I've been gushing about character transformation since the moment I first grasp the ultimate gift awaiting the protagonist and reader and the writer at the Climax based on lessons learned and conflict and tension endured.
The antagonist's world in the middle is not simply to throw road blocks to knock the protagonist from her path to what she thinks she wants. A deeper and more lasting point of the conflict and challenges in the middle are the lessons, skills, abilities, knowledge, beliefs buried in the interaction with other characters (relationships).
Character transformation is cumulative and spans the entire story.
To be successful, you're best served by tracking for character consistency in every single scene.
One method is with a Scene Tracker. The column to address is Character Emotional Development.
- Beginning quarter = introduce character traits
- Middle = deepen and break traits
- End = reveal a changed and transformed character
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Not much into developing character?
Confused about what exactly is your character's flaw?
Plot Tip:
Explore your list of scenes in the beginning quarter of your story.
In Scene #2, your protagonist gives up easily and runs away. Where else in the beginning scenes does she give up? In Scene #5 she run away from her problems again. This time, when she stops running, she refuses to give up and determinedly devises up a plan.
At this point, ask yourself what depletes your protagonist of her power and what fills her with energy? You determine that her actions in these two scenes, though they advance the dramatic action plot, show inconsistent character emotional development in seesawing back and forth between giving up and taking charge.
In Scene #8, her actions show her to be emotionally immature. We understand she does not have the emotional steadiness because she refuses to buy into the prevailing belief system around her. A character willing to defy convention based purely on passion and conviction has the makings of a hero and further demands consistency in how her character emotional development is introduced in the first quarter of the story of plot.
With careful plotting, a few scenes later, her first true act of rebellion leads to the End of the Beginning scene.
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Today, I write.
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Humor writing continues to be in great demand = as always, comic relief keeps the darkness at bay.
Writers with the gift or innate talent to write funny lines make it look easy. It's not. As with most aspects of writing, humor writing can be taught: timing, subject matter, and how to keep from crossing over to satire. With humor writing, the reader laughs along with the characters. Satire holds human folly and vice up to scorn, derision, or ridicule and causes the reader to laugh at the characters or at least at the characters' action.
Good humor writing can blur aspects of character development, dramatic action, and even thematic significance when going for a laugh. A character can even act "out of character," if doing so is funny and furthers the story.
In the end, however, humor writing like every other genre in that the story at its core is still about the protagonist's transformation. Humor writers, like all writers, benefit from plotting out in logical and meaningful character change step-by-step to the ultimate transformation that drives the Climax. The character who delivers the punch line at the end of the story behaves differently at the Climax than the character we're introduced to in the Beginning. At its deepest level, that change is what the story is about.
At the Climax, the protagonist faces her biggest fear, deadliest antagonists, most taxing test, deepest prejudice. This is the moment the entire story has been steadily marching toward.
After the Climax, the energy of the story immediately drops. In the Resolution, the character acts in her newly transformed way. This reinforces that her new skills are fully integrated in her new life. The character, now surrounded by allies, has nothing to fear. Here, at the end, she demonstrates her new behavior with ease and great humor.
Two recent consultations. Two common problems.
1. Telling rather than showing.
A scene shows. A summary tells. The difference? A summary puts distance between reader and character (this also applies to bloggers who blog about themselves). A summary is necessary for a variety of reasons, but scenes are where the story plays out.
Invite your readers in by setting the stage and creating a compelling reason to stick around (character dilemma) and read more (dramatic action). Do this in scene and stick to the universal story form for structure and impact.
2. Not keeping the character consistent.
Determine what the character does to sabotage herself from achieving her goal. This becomes the basis for the character transformation. Be consistent. If her flaw is that she doesn't stick up for herself, then don't have her fighting back in the first 3/4 of the project.
Any other ideas???
I respect comedians more than most other professions. In all humor, someone is the target of ridicule. Humor is basically tragedy where nobody dies. How we categorize humor, as you have done, often simply depends on who is the target of the joke. I guess my respect comes from one having the guts to crush someone, even oneself, and somehow come out unscathed. Mark Twain even said that the secret source of humor is not joy but sorrow. Go figure.