Diary 2022-03-17

By Max Woerner Chase

After the luck I had with using randomness in writing yesterday, I tried it in a more structured context, with a list of questions I'd gotten from writing advice, on compelling character arcs. Unfortunately...

I did fine on coming up with a sketch of a character, but when it came to the last question, which was basically "Why should the audience care about the character's struggles", I choked. I'm not up for rethinking this in detail right now, but my gut feeling from this is that I need to approach the question differently somehow.

Like, I think I did this well enough with the worldbuilding poem thing. Maybe the question could be something like "What is at stake that the audience could relate to?" This isn't a restatement of what the character's trying to accomplish, more, like, how do the conflicts relate to the character's humanity, I guess.

I tried approaching it from another angle, and I didn't have much luck.

...

Actually, by complaining about it here, I gave myself some ideas for how to move forward, and I've got enough now to mess around with.

For the moment, I want to take care of some other things, like getting ready for bed, but I think I'll be able to pick this up tomorrow.

Good night.