The Write Focus

We’ve reached the last major section of Discovering Characters, which is Décor or Special Touches for Characters and the Sliding Scales.

We begin with Lessons from Myths, primarily Greek mythology, that huge melting pot of myths.

Here in modern times we can barely see the distinctions in cultures that compose the myths. Time has blurred those distinctions for us, and now we look back and think one culture when it is many. The myth of Medea alone offers the collision of four different cultures.

This episode takes an extended look at something I developed after years of teaching mythology. It combines the traits of the Epic Hero with archetypes into what I called the Greek Heroic Pattern. We’ll look at the best example of the GHP from classical antiquity then offer 7 others that more from ancient times to our modern ones.

The addition of the Greek Heroic Pattern and 7 protagonists through time will have this episode running longer than usual (TOTAL RUN TIME = 34:39)

TIMINGS

• 0:39 Introduction
• 1:52 Special Touches for Characters / Lessons from Myths
• 4:47 Sacrifices that Protagonists have to make
• 6:10 Deities & Fighting against Deities
• 7:53 Heroes of Greek Myth
• 11:05 Intro to the Greek Heroic Pattern ~ 9 areas
• 15:13 Perseus in the GHP (Hollywood ruins a good protagonist)
• 19:52 7 Protagonists = Orpheus, Psyche, Arthur, “Invictus” persona, Darcy, Aragorn, and Iron Man
• 32:50 Closing

 

Direct Link to the Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2023/03/character-lessons-from-myths.html

Discovering Characters can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Yoda. Q. Nanny McPhee. Spock. Gandalf. JARVIS. Dumbledore. Mary Poppins. Merlins.

All mentors.

A mentor is a wise elder who teaches, provide gifts, motivates and plants seeds. They are wise, mysterious, a little deranged, and incredibly awe-inspiring. They can be much-loved … or dark and dangerous. They can provides gifts willingly … or present challenges difficult to overcome.

Mentors can act for or against the protagonist, wish him/her well or curse to oblivion, and know the answer yet give wrong directions. Whatever their goal and motivations, mentors have four functions in story even as they improve our plots OR DESTROY THEM.

TIMINGS

• 0:39 Intro
• 3:25 Beginnings
• 6:30 4 Functions of the Mentor
• 9:51 Good & Bad
• 13:42 Mentors and Plots
• 15:00 Closing

Total Run Time = 16:39

 

Direct Link to the Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2023/03/mentors-discovering-characters.html

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Conflict moves stories.

The protagonist faces the conflict, battling with it and dealing with it. Whether our focus is Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, George R.R. Martin or Dean Koontz, the swiftest action-adventure or the highest literary fiction, the protagonist battles a conflict-creator.

The antagonist creates the deepest and longest conflict, yet other characters can also be conflict-creators, even if that character is not evil. These characters offer tests for our primary character.

One such character is the Love Interest. That’s a curious addition to an episode on Enemies. I’ll explain at the end of the episode.

For now, we have the Tests that come from Active Enemies of the Protagonist.

TIMINGS

• 0:39 Intro
• 1:41 Opening
• 3:28 1^st Test
• 6:43 2^nd Test, in 2 forms
• 9:35 3^rd Test
• 11:40 4^th Test, with 2 choices
• 15:43 Love Interest
• 18:32 Closing

Total Run Time = 20:11

Discovering Characters can be purchased at these links:

• https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19
• https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

• View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

While Teams actively engage with the primary characters and the story’s conflict, many other characters will populate stories.

Whether in a short story, a simple anecdote in nonfiction, or in novels and epics, these other characters flesh out the skeleton of our writing. Allies, Foils, Love Interests, Blocking Figures, and more all participate in the conflict, driving it forward or directing the protagonist or antagonist.

In this episode, we present five of the key types of Allies and More.

 

CONTENTS

• 0:39 Intro
• 1:22 Allies, Enemies, and More
• 4:16 Allies for the Protagonist
• 5:07 Ally
• 7:04 Foil
• 10:06 Neither Ally nor Enemy
• 10:53 Herald
• 12:31 Blocking Figure
• 14:10 Idol
• 16:11 Trickster
• 17:30 Closing

Total Run Time = 19:08

 

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

 

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

For writers, teams offer greater opportunities than a single protagonist or antagonist.

We are not limited to character’s perspective throughout the writing. We can have two who alternate or a group of characters whose diverse perspectives open a wider opportunity for conflict and tension.

Writers can have a lot of fun with teams. We can build a book or a series around a team. We can follow a single protagonist and the team through a series OR have a single protagonist with a changing team OR have alternate team members serve as the protagonist.

Teams give options … and every writers love options.

CONTENTS

• 0:38 Intro to Team Roles
• 2:36 Basics of Teams (*My apologies for my poor attempt at 4 Chinese art terms.)
• 6:46 4 Team Members ~ Alpha / Beta / Gamma / Delta
• 9:09 Team Members in Conflict
• 12:04 Conflict Reactions of Team Members
• 16:10 3 Leadership Styles
• 18:03 10 Team Roles ~ the Skeleton
• 20:55 Peck vs. Pack
• 21:57 Peck
• 24:13 Self-Selection of a Group
• 25:10 Pack
• 26:36 Closing

LINKS

Flow by Cyrus Molavi https://www.amazon.com/Flow-Classic-Achieve-Happiness-Introduction/dp/0712657592

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus.

We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Continuing Last Episode’s Focus on the Couple Bond / Relationships

Relationships of Choice are built in three stages. The bond between a couple is not driven solely by instinct or chemical pheromones. It is not mere attraction of the eyes. The links of the bond are formed by more than common association.

An enduring Relationship of Choice requires three parts, occurring in stages. It’s a Tripod, and each leg, built one after the other, becomes dependent on the other.

Contents

• 0:40 :: Introduction
• 1:20  :: The Tripod / What Creates Enduring Love?
• 2:52 :: Stage 1
• 5:30 :: 4 Steps to Attraction
• 8:24 :: Stage 2
• 11:25 :: Opposites Do Attract
• 12:28 :: Stage 3
• 14:23 :: Traps that Destroy Devotion
• 15:59 :: To Love Deeply and Well
• 17:10 :: Closing

 

LINKS

Women who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes https://www.amazon.com/Women-Who-Run-Wolves-Archetype/dp/0345409876

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Marriage by Contract rather than Choice. Matchmakers. Divorce.

Contracted Relationships, the legal contract of the Marriage Ceremony, and the Dissolution of the Marriage Contract is the focus of this episode as we venture into the Relationship section of Discovering Characters.

Couples and the bonds that change individuals into couples are the focus of the first two episodes. Then we look at Team Roles, Allies, and more.

For now, Couples in a Contract (and the wife as chattel ... grrr).

Content

• 0:39 :: Introduction
• 1:07  :: Opening / The Couples Bond
• 2:27 :: Contract vs. Choice / Matchmakers
• 5:20 :: Relationships of Choice > Uncommon
• 5:30  :: Marriage = Property Transfer / A Legal Contract
• 8:45 :: Breaking Relationships
• 12:00 :: Closing

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

In our look at Jungian archetypes for primary characters, we have four that are the most unexpected of all.

These four can become surprising protagonists. As antagonists, they seem pathetic--until we realize that we deal with these conflict-creators every day of our lives.

It’s the 4 Last but not Least Primaries.

Contents

• 0:39 Intro
• 1:12 Opening
• 1:54 Everyman / Victim
• 3:27 Lover / Stalker / Siren / Seducer
• 6:13 Innocent / Willfully Blind
• 7:47 Trickster / Fool
• 12:19 Closing

Total Run Time = 14:03

 

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

When we study character analyses, we’re often left with the sense that these discussed protagonists and antagonists are masculine rather than feminine.  In this episode, we’ll look at women in the leadership position, positive forms as well as negative. Women can burn brightly, illuminating all around them, or can burn themselves up when they fall prey to the worst inside themselves.

We’re looking at women as primary characters, from ancient days to the present. You may wish to reference our previous episode on $ Types of Leaders: Alpha / Beta / Gamma / Delta.

(You may consider these four leadership episodes and think “no update for trans or nonbinary?” Well, whether a character is trans or non-binary, that character will still fall into one of these dichotomous truths from primitive days to now.)

Contents

• 0:39 Intro
• 1:25 Bright Lights
• 2:47 Ancient Days
• 4:30 Queen Alpha / B*tch
• 5:30 Counselor Beta / Courtier
• 6:07 Non-Conformist Gamma / Little Miss Independent
• 7:01 Visionary Delta / Missionary
• 8:02 A Woman’s Conflict
• 9:41 Genetic Wiring in Men and Women
• 13:13 Closing

See previous episodes or the blog for Resource Links.

Direct Link to the Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2023/02/4-bright-lights-or-hot-messes-disc.html

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)

Our last episode examined the 4 Classic Hero Leaders who can become protagonists with developed personalities and flaws. Skew them sideways, and they become antagonists.

The same will happen with the 4 Unheroic Heroes that are the focus of this episode: Warrior, Creator, Magician, and Sage … or looking at them as antagonists, Tool, Dreamer, Machiavellian, and Robot.

Contents

• 0:39 Intro
• 1:18 Unheroic Heroes
• 2:46 Warrior / Tool
• 6:06 Creator / Dreamer
• 8:35 Magician / Machiavellian
• 11:28 Sage / Robot
• 14:10 Closing

Direct Link to the Blog https://thewritefocus.blogspot.com/2023/02/4-unheroic-heroes-disc-characters.html

Discovering Characters  can be purchased at these links:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Y7LYK19

https://books2read.com/u/3RJrZB

Discovering Your Writing, a bundle of four writing craft books, is available here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08691892S

View the Trailer: https://youtu.be/hTVQn92kNBk

Thanks for listening to The Write Focus. We focus on productivity, process, craft, and tools. Our podcast is for newbies who want to become writing pros and veterans who are returning to writing after years away.

Our current focus is Discovering Characters. We’re bookcasting!

Support the podcast with a cup of coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/winkbooksr

• You can find workbooks and templates at Buy Me a Coffee. Just up is the Enter the Writing Business Workbook.
• Templates from the Discovering Characters series are also there.

For more links and resources, visit www.thewritefocus.blogspot.com  .

Write to us at winkbooks@aol.com.

If you find value in this podcast, please share with your writing friends or write a review. (We’re small beans. We don’t have the advertising budget of the big peeps. You can make a difference.)