Tag Archives: archetypes

They call me Mister Vitols

I don’t write every day, but I do read every day. The reading and processing of books is the central activity of my life. I am a student before I am anything else. I say this not from a sense … Continue reading

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creating characters, part 5: combining archetypes

I’ve been sharing my discoveries about the art of character creation in storytelling. The idea here is to build characters from the inside out, to make vital, interesting characters from scratch instead of trying to create characters based purely on … Continue reading

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creating characters, part 4: story archetypes

In part 3 I described how to start building a character by snapping together 2 different kinds of archetype: a heroic archetype, using the book The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes & Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes by Tami D. Cowden, … Continue reading

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creating characters, part 3

Welcome to another installment of my character-creation process for storytelling. I started out by calling the series “creating characters in epic fiction,” but really I’m talking about creating characters in general, so I have shortened my title accordingly. I would … Continue reading

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creating characters in epic fiction, part 2

Character creation is one of the most difficult and demanding tasks in the art of storytelling. Some people have a talent for it—I think Charles Dickens was one of these—while the rest of us have to stretch out a thinner … Continue reading

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The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes & Heroines by Tami D. Cowden, Caro LaFever, & Sue Viders: “people power” for writers

The Complete Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines: Sixteen Master Archetypes by Tami D. Cowden My rating: 4 of 5 stars This apparently self-published handbook of character archetypes adds a powerful tool to the writer’s kit. As I recall, this … Continue reading

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The Wizard of Oz: birth of a Girl Adventurer

How many times have you seen The Wizard of Oz? I’m going to guess that I’ve seen it a dozen times. Kimmie, my wife, reckons that she’s seen it at least 20 times. I haven’t the slightest doubt that there are … Continue reading

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archetypes r us

Yesterday in my post reviewing Sacred Contracts by Caroline Myss I said that I had much more to say on the topic. Maybe I’ll try to make a start now. Something I didn’t mention in my review was that for … Continue reading

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