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4 Writing Tips To Get 80% Ahead Of Writers by WriterStudio: 12:28am On Dec 17, 2023
The Ego

Located dead center in their conscious awareness, the ego filters the idealized traits of the character.
An ever-shifting eye that scans the world's textures, principals and rules. The ego maintains whatever is deemed acceptable in their most comforting state or status quo in the first Act of a character-driven story. The outward
projecting mask that is the net-sum of experiences that are more often praised is expressed as the persona.
So, when crafting your character start with the most ideal version, then gradually go about maturing their personality. It is also worth noting that characters don’t need to be reinvented rather certain beliefs be affirmed or refuted.

2.Duality

Establish undesirable traits that your character knowingly suppresses due to fear of being alienated.
Persona: A girl is publicly beaten for rejecting a norm. Your character, girl or boy, has a reaction to witnessing the incident.
The character has viewed and based unnuanced justification for the incident. Disobeying the law is still wrong after all. This avoids the character coming across as hypocritical or a slave to the author's hand.
Characters should always be a prop of your world. If your character has certain traits that put her at risk in the context of the environment, make her self-aware enough. When the character is self-aware, she suppresses urges her ego deems distasteful. You could use this as a valid means of punishing your character later on, silencing your character’s prowess at times. This also allows for exploration of a character’s darker self. Since the character knows how potent the trait is, she expresses it in moments of vulnerability. Peripheral characters and the reader can have a more nuanced appreciation for why an otherwise seemly soft trait could be detrimental and embracing the stressful conditions that bring about this trait could have very harmful psychological and permanent effects.

3.Cause-Effect loop

A reader empathizes more organically with a character because of an external cause-effect loop. This is because in the real world we often feel helpless in many situations. People don’t always understand that unfavorable circumstances just exist. No matter how we wish others may interpret our suffering, it is often you who understands your cause of failure, and consequences the best.
Persona: A girl hates dresses, but wears a dress gifted to her by a family member. When left at that the girl's complexity is reduced to a mere rejecting of gender-norms, but held back by her familiar surroundings narrative. She becomes a slave to the author's hand to push a very blatant concept, that could be very tiring to dissect. It is a fine idea, but it could be taken even further.
Personna#2: The protagonist joins a club where she is the only girl. She loves community (a core personality trait she was conditioned to have), but not comfortably with boys. This causes her to feel pressured to suppress most feminine traits (and she is conditioned once again) in order to form community in the club. To other girls she looks as if she is rejecting the norm. She might come across as distant or socially inept. She may even have an identity crisis later on. The harder she tries to fit in, conflict is sure to follow. She becomes more desperate she becomes. As both boys and girls may find it hard to accept her and micro-aggressions may trickle in. One thing starts to lead to another.
The premise feels more organic, and we sympathize with a premise that answer’s ‘why?’ and the ‘how’ it’s going to unfold.

4.Inciting Incident

Think of story as an analog clock, where the transitioning of the clock’s hand in 360 degree is an entire story beat. In act 1 a character grows more aware their want; this causes them to outgrow their familiar home. So, it becomes (home + temporary want) Persona: Ruth is hungry but after yesterday’s party has no food in storage. She gets ready and leaves to buy groceries. Groceries are expensive. To avoid digging too deep into her pocket every single time she throws a party Ruth vows to plan more moderate parties with limited foods available for her quests. This is a character arc. The best way to facilitate the movement of a character from point A to point B, where a certain threshold has been reached making A less desirable than B is referred as exercising scarcity. The inciting incident functions as an overflow. The need becomes an overarching force that subconsciously propels the character to eventually mature past their short term wants. When the need is met, the character no longer outgrows his environment, but learns to put ego aside and coexist better with his surroundings.

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