This week, Kathryn brings an interesting topic to the Round Table: how can we examine our supporting characters arcs, desires, or goals in relation to our other characters? How does one character influence another? Warning: this episode might change the way you do prewriting for the rest of your life.
VIDEO
AUDIO
SHOW NOTES
Kathryn explains an exercise in pre-writing she has been using to deepen her character arcs and relationships within her novel. We explore how it would affect sub-plots, character relationships, and arcs. What problems could this help you avoid? And how could you use it to develop your antagonist as well? We talk about how Kathryn got into this kind of development, and whether or not it would work for every kind of story!
What we talked about:
What is this exercise of mapping character influence? (1:40)
How many tiers of characters should you do this exercise with? (2:58)
What problems could this potentially fix in your draft? (4:12)
How can this help our sub-plot development, and supporting character development? (8:00)
You can always add detail within revision. (12:48)
Avoid the trap of protagonist/antagonist only stories! (14:05)
What about with your antagonist (primary and otherwise)? (15:05)
What was Kathryn’s springboard into this exercise? (19:25)
Would this work for any genre of novel? (22:10)
LINKS
Want more about these topics? Check out:
SWRT 061 Character Motivation
SWRT 085 Antagonist Forces
SWRT 102 PreWriting Theme with MikeStopContinues
SWRT 107 Traveling Chapters