growth never seems to be enough, it is nevetheless adding up over time until a critical threhold is reached and all of these problems simply don't pose any serious threat to Garfield anymore and they reach the ripe age of 800, having sired entire forests.
Garfield never actually had to do anything except persist as he was and wait!
But we can still get a story out of this situation by having Garfield try all of the grift about the trunk-enhancement cream and bee hypergamy on the tree incel forums on to discover too late that he was going to be alright all along. It's the tried and true, "The power was within you all along" thematic trope. There doesn't actually need to be anythign wrong with the main character if he can be made to beileve that there is.
Though even that is really besides the point because it certainly is not the case that anyone with mental health issues should just sit around and take it. The quote from Jung needs to be taken in the proper context: it is speaking in retrospect. Going forwards, you don't really understand that there is a problem, what it is, that you're struggling in different ways from other people, much less what the solution is going to be. But looking back, having solved the problem, your actions seem quaint and frantic relative to how simple your course of action, if not the actual "solution" to the condition was in hindsight.
We can use Local as an example: he use dot have OCD symptoms until he learned how to reign them in somewhat. How did he do this? We he'd probably say he put strategies in place. But where did he find the capacity to put strategies in place? You see mental health is unique from all other classess of human problems in that is an issue of real transformation because it's a situation where the thing that is supposed to do the healing is the very thing that is afflicted. So when a solution comes, there is always an infinite regression.
In the end we are forced to confess that the problem resolved itself however much Local may have seemed like an active part in it. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, meditation, and various other techniques are simply rationalizations to get rid of the infinite regression and conceal in plain sight the fact that what is, for all intents and purposes, a miracle, has taken place.
It's like saying you wrote down a reminder for yourself to solve your lack of memory and attention. That sounds plausible until you question how it was that you remembered to look at your notes in order to remind yourself. *The only way the solution can possibly work is if there is no problem!* And yet, in cases where it does work, it seems to.
I'm not saying that Local need not have bothered with his strategies and it was a waste of time, just that i don't think it worked for the reasons he seems to assume it did. The way people normally say they fixed their mental issues with stratagies, they talk as though there is a mechanical fault with their neurology and so fixing it is a matter of busting out the right tools. where I think it's really more of a matter of voodoo and only worked because the people in question beileved that it would. Insofar as the tools in question are the means that the paitent finds credible, that is what really makes the appropriate treatment.
If a sick person is steadfastly convinced that only zen practice can mend his soul, sending him to a psychotherapist is not going to be productive because he won't cooperate with the doctor.
This is, pychologically speaking, what the miraculous is: when a psychological issue is resolved, we have no idea who solved it. (Because in actual point of fact nobody did solve it in the same way that the body heals physical cuts and brusies on its own, usually without intervention.) So we say God did it. Jesus healing the sick and the lame is symbolic of the internal transformation that the religious experience brings about. So it should not be so surpising that the alchemists attempted to formulate panaceas from the Holy Spirit or visions of Christ.
This is most explicit in cases where Jeses drove out demons. When we have these problems we often say they are "our demons" because they overcome our sense of agency. If you have a trolly at the supermarket that pulls maddeningly to the left, you might get short with the trolly as though it has a will that's workign against your own. A metal problem is treated as a brain that pulls maddeningly in a particular direction, usually the one you don't want.
With all that in mind, my conclusion is that we already have the language and means to write about mental health adequately on a thematic level and have for thousonds of years or more. It is, as Local points out, getting the symptoms accurate to our contemporary sensibilities right which is where this issue comes from. Nobody cared if a mental disease is depicted correctly generations ago because in many cases nobody knew what it was or had any social consciousness of it. Awareness of mental health is a shockingly recent phenomenon. So writing a mentally ill character correctly is a problem more on the side of lore/worldbuilding/research; the rules the story is operating under specific to it's plot, rather than the archetypal themes and stroytelling going on deep under the hood.
OMG BABE WAKE UP MY FAVE WRITER TUBER POSTED
The irony around 12:00-13:00 is that is exactly how depression works for many. A fundamental issue with how they see themselves and the world. Even chemical imbalance depression NEEDS some form of restructuring to perception to be paired with medication. Medication doesnt change beliefs about yourself or your capabilities.
Why is your character depressed?
-life is meaningless
Why does your character think life is meaningless?
And there's your answer. How does your character see/feel about themself is high key usually the main question with depression.
The way I've always handled this issue is:
1) I avoid giving my characters one specific mental disorder. Maybe I'll have a real one in mind when writing them, but I won't actually call it that unless it's important for some reason. (There's a lot of overlapping symptoms anyway, so restricting yourself to writing one specific disorder might be needlessly limiting. A lot of people have a combination of disorders!)
2) You're probably not going to *cure* a mental health issue from one magical act of defiance, but it is very possible to *improve* your mental health this way. Characters can come to terms with their issues, they can make friends who help them cope, they can even go to a therapist and take medications if you want to go that route. The problem will probably never be completely gone, but it can be improved.
Ignore the haters, keep showing the mug, brings personality to the "disembodied voice talks about xyz" type videos. Also I need "characters are not people" in Comic Sans on a tshirt ASAp
"Characters are not people" never made so much sense to me before, and now it is so obvious why it's a perfect definition
Humans are complex, like, really, really complex, and a character is a simplified version of what a human is
This thing blew my mind, thank you for the awesome video, man
Here’s my personal belief on how to talk about mental disorders in your story, make it PART of the main character’s goal, not their entire personality. Instead of focusing the entire story on how they cure it, make the story be partially about how they deal with it, and how it negatively effects their aspirations and goals. Essentially you’d be kinda interweaving two stories at once, which is difficult but can be done. I struggle with depression and one thing I can tell you is that every single time I have a burst of motivation to get shit done, it feels amazing… then I overthink things, slowly coming to the idea that I might never accomplish it before I either actually struggle and accomplish that thing or start off at square one. Now that isn’t easy for simple character arcs to portray, so instead make the story be more about what the character actually wants to accomplish with their life.
I constantly tell people “man it’d be so cool if..” and then never do the thing. It’d be cool if I made designs on my black clothing using bleach or yarn, it’d be cool if I animated something, it’d be amazing if I worked out and ACTUALLY stuck to it. Some of these will actually happen, most won’t. Few months ago I was working out every morning, feeling genuinely happy and excited. I found myself to get growth, my muscles were slowly showing, and my friends even complimented them a few times… then something happened that made me slowly lose that momentum, instead of just getting up and working out I’d say “I should workout today…” and now I’m in this endless cycle of wanting to workout but… just not… HOWEVER, what gives me hope is I remember how it felt. I remember what happiness felt like, and I remember how long it took me to get there (a few weeks of training before it just felt good to do it, almost addictive) so I do have hope that I’ll start again.
Same with animating or doing art, I’ve done it before but I’ve just never really FINISHED anything. Nothing I’ve been proud of… so if you were to make a story similar to this, make it about how they actually finish something the character has wanted to do but have zero motivation for it- AND THEN slowly figure out root ways of how they can accomplish that.
By the end maybe you get the sense that they’ll become exactly how they started at the beginning, but now they have a feeling that they can better handle it in the future.
This is easier in long formed storytelling and not if you’re doing a single film, but it CAN be done. I remember a good example being Manchester by the Sea. By the end he’s not fully cured of his depression, but he’s loosened up just a bit. He could easily go back to where he started in hating his life but he’s got someone now to help remind him there’s shit that can be done. Leave your story with that feeling, melancholic. You won’t ever get over your mental issues, but you can figure out ways to live with them and still pursue your goals.
That’s how I’d do it anyway..
"Because" not "and" when building out motivations is such a good way to put it. Great video and lots to think about!
Most captivating intro ever. I wish fling flong was sitting on the beach with me, he’s so precious
On another note, I’ve been coming to your channel for a few months now, and I can say that you have helped me a lot and also made me question things I didn’t need to question in the first place. Regarding the end of your video, I like the idea that this channel be a textbook: in the end, advice is not one big message to take away. It will only apply in certain situations, like flipping one switch on and another off, or only referring to certain sections of a textbook at a time.
Playing supervillain through film critique’s also [cringe] to me now. I believe you are catering to an audience of writers who genuinely want to improve their craft, and not one that just wants satisfaction from seeing existing work torn apart for clicks. Excited to see where you take this channel!
One of my favourite depictions of these types of characters who struggle with mental health was in this fanfiction I read, in which one friend of a friend group pulls away from the group in the last year of school together, and then years later one of the friends finds the one who pulled away, and finds that they have become a drug addict. Their addiction makes sense given the background we already know the character to have from the show (they went through a lot), and it was incredibly captivating as a text because the addict does this sort of pretence of meaninglessness that is found in that poorly written "complex" characters, when actually it's clear that as the character faced rejection in their adolescence, they now were leaning into being rejected, while using drugs to sedate the craving of affection and feelings of loneliness. Idk I guess just in the world of fanfiction where "angst" is a genre that's often continuous, there's definitely a potential to write interesting stories within that that keep characters with motivations and arcs that make sense and can be built on without just being like "mental health bad", "I unhappy permanently" - especially with that try-hard/leave me alone opposing dynamics.
3:52 that was the most coherent and accurate explanation of what goes through my head when trying to tie everything together. Your delivery is fantastic.
Thanks, yeah I really wasn’t sure if anything in this video would be sensible, I redid that part multiple times in the last couple weeks
I'm glad People are not Characters, too. When you mentioned Chekov's gun, I thought, "Gee, I'm glad I haven't needed to pull that gun I bought last chapter.."
Every apocalypse prepper who has ever lived
But duh! People forgetting to bring guns is realistic! Checkmate fiction writer!
I think that one of the purposes of storytelling is to distill the chaos of life into manageable pieces which allows us to focus on and deal with our problems one at a time.
I think if a writer DOES want to explore different core motivations for a character in order to portray their complexity, the right step might be to make sequels. A protagonist can grow and cone to realize they have another problem at a different stage of life. If you wanna compare it to real people; could you say that every trauma and core belief you have shows itself in absolutely everyday life? Some people don't figure out they have a major phobia until they're like, 30. So I think it's totally valid to simply explore differing facets of s character via multiple stories.
You don't even need sequels necessarily, you can transition from arc to arc and progress in your core themes, but you would need to make those themes related, otherwise, the transition from one theme to the next will be too jarring.
But yes, sequels are a good way to explore multiple core beliefs, and if the core themes are more divorced from one another, the reader/viewer
will feel it less jarring.
What I am saying is, switching themes from arc to arc, is harder to execute compared to switching themes from sequel to sequel.
I absolutely love your stuff man - I've always been a STEM head and I still am, but what I love about it is understanding how things work, what makes them tick. You apply that to writing and storytelling like I haven't ever really seen done before, it's great!
I'd approach writing mental disorders and illnesses like this: by the end of the story or character arc, it's unlikely that the mental illness will be "cured". However, they may now have the tools to deal with it. For example, you could have a character who has social anxiety and has been isolating themself because of it. Through the course of the story they meet people and make positive experiences, and by the end they're finally seeking out interaction with others by themself, because they've learned that even if it makes them anxious, the good experiences will be worth it, and they can push through the initial fear.
And if they suffer panic attacks, then by the end they might have learned how to recognize when they're about to happen, and have developed strategies to make them easier to get through.
The key is to realize that even if you can't make the character get entirely rid of the mental illness, you can make them find ways to live with it in healthy ways.
15:05 Could old videos be unlisted and moved to a playlist or something instead of just being flat out deleted? I understand not wanting them to be the first impression someone gets of your channel and/or they don't represent your current perspective/values, but I think there was still a lot of good content in them and they're useful as a tool to see how your values and perspectives have changed over time.
Or Patreon! Would pay for them
Great video. The arrangement of seemingly random character traits into relationships and motivations that all tie into one theme was a really good example. It's great to have someone willing to demonstrate what they're talking about instead of just talking about vague theory or quick tips.
15:21 A simple solution could be to just unlist the videos you don't like and bury them in a playlist that fans who want to watch the old videos can find if they know where to look, but newcomers aren't going to accidentally stumble across.
Why would someone that knows he doesn't agree with those old videos anymore ever wanted to see them again? like the information there is kinda useless now
Thank you for verbalising things that I've known for ages. My English teachers kept hammering down themes and motivations throughout my high school years, whether in the prescribed novels and plays we read, or the poems and short stories we had to analyse. Characters can always be explained because the story always revolves around themes and motivations. Keep up the good work green alien man.
I see your point. I'm heavy into comics and one thing Will Eisner (I think...) said was you're not drawing reality, you're drawing a simulation of reality. Best way I can explain how I understand it is this. Fiction is like a movie set. On the surface it looks real, but, its all just plywood and plaster. None of the extras have a backstory, they just exist as filler to make the set look lived in. Its all an illusion. Your main characters have to have enough depth to come off as real, they
Local once again dropping a writing lesson video when we needed it the most.
3:04 reminds me of gatsby and daisy in the great gatsby. daisy being a symbol of wealth and success to gatsby and his great desire to achieve both those things
fling flong moment
I haven't decided how I feel about the 'characters aren't people' philosophy yet. You can't compare them to 'the average guy' who might be reading or even writing this character's story - because the characters we find compelling usually have something extraordinary about them and aren't average people. You ask "does your life have an act structure, clear set-ups and pay-offs, or chekhov's guns?" with the clear implication that it probably doesn't. I ask you 'why do we find these narrative devices satisfying and compelling in the first place?' and my answer would be that it's because they reflect something about life. Extraordinary people probably DO lead lives filled with satisfying set-ups and pay-offs, with a continuous arc that could feasibly be fitted into an act structure. And even average people, if they looked really hard at their lives, probably have more subtle manifestations of those things, too.
also for me, IDK what character in his use even mean. In which I'll show how not explaining definition will happen at below.
I think human traits/personalities/desires are not what made understanding people so compelling. but it's the history that make these human condition. (true, some traits are admirable or cool, but understanding meaning behind confront mask it show is even more compelling)
or should I instead call it... 'story'.
this video (imo) is little bit stretched about it's philosophy. because it's only look at human traits. and the thing is that if we only look at that, all of documentary and biography is all wrong because it's doesn't represent all of thing this person had.
and even day-to-day people we met are just character, because they're representation of what you perceive. he's maybe got more than that, but you don't have to know all of it. because not everything need to be known to function. (both say in relationship and character)
in the sense of physic, character is obviously not people, but metaphysics? we will have talk to that for long.
(so yea, this video kinda not helpful for me as philosophy student and author)
My take on "characters aren't people" is that a character is either the part of a (fictional) person that is relevant to the story, viewed from the perspective of the story, or a symbolic representation of some important aspect of reality, or a combination of the two. Usually a combination of the two.
And I'm pretty sure that even extraordinary people rarely have anything as neat and satisfying as the events of a well-written story, because a story shows you the events as seen from a certain perspective, with some elements hidden, others emphasized, others edited a bit, and still others represented symbolically instead of being directly shown. But any good story is, at its core, something real or realistic told from a certain perspective.
I believe we find them compelling and satisfying because they make sense, not because they're tied to reality or that those kind of things happen often in real life. Life is very very disorganised
@alexu297 That raises an interesting question - why do we find things that 'make sense' satisfying if they have nothing to do with real life? What does 'makes sense' even mean in the first place? I mean real life has to make sense, even if that sense is too complicated for us to comprehend. Maybe we find these stories compelling and satisfying because they're just so much simpler than real life, so you might be right.
That line a Desire is just a means to an end, reminds me of the thought i had talking to some one about the WW80s movie.
Yes the wish stone is in the power of the god of lies because every wish is really a lie.
I wish i had a cheese burger can be a lie of multi levels.
"I don't want to be hungry how can i not be hungry?" Burger.
"I get comfort from burgers and want one to feel comfortable now." Ect.
I just didn't think that could apply to nearly everything people do until this video.
I'll also add a thought i had that i hope you can think about and explain better then me or say how it's dumb is.
Horror and comedy work best when they don't talk about the real thing.
Pick an idea and never ever say it, hint at it gesture to it, even show it's shadow on a big spot on the wall, but never ever say what it really is.
It mite have been talked about other places in witch case i'd love a link or something. I just am winging it based on seeing a bunch of stuff and hating school.
Not sure if you need to have everything for a character boiled down to one core thing, as long as that isn't shoved into peoples faces. That the complexity is behind the scenes, and if the audience cares enough, they can try to unpack that puzzle themselves.
Watching you get more and more skilled at MS paint is an oddly surreal experience
I think that its not as much as that "our lives are boring" as it is the fact that there are many stories in our lives and focusing on all of them at once is just too much and may easily lose focus. It's theoretically possible but a purpose of a story isn't to make someone literally live someone else's life, it's to tell a main simple message --- usually the simpler, the more clear and impactful it will be if written correctly
I personally do like to think of my characters as people in a way, it helps me connect to them and truly get to know what they do and like, but when it comes to actually putting stuff on paper, I put in the parts of their lives that matter to the general theme, which I think this video encapsulates perfectly
If you want a multi-faceted character, you CAN do that but you need to know what the purpose of said character is in your story at the very core (In this case, as stated, it is the conflict between humility and shallow success)
Rearranging stuff and connecting it is exactly the key. The way I like to think about it is that the story and characters already ARE there, it's less so about me making the story from beginning to end as it is me slowly putting pieces into their correct spots and drawing lines between them until I solve what it was always trying to be.
I FINALLY UNDERSTAND WHAT IT MEANS
Goodness, I've been hearing "character's aren't people bro" from random dudes on Reddit all the way to R. R. Martin.
I want to add that many great filmmakers like Tarantino and Nolan view their works as myths. Tarantino said he writes his stories as books, then translates them into screenplays (source: interviews). Myths aren't about characters, not people.
My favorite depiction of mental illness is Kaladin from the Stormlight Archive. He's got major depression and PTSD and both never go away and his arc isn't learning to "get over" his mental illnesses. But he does have a very beautiful arc about finding meaning and belonging despite the darkness and learning to keep going even though life is going to be hard. And the thing is, Kaladin's arc really has nothing to do with his depression, and everything to do with his core character motivation of self-blame and self-hatred for what he's done in the past. So he can overcome his character struggle of forgiving himself without curing his depression. His arc could still work with a character who didn't have depression or PTSD, but I think his character arc is more powerful and meaningful because it includes that representation without making depression everything the character is about or turning mental illness into a disease to be cured when that's not how it works. His depression does influence his actions and character motivations and his arc, but it isn't framed as "the thing to overcome" but "the thing to learn to cope with" while "the thing to overcome" is something else even more fundamental to him. So he can have a very beautiful arc about living with depression that still feels very cathartic when he overcomes his struggles without making that catharsis curing his depression.
Yes, exactly there are things that characters can overcome and traits that they cannot. Some of my characters are neurodivergent and this isn't something they overcome, rather beliefs about themselves that are holding them back.
On the opposite side of the argument, I think Kaladin feels like representation of depression from someone who has never really felt depressed. I don't mean to minimize Sanderson's experiences if he has had depression, but given by what he says online, it doesn't sound like he really has at any point in his life.
Kaladin is endlessly in the darkness. This is the fundamental problem of his portrayal, I think. Everyone I've met that was actually diagnosed with an episode of depression (not depressive personality disorder, to be fair) experienced it along with the joys of life. Sometimes they are having an amazing times, at other times they absolutely hate their life and wish to curl into a ball. Kaladin only ever does the latter, and that's why I think his depression just doesn't feel genuine. Depression isn't just being endlessly beaten down; often, one of the hardest things to accept is that you can feel great and terrible in the same day.
In that regard, I think Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is the best portrayal of depression I've found in any media, among great portrayal of the oft forgotten lowest class individuals in America. Suttree is a character who both hates and loves his life in a way that culminates into self-destruction, something that he almost views positively because of how much he hates his actions. Despite that, when he's bumming around, getting drunk and partying, he also feels incredibly alive. Depression crushes him because no matter what he does, nothing ever feels right, no matter how many years he spends trying to figure it out. It's only through a near death experience that he realizes he truly cannot continue living so recklessly anymore, and leaves it behind after visiting the important things and people he found in that time. It's not a happy ending and his grief continues even as he is driven away from his previous life, but it's him simultaneously experiencing that pain and relief that makes it feel so real. That's the complexity missing from Kaladin.
@@dragstra8448 Yeah I don't agree with that.
(1) he has major chronic depression and has been depressed since he was a kid, depressive episodes are just not an accurate metaphor that's not the disorder he has
(2) he is quite literally in the worst time of his life during the stormlight archive and going through major trauma after major trauma, his depression is at the worst it's ever been and understandably so because his life fucking sucks, and he's dealing with PTSD on top of pre-existing major depression so ofc it's gonna be worse right now and
(3) he isn't sad *all* the time. there are moment where he is happy. many moments, actually. Kaladin just *thinks* he's sad all the time. "the darkness" (what he calls it) is always a background threat that might surface and he's scared of it, so even when he's happy he mentions the darkness, and when he's sad he acts like he always been sad for his whole life because *that's what depression does to you* it convinces you that it's the only emotion you've ever experienced and ever will experience
I have never had the kind of depression Kaladin does so I won't try to claim to know what it's like or know if it's good rep but I don't think you're right about this. I love Kaladin and I think his writing is one of the best parts of the stormlight archive as a whole
Firstly, please don't tell me how depression works. I've been diagnosed with it for 2 years by an actual psychiatrist. Secondly, I should rephrase what I was trying to say about Kaladin, because I wrote that comment at about 3AM and wasn't thinking clearly enough. Kaladin has all the most extreme things happen to him that cause him to have PTSD and depression. He's loses his friends in war after coming from a terrible background. Now on its own that's not that bad, but stuff like the canyon scene from Way of Kings makes it feel to me less like Sanderson is writing this as a portrayal of mental illness in a world without support for it and more that he's writing it because he's dramatic. Kaladin seeing Syl and deciding not to jump is realistic, him immediately creating his goal to save Bridge 4 is not. His backstory and actions do not feel like they unfold naturally; they are created by a writer who wants to use him for dramatic purpose over actually healthy portrayal of depression. It's not that depressed people like Kaladin don't exist, it's that it's so isolated in its portrayal that, to me, it becomes unrelatable. You do not need to be pulled from your life's work into an army to be depressed. You do not need to watch everyone around you die to be depressed. You do not need PTSD to be depressed. And it's not that Sanderson is necessarily saying that you do need those things, but holding Kaladin as a monolith of writing depression well is really odd to me for that reason.
I failed to mention a thing about Suttree. There's a character named Harrogate who becomes depressed by the end of the story in the exact same way Suttree did. That feeling that there's other people who become depressed over the simple or unexplainable things that you do; that's what it feels like is missing from Kaladin. That feeling that it's not this isolated, unique, improbable experience.
Also, don't take any of this to mean that you can't find meaning in Kaladin's depression, or that no one has ever experienced it like him before. I just think that there are more universal ways of portraying depression than him that are incredible in their own right. In that regard, Suttree is probably my favorite story. You should read it if you have the time. @@serazaydia
@@dragstra8448 I'm coming in a bit late to this conversation, but I thought I would add my two cents. I think you make some interesting points about what is and isn't exactly realistic about Sanderson's depiction of depression/PTSD via Kaladin. Obviously no, you don't need to go through the kind of hard core trauma that Kaladin did in order to experience depression or PTSD. But there are some key points that I think are worth considering here:
1. No depiction of mental health in fiction is going to be consistently realistic all of the time. Not that this is an excuse for writing mental health poorly or just for dramatic effect, but as was demonstrated in this video, mental health in fiction is by definition going to take creative liberties at some point. However, good depictions are not good simply because they portray each of the relevant the clinical signs with strict realism. They succeed because they blend the depiction in such a way that the character's arc is not only satisfying, but relatable.
2. Different people experience mental health conditions differently, which is part of the challenge of writing it. As such, different people will relate to some characters more than others, for a variety of reasons. You may not personally find Kaladin suddenly going from wanting to jump to then making the goal to save bridge 4 realistic. But I can tell you as someone who has also been diagnosed with major depression disorder, I have experienced this very sort of thing. I mean, maybe it's not common, or I guess "normal" per se. But I have gone from rock bottom to suddenly latching on some goal or whatever, because in that moment at least it was *something* that gave me a sense of meaning. That being said, no, that new sense of purpose didn't then just make all my previous emotional turmoil go away, and in fact, failing to live up to that new standard I'd set for myself would then cause additional problems. This is exactly what we see in Kaladin. He found a new purpose in wanting to save bridge 4... but then encountered more psychological problems because of the expectations he'd set for himself.
3. This is fundamentally what makes Kaladin relatable to me, personally. I remember reading negative reviews for Rythm of War basically complaining that "oh no, Kaladin is sad again, why is Sanderson undoing his whole arc!?" But as we all know, mental health problems don't just resolve themselves within a simple arc. I've been through multiple cycles of getting better, then suddenly spiraling again, and being frustrated as to why it kept happening. Each time, it seemed the problem would get worse, and I would have to relearn how to deal with it. As I've been rereading the Stormlight Archive, I've noticed that it's not that Kaladin keeps facing the same problems over and over again... it's that those problems keep evolving and changing as he does. This, to me at least, is a key part of what it's like to have a mental health disorder. It doesn't just go away because you went to therapy for a bit, or had some ground breaking epiphany. It grows and adapts as circumstances change, and you learn to grow and adapt with it. You become stronger and stronger each time for it, but it never completely goes away... but falling down again doesn't mean you've undone everything you've accomplished already.
Again, just my two cents.
Actually, what you just described is how people work. As someone pursuing psycology and neuroscience, as well as someone who has to have taken apart their psyche to deal with extreme mental health problems. Everything has a deeper motivation, till you get to the direct source.Look up the PTMF framework of psycology to understand this deeper.
Characters are not people because stories are not real life. Stories are instances of real life compressed and distilled into their essence.
totally respect your decision to delete videos you don’t agree with anymore etc.
from a media preservation standpoint tho, i hope you have backups of them somewhere!
He posted a Google doc link on a random comment with some of the delisted videos:
docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1trQOS3KpI_OjTgllGyrkDwQTzjy3DXUKq1gZmHJdzxw/mobilebasic
A very well done depiction of mental health situations in fiction is the Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. I’ll use the example of Kaladin, who has depression and likely PTSD (though neither of those terms or an understanding of them exist in-universe).
Kaladin has depression. Technically, it is clinical depression that has existed within him since he was a child and seems to have no external source. What makes it work is that Brandon uses external factors to drive Kaladin’s arc in a way that works for fiction while still acknowledging that his depression predates these external factors. He loses his brother, he becomes a soldier and loses comrades, and begins showing some of his earliest PTSD signs. These things hurt him in ways that they often hurt characters: he is stricken with immense grief. However, the fact that the groundwork has been laid to show you he already had depression makes it that much more impactful, because the depths he sinks to in response to his trauma are so low. Then, when he learns to care anyway and protect new people despite his depression and despite feeling like he’ll just lose them again, it’s that much more rewardig when he achieves his goals throughout the series. He still has depression through all the books, *but he forces himself to have a character arc anyway.*
oh my god i was just having these exact thoughts days before this came out. and it's like you've translated my head almost 1:1.
one other thing to note is that characters are meant to be entertaining. not that people aren't entertaining, but the entertaining moments are spread out so far apart in their lives and most of them are probably coincidences or rare cases of good comedic timing, but the middle is full of quite a lot of nothing. characters get to the point quickly. they can do 4 days of work in 20 minutes. they're also much more willing to do interesting stuff. they'll jump on moving cars, find their fathers killer, they'll look danger right in the face and walk right past because they'll be ok unless the writer doesn't want them to.
Maybe a line fitting the "characters are not people" would be "Don't let perfect (portrayal of the human condition) be the enemy of good"
Wonderful video Local! Very cool to see you hanging in NZ, I'm not from there, instead its big continental brother, but I just finished a big trip through the country and it was absolutely amazing! Hope you're enjoying it, and thank you again for the epic writing tips my brother 👍
On mental health, I think it's important to remember that even with different mental illnesses, no one experiences them in exactly the same way. Even something as ubiquitous as depression is very wide and varied. Even ignoring the different types of depression like bipolar, mdd, or dysthymia, people don't even experience these types of depression the same way either. For example, some people might sleep more or less sleep due to it. They may experience sadness, and/or numbness. People need to stop acting like their--or someone they know's--depression or whatever is the REAL one.
Glad I found this channel, made me significantly reflect on my own writing many times
I like to detach myself from my characters cuz then it would be hard to write a real story about them and seeing them instead as a part of a larger naritive. And your quote "characters arent people" helps alot in this.
All great advice, but I WILL also add that people WITH actual mental health problems can complain about your portrayal of it just because it doesn't match THEIR experience of mental health problems. In my research I've found that there's lots of different symptoms and results from traumas and difficulties that manifest in different ways because PEOPLE are different. PTSD, using your example, can manifest in the way of Puss in Boots did, with fear, anxiety and panic attacks, but in other cases CAN also manifest in the soldier-stereotype of "anger"- people lashing out, and fighting others unprovoked. In the case of depression, there's also high-functioning depression. People can be raised to "do" things all their lives and look like they have everything together, even when they feel like their life is meaningless and pointless.
I feel like on top of understanding what your story needs, writers need to understand how different types of people work, and that if you're introducing mental health as an aspect, you need to really figure out how "this character" shows mental health. Basically, "do your research" lol.
About mental health and stories, I think Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is an excellent exemple of a good way of treating mental health in fiction.
I love these :(
Can you also talk about the issue of a character only existing as a means to an end for some other character or the theme?
I get that "characters are not people" and sometimes characters are really just tools or theme signifiers. But in practice, it always feels weird to have Jessica only exist because the protagonist/theme needs Jessica to die or leave for them to grow.
I want to have a Jessica that is compelling on her own, with her own journey/arc - but I also want that arc to have ramifications for another character. Ramifications that are essential to the story and cannot exist without Jessica dying/leaving. The balance is hard because I tend to fall into either of these traps:
1. Jessica's arc becomes "too" fleshed-out, to the point that it starts to distract from the arc of someone who need to learn something. The "death" seems unfair to Jessica, as thought she didn't deserve to die for something like this.
2. Jessica becomes too flat/faint, to the point that when I re-read the draft, she basically exists to compel the character to do something and nothing else. Again, the "death" seems unfair - but in another direction, as thought she only existed to die.
I have a character-sheet for Jessica but can't write her as a layered character and make her "death" fair and earned.
Well I’m just talking about her in the context of what she means to the protagonist, you could do whatever with her outside of that
Huh, I had a similar realization I regards to writing out a certain character.
They were thematically relevant to the story but only up until a certain point, and I realized that then was a good time to end their plot involvement.
So then I made their death not just a mechanical write out to impact the main character, but also the conclusion of their own personal arc.
Every time I'm stuck I just watch one of your videos and then I'm back to being a writing machine
Love your work, another banger.
One thibg tho, I totally get not wanting the old videos to misdirect people on what you stand for. So to keep an archive of some sort, cud u just unlist the old videos and keep them in an archives playlist? I assume thatd dodge the recommendation problem, but Im not a content creator so idk.
👊🏻
"Don't get stuck in And-Land!"
thanks, i needed this. my stuff was all over the place, maybe now i can connect things
Characters aren't people but Fling Flong is a brother to me
This is so important because as an actor this is the first step in figuring out your character
You could've made a playlist with all the old videos unlisted so they dont get recomended but you can still watch them
He posted a Google doc link on a random comment with some of the delisted videos:
docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1trQOS3KpI_OjTgllGyrkDwQTzjy3DXUKq1gZmHJdzxw/mobilebasic
ccan i just genuinly say how i love listening to your rants, im one person in the thousands who've subbed to you but ur channel personallly means a LOT TO ME, the info in ur channels are like no other and its because these are your opinions, and holy frig are they well-educated ones that really speak to me, SINCERELY, PLEASE CONTINUE YOUR VIDEOS, and good luck on college.
you deserve every sub , cheers mate
EVERY submarine?? Thanks thanks
Local I know I'm just some random internet person, but I'm happy that someone else is also sharing the correct thought process to better writing. But if you truly believe what you say, there is a show that takes this form of writing to it peak. The show is called bungo stray dogs. This show is the pinnacle of storytelling. It's an anime, and you have to watch it subbed to get the proper context. If you really believe in your way of thinking, then see it at its best.
I'm so glad Fling Flong got to walk his dog 😊
16:26 , i personally like to see you in the video, it breaks away from the black background and scribbles. It also helps me reassess ehat ive learned and makes the video feel less like an info dump. Tis good
The saddest thing I ever saw was when a comic I really liked had a total dud ending and a bunch of fans were like "w-well real people don't have arcs so it's actually good writing that half of the cast just didn't finish or abandoned their personal arcs."
That logic is so cringe. "stories that replicate all the needless and uninteresting parts of reality is great writing!"
@@YEY0806 wait till you find out good writing is subjective
13:01 HELL YEAAAAH! This is validating. I've loved the Enneagram for years, and using it for characters is genuinely so helpful for recognizing their core motivations
It's interesting to me that you said you don't want a parasocial relationship and the solution to you is to show your real face so that people know you're "just a dude." Because in my mind that would lead to a more direct parasocial relationship. Instead of viewers having a perceived connection with a "little alien man" they will now have a perceived connection with "you."
You can show your face all you want though, it's your channel. I just found the reasoning interesting.