How to make a minor character that symbolizes an element in the story. This one’s tricky. Nebulous. I’m grasping at straws… Maybe I’m just splitting hairs with this last category here, but I want to differentiate between theme and story element. If a theme is a mini-moral, a minor building block of the “so what,” […]

How to make minor characters that establish setting. Setting isn’t just buildings, weather, and stuff–it’s characters, too. Setting establishes: Place and time (in our example, a modern-day college town) Mood (an ordinary college town–not Miskatonic U.) Theme* (education is a part of real life, not separate from it) The setting should go back to the

How to make minor characters that show off the main character. Back to the “so what.” Out of the “so what” comes the main conflict–stories are about drama, which is based on conflict. –The main, story conflict isn’t the same thing as the plot conflict. The story conflict is on a level of “Good vs.

How to make minor characters that move the plot forward. First, you need to know your plot. For some people (like me), this means you have to finish the first draft of the book and figure out what the story is actually about. Other people can plan ahead and do this before they write their

Bar owner Bill Trout weighs the safety of his loved ones against his ornery sense of justice when interstellar cops threaten to destroy Bill’s town if he doesn’t hand over the unnerving alien scientist he’s been hiding for the last sixteen years–right down to their memories. Pros: It seems to capture the storyline better, which

I’m trying to write up a how-to on writing minor characters, but I feel like I’m just making an ass of myself. I mean, I feel like I know something, because I keep running across useless minor characters and going, “No, that’s not it,” but I’m still working out what it is that would make

By Alvin and the Chipmunks, Yo! …And the Mt. Rushmore T-Shirt.

Mal, Mal, Mal. NSFW.

Let’s mess with him. (From Wondermark, via Lee.)

Bad cakes. Bad. My sibs decorate good cakes. But these are bad cakes. Why did I not see Cake Wrecks before? Why? Even Lee’s seen it before!