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Joe Sidery: Let's go.

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Joe Sidery: Hello, everyone! If you can hear me. Okay, and you can see my screen. Please drop message in the chat where you're joining us from, and if you can hear and see me. Okay.

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Joe Sidery: Lucy, Ibrahim, Colorado, Brilliant.

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Joe Sidery: Hello! From Ohio.

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Joe Sidery: Fresno, California.

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Joe Sidery: Also in Florida.

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Joe Sidery: London, Fort Worth.

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Joe Sidery: Scotland.

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Julie Artz: Oh, Sydney.

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Julie Artz: from all over.

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Julie Artz: fellow Washingtonian! Hello! I'm just in Redmond, outside of Seattle.

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Joe Sidery: Melbourne, 2 Am. Wow! True.

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Julie Artz: Wow!

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Joe Sidery: And we do appreciate it.

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Joe Sidery: Tario, Canada, Kansas, and I'm joining from manchester in the UK. If if the accent didn't give it away. By the way, guys.

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Joe Sidery: so, Chicago, I'm just gonna give it one more minute, folks, just to make sure everybody joins, and then I'll just run through some quick housekeeping rules.

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Joe Sidery: Chicago.

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Joe Sidery: California, Illinois, Illinois.

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Joe Sidery: I think I'm fantastic. Keep them coming, guys.

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Joe Sidery: Indianapolis.

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Julie Artz: Yeah, my, hometown.

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Joe Sidery: The dungeons of Job Land.

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Joe Sidery: and they're from Virginia, Utah, Michigan, brilliant

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Joe Sidery: Birmingham, Uk. For me.

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Joe Sidery: Brilliant. I'm not too far where I'm from originally not too far. I'm from Nottingham, originally so still in the Midlands.

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Joe Sidery: Mike from London, Southampton, UK.

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Joe Sidery: Fab.

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Joe Sidery: Okay, thanks so much for oh, Nottingham, Uk, there we go.

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Joe Sidery: Brilliant. Okay? So I'm just gonna kick off with a few housekeeping, housekeeping rules folks. So my name is Joe from pro writing aid. Thanks so much for joining us today, and welcome to fancy writers. Week 2024. I'll just run through these housekeeping rules very quickly before we begin.

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Joe Sidery: So how to access your replays. So replays will be added to the Hub page. Once they are done being processed by zoom. This can take a little bit of time, and it can vary. So please don't worry. It will be added as soon as possible, and replays will be available on the providing aid community page for all members to view by May third.

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Joe Sidery: So a few details on our premium day. So Monday to Thursday, sessions are free for everyone to attend. Friday. Sessions are limited to premium and premium pro users. Free users can upgrade their accounts by Friday morning in order to get access and premium and premium pro users will receive an email Friday morning with instructions for attending the live sessions and viewing replays.

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Joe Sidery: So your offer

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Joe Sidery: 25% off yearly premium or premium pro licenses. So we are currently offering a 25% off discount on yearly premium and premium pro licenses purchasing a premium or premium pro license will unlock tools such as our rephrase and our AI sparks and critique report features reports on unlimited workouts. Author suggestions full integrations for Scribner word and much, much more.

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Joe Sidery: And this offer ends may tenth. And as always, you can find out more on the hub. I'll be dropping links throughout the session guys in case you miss it this time around. So please don't worry.

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Joe Sidery: If you want to keep talking fantasy, you can join our online writing community using your pro writing aid login. Here you can keep talking with other fantasy fans and keep up to date with more of our writing events, and that can be found at the link here which I will be sharing in the chat.

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Joe Sidery: So a few reminders for this session, please use the Q&A box. If you have questions for our speaker. If you'd like to chat with other viewers, please use the chat

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Joe Sidery: links to your offers, and from our speakers will be available on the fancy writers. Week Hub and in our Participants Guide, which you can see the link for at the bottom here.

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Joe Sidery: Okay, thanks. So much for joining us today. And let's get started. So today we are joined by Juliarts.

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Joe Sidery: Julie helps writers who dream of a life spent telling stories that matter slay their doubt demons, so they can send their work out into the world with confidence. An active member of the writing community she has volunteered for scbwi team, pit and pitch wars, and is a member of the Efa and the Authors Guild and Awp.

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Joe Sidery: a social and environmental justice minded Story geek. Julie lives in enchanted forest outside of Seattle, Washington, with a husband, 2 strong, 2 strong willed teenagers, and a couple of naughty, furry familiars.

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Joe Sidery: I'll now hand over to Julie for what I'm sure will be a fantastic session.

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Joe Sidery: Let's begin.

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Julie Artz: Thanks so much for that introduction, Joe. I was just telling Joe before we got started, that when I came up with the idea of talking about character archetypes. I was like, oh, yeah, I can definitely do that for fantasy writers week as much as I've loved the other weeks. With that I've been a part of with pro writing aid. The fantasy is my is my heart. It's my center. It's what I mostly write. And so then I went about

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Julie Artz: developing what I think actually, could be a 3 h workshop. And we only have about 45 min today, because I want to leave plenty of time for questions at the end. So what I've done is I will talk to you about character, archetypes, and and why character. Motivation is important, and and there's some of the actual

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Julie Artz: how to incorporate them in your work in the free workbook that I made. That you can get to Thr from the writers. Hub today. I've also made my slides available, and I have another special offer that that I'll talk about at the end as well. But I'm gonna go ahead and get started and please do feel free to put questions in the QA. And I'll get to them at the end, I promise.

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Julie Artz: Okay. So, as I said, we are here to talk about using universal character traits to build a diverse cast of characters.

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Julie Artz: I'm really happy that you're here. It's lovely to see you again, and Joe already told you about who I am and what I do. But I did. Wanna just say that over the past decade I've worked with hundreds of writers, helped dozens of them navigate the query and submission trenches. And I've really, I think, dedicated a lot of time and energy to cracking the code of what makes for memorable

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Julie Artz: characters. And now I'm going to teach you one aspect of what I've learned.

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Julie Artz: Our objectives today are to learn about the heart of character, which is motivation, to examine various character archetype systems, to learn how to apply them to our cast of characters, and to leave plenty of time for QA. At the end.

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Julie Artz: Okay, so what makes a great character. Maybe someone who's relatable, funny, different, sexy, unique, brave, heroic, unexpected, flawed.

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Julie Artz: complex.

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Julie Artz: So what didn't I mention in that brief list?

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Julie Artz: Physical traits.

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Julie Artz: favorite foods? Their third grade teacher their pet goldfish's name.

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Julie Artz: And yet that's what many character workbooks tell writers to define about their character. My character was born in 1975 in Indianapolis, Indiana, went to North Central High School. This is my biography in case you didn't know and of course you might absolutely need some of these details when you get around to writing your story, but they really shouldn't be the first thing that you scope out when you're crafting a new character or really even the second thing. So what should you think about? Instead.

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Julie Artz: things like character, arc, backstory desires, flaws, obstacles.

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Julie Artz: stakes, goals.

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Julie Artz: relationships, misbeliefs, and of course, motivations. Essentially, you want to get into their head rather than describing what they look like on the outside, or what their biography or timeline would be so in case you need a little introduction. To character arc, a character arc is at its essence. How the character changes over the course of the story.

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Julie Artz: You know, a collection of sentences does not necessarily make a story. Academic papers, product descriptions, legal disclaimers. Those are all collections of sentences, but they're not actually stories. If you want it to be a story, something must change. Your main character starts in one place and ends up somewhere else. Whether that's a physical location, a mental state, a relationship or a realization. And that's what character arc is all about.

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Julie Artz: It's made up of the characters desire their story goal.

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Julie Artz: why they want what they want, which is motivation and what they do to get it, which is the plot right? The plot should be focused on them trying to achieve their story goal. That's what makes a story. And of course they're gonna have some obstacles standing in their way as they go.

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Julie Artz: So motivation is at the heart of this character. Arc a character motivation is the reason. Behind each action a character takes, and the each behavior that they have in the story. It's the combination of their life experiences and mis beliefs and the characters overall desire. And that

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Julie Artz: adds up to character motivation.

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Julie Artz: So why does character motivation matter well, the reader needs to understand a character's motivation in order to understand why the character does what she does believe that the story logic is sound and cheer that character on even when they make bad decisions. Maybe you've read a story in the past where one of the main characters does something.

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Julie Artz: and you're like, Wait, I don't get. Why, why would they do that? They? They said that they hated broccoli, and here they are eating a big plate of broccoli. Well, if we don't understand that, they're eating the big plate of broccoli because the girl of their heart made that broccoli for them, then we won't understand why they're sitting there eating the thing that they said they hated. So that's just like a tiny little example of how that

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Julie Artz: story drives motivation. I am in love with this girl. She made me broccoli. I want to please her, therefore I will eat the detestable broccoli clear motivation makes your characters, whether that's your protagonist, your main character, your antagonist, the villain, or the major supporting, cast both plausible and relatable.

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Julie Artz: Okay, but we have a special challenge in fantasy writing, how do I craft a character arc for my entire ensemble? Cast right in in fantasy more than I think any other genre. We really have a lot of ensemble casts. We have not just a hero and a villain, but sometimes multiple points of view, and often a big ensemble cast

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Julie Artz: supporting characters that are helping the main character on their journey, and I hate to say it. But yes, your side characters need these character arcs, these motivations and these backstories as well. They might be a smaller

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Julie Artz: arc, a less detailed arc than what you craft for your main character, but they still need them. Now, I'm not saying that every single Barisa who hands your heroine a cup of coffee at the local Orc cafe needs to have a character arc, but the major side players, the ones that show up at your key turning point scenes throughout the story. The sidekick, the best friend, the love interest the rivals, and of course

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Julie Artz: the antagonist. They all need a character arc. But it can be overwhelming to think about creating all of these character. Arcs at once, and that's where character archetypes can come in. So start looking for the misbeliefs, goals, and world views that might bring your side characters into conflict with your main character. Right conflict leads to that change.

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Julie Artz: and change, as we said, is what story is all about. So everything that we're going to talk about in this in

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Julie Artz: terms of character. Archetypes is about ramping up conflict and tension, deepening these character motivations and making these characters richer and bringing them to life

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Julie Artz: conflict with the antagonist. That makes sense. Right? You've got a hero. You've got the person that's opposing them is the villain, the antagonist. But

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Julie Artz: you also need to think about the little conflicts that exist between the main character and their love interest their sidekick, etc.

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Julie Artz: and that can be a little trickier at first, because you're like, oh, they're the best friend. They don't. We don't have any conflict with them. But if you have character relationships on the page that exist without tension, that affects the the pacing and the tension of the story as a whole. Right. So sometimes those little conflicts can really enhance

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Julie Artz: the overall conflict and create subplots that will maintain the character. The readers interest through the whole mushy middle of your story. Right? Okay? So, as I said in fantasy. Side characters are key, because we usually don't have just the main character and the antagonist. But we have this ensemble cast. I really love what Lisa Kron has to say

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Julie Artz: in story genius about this. I use story genius for a lot of my character craft materials. It's really an excellent book if you don't have it, get thee to the library. She says. Every single character in your novel fervently believes he or she is the protagonist with the same unquestioned assuredness that we all do.

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Julie Artz: and as such everyone else is there to facilitate their agenda, and a character without a clear, subjective agenda is neither believable nor engaging. So this is at the heart of why we want to have these these character arcs for these side characters, because we are all the star in the own in our play,

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Julie Artz: in our own play, and and our side characters are too, and

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Julie Artz: Getting that on the page is what brings them to life, and and keeps them from being that sort of like cardboard. Cut out sidekick. Right? So, as I said, your side characters need a mini character arc as well. And

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Julie Artz: I'm gonna do dive into just a little bit of psychology to talk about how we're gonna create that. And the interesting thing is that there's a strong relationship between character archetypes and this and this psychology that we'll dig into. So Maslo's hierarchy of needs. You all have probably heard of this concept. But basically, these are

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Julie Artz: the things that humans need to survive. And we start with the basic physiological needs for food, water, warmth.

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Julie Artz: rest, security, safety and then, as we move higher up the pyramid, we get into a lot of the things that characters will struggle with in their internal goals and story arcs things like belonging, and love esteem and self actualization. Right? So if you're being chased by a dragon that's trying to incinerate you. You are not going

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Julie Artz: to be thinking about. How am I going to achieve my life's purpose? You're gonna think I've gotta get out of here and survive so that I can be safe enough to move higher up that that pyramid. So it's a really important thing to think about. Because again, when, even if you have a strong internal goal that's around finding love or finding community or self actualizing and realizing your potential.

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Julie Artz: That's not gonna come up on the page when you're being chased by a dragon. It's gonna be it's gonna come up in other. In other moments when those bottom layers of the pyramid are not are not

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Julie Artz: at play. So because humans need all the things in the pyramid.

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Julie Artz: finding an external and an internal need that hit different levels of this pyramid can again be great for creating these round, rich characters.

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Julie Artz: this is obviously a universal need. And you, of course, will need to make it very, very specific to your characters to bring them to life on the page. And one way to do that is by crafting a specific backstory. That explains why they have these needs that they have. And another way to to look at. This is character archetypes. Okay, so

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Julie Artz: young in psychology in 30 s. Here we go. Carl Young was a Swiss psychiatrist, best known for coining the term collective, unconscious, and having a famous falling out with Freud, and of course defining 12 character archetypes that are seen throughout various mythological and religious stories. Of course he didn't invent character archetypes themselves. He just coined the term

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Julie Artz: because character archetypes go back to our the very, very beginnings of human storytelling thousands of years ago. So basically he said that there are universal patterns of behavior. These patterns exist in the collective, unconscious of the human experience.

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Julie Artz: and these archetypes contribute to self actualization, to individual ace individualization. Which is, of course, that top top level of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So if archetypes describe how real life humans self actualize, we can use them for character building.

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Julie Artz: So I do just wanna say here, and I've got a slide on this a little bit later. But as with many things that came out of the patriarchal European tradition. There are aspects to young psychology that.

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Julie Artz: if not inherently sexist, we're certainly used for sexist causes. Please do not do that. When you create your characters, we're hopefully approaching a time when the classic architects types can transcend a gender binary, for example. And you know, it's interesting, because we'll see that many of these character archetypes were gender independent back in Greek and Roman times, and

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Julie Artz: bit later became more gendered. And now we're going back again toward these things not being defined on a character binary.

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Julie Artz: Okay? So what are the 12

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Julie Artz: character archetypes? And again, my bonus workbook digs more deeply into what each of these are, some of the characteristics of them. So we're gonna go quickly here just because again, I wanna make sure that I that I leave enough time for questions. But basically we have the ruler, the creator, the artist, the sage, the innocent, the explorer.

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Julie Artz: the rebel, the hero, the wizard, the jester, the every man, the lover, and the caregiver. Now this is not to say that that these are the only character archetypes that exist. These are just the ones that young dis described, and I have some

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Julie Artz: additional methods of character archetyping that we can talk about that have even more options than this.

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Julie Artz: Okay, so you all might be familiar with with the ruler. He or she is often your hero. Not always, but often. We've got the Creator, the artist.

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Julie Artz: the

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Julie Artz: the person that really is constantly creating and innovating in in your story.

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Julie Artz: the Sage. You'll see a lot of Star Wars references here. I can't help it. It's it's my favorite. I love Yoda the Sage, the wise, the wise advisor right? And, of course, on the flip side of that. The innocent.

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Julie Artz: the explorer.

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Julie Artz: the rebel.

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Julie Artz: Okay, I like Harrison Ford, too. What can I say?

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Julie Artz: the hero.

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Julie Artz: the wizard.

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Julie Artz: the gesture

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Julie Artz: that every man.

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Julie Artz: the lover

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Julie Artz: and the caregiver?

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Julie Artz: Okay, so

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Julie Artz: obviously.

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Julie Artz: many of these characters that I just buzzed through can fit in more than one character category, and that is at the heart of building these characters. You don't wanna just lean into one single archetype and make your character into a cardboard cut out or a stereotype. Right? We've all read stories with dragons where the dragon is basically a stand-in for smog from

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Julie Artz: the hobbit. Right? And the the writer is assuming that we all know smog, that we're familiar with his particular brand of dragonness, and I talk about this a lot in my world building workbook which I caught my world building presentation which I taught a few writers weeks ago. You don't want to assume that the reader has any particular knowledge

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Julie Artz: of the Fantasy Canon. When you're writing your stories right? You want to define everything clearly enough that your characters come alive.

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Julie Artz: even if they're in conversation with these other characters that have become representative of the genre. And, as I said before, there was young, there was Zeus, there was Greek and Roman mythology actually North mythology. Plays a lot with these character archetypes as well. So think about Loki as the trickster.

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Julie Artz: He can be a little bit the rebel a little bit, the joker depending on how you're looking at it again with the with the transcending the gender binary. We had both Aries and Athena as warriors, Aphrodite and arrows representing love and Desire Hecate as the crone or the witch, the sage, the wizard.

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Julie Artz: Para, and Demeter, as mother and fertility. So you you're starting to see, even if you thought before you walked in today that you didn't know anything about character archetypes. You'll probably see that you recognize some of these, and you can start to apply them as you're watching TV shows movies as you're reading books in the fantasy space. Or you know, if you're if you're joining us here and you're not writing fantasy.

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Julie Artz: These same things apply. Of course, it's fantasy writers week. So I've used examples from fantasy. But you'll see these archetypes across genres and of course, across age categories.

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Julie Artz: So if you wanna learn more about how these character archetypes come into play. Of course the Odyssey is full of character archetypes, but I prefer a more modern interpretation of many of the stories in in the Odyssey. So I really love Circe. And Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. If you haven't checked those out. They're really, really fabulous, and you can see the character archetypes at play there.

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Julie Artz: Okay, so I said a little bit earlier that I would talk about some other things besides young in terms of character, archetypes. And one thing that I really love is the way that you can use tarot cards, not just to predict your future, or to see what's coming ahead, or look for inspiration in your own life.

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Julie Artz: but to build characters

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Julie Artz: and the same with archetype cards. Most come with instruction booklets that can help you interpret. How different! How different cards, what they mean and how they work together, and you can do a reading

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Julie Artz: for your characters the same way that you would do a tarot reading for yourself or your friends. Right? So one of the things that is really important about character archetypes that the Tarot really leans into is this idea of light

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Julie Artz: and shadow. So you have something like like the hero, and of course they're brave and strong, and they're the main character of your story, and we want to root for them, and we want to win. But what happens when you take all of that? That bravery and valor to an extreme. You get the shadow side. They might be vain. They might be unwilling to work with the team. They may think they're always right.

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Julie Artz: Those shadow sides of the main character archetype are what add richness and depth to your story. It can also be what creates the sense that your main character has something in common with your antagonist. Right? So think about Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader. Of course, even before we knew that Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father, we knew that

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Julie Artz: that the dark side of the force appealed to Luke in a really visceral way. We maybe didn't know why but he had that darkness in him, and it made him a richer character than if he was

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Julie Artz: completely perfect, and was never tempted by the dark side, and was just if those 2 characters had been set up so that they were completely opposite and didn't have any of that that linking, you know. Darth Vader, of course, at the end of goes over to the light, and and Luke is throughout the story. Attracted to the dark that

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Julie Artz: similarity between your antagonists and your protagonists is part of what made them such memorable characters? Right?

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Julie Artz: So so you can use these character archetype cards. And I I particularly love Carolyn, Mrs. Architect.

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Julie Artz: archetype cards. She has a a book as well, which I have to admit I haven't read, but I use these archetyped cards all the time. When I'm crafting a new character, and I need a little inspiration. I'll just pull some of the character archetypes out and and read them, and I might be like, Oh, no, this doesn't sound like my my character at all. But then I go. Oh, this one does, and oh, this one does, too, and then you can start to mix and match and really put them together.

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Julie Artz: So the funny thing is, I've noticed that a lot of marketing and business folks have jumped onto the character archetype bandwagon, too. And you'll even see in my workbook something that I that I pulled, you know, with with attribution from from a professor who talks a lot about character archetypes, and how they work in in branding and in business.

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Julie Artz: It's really interesting. That's how you get these personality quizzes like the Myers, Briggs, or the Enneagram, or more they can all help you with character building, because they're tapping into that universal

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Julie Artz: idea of what it is to be human and and what different personality types are.

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Julie Artz: Okay. So we just talked about how to use the shadow side. This is also called the moral gray area. Right characters have both good and bad qualities. They have both honorable and dishonorable, more motivations and desires, and that helps them come along alive on the page. Nobody wants to root for a perfect character cause they just make us feel better

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Julie Artz: because we're not perfect, right? It's that imperfect, it's that underdog. It's that dark side that really makes a character grab us.

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Julie Artz: even if you want your readers to really root for your hero having them fall in love just a little bit with the villain can be really, really effective as well, making that heroin slightly less perfect. That's gonna make the story richer. And so then.

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Julie Artz: when you are looking at these character archetypes don't just po focus on the positive traits, but focus on that shadow side. Oh, as well. Take those strengths to an extreme until they turn into something that's a little bit less perfect, a little bit more flawed and then Bill, and inability to ask for help or extreme stoicism. For example, can be the the shadow side of that.

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Julie Artz: my hero character. And that's an easy way to take some of your side characters that might be reading a little bit cardboard. And make them deeper flawed and more real.

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Julie Artz: Okay? So in all of this, we need to know the tropes so that we can make sure that we're providing something that is fresh, so tropes are not necessarily the exact same as character archetypes, but because these kind of character archetypes exist, many tropes

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Julie Artz: sort of play with them or interact with them. So you've probably seen 4 examples of these stereotypes, the sassy sidekick, the mustache twirling bad guy, the nerdy best friend.

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Julie Artz: the annoying younger sibling the bad boy or the dark Lover, the hooker with a heart of gold.

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Julie Artz: Now

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Julie Artz: these don't have to be poorly done. Troops. They can be amazing

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Julie Artz: if you subvert them or freshen them. And so here are some examples from recent books, the sassy sidekick, my favorite recent example. If you haven't read in the Lives of Puppets, by Tj. Clune. It's a Pinocchio retelling and Nurse Ratchet. Yes, he called her that

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Julie Artz: from in the lives of puppets is the most sassy sociopathic sidekick ever, and she's she's a nurse robot, and she's amazing. The mustache twirling bad guy. I really love what nk Jemison did with the woman in white. She basically took every trope about about the the dark

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Julie Artz: antagonist like. Oh, look at that! I made balloons fly through the air. That's interesting. Thank you. Zoom

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Julie Artz: She took all of the tropes. That basically were formed by Darth Vader, and even before about about a dark antagonist, and turned them on the head when she created the woman in white. Who is not only a white woman with light colored hair, but always wears white, and she is the worst of the worst in terms of mustache twirling bad guys.

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Julie Artz: the nerdy best friend art in the murderbot diaries. How fun is that? Art's not even human.

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Julie Artz: It's a spaceship. And yet it is absolutely the nerdy best friend that helps the murder bot that helps sec unit throughout the murder. Bot diaries by Martha Wells. The annoying younger sibling.

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Julie Artz: Okay, I love the way this plays out in in Babel by Rf. Quang, the

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Julie Artz: Robin. Swift is the main character, but he's also the annoying younger brother. You usually see that as a side character, so making him. The main character was really interesting, because he literally never does what his older brother tells him to do, always doubts him, always thinks he knows better, and it always causes problems. So usually it's the older sibling. That's the main character, and they've got the annoying younger sibling. But in this case the main character is

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Julie Artz: the annoying younger sibling, and she plays with those tropes in a really really fresh and interesting way. Of course, the bad boy, the Dark lover, Zaden, and the fourth wing.

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Julie Artz: Hello! He's also a hero. He's also a rebel. He's so so so so many things which is part of the reason that people can't get enough of the fourth wing.

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Julie Artz: and of course the hooker with the heart of gold. If you are reading the the fourth book in the darker shade of magic series which I highly recommend. We'll see one of my favorite characters from the original trilogy, Sierra. The White rose from the pleasure from the pleasure gardens in in Red London. A great example of the hooker with the heart of gold.

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Julie Artz: Okay.

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Julie Artz: so we've talked about tropes. We've talked about character archetypes. We've talked about shadow side and and light side. So let's

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Julie Artz: circle back to character motivation. Now.

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Julie Artz: the you want

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Julie Artz: to use conflicting motivations both within the character and between characters, to drive tension through your story. This can come into play with, as I said, the internal conflict

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Julie Artz: that you know that that character like Luke Skywalker, has. Am I gonna go over to the dark side, or am I gonna stay with the light side of the force, or that external conflict between characters. One of the things that I love about the Darth vader arc is that when we got to the earlier movies the the prequels, we learned that he wasn't just

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Julie Artz: that mustache twirling bad guy, but he was actually a heartbroken lover that he was really motivated by his grief

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Julie Artz: and trying to destroy the power structures that led him to lose his love. Now I have. I have questions about whether all of that backstory existed when the first movies came out. But it works really really well to make him more sympathetic retroactively, because when he finds out he has a son. Of course he's gonna try to win him over to the dark side so that they can be together so that he doesn't have to lose someone else that he loves. That so that he can hang on to this piece of his lost love.

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Julie Artz: So even though Darth Vader is the archetypal villain.

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Julie Artz: adding that lover, father piece to the character, adding, that sort of sage, wise advisor that he tried, I mean he mostly failed, but he tried to be for Luke. That deepens him and moves him from a potential stereotype to an unforgettable sigh. Character.

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Julie Artz: Okay? So I mentioned a little bit of this earlier these are all admittedly fairly European examples of archetypes, Greek and Roman mythology, and young and Norse mythology. That's my background and my knowledge, if you have experience with other traditions, there are many, many archetypes that exist, of course, outside of Western Europe. Right? Let's be honest. If you have experience and deep knowledge of those other traditions.

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Julie Artz: You have even more tools in your toolbox to build a rich cast of characters that, and that will really help you. Move away from these these tropes that have have grown up in part of the Western storytelling. Tradition. So feel free to go far beyond what I'm I'm introducing here and and incorporating your own archetypes and traditions.

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Julie Artz: Okay, so

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Julie Artz: our key takeaways here are that characters desire misbelief and motivation is at the heart of the character arc.

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Julie Artz: That backstory defines the character's motivation.

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Julie Artz: and that a large cast of characters in fantasies, especially in series, create some extra work in character creation for writers. Right? And that that's where character archetypes come in. We can use those to freshen tropes, to subvert tropes to create deeper characters and to increase the tension between characters.

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Julie Artz: So I have some additional resources for you. As I mentioned story, genius by Lisa Cran is really wonderful for figuring out how to craft the right kind of backstory to maximize tension on the page. I also have a sub stack on villains love interest best friends and rivals with a lot of helpful information. And

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Julie Artz: if you're getting a little bit further along in the process, the writing process, and are thinking about pitching. I also wanted to mention my craft, your query workbook and of course, as I mentioned before, Carolyn, this is

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Julie Artz: architect cards. These links will all be live when you grab those slides from the link in my

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Julie Artz: in my profile for today's talk. But I did also want to share an extra special bonus offer with you. If you are in the 5% of writers who are truly ready to pitch, you might enjoy my self-paced course, weekend pitch perfection. I've made a coupon code pwa underscore. April 2024, just for fantasy writers. Week to get you $30 off from that self-paced course

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Julie Artz: and

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Julie Artz: And again, that link will be live in

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Julie Artz: and in the hub.

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Julie Artz: Okay, and one more totally free offer. I'm teaching a 3 h workshop. That's gonna dig in a little bit more to the big picture of of setting up your writing life and your story for success. Whether you're in the planning stages, languishing in the mushy middle or unsure. What needs to happen next? You might like to come to story scaffolding. Live on May night.

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Julie Artz: eighteenth, and hear a little bit more about my approach to storytelling, from making time in your busy schedule for writing, to understanding the market, and how you can use it to craft a winning story, and then, of course, some more on how to get

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Julie Artz: all of this character motivation stuff we've been talking about today into a plot arc that actually works. So I hope I'll see some of you there as well.

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Julie Artz: And of course I'd love to connect with you as well. I'm active on Instagram, and on Facebook. As I mentioned, I have a sub stack and I'm occasionally on blue sky. The best way to keep in touch with me on what I'm up to is through weird words weekly, which is my weekly newsletter. But of course, you can also reach me

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Julie Artz: at my websitejuly arts.com. And I hope you'll stay in touch.

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Julie Artz: Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and stop my share. And then we can do some questions.

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Julie Artz: Okay, any advice on writing the villain as the main character. I'm writing a villain origin story, and having a hard time with my main character. I don't want it to be a tragedy.

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Julie Artz: Yeah, I mean, I love a villain as a main character. I mean, you could probably noticed my deep love of Darth Vader.

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Julie Artz: based on all the examples I used in today's talk. And of course he wasn't necessarily the point of view character, but he was one of those one of those antagonists that I think really lived in the minds of of many, many people, especially especially Jen Exers, who maybe even got to see some of the original movies in the in the

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Julie Artz: theater at a young age like I did so I think my advice is to look at. Of course, the villain you're gonna be thinking shadow, side, shadow, side shadow side. Think about the light. What is heroic about that about that villain? What is tender about them? Who do they love? What wounds are they nurturing that led them to be the villain. If you think about it in

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Julie Artz: that way, they'll really come to life because an antagonist, whether the antagonist is your main character or not. The antagonist believes that they're the hero. They wouldn't be doing what they're they're doing. They're not doing that just for pure badness. They're doing that because they want

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Julie Artz: to be heroic in their own way, even if they're

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Julie Artz: really going about it in in a bad and non productive way. So lean into the heroic side of that of that villain, and you can really really make them a lot deeper and richer. And I love that moral gray area that that the good, the good things about the bad characters and the bad things about the good characters. Right?

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Julie Artz: I mean, everything really exists on a spectrum. Nobody is all good or all bad, and and so, finding those good points about the

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Julie Artz: about your villain can help think about. There's a reason that Blake Snyder puts save the cat as the title of his of his screenwriting book. That's that's now very well known and loved and used by a lot of of writers as well. If you can have that villain save the cat like, give him a thing that he really loves, and that he's willing to to fight for and die for, even if he's doing the bad things that we really don't want him to do. That can that can really help help.

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Julie Artz: Do you think the Mbti and anyogram types can be a useful tool for developing and understanding various types of character, psychology, and how they might generally interact with your story and world. Yeah, absolutely. I've used both Myers, Briggs and Andogram. I know some people who also use. Of course, the name is just escape me. No strength. Finder people that I know, people that have used strength finder

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Julie Artz: as well. To me. These are all playing with very, very similar types of of character archetypes, right? I think that they all sort of evolved from this this idea, that of what Young would have called the collective consciousness that and again, I I think there, there are also flaws. I mean, I know some people have called Myers Briggs into question, and said, like, is this even valid?

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Julie Artz: maybe less valid for for how you live your life, but totally valid for crafting characters? Right? So I definitely think that finding any of these types of things, I I know people that use astrology and birth, chart theory, birth order, all of those things. Digging into to psychology when crafting your characters is always gonna be additive, right? It's always.

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Julie Artz: always, gonna really bring them alive and make them real on the page. So I say, find whatever resonates for you in your own life like. If you love astrology, I I personally think that I'm the most Aquarius aquarian out there. And if that resonates for you, use it because it'll make your your character stronger and help you think about them in new ways.

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Julie Artz: How do you use the hierarchy of needs? Writing intersectionality of characters in your story? I understand the needs. Pyramid is screwed cause it was only researched through privileged white folks. Do you think it's more important to think more critically about diversity of experience through the needs? Yeah, I mean, absolutely, as as I said in in my sort of disclaimer about all of this is a lot of what we're talking about today.

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Julie Artz: And and in fact, like, let's be honest. The hero's journey in general are coming from a a white, privileged.

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Julie Artz: patriarchal background. So my take is yes, think critically about them, and yes, use what will help us subvert those those sexist and and racist tradition and colonial traditions in our own writing. You can take the take the good but think

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Julie Artz: really critically about it. I do think that it is really hard with the hierarchy of needs. For example, th, this comes up a lot in the discussion around agency. Right? It's only possible for certain characters and in most cases privileged characters to be really doing the holding call field deep dive into self actualization. Right? If you have

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Julie Artz: characters who are living in an oppressive regime, of course they're primarily gonna be thinking about escaping that regime so that they can have that safety and security and so it's definitely something that you wanna think critically about. And that's why I really love everything that nk, Jemison has to say about world building, because she always starts with power dynamics. What? Who has power? What resources are

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Julie Artz: are are valuable because of their scarcity. How are they controlled by the power structures? That, I think, is a really good way to start down the path of of deconstructing what is truly a lot of of colonialist tropes in in particularly in fantasy. But in all of of literature

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Julie Artz: can a character have more than one archetype. Absolutely. If you look in the workbook, I've actually listed for each archetype what some of the common double ups are. If you think about

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Julie Artz: for example, Gandalf from Lord of the Rings. He's definitely a wizard he's also a sage. There's certain things about him that are also heroic. So a lot of these characters will have have multiple things. Aragorn ergorn is

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Julie Artz: is the the ruler, but he's also a little bit of a rebel. Definitely the hero. A lot of these these character archetypes should, can and should be layered up to create that depth, and that also gives you more shadow side to look at.

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Julie Artz: You can examine not just the primary traits of those multiple archetypes, but look at the shadow side and maybe the the hero is very much leaning into the light side of being a hero, but has some shadow side in his role as the lover, for example, that can be a really good way to add depth, but also to create conflict with

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Julie Artz: with some of the other characters

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Julie Artz: is the description of the lover correct in the workbook it seems to describe the innocent instead of the lover. Nancy, I will have to check that and and make sure that I don't have a copy and paste error in my canva. I'm gonna take a note.

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Julie Artz: give me just a second.

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Julie Artz: and if that is the case, I apologize, and I'll I'll get a fresh copy out to everyone.

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Julie Artz: Thanks for that.

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Julie Artz: I'm not sure if it's on topic or not. But I've spent 18 years playing and running dungeons and dragons and other tabletop role playing games that help me build a lot of skills. Yeah, absolutely. I. So and actually, in the workbook, you'll see that I have given a hat tip to dungeons and dragons. I think those dungeons and dragons, archetypes, there are a few that are the same as young, and a few that are different. And of course we have definitely seen little hints of those archetypes in in

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Julie Artz: many, many, many fantasy books and series that have come out.

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Julie Artz: Do I have any advice for people struggling

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Julie Artz: with the writing part rather than the creative conception.

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Julie Artz: Oh, I have so many many tips definitely. Come, join me at story scaffolding. Live on May nineteenth. That's what we're really, really, gonna dig into it. It can be really easy to get stuck in the dreaming, the envisioning, because when you're doing that piece of it. Your story is perfect, it exists only in your head, and therefore it is perfect. And of course

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Julie Artz: we definitely have to get from that to the actual writing of the book, so that we can then revise the book before it can ever get read or ready. And it is tough. I don't wanna act like this is easy stuff. There's lots of different tools that can help you get through from that dreaming it upstage to the actual writing, and we'll talk about a lot of those in

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Julie Artz: in my story. Scaffolding, live workshop. Do I have any advice how to avoid the inherent stereotyping that it can occur over time.

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Julie Artz: yeah, the

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Julie Artz: To use as an example the appearance of dwarves and

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Julie Artz: and their culture revolving around greed. I mean, obviously, this is one of the key things I mean. I love Lord of the Rings. It was some of the the hobbit was the first fantasy that I read when I was a kid, and there's a lot of

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Julie Artz: racism inherent in that book. And so that's why going back to the conversation that I was having a little bit earlier with with Drew about. Intersectionality is so is so important here. We we can be inspired by and love these classics from the canon. But we need to leverage what we know in

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Julie Artz: modern day about how those harmful stereotypes played out on the page, how a lot of the power dynamics were really promoting a sort of colonial

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Julie Artz: and and patriarchal paradigm that we maybe want to unpack and subvert a little bit right now. So that's why it's really important to I to know your tropes and make sure that you're subverting and freshening them, because you want to avoid those harmful stereotypes that maybe flew under the radar in in earlier generations. And and we we just wanna avoid those. Now we know we can do better right?

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Julie Artz: Bella says I'm an author of 3 oracle decks, and that is amazing. I'm gonna copy your your

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Julie Artz: email address here and and reach out to you because I am obsessed with this stuff. So it's it's great to

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Julie Artz: to find somebody else that's doing oracle oracle oracle decks, which are again sort of like the the character archetype thing that we were talking about.

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Julie Artz: Okay, grabbed it.

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Julie Artz: There we go.

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Julie Artz: How would you successfully change a character's archetype from one book to the next in a series. So it's not jarring to the reader. Well, okay, so archetypes are kind of at their fundamental core.

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Julie Artz: Kind of fundamental to the personality in the back story. So it's not that your archetypes are gonna change from one book to the next, but you might focus on different things. You might deepen certain aspects like, maybe the in the first book they're struggling with one aspect of say coming into their power. I I've I found out that I have magical powers, and I've got to master them in order to be able to save the

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Julie Artz: the world from the bad guy. Then maybe in the second book, because of those powers they're leading, they're leaning into a leader role and and because their role has changed a little bit. Some of the things that they're struggling with can change as well. So it's not going to be that that an archetype is gonna just drop out of the blue but that it's gonna evolve based on the things that came before. So that's where

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Julie Artz: you wanna continue to think about your your back story. And of course, in a book 2 book one becomes backstory. Right? So if in book one they become a leader when they weren't a leader before. Then you can add that hero role. But you don't wanna just

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Julie Artz: You don't want to just add them willy-nilly. And once you want to keep that cause and effect

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Julie Artz: progression going so that it isn't as you said, jarring to the reader.

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Julie Artz: Yeah, you can. Where can we find the archetype cards? There is a link directly to the cards that I have on bookshop.org in the slide deck from the from the presentation. So if you just download that you can, you can get that direct direct link. But also, if you Google, you'll come up with both her website and the big A, and also bookshop.org, which is where I got mine from.

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Julie Artz: if you're already finished with your first draft. Would you recommend taking the time to go back and create in-depth character pages for all your secondary characters?

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Julie Artz: I if you didn't do that in your first draft, I would recommend doing that absolutely. I don't really do like character pages per se. What I actually do is I run through the activities around motivation and backstory from story genius. So part, it's a 3 part book and part 2 and part 3 each one has an exercise that that you can do.

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Julie Artz: that will walk you through, how to craft that backstory and that can be a great exercise to do. Once you finish your first draft to plan what your next revision is, gonna be because, knowing what the

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Julie Artz: what the character, once you've gotten to the end. You know how, where the character needs to end up, and you wanna make sure that the journey to get there is as tension filled, and and Pacey as you can make it, and one of the ways to do that is to have that that misbelief about the world that that flawed outlook. That the character is trying to overcome, and it's never too late to to think about that. I will say one caveat. Don't be surprised if you end

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Julie Artz: up having to do some big picture revisions if you didn't. If this is new, this idea of character, motivation and backstory is new to you. It may be that once you have that Aha! Moment, I understand what my character really needs and what's standing in his or her way.

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Julie Artz: Revisions may ensue. Don't panic, there's lots and lots and lots of resources about how to revise

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Julie Artz: how many character tropes would you recommend in a cast of characters, while I wouldn't necessarily recommend any tropes unless you are sure that you're confident of how they've been used in the past, and you've made sure that you're freshening them. But character archetypes. I think that you know the original idea. If you look back to dungeons and dragons is that there's that there's there's many there's most or all of them represented. That isn't going to be true for all stories. It just really

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Julie Artz: depends how big the world is, and what fits the story that you're trying to tell. What I think is most important is to make sure that you've thought about

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Julie Artz: motivations and and challenges and flaws, not just for your main character, but for your antagonist and some of your side characters as well. And so the answer really is as many as you need to tell the story well, and to keep readers really engaged.

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Julie Artz: How do I write a character slowly going insane and turning evil that could be an entire workshop in and of itself. That's a great question. And I love the idea of writing a character slowly going insane. I actually have a a character in my current book who is losing her memory and neither she nor the reader is sure whether it is

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Julie Artz: from Alzheimer's or from some of the trauma that she's been through, or from some other nefarious cause, and it's tough because you don't want

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Julie Artz: to lose the to lose the reader in the process.

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Julie Artz: yeah, that's that's really really tricky. So I would say, just.

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Julie Artz: it's going to take lots of lots of beta readers and lots of feedback to make sure that you're that you're writing, that without really losing the the reader.

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Julie Artz: thoughts on

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Julie Artz: self insert characters versus more unique and niche characters that may be harder to relate to. So my belief is that okay, so just in case you don't know self insert is when you kind of make a character generic so that the reader can put themselves into that. A great example is Bella from twilight? Right? She's she's a very sort of

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Julie Artz: bland, typical American

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Julie Artz: teenager. And so part of the reason part of the appeal is that every teenage girl that picked up that book could put herself in Bella's shoes. I I would argue that she's that she's only generic to like sort of

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Julie Artz: a white middle class, American teenager experience, so that in itself can be an issue. But my feeling is rather than trying to do that. A better thing to do is to find the universal in the specific. So that's what I also, I tell my memoir writers to do all the time as well is that you are telling your specific story, or in in the case of fiction writers, your specific

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Julie Artz: characters, specific story, and you're finding the universal. That's where the character archetypes are. They're they're the universal traits that exist in the collective conscious. And

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Julie Artz: and that is what makes them universal. It doesn't make them harder to relate to as long as their character motivations are clear. Right? It's when the character motivations aren't clear that I think a character becomes harder to relate to

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Julie Artz: what would the archetype of an antihero be? Yeah, the antihero is really just the shadow side of the hero. Right? So that's that's gonna come into play if you're writing an antagonist as your main character, and it's also gonna come into play to make your hero. A little bit richer character.

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Julie Artz: Okay, we're running short on time. I'm gonna try to get through the rest of these. Are there complimentary archetypes when it comes to villain hero relationship. Lots of questions about villain hero. Yeah, that the in the workbook take a look for

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Julie Artz: for the ways that the the shadow side can come in to the hero, and I think, looking for those ways that that the shadow side of the hero plays into the primary motivation of the villain. Can can really deepen things. You know, thinking back to to Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker can can be a good guide there.

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Julie Artz: What if your villain is a group of people? Yeah, of course, in many in many stories the villains are a group of people. There's usually one primary, like the leader or the primary person that the that the hero comes face to face with. But it's okay to sort of generalize these traits across

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Julie Artz: across a group of people. You just want to make sure that you give them each individual traits as well as these group traits, so that they don't just sort of morph into a monolith on the page.

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Julie Artz: Will there be an ability to view the May workshop later. If we sign up, but aren't able to attend, live absolutely, I'll send the recording out. It'll be available for for about 30 days after after I go live. So just go ahead and sign up and and then we'll you'll get a link to the recording after the fact. Just like, what we're doing here today?

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Julie Artz: I'm personally struggling to show off the facets of side characters from a first person point of view. Yeah, absolutely. This is one of the key struggles with showing the showing, the

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Julie Artz: the side characters and their motivations. When you are writing first person point of view, they're only gonna come on the page. The side characters only come on the page through that first person point of view. But that's okay. They they're gonna have dialogue with the character. They're gonna take actions that are gonna impact that main character. They're gonna be there in the scenes. This is where your where your comp titles

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Julie Artz: can really really be helpful. Look at how they do it. When you look at. I've mentioned a darker shade of magic a few times. One of my favorite recent fantasy series and you know, we've got the point of view characters of of Kell and Lila Bard, and then eventually Allukard and Rye. But there's a lot of really vivid side characters that don't have that don't have points of view, and yet they

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Julie Artz: they really come alive on the on the page. Sierra, the

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Julie Artz: the hooker with the heart of gold that I talked about is one example of them of that. But there are others so you can. You want that voice of those characters to come through, and that motivation to come through, and all the actions that they take on on the page, even when their point of view isn't there? So I don't. I don't know. Joe, if we're okay to just keep going or.

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Joe Sidery: I think you've probably got time for 2 more questions. I would say.

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Julie Artz: 2 more questions. Okay, must motivation always spur from backstory? I think of Cormac, Mccarthy, and how many characters and histories lack elaborate histories, or even true names, but have richly defined philosophies and personalities.

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Julie Artz: yeah. So I mean, I guess I would argue that that Cormac Mccarthy probably knows the background of his characters, and that it's coming through on the page in ways that you could might not anticipate. That I do think that it is there are

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Julie Artz: stories that stay rooted in the present moment and don't have, for example, a lot of flashbacks and that sort of thing. But but his characters tend to have a pretty, a pretty clear moral compass, and that doesn't just come out of a vacuum right? It comes from from a life experience. That that has led to it. I'm not by any means a a Cormac Mccarthy expert, although I have

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Julie Artz: read some of his books. But I I suspect that if you were to talk to him you would find that he has a pretty good idea of where those those characters are coming from, even if that's not on the page.

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Julie Artz: Is there such a thing as overdeveloping a character? I I don't think there's such a thing as over developing a character off the page, unless you're using it as a procrastination technique

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Julie Artz: to not to avoid actually writing or revising your book. But there certainly is, the possibility of overdeveloping a character on the page. Like, if you start dumping in that backstory, and who who their third grade teacher was, and what their pet goldfish was called, and and all of the every hurt or slight that they experienced in their childhood, that led to where they were today. So we do have to be judicious on the

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Julie Artz: page and have everything that is happening. Before the story starts, only come into play as it moves this particular story that we're telling forward. So being really judicious there. And also not over describing physical characteristics of a of a character. You know, it's less important, maybe, to really have an excellent picture of what the character looks like

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Julie Artz: on on the page than it is to really understand what's motivating them and what they care about and don't on the page. So

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Julie Artz: I think that's a that's a good one to end on you know, if you all have questions that I didn't get to if you

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Julie Artz: download the the workbook, you'll get my email address. You can send me questions. You know. Keep in mind if 178 of you send me questions. It's gonna take me a little while to get through them. I do. Like to answer questions that come in from my from my students and from my other writers. So thank you. Thank you for listening, and I will take a look at that

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Julie Artz: at that workbook, and if I've got a copy paste error in there. I'll I'll get that fixed and get it back out to everybody.

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Julie Artz: soon. Today.

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Joe Sidery: Okay, brilliant. Well, thank you so much, all of you, for joining us today for such a fantastic session. And of course, a big big. Thank you to Julie for generously spending your time with us. It was a fantastic session. I thoroughly enjoyed it, as I'm sure all of you guys did as well

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Joe Sidery: as always, you can find the replace this session and the other sessions in the fancy writers. Week. Hub I have posted the links in the chat a few times. I'll just do so again now for you guys, in case any of you missed it. So they're in the chat. Now for you.

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Joe Sidery: so please do. If you want to check out the replace this session or any other sessions, please do head to the hub and again one last big. Thank you for such a wonderful session, Julie was. It was fantastic, so I'm so so glad I could have been a part of it, and I hope all of you guys got something out of it as well.

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Julie Artz: Thanks so much for having me.

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Joe Sidery: Okay, thanks a lot, guys, and we'll see you on the next one. Have a good one.

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Joe Sidery: Bye.