Constructive Criticism

some interesting stuff I found on the blog of Oriental DreamWorks (an animation company that DreamWorks once held shares in)

Oriental DreamWorks once released the constellation information of the characters during the promotion period of httyd2🤩

Hiccup-Aries (Hiccup’s birthday in the book is February 29th, aka Pisces. I personally think that Oriental Dreamworks made a tiny mistake, has reversed the astrological signs of Hiccup and Astrid)

Astrid-Pisces

Toothless-Scorpio

Stormfly-Libra

Fishlegs-Cancer

Ruff and Tuff-Gemini

Snotlout-Sagittarius

Stoick-Taurus

Valka-Capricornus

Gobber-Gemini

Note: this information is for entertainment purposes only, DreamWorks has not confirmed the zodiac signs of the characters officially

good ol sonic prime <3

Jason Todd I fear

Quick Tips on Writing Better Characters

Here are a handful of quick tips to writing stronger characters and understanding them better as a writer.

Give your characters a title. This can help with worldbuilding and placing your protagonist into the environment. What do others call your characters? The emperor, the bastard son, the Grinch, the chosen one, the class clown, the evil witch, the popular girl, etc.

Use your settings to enhance your character. You can use the locations of your novel to mirror or contrast your character. Do they blend in or stand out? What they focus on can say a lot about them (ex. a fearsome character mishearing things on a dark street, a princess in a ballroom only focused on the exit.)

Know your protagonist's motives and goals before you start writing. What is something they need that fuels their actions throughout the novel? Money, freedom, an artifact, food? To protect their sister at all costs and survive the Hunger Games? 

Now that you know their motive, make it more complex. A character's motive can be made more complex by putting them in high-stake situations that force them to make decisions. For example, Katniss wants to protect her sister, a very common motivation. However, present-day conflict makes her to do it in the most extreme way by volunteering in the Hunger Games. The plot forces her to make an extreme choice fueled by her motivation.

Your protagonist should be active. It's okay to have your story's events sometimes happen to your character (this is referred to as the character being passive, ex. a tornado sweeping them away) but your protagonist should be active a majority of the time. This means they should always be making decisions, thinking, reflecting and progressing through obstacles.

Instagram: coffeebeanwriting

they finally bred a kind of dog with an organ for processing food into gunpowder, which will hopefully make shooting things much cheaper going forward

Endou Yuu versus the cosmic unknown