Writer's Block Daily

If anyone is willing and has the time and opportunity to do so, can somebody critique my entry in the Constructive Criticism thread. It's been weeks, and I haven't seen a detailed critique of my script.

I have a solid idea of what most major characters are going to be like in the story I've been thinking about.

Somehow the protagonist is the one I'm having the most trouble with.

Sometimes the protagonist doesn't have to be the most interesting character (or even an interesting character) and just needs to be a piece of connective tissue for the audience to see all the cool people, places, and things in a story world.

The protagonist doesn't even have to be the main hero or focus, just the person we see through the story. That's why you have things like Supporting Protagonist and Pinball Protagonist.

Strongly disagree. Every case where the protagonist is the least interesting character makes me annoyed that the narrative isn't following one of the others instead.

That's personal preference, though; it's not an inherent writing flaw. I'm not crazy about it either, but it depends on the story. (Great Gatsby would have been a much different read if the protag was Jay instead of Nick, for instance)

One really cool way to use the Supporting Protagonist / Pinball Protagonist is to have the whole story be the author's musings on a theme, and the protagonist's experiences with other characters / scenarios are all external manifestations of that theme.

War Jay 77 mentioned The Great Gatsby. Other classic literary examples of this are Moby-Dick and All Quiet on the Western Front. More modern examples include Climax, Paddington 2, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and I'd argue Succession counts too.^note Don't @ me on accuracy here, I'm just rattling off examples to get your creative juices flowing.

I'm mostly against your parenthetical that the protagonist doesn't have to be an interesting character at all. Obviously "interestingness" is subjective, but the viewpoint character is who the audience is going to be spending the most time with and if their viewpoint contributes nothing then the audience is likely to lose interest whenever they're alone.

That doesn't have to mean that they can't be an Audience Surrogate, like The Watson, but just because they act as the medium through whom the audience learns what happens doesn't mean they have to be bland. There's a reason First Person Snarker is such a popular narrative choice - whatever may be happening to them, at least the protagonist is opinionated about it.

I can't comment on most of those examples, but I wouldn't call Ishmael boring (he has plenty of opinions and experience of his own to talk about, it's just he's joined a ship where everyone has agreed to kill God); Charlie, maybe, but he's still a Dickensian caricature, and I'll note that adaptations typically put at least a little effort into making him less flat.

Edited by Noaqiyeum on Apr 4th 2024 at 9:50:11 AM

To be fair, my own stories tend to run on ensembles so there's never one solitary "protagonist"; everyone has their own quirks and stories. The one time I tried to have a first person POV though and the girl was so bland and annoying and I had to shoehorn her into everything, which is why I went back to an ensemble later.

Just published Chapter 11. Also recently revised a Xenofiction assignment so I could put it online.

Hello TV Tropes. I just made my first post on this site, and got a recommendation for introducing myself in this thread. So:

• Currently, I am not writing or even reading any fiction as I am caught in other, burning IRL projects.
• Though, even before I went to school I had decided I will be a fiction writer, and I would write in English - even it's not my Native language. I just thought that it doesn't make sense to bother writing in my mother's tongue, as we are so few.
• I've never really watched television, so TV Tropes has proven to be the most useful reference for popular media.
• I have read fantasy and even more so horror and science fiction. I learned English by reading Philip K. Dick and Stephen King since I was 6. Both me and my mother think that it deranged me a bit.
• I have played table top role games like Dungeons and Dragons, and Cyberpunk as a child child. And I've played internet since it came to be. Lately, I've played "The Treacherous Turn" table top role game, which can be found at the Less Wrong forum.
• Summa summarum, I'm a classic INTP/ENTP type female "One of the Boys" variant. Who might eventually even publish some fiction. But writing shortly is not one of my Powers.

Edited by rialistic on Apr 7th 2024 at 10:12:35 PM

Heyo! Nice to meetcha :)

Greetings and welcome! And good luck in your journey to writing—and I hope that you find joy in it! ^_^

Apparently I accidentally retconned one character into living on the complete opposite side of Australia from where the original show actually placed him. Too late now though ^^'

Maybe Australia wraps around in your take on the world? :P

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Apr 12th 2024 at 10:39:52 AM

Sure

Il5maggio here. Was told to introduce myself, so let's just get to the facts...pronouns she/her. Autistic. German. Scifi and fantasy fan. At university at the moment. Writing on a Military Fantasy Novel with a Fantasy Conflict Counterpart to the Russian invasion of Ukraine 2022. Also sometimes drafting Alternate History timelines, although I am still bad at this.

For some reason, I've settled on the idea of my story's protagonist being a Minion with an F in Evil. No idea how it's going to turn out, but it could be interesting.

Welcome and well met! I hope that you enjoy your time here! ^_^

Also: That is an ambitious project that you have in mind, by the sounds of it! ^_^

I could see that being interesting indeed! It might, for one thing, be intriguing to see the internal perspective of such a character: how they relate to Evil, and to the things that they and those around them do, and what it is that results in their "having an F in Evil", and how they feel about the forces of Good—and so on!

Reminds me of one of my favorite characters ever. From my comedy superhero story. He was a villain mainly by virtue of being the boyfriend of the main villain, but was really just a huge, Affably Evil, comic book loving dork who at first is terrible at his job and only skates by because the team leader is in love with him. I think it's a fun concept

Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 18th 2024 at 5:18:33 AM

What could be fitting titles for these chapters? (SPOILER ALERT)

"146: Logan trying to defend some people, which he does but one of them heard of his name and gets afraid and runs away, but Logan is unaware. He gets to know Terry more and her self-esteem issues too, which makes a point on whether Logan is really in a state to think he can guide her fully. Setting up the convos once he has the nightmare.

147: Someone from the family witnesses Logan's PTSD induced nightmare and reins him in. Amira feels him from afar and almost goes away only to be stopped by Amanda.

148: Russ' family, including Terry and Nobu wonder what's wrong with Logan. Logan finally decides to come clean while the rest of the EW begin their journey to find Logan, and Amanda and Eron tell their side of the story.

149: First flashback, where we see Logan as a young teen trying to follow his parents' footsteps as well as his relationship with Amanda which, while not the strongest, was still a pleasant one. Amanda's dual heritage, however, makes her feel conflicted about where to belong and a group of racists convince her to join the group.

150: Second flashback, either the aftermath of Logan's beating of the bullies and how it affected him or Amanda, or Eron telling how he met Logan when he was kidnapped after the incident with Amanda.

151: Either the final flashback of Logan's attempted suicide after the previous incidents or the collective reaction of both the E Ws and the families after finding out why Logan is like that."

Too often, it seems that if a character is a genius or scientist (or both), atheism is absolutely mandatory with the high IQ. I’m designing a Science Hero (not an Omnidisciplinary Scientist; but skilled in multiple fields) who just happens to be religious.

Any suggestions how to portray this without him turning like Ned Flanders or Ronald “Mac” Macdonald from It’s Always Sunny? I should point out that him being religious isn’t a major plot point, but it does occasionally catch folks off-guard.

I'd suggest looking at the behaviors of "Natural Philosophers" and Philosophers in general as a fair amount of them are religious while also being great thinkers.

To be more specific, a lot of early scientists seemed to had gotten into it to understand god's creation.

Also, to be clear, it will also help to present the guy as the antithesis of gullible in other respects, but willing to entertain notions that would seem absurb when given enough cause to. He should be skeptical of the supernatural at least, and especially of hacks claiming to have witnessed their patrons in the flesh.

In fact a good direction is to have the skepticism be motivated by his faith and his understanding that his fellow faithful are all too willing to believe people who claim divine destines like say, cult leaders.

A related issue here is the ironic depictions of scientists and geniuses as dogmatic (as to be dogmatic is to be incapable of change and to have a static worldview, something that makes for a poor scholar as learning inherently entails changing perceptions), but towards science. These are the domain of "rationalists" and folk that believe that the current understanding of the universe is ironclad despite the fact that these are currently a collection of hypothesi based on an incomplete understanding of the universe, as such it is also the domain of the straw atheist. The people that think the laws of the universe as currently stands precludes the existence of a deity as commonly understood and that it will always do so.

Edited by MorningStar1337 on Apr 21st 2024 at 4:38:55 AM

As noted above, historically—including in the modern day, I imagine—it hasn't been all that unusual for scientists to be religious, I think.

Given this, perhaps it might be helpful to research what they have had to say on the topic?

Perhaps one element might be a perspective that science and religion are not at odds; that what the character has learned of science has not spoken against his religious beliefs—or indeed, mayhap even has affirmed them. (The specifics of this may of course depend on just what the character has learned.)

I would further suggest averting the idea that religion is antithetical to reason, which is sometimes presented in works. Indeed, I believe that it's been pretty standard in religion to contemplate and ask questions, both about the subject matter itself and the world at large.

Stephen Maturin from the Aubrey-Maturin series (and its film adaptation if you don't want to read dense Age of Sail fiction) is one example of a historical natural philosopher who is also religious; the series takes place in the English Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s.