Brooke M. Shaffer's Blog

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the next installment of Character Development. Today we’re going to talk about personality and psychology.

Honestly, it’s not a topic that I’m excited about because I hold a certain disdain for the field of psychology. I find it to be, on the whole, an over-glorified guessing game twisted by a bunch of whiny brats who want to be told that they’re special and unique while simultaneously being coddled and assured that everyone secretly feels the same way they do....

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the series on Character Development. Today we’re going to talk about super powers and super gizmos.

First we should define what we’re talking about, though you can probably already guess. For the purposes of our discussion, a super power is any naturally-occurring ability (whether inborn or something that can be learned) which a character possesses that is not inherently known to or possessed by humans (aka. The audience). For example, telepathy. Not possess...

Welcome back to the series on Character Development and Evolution. Today we’re going to talk about character Origins, Beginnings, Arcs, and Endings.

First we’re going to address the difference between the Origin and the Beginning. Chances are good that we’re not going to meet a character at birth and follow his whole life story. Where we meet your character at the beginning of a story is, well, the Beginning. Like I mentioned in the last segment, this is meeting your new coworkers on Monda...

Welcome one and all to today's topic of Character Development! I went back and forth on this, whether I wanted to make it a series or a one-off. Originally I thought series, then I went one-off, and then it got really long, so I decided to make it a series again.

If you followed the Villains series, you may recall that there was a theme interwoven with each installment, and I probably drove a lot of people nuts with my constant Dark Souls references. This series will also feature a thread, bu...

The Chivalrous Welshman

5|Free Time

Saul looked up. “Oh, you wanted to start now?”

“Why not?”

“Because I'm going to kick your ass long before the campers do.”

“Yeah? Try me. I'm no rookie.”

Saul stood then. Even with his bad back, he seemed to grow a foot as he approached. “You're right. You're just a child.”

Tommen figured he'd had enough exposure to the Akari by now that he could at least hazard a pretty good guess when an Akari-Band was used, such as now when Saul encased the whole...

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to a video on Plot Holes.

Plot holes are generally considered the bane of any storyteller’s existence, and if you read or watch any advice on plotting a story, you would think that plot holes are simply lurking about in the shadows, ready to jump out and eat your beautifully-crafted story. And it can feel that way when you finish your masterful tale and someone points out something that seems so glaringly obvious you wonder how you missed it. There i...

Hello and welcome to the bonus World Building installment on Conlanging! Huzzah! What is a conlang, you ask? It’s simply a mashup of Constructed Language. That’s it. It’s a made up language. You can probably already think of a few right off the top of your head. Klingon, Na’vi, Dothraki, Esperanto.

Maybe you’ve dabbled in it, maybe you have an idea and just don’t know where to start, maybe you have no clue what I’m talking about. That’s okay. We’re going to start at the very beginning. I’m no...

Welcome back to the series on World Building. Today we’re going to cover Language and Communication. I went back and forth a few times over whether I wanted to include the Conlanging piece. Eventually I decided to keep them separate. So if you’re really not interested in learning about conlangs, this will be the last installment in this series. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to do another one-off, but the next series is going to cover character development.

Language and Communication are...

Welcome back to the series on World Building. Today we’re going to cover magic and sorcery. While not appropriate to every story, I still wanted to include it for completeness. And even if you don't have wizards and spells, it may apply elsewhere. I would place Time in this realm, for example.

Magic and sorcery tend to be more niche in their usage, and because it’s, well, magic, it can be hard to say that something is or is not believable and worthy of being in a story. And it can be nigh imp...

Welcome back to the series on World Building. Today we’re going to talk about the Science and Technology of your people.

When you hear “science and technology,” it’s tempting to think of computers, space ships, and other elements of the modern day. But science is simply studying and learning about the world around you, and technology is anything that assists, augments, or replaces a basic human function to satisfy a need.

So what does this mean for a fictional people? Well, let’s break thi...