The storytelling elements:

1. The Contract
In the very beginning, you have to make a promise. Will this be violent? Scary? Fun? Tense?
Dramatic?
2. The Pull
Keep it light in the beginning. You dont want to scare people away by being too dense you
must trust The Contract.
3. The Incident
This is the event that sets everything in motion. Should occur early and keep the story together.
4. The Reveal
Just before the Point Of No Return, the main character learns what the story is really about.
5. Point Of No Return
The forces of good are faced with an impossible decision that concerns fear, safety, love, hate,
revenge or despair.
6. Mini-Climax
Sorry, but you must allow the the forces of evil to have an epic win.
7. All-Is-Lost Moment
The moment where all is lost. You must portray the deepest despair for the forces of good.
8. News Of Hope
This is the possibility for one of the side characters to shine. A light that shines into the total
darkness of the moment.
9. Climax
The shit hits the fan and the good puts everything at stake and overcomes despite
impossible odds.
10. The End
Public displays of relief and happiness, love and forgiveness. Its great! We also learn that the
hero has evolved.

Its funnyjust yesterday I was thinking about looking for writing related material to post, since
its an extremely important beginning step to animation, and just now my friend tagged me in a
post on Facebook linking to this!
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
#2: You gotta keep in mind whats interesting to you as an audience, not whats fun to do as a
writer. They can be v. different.
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you wont see what the story is actually about til youre at
the end of it. Now rewrite.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___.
Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. Youll feel like youre losing
valuable stuff but it sets you free.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them.
Challenge them. How do they deal?
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard,
get yours working up front.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if its not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on.
Do better next time.
#9: When youre stuck, make a list of what WOULDNT happen next. Lots of times the material
to get you unstuck will show up.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; youve got to
recognize it before you can use it.
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, youll never
share it with anyone.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th get the obvious out
of the way. Surprise yourself.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write,
but its poison to the audience.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? Whats the belief burning within you that your story feeds off
of? Thats the heart of it.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility
to unbelievable situations.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they dont
succeed? Stack the odds against.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If its not working, let go and move on - itll come back around to
be useful later.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is
testing, not refining.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are
cheating.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How dyou rearrange them into
what you DO like?
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, cant just write cool. What would make
YOU act that way?
#22: Whats the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can
build out from there.

Readers tend to like characters who are struggling to achieve a goal. This simple principle can
be invaluable in creating sympathetic protagonists.
Characters working toward a goal are active characters.
Characters who arent working toward a goal are reactive.
Reactive characters are much weaker than active characters, and we tend not to like them.
Unfortunately, many writers end up unknowingly creating reactive protagonists. - Odyssey
Writing Tips

PROACTIVE CHARACTERS
A proactive character is a character who does things. They make decisions, they initiate actions,
and they are driven by a goal that often makes them pick the wrong decisions and actions.
This is important because what characters choose to do is going to create your plot. Why they
choose to do it will create your stakes. Together, these factors make you invested in a plot.
Proactive characters drive plot. They dont just have strong goals; they actively pursue them.
Thats one of the reasons people tend to love villains: they have a clear goal, are often centered
around the attainment of that goal, and those goals give interesting insights into their personality
and choices.
This makes proactive characters are easier to build around and work with as the plot
progresses. You can make plots around their goals and find ways for those goals to lead to new
ones.
You can get away with having reactive characters in literature sometimes because youre able to
rely on secondary characters to drive the plot and impact your character. (If you roleplay, you
dont get this luxury in RP because everything is centered around character interaction.)

WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT
Thehappylogophile has an answer:
Almost every novel has it: down-time. That moment between the adrenalin-fuelled car chase
and the point where the slasher leaps out of the tree-line and drags the protagonists boyfriend
into the undergrowth. Its a chance for the characters (and the reader) to take a deep breath and
process everything thats just happened. Its often the point where characters share information,
or plot their next move, or take advantage of the lull in death-dealing to celebrate the wonder of
life. (Cue the sleazy electric guitar.)
So, how does your character behave in the lull? If she takes the opportunity to sit quietly and
cry, or goes along with someone elses suggestion, or her entire plan revolves around waiting to
see what happens next, shes probably a reactive character.
A proactive character is likely to be the one leading the conversation, making plans that include
the theme (if not the words) the best defense is a good offense, or even taking the opportunity
to return to her pre-story goals.
What you should take away from this is: when a character isnt driving the plot, s/he needs to
have interesting goals/development outside of the main plot to work towards. This way, your
character is always developing over the course of the game and still doing something during
downtime instead of sitting idly by.

IS MY CHARACTER REACTIVE

A reactive character is more likely to do whats easiest or more immediate. If choosing

between two love interests, the reactive character will go with the one in front of him right now.
Or the one who tries the hardest to woo him. Or the one that his friends tell him he should go
with. Alternately, he wont make a choice at all at least, not until hes either forced to do so by
outside events (Declare your undying love for me, or Ill start drowning kittens! ) or one of the
options is removed (Now that Laura is dead, you have to love me!).
In short, reactive characters dont make the interesting decisions that give us insights to a
persons personality or develop it.
A proactive character will make a choice. It may not be the right choice (and often isnt), but its
a choice nonetheless: Ive considered my options and have decided that Im really in love with
the evil, but incredibly sexy, vampire, and not the sweet girl-next-door whos always been there
for me. How could anything possibly go wrong?
In roleplay, you can generally characters arent reactive when their histories/personality read
more like a grocery list of characteristics or events. Proactive characters applications are driven
by and explore their goals and decisions.

WHY DO PEOPLE MAKE REACTIVE CHARACTERS? HOW CAN I AVOID IT?

A big reason people make reactive characters is often because of the method they employ
creating characters. Many times, writers will take a sort of Frankenstein approach mixing and
mashing character traits and then try to flesh them out. They say my character has x, y, and z
trait. S/he has these traits because of a, b, and c.
Dont do that. That approach generally does not work (unless mixed with others). It wastes your
time and doesnt get at the heart of the issues.
Sure, that can be a good approach to generate ideas. However, unless you find a conflict to
base those traits around or use them to further that conflict, no one is going to be invested in
your character or have a good idea of how these traits manifest and, most importantly, why.
If you need a formula to follow, try starting with:
In order of importance, what are the five most important things to your character and why?
(make note of conflicting wants and goals)
Tie in information about your characters deeper motivations. Try to think about where your
characters sense of worth comes from, who theyre trying to impress and why, which of their
own (or others) priorities these might clash with, what characters may believe others want, their
goals/values and how they were established, re-occurring problems in your characters life
(jealousy, financial issues, etc.), what sort of person other characters believe yours is, in what
ways your character is uniquely selfish, your characters opinion of him/herself, your characters
ambitions, what your character works to gain/protect, etc. If youre having trouble, try this
resource.
Ex. Being liked. It is important to my character that he is liked. Peter struggled with it as a child
because of his romantic involvement with his goldfish, leading other children to think he was
strange. He can be somewhat sycophant because of this and tries to secure that he is liked by
making himself valuable to others even when it can be damaging to himself and those around
him.
and/or

Character Name wants to accomplish these three goals: being more character trait, obtaining
status symbol, and protecting his/her ______. S/he wants to accomplish these things because
s/he values ___, ___, and ___. S/he is driven to accomplish them because s/he is good/bad trait
and good/bad trait and isnt above doing _____ and ____ to get these things, which makes him/
her good/bad trait, good/bad trait, and good/bad trait (or makes other people view him/her that
way).
Dont use really broad, universal traits. If youre using characteristics like those mentioned here
(reserved, trusting, critical, etc.), it might mean youre being too broad. Saying your character is
angry or selfish, for example, fails to give insight into what that says about your character.
Everyone is selfish and angry just to varying degrees and because of various factors. For
example, in this episode of Awkward Black Girl (which is an amazing webseries if you havent
seen it), the main character Jae is sent to anger management. The characters in her anger
management session go around saying why theyre there, and Jay (different character) shows
how this gives insight to the things they care about. Pete gets angry when time is left on a
microwave and not cleared because he cares about time management, Jae has an outburst
when someone doesnt return her stapler because she wants to feel respected.
My favorite trick to generate ideas for a character application is asking myself:
How is my character broad characteristic (ex. uniquely selfish)? It helps you focus in on a goal,
gain insight to what they value, and develop specific ways their characteristics manifest.
The key to creating proactive characters is to have them become involved in solving their own
problems/accomplishing their goals, rather than depend on others to solve them. If you want an
example, you can go here, where you can read through an authors personal attempt to make
her character more proactive.

WHAT IF IM ALREADY DOING IT?

(The first step is admitting you have a problem.)
The number one reason players get bored in roleplay or feel stuck with what theyre writing is
because of something editors deem episodic writing. Cheryl Wyatt describes it as happening
when one scene happens then another and another and so on but there is really no point to the
scenes.
It happens when you lose sight of your characters goals and how you want to develop him or
her. (The reason people get so invested in relationship lines in roleplay is because its a quick
and easy way to create goals and because there are pre-established milestones you can
develop your character around. This development is often generic but satisfying as players are
more invested in the stakes.)
Episodic writing happens for two reasons: 1) your character is reactive or 2) youve lost sight of
your goals for your character and youre letting them be reactive when they have a number of
things established that would make them proactive. For example, your scenes/characters might
read like this. You can see another great example of a problematic storyline here.
Additionally, you might be limiting the scope of how your character can develop and need to
branch out more. Or youre not thinking through ways you can accomplish the goals youve
established for your character going in.
How do you fix it? Give your character a goal - or better yet, several goals. Let your character
need help accomplishing those goals. This helps you develop character relationships, helps you
develop your character (especially when you tie in weaknesses, values, etc.), and gives your
character something to do. BAM! it really is that simple.

What kind of goal? There are some amazing resources here.

Then, you can have those goals lead to more and more negative consequences. Its a bit like
that book If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, where a little problem can lead to big ones.
One of the best examples Ive read (but cant find the link to) is this:
Jane has become obsessed with growing a certain type of flower to spite her smug neighbor.
Despite her best efforts, the flower wont grow. She tries buying an expensive fertilizer online.
She doesnt realize that buying it has set her back $20 and her checking account is now on a
negative. If she doesnt pay rent, shell be kicked out. And on and on and on. Through this, you
can help develop your characters traits. For example, if Jane is too prideful to ask someone for
money, this could result in character growth.
Jane is interesting because Jane is proactive. She actively works to grow that mfing flower. Her
bad decision/goal leads to other bad decisions/goals.
Tada. Youre now well on your way to making your characters more proactive.