Katherine Frances's Blog, page 188
August 1, 2017
Writing: Character's Worst Flaw
Similar to motives, each character has a trait they cannot control. This is also known as the character's worst flaw, or neurosis as a technical term.
More often than not, the character’s worst flaw will get them in trouble. It will cause conflict and provide obstacles that will sidetrack the protagonist from reaching their goal. For villains, this flaw will lead to their ultimate downfall. For protagonists, it’s something they must overcome at some point in the story, with determination or strength. Anti heroes always have this major flaw; it almost always brings them to their downfall.
Some common worst flaws are:
Arrogance/Pride (Ex: Oepidus, from Oepidus the King)
Anger (Ex: Anakin Skywalker, from Darth Vader: Star Wars)
Fear/Phobia (Ex: Indiana Jones and his fear of snakes, from Indiana Jones)
Greed (Ex: Agamemnon, from The Iliad)
Curiosity (Pandora, from the ancient Greek myth Pandora’s Box)Some other notable ones are insecurity, impulsiveness, and cowardice. Sometimes worst flaws are uncontrollable needs the character has, like a need for love or a need for recognition. Other uncontrollable needs may include:
Need for Affection: This is the need to be liked, the need to please others, the need to have a romantic partner. People like this fear anger and hostility from others, and are extremely sensitive to rejection.
Need for Approval: Similar to the need for affection. People with this need are always struggling to please everyone around them and have everything they do be approved by others.
Need for Power: Usually a villain or anti-hero trait. They are constantly seeking praise and despise weakness of any kind. They often dominate and exploit others for their own needs. These people fear being in uncontrollable situations, being helpless, and having their power limited.
Need to Keep Life Restricted: This is often a protagonist trait. A person with this trait are undemanding and wish to remain unnoticed. They often undervalue themselves and their skills. They don’t seek out trouble and don’t have particularly large personal goals. They fear life getting out of hand or being forced into situations outside their personal circle.
Need for Prestige: These people have a need to be famous and wish for public acclaim. They evaluate everything on a prestige status. Obviously, these people will fear public embarrassment and a loss of social status.
Need to Exploit Others: People with this trait often see others in terms of what can be gained by them. They are focused on manipulating people for personal desires such as money, sex, or power. People like this would fear being seen for what they do, or being distrusted.
Need for Personal Admiration: This is mostly a narcissistic trait. People with this trait have an exaggerated view on themselves and put themselves on a high pedestal. Their need would be to have everyone else see them the exact same way they see themselves. People like this would fear things like being hated, being undervalued, or being unnoticed.
Need for Perfection: People with this need strive for perfection. They’re constantly evaluating themselves for small flaws and work to fix those neurotically. Things they might fear would be an inability to overcome a flaw or having too many.
Need for Independence: These are people who are loners and wish to distance themselves from people. Their worst fears would be to become dependent on someone or being tied down to other people.These are just some examples of major flaws your character might have. It’s also common for a character to have more than one flaw, but those are usually secondary or minor flaws and depending on the plot, may or may not change.
July 31, 2017
danilovesyarn:
iturnintoademononfridays:
sixpenceee:
The...
The Kievskaya, Mayakovskaya and Park Pobedy Stations are the most gorgeous metro stations I have ever seen.
METRO STATION
Okay so I went to a couple of these unreasonably gorgeous Russian subway stations a couple of years ago in St. Petersburg and yeah they’re amazing and beautiful but 1) they are LITTERED with doors that lead to tunnels from the communist days that no one is allowed to go in to, and 2) the trains themselves have literally not been replaced since the fifties and my life flashed before my eyes and I saw the face of God. It was a solid tour. I would definitely recommend it.
Google has built a stunning, searchable archive of 3,000 years of world fashion
“We Wear Culture” is a collaboration between Google and more than 180 museums, schools, fashion institutions, and other organizations from all parts of the globe. It’s part of Google’s Arts & Culture platform, which is digitizing the world’s cultural treasures, and functions as a searchable guide to a collective archive of some 30,000 fashion pieces that puts “three millennia of fashion at your fingertips,” Google says.
But it isn’t just a database. Google has worked with curators to create more than 450 exhibits on different topics—say, how the cheongsam changed the way Chinese women dress—making the site an endlessly entertaining, educational portal filled with stunning imagery touching on everything from modern Japanese streetwear to the clothes worn at the court of Versailles.
i can already tell this has made writing for historical fandoms – the worst part of which, for me, is absofuckinglutely hands-down the clothing – much easier.
OMG, TAG YOUR PORN
Gahooogy hooooo
saltyseaz:
bitcherovas:
jillyyfish:
jerseydevilslesbianlover:
...
what the actual fuck
Men don’t know women can pee
ive been sitting on the toilet for 20 minutes trying to piss but the pee keeps getting lost in my confusing Woman Body
IS THIS WHY MEN THINK WOMEN TAKE LONGER IN THE BATHROOM?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
what book is this omg???
July 30, 2017
Afternoon snuggles and kisses
Afternoon snuggles and kisses
Writing Body Language
How to Improve your writingThis is something that happens every day in your life. A shift of your eyebrow in skepticism, or the way your lip may twitch to a half smile cause you’re trying not to laugh. These behaviors are vital for writing in character, because not only do the allow you to visually see what is happening but it is also reaffirming whatever emotion your character is showing.
So why should you write it?Much of human communication is non-verbal which means you need to also translate this non-verbal reaction in a post. It allows you to greatly enhance the emotions of another character and always another person to ‘visually’ see how they feel in a post. Most of all, this will add depth and volume to your post to make it feel more real. IT will make your character feel like a human instead of just another fictional person you look at from above.
Below you will find a list different type of emotions and what sort of body language can be exhibited to them.
Three ways to accent an action.
When writing about emotions, there are different ways to verbally write them out. Each one is unique in their own way, allowing you to show more about the emotion.
Emphasize the Emotion.
But doing this, you are expressing both the emotion and the body language. We’ll use a simple example. It’s short and simple yet you can sense he is happy.
John felt so happy that he was humming a tune while walking down the hall.
Complicate the Emotion.
Sometimes, even when you are feeling one emotion, deep down rooted underneath the facade of it all, there is actually an underlining emotion they feel. This is something you have to truly express otherwise no one will know.
John felt so happy that he was humming a tune while walking down the hall. However, it was obvious by the way his nose crinkled that he was disgusted by the actions beforehand. Instead, John covered it up by appearing pleased today.
Contradict the Emotion.
This is a little different than complicate. Contradicting means that you are claiming one thing when in fact its the other. In many ways, this has a variety of uses, from inner depth of the truth to what you see in person, or someone creating a wall. It could be considered a lie, but when is anything that easy?
John felt so happy that he was humming a tune while walking down the hall. In truth, once he was in the classroom, his shoulders slumped and a pout crossed his lips when no one was around, showing just how displeased he was with the situation.Remember that you do not always have to contradict or complicate anything. Sometimes all you need to do is emphasize and that will be just fine. You don’t always have to have an underlining complicated for an emotion to make it more enhanced.
Do be afraid to use the Thesaurus to also improve an emotion. Such things as “happy” is a nice emotional word, but think of how much more powerful it is when you heard some is “overjoyed” or “content.” She how these emotions matched up with a body language can give two different styles of happiness? Mix and match to find what works best for your character at the time.
More In Depth InformationWhat I’ve stated above is more of a simplistic overview. IF you truly want to improve yourself, go to this
To see just how much body language can reveal about a person. You will find things such as how a person lies, how the eyes reaction, the positioning of a person in personal space, mouth, and head body language and so much more.
Use these resources to greatly increase the reactions of your character to another and create a more life-like world.
It’ll be useful!
