Hello, and welcome to my blog. Let me tell you a bit about me. I’m Emma, I live in Scotland and I am starting my new journey in writing, proofreading and editing. I’m here to showcase my work, connect with like-minded people and establish myself as a freelancer.
You can find my profile, my CV and what I offer in the menu above. I’m always happy to hear from anyone who is interested in working with me. I have enjoyed writing and reading all my life. I have recently graduated with distinction from the College of Media and Publishing. I would highly recommend their courses to anyone interested in furthering their skills!
I do also run an online craft shop and website where I sell handmade items, patterns and provide free tutorials on my crafting blog. If you’re interested you can find the site here, and the blog here.
About My Background
So, a little bit about my background. I had always wanted to be a vet, since I learned what a vet was and what they did. I’ve always loved animals and found them interesting. I worked hard to achieve this goal and succeeded, graduating as a qualified vet from the University of Glasgow in 2009. I began working in Yorkshire, before returning to Scotland to work.
Unfortunately, life had other plans for me. I developed some health problems which made working as a vet increasingly difficult for me. It is quite a physically demanding job, even if you’re not dealing with cattle and horses! I had known for a while that I would have to consider alternative career options. So I looked to another of my favourite things: reading and writing.
Reading and Writing
I was an avid reader as a child, I think I have read every single book Roald Dahl ever wrote. I had a huge collection of classic children’s novels and read a lot of them. As I got older, I even started reading some of my dad’s horror books. I got into fantasy as an adult, reading the Game of Thrones series, and various others. the ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy by Phillip Pullman is my favourite of all time.
I also got into writing as an adult, during my time at university. I joined an online community of fans of the musical Cats, and spent a lot of my free time writing fanfiction and written roleplaying. The thing I loved most was taking these characters and changing things around to see how they would respond. I did publish a few online, although recently I do not and keep it to myself.
I always knew I wanted to write a book. At least one, anyway. I got into video games and particularly enjoy fantasy RPG games. Dragon Age will always be a favourite, and what I enjoyed most about it was the characters, the lore, exploring and learning about this strange world. So, I found another fandom to write in. This has led me to having a handful of original characters who have shown up in various guises over the years. A couple of them are now featured in my current work in progress, having refined them into their own entities.
What to expect from this blog?
On this blog I will be writing about my own work, sharing some snippets and perhaps even some short scenes as I continue to explore and develop my characters and the world they are living in. I will also be talking about the technical side of writing, how proofreading and editing works and how to improve your own writing. So there will be something for everyone!
I’ll leave it here for now, but keep an eye out for updates over the coming weeks. You can also find me on various social media platforms where I will be posting shorter pieces of content and chatting about things I’m doing. Links are below.
Commas are important punctuation marks. If nothing else, they let you breathe! Commas are a short pause in a sentence, compared to a full stop or period. The comma is essential in writing but often misused. So let’s look at some of the rules about comma usage.
Lists and the ‘Oxford Comma’
Writing a list of more than three items in a sentence? Commas are used to separate the items. The final two items have ‘and’ or ‘or’ between them. A lot of publications will not use a comma after the ‘and’ or ‘or’. This is the “Oxford Comma”.
The Oxford comma,or serial comma, gives clarity. It is sometimes controversial, but there are definitely cases where not using it will cause confusion for the reader. See the example below:
“The milkshake flavours are banana, strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream and vanilla.”
“The milkshake flavours are banana, strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream, and vanilla.”
See the difference? It’s subtle, and most people would figure out that it is “cookies and cream” and not two separate flavours called “cookies” and “cream”. It is confusing, especially if your writing is being read by someone whose first language isn’t English.
Commas are used to separate two adjectives in a sentence, but only if the order of the adjectives can be switched and still make sense. The trick is if you put “and” in between the adjectives and it still makes sense, then use a comma.
The Dreaded Comma Splice
The comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined by a comma, when they really should be separate sentences using a full stop. This can lead to a run-on sentence. Here’s an example.
“She opened the fridge, her phone started to ring.”
The two clauses are not related to each other. So, you can rewrite it as two separate sentences.
“She opened the fridge. Her phone started to ring.”
Or you can use a connecting word to join the clauses together and use a comma at the end of the first clause.
“She opened the fridge, but her phone started to ring.”
As a rule, if the subject isn’t used in front of a second verb, you don’t need a comma. You might need it for clarity if there is ambiguity about who is performing the second verb. You may need a comma before the word “because” for the same kind of reason.
An introductory phrase or dependent clause needs a comma after it. Such as this example:
“If you don’t know, I can’t help you.”
Asides and Extra Information
Adding an aside to a sentence with extra but not essential information, requires the use of commas. A comma comes before the aside, and one after it. This is an appositive comma.
“Elaine, my girlfriend, has been there twice.”
It is especially important if the subject is clearly identified already, because the additional description isn’t essential. Avoid ambiguity where you can. See these two examples:
“My girlfriend Elaine has been there.”
“My girlfriend, Elaine, has been there.”
The first example suggests the speaker has more than one girlfriend and is specifying which one he is talking about. The second example indicates that the speaker only has one girlfriend so her name is additional information. This rule is often misused and can lead to confusion.
Other Comma Uses
Commas are used around words that introduce a sentence or expressions that interrupt the flow of the sentence. Things like “Well,” or “No,” at the beginning of a sentence. Same thing if you have a phrase like “by the way” or “however”.
Writing dialogue is a big one for comma usage. I’ll cover that in more detail in the future as I’d like to do a series on writing dialogue properly. But introducing direct quotes requires a comma before the opening speech mark. For dialogue tags after the quotation, the comma comes at the end of the last word of the quote.
Commas need to be used to separate a statement from a contrasting statement in a sentence, or a statement combined with a question. You would also use it before and after something like ‘e.g.’ or ‘etc.’
Don’t Underestimate the Importance
Commas are an essential punctuation, important for preventing confusion in writing. A well-known example is this sentence: “Let’s eat grandma.” Oof, cannibalism is rather frowned upon these days. “Let’s eat, grandma.” Much better. If you want proof of how important a comma is to the meaning of a sentence, try this one on for size.
“A woman without her man is nothing.”
Where do you think you could put a comma and how would it affect this sentence?
“A woman, without her man, is nothing.”
“A woman, without her, man is nothing.”
The first version suggests that a woman is nothing unless she has a man. The second suggests that a man is nothing without a woman. So comma placement really does matter if you want your reader to get the right meaning for a sentence.
Thanks for reading, I hope this has been helpful. For more details and rules about commas, check the Blue Book of Grammar section here. It even has a quiz to check your knowledge. For more writing content, subscribe to my blog. I cover writing, proofreading and editing subjects, as well as analysing stories in various media. I also have a YouTube channel where I play video games and discuss the stories, lore and world-building. For more punctuation rules in dialogue, see this post.
Fallout New Vegas’s act one makes a bold choice in the opening. Your character is shot in the head and buried in a shallow grave! Of course, you survive this otherwise the game would be pretty short and boring. It’s an interesting way to introduce the inciting incident, as discussed in my last post.
So Benny has robbed you, taking the Platinum Chip you were supposed to deliver to the Strip. You are a Courier and you are bound by contractual obligations to retrieve and deliver the Platinum Chip. Luckily your would-be killer wears a very snappy outfit, so you can ask about him.
Don’t Go That Way
You’re advised to head towards Vegas itself but cautioned against going straight north from Goodsprings. There are some nasty critters up there, such as cazadors and deathclaws. Not the kind of thing you want to tangle with until you’ve levelled up a bit and have some good weapons.
Some players may choose to go that way, and it can be done. Speedrunners of the game will do this, but it relies on luck, a stealth boy and some quick save spamming to succeed. If you want the full story experience, you’re going to follow the path south to Primm, east to Nipton then north east to reach Novac.
Making Friends (and Enemies)
On your way to Novac, you’ll encounter an NCR camp, some Powder Ganger camps and a group of Latin speaking cosplayers, Caesar’s Legion. As in any good RPG, asking around and talking to the NPCs you meet will help you learn more about the world you are in. You might even find some interesting side-quests to do.
We meet the New California Republic first, in Primm. NCR is a nation that grew out of Shady Sands and has expanded rapidly to the north and to the east. They’ve been in the Mojave for over a decade trying to hold Hoover Dam and establish territory and supply lines.
A lot of the troops hint at low morale. Commanding officers complain about the lack of resources and people. They are struggling to hold their territory, never mind deal with other problems.
Too Much Too Fast?
Act one of Fallout New Vegas introduces the major conflict, which is between NCR and Caesar’s Legion. NCR have camps and locations across the Mojave. The NCR Correctional Facility near Primm now belongs to the Powder Gangers. Subsequently, the NCR lost control of it, when some of the convicts used dynamite to stage a coup.
You reach the Mojave Outpost, an NCR checkpoint on the long 15. They don’t have enough people to run it. Caravans can’t move through. Every time you meet the NCR in Fallout New Vegas, evidently they are struggling, spread too thin. Consequently, informing Sgt Kilborn that the Legion has wiped out Nipton makes him completely lose hope.
Ave, True To Caesar
You reach Nipton and see several large fires and people lashed to crosses. A man runs up to you, excited to tell you he won the ‘lottery’ before running off. You get to the large town hall, and a group of Romans come out, led by a man with a dog’s head on his own head.
This is Vulpes Inculta, leader of the frumentarii and one of Caesar’s trusted advisors. He happily explains what happened to Nipton and why they killed and crucified most of the townspeople. Indeed, he wants you to tell someone about it, namely Sgt Kilborn and Ranger Ghost at the Mojave outpost.
Act One’s Conflict
Now that you’ve met the two major players in the ongoing conflict, clearly the Legion are the bad guys and the NCR are the good guys. It is obvious that the NCR has bitten off more than they can chew. This allows the Legion to operate right under their noses. Hope is dwindling and morale is in the toilet.
Why should you care? A big conflict is brewing, and the outcome will have a huge impact on the Mojave. You don’t matter to this conflict, yet. But you will by the end of the game. So take note of what you see, as you will be forced to choose a side.
No Vacancies
You reach Novac, easy to spot due to the giant dinosaur out front of the town. You learn where Benny went next, after helping out the town or reading a note on Manny Vargas’ terminal in his room. Manny was a Great Khan once, so he knows the guys Benny had with him.
This leads you to Boulder City, near Hoover Dam, where a hostage situation is ongoing. The Khans are enemies of the NCR, and they are holed up inside Boulder City. Resolving this situation will net you the details you need to finally find Benny.
You need to get to the Strip, Benny is the leader of the Chairmen. The Chairment are a former tribe but they now run the Tops Casino. So that’s where you are likely to find Benny, and your lost package.
What Happens In Vegas…
Getting into the Strip involves a credit check. If you don’t have 2000 caps, then you will need to find another way to get in. Either way, you are met by your cheerful cowboy buddy, Victor. Victor opens the door to the Lucky 38 and invites you to go in to meet Mr House.
Mr House is the leader of the Strip, although basically nobody has met him. He’s a fascinating man, his backstory is worth a post all on it’s own. He is your client, so you need to find the Platinum Chip and bring it to him. So you go to the Tops.
At the casino, all your weapons are taken, but if you collected the pieces of evidence, you can talk Swank into helping you take Benny out. Benny is on the main casino floor with four body guards. You have several options to deal with Benny.
You can just straight up shoot him, but you risk the ire of the rest of the Chairmen, unless you’ve spoken to Swank first. Or you can convince him to meet you alone upstairs and kill him then. Finally, if you’re playing as a female Courier, you can use Black Widow to seduce him and sleep with him. This gives you the option to kill him in his sleep.
If you don’t kill Benny, and he either betrays you and runs, or if you just go to sleep after sex with him, he flees. To get the Chip, you need to go after him, and you find out the Legion got him. Luckily once you’ve dealt with Benny and House, you are invited to Caesar’s camp to meet him. The NCR also express a wish to work with you. Yes Man is in Benny’s suite and represents the fourth option.
Everyone Wants You
Why are all these important people suddenly interested in the Courier? Except Yes Man, he can’t say no to you. Essentially, these groups have heard about your journey and realise you are unusual. Not many people would be crazy enough to chase one man across the wasteland. Even for revenge. They see that you are someone who will get things done.
So you’re at a crossroads, the end of Act One. You must choose which side to take in the conflict. You will play a pivotal role in deciding the future of New Vegas. NCR is a democracy with a large military. The Legion is a dictatorship ruled with an iron fist and questionable morals. Mr House wants to bring back pre-war glory and capitalism. Yes Man does what you tell him, but he will help keep Vegas independent.
So we move into Act 2, which will be covered over the next few posts. I’ll cover each option seperately, as Act 2 is half of the story and there’s a lot to go through! I hope you’ll stick with me for that. As always, thoughts and opinions are always welcome. If you want to see more, I’m currently playing through the game and analysing it on my YouTube Channel. You can find the playlist here.
Today we’re going to look at Fallout’s inciting incidents, and how to motivate players and characters to follow the plot. The most important part of the beginning is the ‘inciting incident’. An event that sets your protagonist on the road to the main plotline. These can be major or minor events, but they have to trigger a change for your protagonist.
You can begin your story before, during or after this incident, but it’s important to at least tell the reader that it happened. In video games, this is usually handled via an introductory cutscene. In the early days of videogames, the backstory was often included in the game manual. Of course this is less common now, so the game has to give you the backstory.
So we’ll start at the beginning and work through the games in chronological order. Of course, we have to note that the series itself has a rather major inciting incident. The bombs. The nuclear war happened on the 23rd of October, 2077, wiping out 90% of life on the surface. A large number of people survived in underground Vaults. So bear this in mind, as it matters to every Fallout story we will be examining.
Fallout – The Water Chip
The first Fallout game came out in 1997. You begin with creating your character, known as “the Vault Dweller”, from Vault 13 located in southern California to the west of Shady Sands, a small town that would go on to be the capital of the New California Republic (NCR). The Vault is designed to support up to a thousand people, and will remain sealed for 200 years, to study the effects of prolonged isolation. It was supplied with an extra G.E.C.K. (Garden of Eden Creation Kit) instead of extra water chips, which were sent to Vault 8.
In 2161, the Vault’s water purification chip started to malfunction leading the Overseer of the Vault to send people out into the wasteland to find a replacement, to no avail. The overseer chooses your character for this job. On the 5th of December 2161, the Vault Dweller leaves their Vault for the wasteland.
At that point, the Vault has only 150 days of water reserves, which does put a time limit on success for the Vault Dweller. The game does implement this time limit as well, although you can extend the time limit through your actions in the Wasteland.
Motivation?
So what is the motivation? Vaults are generally safe and secure, if there’s no horrific experiment going on. The limited living space means that everyone needs to contribute to the community to ensure their survival. Your character has lived their whole life in this Vault, and may well have friends and family, but they want to help their Vault. Water is essential for life, after all, and in a radioactive wasteland, water purification is vital. So it makes sense to keep looking for a replacement water chip, to save their community, doesn’t it?
Fallout 2 – Finding the Garden of Eden
Fallout 2 takes place 80 years after the first game, in a village called Arroyo, in Oregon. Arroyo is suffering from a famine and a drought. The village was founded by the Vault Dweller, after they were exiled from Vault 13 due to spending too much time outside. A serious drought in 2241 leads the village elder to ask your character, the Chosen One to find a G.E.C.K. The Chosen One is a direct descendant of the Vault Dweller.
The G.E.C.K. is a terraforming device that is capable of sustaining life in the wasteland, including seed, soil supplements, a cold fusion power-generator, matter-energy replicators, atmospheric chemical stabilisers and water purifiers. Each vault has two as standard (in the West Coast, at least) and the Elder believes that only a G.E.C.K. can save the village of Arroyo from starvation.
Motivation?
Again, your character’s motivation is very similar to Fallout’s protagonist. Your people are suffering from a shortage of an essential resource and are relying on you finding the one thing that could save them. It’s all about the preservation of life, and saving your community. Pretty motivating reasons to embark on this quest.
Fallout 3 – Following in Daddy’s Footsteps
Like Fallout, you start off as a vault dweller, but we’re on the East Coast of the USA, near Washington DC. You live in Vault 101, and you have a kind of prologue in this one, building your character through experiencing various events of your childhood. The game does actually start with your birth, and your mother dies shortly after. The protagonist is referred to as the Lone Wanderer.
So, it’s just you and your dad, living in the Vault. Your father is the Vault’s doctor. One day, when you’re about 19 or so, your friend Amata wakes you up to tell you that the Vault’s security are looking for you because your father has left the vault. Vault 101 was to remain sealed forever. The experiment was to study the role of the overseer in a completely isolated community.
Despite this, the Vault has opened a few times. The Vault did not have a G.E.C.K. but it was designed to be self-sustaining indefinitely. You have no idea why your dad left the vault, but after learning security are after you, you end up escaping the vault to go and find him.
Like previous Fallouts, you are leaving the safety of your home in search of something important. In this case, your only living family. He leaves a note with his friend Jonas, who you find dead during your escape. The note tells you not to follow him, and he hopes the Overseer will blame him entirely. That isn’t what happens though.
Motivation?
So what is your motivation here? You’ve left your home, given no real choice in that, so it’s only logical you would pursue the only person you know, your father. What else would you do? Fallout 3 is the series first open-world game, so you can absolutely find plenty to do other than follow the main story, but it’s only by searching for your dad that you’ll get into the nitty gritty of the main story, and learn about Project Purity and the major players.
Fallout New Vegas: They Went That-a-way!
Back to the west, this time we’re in Nevada, the Mojave wasteland. A desert with a brightly lit and bustling city now known as New Vegas. New Vegas is still Vegas, with casinos, exotic dancers and a bunch of reformed tribals running the place, with Mr House overseeing it all. The year is 2281, four years after the events of Fallout 3.
You are the Courier, employed by the Mojave Express to deliver a Platinum Chip to the Strip. On route, a man in a snappy suit kidnaps you, aided by some Great Khans. Benny steals the chip, shoots you in the head and buries you in a shallow grave.
Certainly, an interesting way to start a video game by killing the main character in the opening cutscene! Okay, not quite, a cheerful cowboy robot finds you and takes you to the local doctor for treatment. You are under contract to retrieve your lost package and deliver it to the client. That means you need to find this man, so you begin to follow his trail, asking people you meet along the way if they’ve seen him.
In the background of all of this, seemingly unrelated to your situation, there’s obviously going to be a battle coming between the NCR and Caesar’s Legion. There’s talk of political issues in NCR’s home territory, but everyone wants control of Hoover Dam and the electricity it can provide. But first, you need to find Benny.
Motivation?
So, what’s your motivation here? Well, there’s two things. The first is your contract for the job. It’s pretty clear that if the package is stolen from you, you must get it back and ensure it gets delivered, and your employer will take no responsibility for any injuries, loss of life or costs of this. If you don’t complete the delivery, you won’t get paid, but you may also be hunted by mercenaries to recover the debt. You need money to live, after all.
The other motivation is personal revenge. Being robbed and shot in the head is pretty unpleasant, one assumes, and it’s perfectly reasonable to be angry about it. So, perhaps you want revenge on Benny for doing this to you. Or maybe you want to understand why he did it. If you’re playing as a female character, perhaps you found this whole experience a turn-on? Not judging, I promise, but sleeping with Benny is absolutely an option when you do track him down, for a female character.
Fallout 4: Out of Time
Fallout 4 is next and we’re back on the East Coast, namely the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, or just the Commonwealth. Boston is an important city in the history of the US, as well as being home of several major universities. Nearby Salem is famous too. Interestingly, this game has a prologue set on the day the bombs fell. The protagonist has a set backstory, an army veteran for the male, or a lawyer for the female.
You begin the game in a cosy family home, taking care of your infant son, Shaun, when the bombs come and force you to the Vault, Vault 111. Where you’re all cryogenically frozen. At some point, you are defrosted to witness someone in a hazmat suit and a grizzled merc take your baby and shoot your spouse. You’re then refrozen, for an unknown period of time, but likely 60 or so years, then defrosted again.
Motivation?
Everyone else in the Vault is dead, leaving you, the Sole Survivor, to get out of the Vault and go off in search of your missing child. That’s your motivation, revenge for your dead spouse, and to find your kidnapped child. Which makes sense, and the game tries really, really hard to evoke some emotions about this whole situation.
For me, it kind of falls flat, we know so little about our spouse, and it’s hard to feel a strong connection to a baby that can’t even talk, when you’ve spent basically no time living in this version of the world. The voice acting is a bit overdone, especially the male protagonist, and by the time you get to the point of finding the mercenary, even they have all but stopped talking about Shaun. The opening of Fallout 4 is probably the least effective at highlighting the inciting incident and making the player want to follow the story, but don’t let that put you off, it does get much better once you get into the meat of the story, I promise.
Who Did It Best?
So, who did it best? I think for me, Fallout 3 and New Vegas pulled it off the best. Fallout 3, you’re kind of forced to leave the Vault. I remember in my first playthrough, I really wanted to know why my dad left the Vault. So I followed along to get some answers.
My first time playing Fallout New Vegas, the opening was quite a shock. It was definitely a bold choice, having your main character be shot at point blank range like that. So again, I wanted answers. Why did Benny feel the need to kill me, when he’d already stolen what he wanted from me? What was so special about the Platinum Chip?
I haven’t played 1 and 2 as much, the games are so old now, it takes a bit of work to get them to run on newer machines, and I haven’t managed to set them up on my new PC yet. But I do feel the inciting incidents set up the games pretty well, to get you into the story.
What I didn’t like
For me, Fallout 4 is the weakest in this regard. My first playthrough, I felt the urgency when the report of the bombs falling came through and the rush to the Vault. I wasn’t surprised by the cryopods in the Vault, but it sets up the twist with Shaun. You don’t know how much time has passed. After learning that, I found it quite difficult to really care that much about him. So it doesn’t work as well to motivate me to find this baby. There’s settlements to help, farms to build, raiders to kill, settlements to help and of course settlements to help. Yeah, I know, it’s an old meme, but Preston Garvey is really pushy about his radiant quests, that never end. You get sidetracked and distracted.
What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments! I’d love to hear other people’s perspectives on it. I am going to hold off talking about the TV series on Prime for now, just to avoid spoilers since it’s so new. But I loved it, and I’m rewatching it as I write this. So once it’s been out a while, I’ll definitely talk about it.
Thanks For Reading!
Thanks for reading, congratulations for making it to the end of this long post about Fallout’s inciting incidents. I hope it was interesting. I am going through Fallout New Vegas on my Youtube channel and analysing the story in depth, so if you’d like to join me on there to hear me talk about the games, you can find it here.
I’m starting a new series of posts about storytelling in gaming. A lot of RPG plots follow the classic three-act structure of storytelling. This is for a good reason, as the structure is a common way to build and pace a story, regardless of the format it will be published in. Additionally, they often follow a version of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ plot structure.
Video games provide a unique form of storytelling, as it is absolutely a ‘choose your own adventure’ kind of thing, especially with roleplaying games (RPGs). Many games have diverging storylines too, depending on choices made by the player. There’s varying degrees of success with this.
The three act structure is laid out as the beginning, middle and end. The beginning is the first quarter of the plot and serves to introduce the world and the main character, as well as introducing the conflict and beginning to build the tension. It should end with a major event that pushes the main character to commit to the story.
The middle part is the second and third quarters of the plot, and the ‘meat’ of the story. Tensions build and the stakes are raised, with a major event at the midpoint of the story. There’s often a period of recovery after this, before a third major event that forces both sides to decide to pursue the final confrontation.
The third act is your ending. This is where we get the climax or resolution which answers the story question. The final confrontation happens and we find out if the main character achieves their story goal. There will then be some kind of winding down of the story afterwards. It is important that the ending makes sense and doesn’t rely on out of character behaviour or a deus ex machina solution.
How to Evaluate A Storyline
Over the next few posts, we are going to dive into the plots of some of my favourite RPGs, looking at how the game follows this structure. As well as evaluating and analysing the plot. We’ll look at the strengths and weaknesses of each plot, and how well the game tells the story.
The questions to answer are about the main character, what their goal is and how it shifts as the story progresses. How do we work out who the villain is? How the plot answers the overall themes of the game. What are the consequences of the final resolution?
We’ll look at motivation, for both the main character and the player. How well each game follows the “show, don’t tell” rule of writing. How we learn the information needed to decide how to approach the game.
We’ll evaluate issues with the plot, like contrived circumstances forcing the player to do something they may not wish to do. Deciding who are the good guys and the bad guys. Whether the main character, the protagonist, is a hero or not. Does the player have the freedom to roleplay morality the way they want to.
Which Games Are You Going to Cover?
Glad you asked! I’ll be starting with my two favourite franchises, Fallout and Dragon Age. I love these games for different reasons, but I love them both a lot. Fallout has such a rich background and so much freedom of choice and how to shape the post-apocalyptic world. Dragon Age has some really amazing well-developed characters. So hopefully you’ll join me on this journey.
I’ll be starting with the Fallout series, as the TV show is just around the corner and I’m very excited about it. I have an introductory video on my YouTube channel and I will be supplementing this blog with videos talking about some of the things I’ll be writing about so if you’re interested, I hope you’ll join me. My channel can be found here.
It’s been a while, but I’m back to writing again. I’ve been away for a while, due to a few things in my personal life. I’m a chronic illness girl, unfortunately, and my health has been pretty bad the last few months. I’ve not been able to work on things I want to. Things have improved a little and I am in the process of starting some new treatment for my autoimmune condition which will hopefully make a difference going forward.
So, what can you expect going forward? I’m working on getting back into my writing and editing work. I have been able to write more on my novel, and I am about two thirds through the first draft which is exciting. I am hoping to have the second draft finished by summer. I’ve also got an idea for another book in the works.
For the blog, I am going to continue covering proofreading and editing topics, and I am going to delve into storytelling and characters as well. I would like to write about how storytelling works outside the world of books, particularly in video games. I’d also like to cover some more controversial topics, such as diversity and LGBTQIA+ representation in stories.
I am considering setting up a newsletter as well, to keep everyone updated on my progress in my writing and other things I’ve been up to. I would like to eventually start producing video content on my socials and on YouTube. I’ll be talking about my favourite characters, stories and analysis of effective techniques in different media formats. With the new Fallout TV series in April, I will start with talking about one of my favourite video game franchises a lot! Watch this space!
Follow along for updates and subscribe to the blog to get an update whenever a new post goes up.
On Monday we talked about the protagonist of the story. Today we look at their opposition, the antagonist. Villains are always antagonists, but not every antagonist is a villain. Essentially the antagonist is the one who is working against your protagonist and getting in their way.
The antagonist does not need to be a person, you can see other things creating obstacles for your protagonist, whether it is rules or a force of nature or something like that. If it is a person, then generally they’ll do something to affect your protagonist, whether on purpose or not. Essentially they are involved in the challenge your protagonist needs to overcome.
Villain
The classic antagonist is the villain of the piece. The tyrannical leader, the arch-enemy of your hero or a criminal who is doing something morally reprehensible. Not all villains are pure evil, though. Some are, for the sake of power, hatred, greed or pure chaos and destruction. You know the kind who tend to go: “Bwahahahaha, you’ll never beat me, hero!”
However, some villains are not so clear cut. We can even end up feeling sympathy for them. They could have a reason for doing what they do, and their actions might well be understandable. We may not be able to justify their actions, but we can perhaps understand their reasons for making the choices they do. This is what’s known as a ‘sympathetic villain’ and a good example is Magneto from X-Men. His experiences in a concentration camp taught him how evil humans were, and convinced him that mutants were always going to be worth saving over humans.
Non-Human Antagonists
As mentioned, not all antagonists are people. A force of nature or even fate itself can be the antagonist. Your protagonist may need to get an artifact from a hidden cave, but when he gets there the cave has collapsed. This could be natural deterioration or an earthquake that has made the task more difficult. Then nature itself is playing the role of the antagonist.
It could also be a creature or beast of some kind that is just trying to do what it does. Godzilla is a classic example. Society itself makes for a good antagonist, as seen in the Hunger Games trilogy. We see President Snow as the villain, but really, it’s the entire society and setting that is the real problem. We see Katniss realise this at the end, which is why she chooses to walk away from it all.
Be Your Own Antagonist
One of the most interesting versions is where the protagonist is their own antagonist. It’s quite common in storytelling, where the conflict is internal within the protagonist. They are holding themselves back in some way, be it due to their own grief or some flaw of theirs that they need to learn to overcome. You can see this in the narrator in the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.
Of course, you’ll find that usually this type of antagonist isn’t the only antagonist of the story. There may well be external forces as well, and it forces your protagonist to deal with their own internal conflict while also facing an external problem.
Conclusion
So that covers antagonists and the different kinds you might encounter in stories. I hope that it was helpful. On Friday we’ll take a look at secondary characters, those that support your protagonist and antagonist and give more life to your stories. I hope you’ll join me for that. Until next time!
The main character is called the protagonist. This is the main focus of the story, it is their journey we are reading about. We learn the most about the protagonist, and we witness their development as they navigate the plot. You can have more than one protagonist, of course, that’s perfectly okay to do. Especially if it’s a romance novel or if romance is a big part of the storyline, you will generally have two protagonists in your story.
So, the protagonist is the hero? Not always. Every hero is a protagonist in their own story, but not every protagonist is a hero. A hero is a specific kind of protagonist. Typically their actions save the girl/town/world/galaxy or whatever setting you have going on. Some of the best stories have a clear hero, from Odysseus and Beowulf to Luke Skywalker and Katniss Everdeen.
Of course, there has been a surge in comic book movies in the last 15 years, with Marvel and DC both bringing many of their superheroes onto the silver screen. Each of their heroes has their own stories going on, with the larger group movies intersecting these stories at different points to tie them all together.
Anti-Hero Protagonist
Not every protagonist has the typical qualities that make them a hero. Indeed, some of them actively don’t want to be seen as a hero (looking at you, Deadpool.) This is referred to as an ‘anti-hero’ protagonist, see the Wikipedia page here. An antihero will have qualities that are considered less than heroic, where they do the morally right thing but for reasons that are morally ambiguous. They often have traits associated with the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality traits.
The Dark Triad is a set of personality traits that are considered non-pathological but offensive in psychology. This includes aspects of narcissism (pride, a lack of empathy), Machiavellianism (manipulation and exploitation) and psychopathy (impulsivity, selfishness.) Some psychologists even add a fourth trait, sadism, the enjoyment of cruelty and the suffering of others.
The antihero is very popular in modern media, a lot of people will root for the antihero and it can be seen in the success of a number of movies and TV series. Modern anti-heroes include Deadpool, but characters like Tony Soprano, Dr Gregory House and Walter White are all antihero protagonists as well.
A Step Too Far? The Villain Protagonist
The next step up is to make the protagonist the villain. This is where the morally questionable actions are not justified in any way so it is clear that they are the ‘bad guy’. A good modern example is in the video game Undertale, which has a great meta-narrative about video game protagonists in general.
Usually in an RPG, you assume you fight monsters to gain experience and money. Undertale rewards you for not doing this and remaining pacifist throughout the game. You can complete a ‘Genocide’ run where you kill everything you come across and eventually no monsters come near you.
Choose to do this, and you become the villain of the story. To the point where the main antagonist supports you, and one of the major characters calls you out on it and tries to stop you. I won’t go into too much detail to spoil it, although I imagine most people know the story by now. But the game punishes you for becoming the villain, with a lot of the best content gone.
Conclusion
Thanks for reading about protagonists with me. On Wednesday we’ll look at antagonists and their functions in fictional narrative, and why they can be the more interesting characters at times. I hope you’ll join me for that. Subscribe below to get notified when a post goes live, and find me on my social media channels. If you want to read more on characters, take a look at this post here. Until next time!
Let’s talk about character relationships. As the quote in the title says: ‘No man is an island.’ What does that mean? Every single person has some kind of relationship that connects them to other people. Even a hermit living in a cave in the middle of nowhere will have relatives or something somewhere in the world. It takes two people to make a baby, so everyone has biological parents.
That’s not to say everyone has relationships with their biological parents. Adoption, being orphaned or just cutting them out of your life because they were horrible people, there’s many reasons. Outside blood relatives, we have friends, partners, people we work with, all kinds of connections with people. For many of us, the people we choose to keep around us are the most important.
“The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”
Remember that? Most people know the shortened version which is supposed to tell us that familial bonds are more important than those we make ourselves, but the true quote has the opposite meaning. So, when it comes to your character, relationships are important. We need to know the kind of people they associate with and why. So it’s an important aspect of character creation.
Family
Consider your characters family. Who are their parents? Do they have siblings? Is there another family member important to them, like a grandparent or aunt or cousin? What is the relationship like now, and is that different from when the character was younger? What kind of influence did these relatives have on the character and how has it helped shape their personality?
It’s worth detailing this in the early history section, but I also like to add a section dedicated to important relationships in my character profiles. For example Shaine, my protagonist in my current novel, had a great relationship with her parents. Her upbringing was full of love and support and she learned a lot from both of her parents. Alonso on the other hand, never met his parents at all. His father was a ‘client’ of his mothers, and his mother died shortly after he was born. Another character introduced later on has a sibling he has lost contact with and wants to find.
I’m not suggesting you build a huge family tree and go back ten generations (unless this is important to your plot!) but if you really want to, you can. At the very least though, you should have at least the relatives your character has met during their lifetime and a little bit about the relationship, how they got along, if there was any conflict there, that kind of thing.
Friends
Friends are important. They are the family we choose, in a way. Even the most introverted person will have a couple of people they consider friends. Most of us will have different kinds of friends. Close friends we can trust with anything, work friends we get on well with at our jobs, more casual friends we hang out with in groups. Your characters should have the same thing. At least a couple of people who really matter to them.
Depending on your plot, you might not include these friends within the story but they could be there in the background. If they are involved, it’s a good way to demonstrate certain aspects of your main characters. Of course, there’s always room for your main character to make new friends along the way, and also for them to outgrow old friends as the plot changes them and makes them shift their priorities.
It’s okay to let go of old friendships if they no longer work for you. That applies in real life as well as in your characters lives. People change, life happens and sometimes you need to move on. I have had to make this decision in the past, and it’s tough but sometimes it’s best for both of you.
Romance and Love
Not everyone has to have a romantic partner. The single life can work perfectly well for some people. Others will have a partner, or have had long term partners in their past. Some people may have had a number of short casual relationships. All of these are valid. Bear in mind that not every relationship is going to be what some people consider ‘conventional’. Polyamory is a thing in real life, so it can absolutely exist in fiction. Different sexualities and relationship types are always a good thing to incorporate but make sure you understand what you’re doing so that you can represent these relationships accurately. Polyamorous relationships, where there are more than two partners, are built on trust and open communication. It should not be used as an excuse to cheat without getting into trouble for it.
It’s okay for your main character to have an established romantic relationship of some kind at the start of the book. Even if you are writing a romance. It’s also okay for them to be single and looking for a romance, or not looking. It all depends on the genre and plot. Obviously for romance stories, the development of a relationship is the whole point of the plot. In other genres, a romantic subplot of some kind adds some interest for the reader and it’s realistic. Even in a fantasy novel, a group of adventurers spending weeks together travelling for example, feelings can develop and it gives your readers something to root for.
Back to my current novel in progress, I haven’t decided if Shaine is going to find a romance subplot or not, but Alonso’s history comes back to bite them. He is pansexual, and he was in a long term relationship with another assassin. They had quite a messy breakup, and Alonso moved on, but his ex comes back to surprise him. It’s a minor detail, but it impacts how the surprise is handled and affects the characters. He may also find himself interested in a strapping young man they stumble across. We’ll have to see!
Conclusion
So remember to have a think about some of the important relationships in your characters life and include it in your characters profile as well as dropping it into the story where it makes sense to do so. These character relationships are important. The key thing for your readers is relatability and realism. Characters that are like real people, respond in ways that while maybe not optimal, are understandable and are relatable are the ones your reader will get really excited about.
That’s all for this week. Apologies that this one is a day late, but starting next week, I’d like to look in depth at some character archetypes and what they can bring to your stories, so hopefully you’ll join me for that. Subscribe below to get an email when a new post is live and follow me on social media for updates and behind the scenes. Until next time!
Every character is a person (even if they’re not human!) and that means they have a personality that is uniquely theirs. Just like in real life, everyone has a handful of personality traits that dictate how they behave, how they speak and how they react to situations. For your main and supporting characters, you need to flesh this out quite a bit to make them real people that your readers will love, or love to hate, or feel some kind of way.
There needs to be a balance too. Personality traits can be generally divided into positive and negative traits. Every character should have some of each kind. Yes, your good guys need to have negative traits, and yes, your villains need to have positive traits. Don’t treat this as a box-ticking exercise either, the traits need to feel realistic and make sense in the context of your character’s history.
Where Do I Start?
Think about the characters role in the story. Are they a protagonist, with a goal to reach by the end of the plot? What is their goal? What do they need to overcome to achieve this goal? Then you can think of what traits they should have in order to attain this goal. Are they determined, so they will stop at nothing to reach their goal? Are they analytical, meaning they will assess and calculate the best plan possible? If they need help from someone, are they friendly and charismatic enough to convince this person to help them out?
Remember that even positive traits will have some downsides. Someone who is very determined can also be stubborn, refusing to change things based on new information or advice. Someone who is very friendly might not endear themselves to someone who is very antisocial and wary of strangers. Relate it back to the character’s history as well. Why are they so determined? Why are they so suspicious?
Negative traits can also have upsides. A character who is very suspicious and mistrustful will be harder to take advantage of or fall into a trap by trusting someone. The downside is obviously that they are very guarded and find it hard to form relationships with other people. This kind of trait comes from a past where they have been betrayed by people they trusted or mistreated by a parent or partner.
How To Show Personality Traits
When you’re writing prose, you obviously don’t want to list the traits of your character when you first introduce them. Remember what I talked about before, about introducing a new character. This is where the old ‘show, don’t tell’ advice comes into play. Personality traits will come with associated behaviours and responses. A mistrustful person will ask questions and not take what people say at face value. They will keep people at arms length and avoid revealing much personal detail in conversations.
Someone who is friendly will make small talk with people. They will speak kindly, offer up some information about them freely and make a point of remembering people’s names. They will smile a lot and have open body language, keep their promises and stop to help someone without being asked.
Tone of voice and language choices will indicate personality traits in dialogue. People who are shy will speak quietly, hesitate and use filler words or sounds a lot more and will avoid speaking up in a group situation. A character who is surly and grouchy will snap at people, use one-word responses and commonly be sarcastic and snarky.
Remember that your characters may change over the course of the story and this should be reflected in how they act. One of the major plot points should be your protagonist overcoming a major character flaw in order to reach their goal. It might also be a big thing for your antagonist to overcome their negative traits in some way and see the error of their ways.
Resources and Methods
There’s a ton of good resources out there to help with this aspect of character creation. There’s also a few ways to approach character creation, so you should find the one that works best for you. It might help to plan out the character’s background a bit first. Then you can make a list of their positive and negative traits, relating them to early experiences and even making notes on behaviours and how they speak which will show these traits. You can then refer back to these notes when you are writing to make sure you are staying in character. It’s also important to compare these lists for your characters to highlight possible sources of conflict or relationship development between them that you can include in your writing. Because it’s not fun if the characters get along perfectly well all the time!
A few resources I have found are readily available online. There’s a series of books available as ebooks called Writers Helping Writers, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The Negative Trait Thesaurus and the Positive Trait Thesaurus are both really useful for this. There are chapters discussing how to write and use these traits for your characters and how to build characters, as well as a huge list of traits with definitions, possible causes, behaviours, thoughts, emotions, positive and negative aspects and examples. They also cover how a character can overcome a flaw and how a trait might cause conflict with other characters. These are so useful, and they have a bunch of other books covering settings, emotions and obstacles. I highly recommend them. You can check out their site here and find links to purchase their books. (Not an affiliate ad! I just really find their books helpful.)
Conclusion
Thank you for reading. I hope this has been a helpful introduction into personality traits and how to choose them. A good well rounded personality makes for a great and engaging character to read about. On Friday, we’ll take a look at relationships between characters, because as the saying goes, “No man is an island.” Subscribe below to get notified when that post goes live. Until next time!
This week, I would like to talk about character development. As an author, you should know your characters inside out, everything about them and all the skeletons in their closet. The best way to write genuine, believable characters is to make sure you know them inside out. For today, we’re going to look at character backgrounds and history.
Everyone has different methods, however, a lot of people get bogged down in their name, their appearance and a list of merits and flaws. That’s all important stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it is important to know their background. Every single one of us has a unique personality and pattern of behaviour. Our experiences shape who we are. All the good and bad things that happen to us, shape us into who we are. With every new experience, we change a little bit more. We learn from what happened before and we choose our behaviour accordingly.
What Happened To You?
One thing I like to do with my characters is write out a full and detailed bio for them. I’ve done this for years, I spent a lot of my early adulthood writing fanfiction and written roleplay. Anyone who has been one one of these roleplay message boards will have done a character application. The longest section should be the history section. A breakdown of the important events in that characters life, and the effect that these events had.
What this should do is explain their traits and their behaviours. Someone who has been bullied or abused early in life is not going to trust easily. Someone who grew up sheltered and hidden away from the world is likely to be gullible and easily led astray. What led them to the career choices they made? Why are they good at fighting? Were they trained, or did they learn by having no choice but to fight for survival? Do they have secrets or skeletons in their closet?
The history should lead up to who the character is at the beginning of the story. You then continue this throughout the story, shaping the character as the experiences of the plot continue to shape them. A lot of what you will write in the history section will not be included in the book, but little mentions here and there will make your character feel real to your reader. If it helps explain why your character does something a particular way, or why they react to a situation in an unexpected way, all the better. Here is a little bit from one of my character’s background in my current WIP.
How Alonso Became An Assassin
The young elf had spent his whole life in this brothel. He had been born here, his mother had died a couple of days after he was born. The women raised the orphans as a group, putting them to work in some fashion as soon as they were capable. At age seven, Alonso was responsible for cleaning, basic food preparation and clearing up dishes from the bar room.
The owner of the brothel was a horrible man, He was loud, temperamental and violent. Alonso hated him, as did the majority of the brothel’s inhabitants. One of the girls was cooking the owner’s meal in the kitchen one night. Alonso had been collecting glasses and plates from the bar room and was standing on a crate by the basin, washing them.
The owner had been served his meal, but was not happy as the bread had been burnt a little on the edge. Alonso could never understand complaining about food, unless it was rotten. The brothel owner cared. Alonso winced as the door flew open, banging loudly against the wall.
“How dare you burn my food, wench!” the man’s booming voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The girl screamed and begged, and Alonso turned, he couldn’t help it. Big blue eyes widened in shock as he watched the man grab the girls wrist, holding her hand in the fire until her skin began to crack and blister. She squealed in pain, begging for him to stop, apologising, struggling. The man held her there for what seemed like hours, although it was really less than a minute, before letting her go and storming out again. One of the other girls ran to her side, helping her up and taking her outside to put cold water on the burn.
Alonso’s eyes narrowed, tiny fists clenched tightly. His heart was racing, his chest felt tight. A voice came from the doorway, and it took him a second to recognise his own name.
“Alonso, boy, fetch the master’s drink,” the barman called.
An idea came to him, and Alonso followed outside, trying not to hear the poor girls sobs. He looked around, finally finding what he was looking for. There was a plant that grew outside, it had looked tasty enough, but Alonso had made that mistake once. It was poison, not deadly, but enough to put a child like him in bed for a week. He ripped off a few of the leaves, sneaking back into the kitchen and grinding them up, adding the sap to the pitcher of ale the master used before filling it. He took it out to the bar, and one of the others took it up to the master’s room.
Alonso went back to work, finishing washing the dishes and taking himself to bed afterwards. The master was absent the following day and the next few days were peaceful and pleasant. All seemed well until one night. He was shaken awake in the early hours of the morning, to find the old matron kneeling over his pile of rags.
“Come on, boy, wake up. Quickly now!”
“What’s going on?”
“Pack your things, boy. I saw what you did, but the master will find out when he recovers. I’ve been watching you, young one. If you come with me now, you can make something of yourself. If you don’t, he will put you out on the streets, if he doesn’t kill you first.”
Alonso shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“You will. But you must leave with me now, boy.”
“Okay, Matron,” Alonso said, gathering the handful of possessions he had, a knitted blanket his mother had made, a book of children’s stories and a handful of coins he’d managed to save, delivering letters. Little did he know, this was only the beginning of a colourful career as a deadly assassin.
Alonso Cabiella’s history, by E stewart
Discussion
You don’t need to write it as prose like this, I just thought it would be fun to write it like that so you could see it. You should know these details. Even if you don’t explicitly mention them. Having a summary of important events of your characters past will help you keep them genuine and figure out how they would respond to the situations the plot is going to put them into.
The example above; is the story of how Alonso was recruited by the Assassin’s Guild is the example. In my world, the guild like to acquire them as children, should they show good potential. They go to a boarding school for education and training until adulthood. After that, they are apprenticed to experienced assassins to begin work. The old matron works as a contact for the guild, and she had already suspected Alonso fit the bill, the incident where he poisoned the brothel owner as revenge for the girl was what confirmed it. The quick thinking, resourcefulness and using his own knowledge and experiences to decide what to do.
Conclusion
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and if there’s any particular examples of this that you really like. Look out for more on character development later this week. For more, subscribe below and follow me on my social media channels for more updates. For other posts covering characters take a look at these: here and here.
