I should be writing one of the five on going fics I have but I’m not. I’m just not. No excuses. Just… that’s life. *****
Ita-Hina I have no plot. I make no excuses, there’s some serious OOC i think. Maybe? I dunno. May or may not continue this. Probably not. Not sure. I just needed space in my head. Inky
They sent her out for him alone as a test of her worthiness. Or at least that’s what she understood. She had been proving herself to the clan since she could walk and so it came as no surprise that a mission otherwise regarded as suicide would be given to her as though it were a thing wrapped in a silk bow. The smiles of her elders were coy, their eyes twinkling. It was practically Christmas at the Hyuuga Main House.
She wasn’t sure what was the cause of cheer, her imminent death or perhaps the capture of a notorious S-ranked Criminal no one had yet to bring to justice by the hands of the Hyuuga Heiress.
To be perfectly frank, she was fairly certain the first of the options was what had the men in her family all sparkly eyed. She had realized long ago that her worth was almost doubled if she died out in the battlefield in some tragic way. After all, that would leave room for the true muscle of the family, Hanabi to take the reigns, it would in-debt the village to the clan, it would give the clan cause to do some rather unsavory things as retribution to those who felled their Hime. Their Princess. Their sacrifice.
Regardless, with a grim set to her jaw she had taken her orders and prepared for her mission, feeling the dryness of her throat and tongue inside her head like a bad omen of things to come.
Anbu had been unsuccessful in bringing back the nightmarish Itachi, a whole clan had fallen to his hands at the tender age of 13 and yet here she was, single solitary Hinata Hyuuga, out on a mission to bring him back. No team, no back up. Just the endless black of an abyss before her in the onyx eyes of the murdering Uchiha.
“This is madness.” Neji’s voice had been shaking, his lips pale, his eyes wide. The stoic facade could not hide his terror. “How could they possibly think you-”
“I will do as requested.” Hinata murmured. “Perhaps, if I am lucky he will not kill me.” She lowered her head busying herself with her gear, although all of it looked like play things when the task at hand was really in her mind’s eye. What good were kunai against a tidal wave of Mangekyou? What was the point of exploding tags against nightmares killing her inside?
“But Hinata-”
Raising her pearl eyes to his reflective gaze his Hime smiled sadly, donning her pack onto her shoulder with tired slow movements. “What choice do I have, Neji-nii? What choice?”
With the blood coursing through their veins, he knew there was none.
When she finally found him it came as a shock. Like looking for a needle fallen on a carpet she had spread herself thin, her palms tracing over the smooth fabric expecting the prick of pain and finding nothing for months.
And then all of a sudden there he was, a sharp point of pain and the first drops of blood that were soon to be followed by a torrent.
He was still, several kilometers away, and even from a distance she could see the beat of his heart had slowed down to nearly nothing. Chakra flowed in odd twists and turns within his limbs and torso. When the rain began to fall she moved.
Tsunade had been apologetic as she exited the village, her eyes searching her face before she donned the porcelain mask to hide her face. “Anbu are chosen for their skills not their rank, but I know your heart is not in this mission, or likely any I could use you for. For that I am sorry.”
Hinata had held the mask in her hands, the feral face of a panther stared back at her with cut out unseeing eyes and she sighed deeply. “I am here to serve my Hokage, to protect my village, to bring honor to my clan.” Raising the pale gaze so prized by many she whispered. “I am honored you think me worthy of this mission.”
The blonde smiled then as Hinata placed the mask on her face, the bite of the tattoo that had branded her still stung on her arm.
“I chose you because you can say things like that with a straight face I almost believed. You think you’ll die… I think you may actually complete this and come back to us.”
Behind the mask it was even easier still to lie and so Hinata had done so. “I trust the judgement of my mentor and Hokage, Tsunade-sama. I will see you soon.”
Her skills were a strange set, the main of which were her eyes of course and their ability to see far ahead, so far ahead that any sense of surprise should be neutralized. She was also an expert at covert missions, her skills not prized in head on battles were essential in the real espionage that gathered intel. And the last but not least of her credentials for this task…she was angelic.
That was the thing that had her where she was, in the thickest forest of the Rain, where there was never a day where she wasn’t soaked to the bone and where Itachi had last been sighted.
That one thing she had no control over was what her Hokage was betting would save her life. Something about the put together of her wide eyes, her soft features, her soft voice.
She didn’t sneak up on him but rather began walking with purposefully clumsy steps that she knew he could hear even through the fall of the rain.
Her hands reached up and removed the panther mask, dropping it on the way, fingers undoing the gray flak jacket and tossing it aside. Sniffing deeply and getting herself in touch with her growing panic she wrapped her arm, burying the tattoo that would give her away even as she tore at the fabric of her shirt, and finally she slid a kunai over her cheek, letting it shed blood.
Breathing slowly and carefully she kept her eyes down, bursting into the clearing and with a practiced widening of the eyes froze staring at the Uchiha whose rotating red gaze fixed itself on her.
He took one long look, and as she stared, mouth parting open in shock he cocked his head.
“…Hyuuga. What is a little dove like you doing out here all alone?”
When you were a kid, a teacher might have asked you to write two pages double spaced on a topic. That would have been 500 words.
Most fic writers are dealing in single space.
Don’t complain when their update is “only” between 500 and 1K words; they are already doing more than your kid self thought was torture from your teachers.
And that 5K chapter?
12.6/20.6 pages single/double spaced.
12 or 20 pages.
Does that sound like an overnight assignment?
Don’t say “update soon!”
Say “here is a sticker, a hall pass, and mad f&%#ing props.”
“With Hinata…” A wistful smile at a fleeting memory. He sighed as his breath shook. “With her, it was like Sasuke’s world was set aglow.”
“Knock down the doors!” The captain of the guard screamed. “Use every ounce of strength you have! Knock it down!”
Voice hoarse from shouting and hands course from decades of work, Uzumaki Naruto grew up among the ranks of the military. Serving under three generations of the royal family, he had grown with the man who now sat upon the throne, and like hell would it be under his eyes that the country would see his dynasty come to an end.
“God dammit.” A voice from the back hissed. “Are you even trying?”
The soldiers, wielding their weapons and dawning their armor, their allegiance branded to skin, looked upon as a lanky man shoved his way through their ranks and threw his body against the large wooden door. Nara Shikamaru, the palace’s chief strategist, was not a man to use brute force. With his porcelain skin and ebony hair shaking against its massive weight, he had often been mistaken for a noble till the blistering, raven-eye scar revealed itself on his back. Shikamaru had a pristine reputation of being precise and effective, doing things with minimal effort and maximum gain, he was a genius of the highest order – a genius among prodigy.
Again and again, he slammed his body into the wooden frame. Again and again, he knocked his fragile bones against the gargantuan doors. Again and again, the sounds of impact upon impact echoed throughout the halls. Again and again, again and again. Till flowered embroidery and bird like images bruised onto his skin. Again and again, he tried with all his might, but the doors did not budge.
“What are you all standing around for?” Naruto yelled, his voice cracking under the pressure of his heart pounding within his chest. “Knock it down!”
Along the corridors of the palace an audience had been growing.
Emerging from their quarters like pigeons flocking home. Their gasps erupting at the sight from outside the king’s doors, a sight of discord and chaos. The soldiers having their weapons unsheathed and flailing, servants scurrying about with arms to their heads, statues and pottery shattered at their feet.
A woman, her hair (usually styled tightly behind her head) spread around her like a golden halo, emerged from the sea of ladies in waiting. Her simple nightgown wrapped around her did not disguise her distinct features of periwinkle eyes and cupid bow lips. Yamanaka had been in charge of tending to and protecting the empress for generations and her authority among the other ladies in waiting transcended any form of confusion.
“What is going on?” she heard murmured around her. “Why are the king’s soldiers here?”
Yamanaka Ino, for once, could not give a coherent answer. She had been in the palace since its completion, and had served under the royal family since as far back as she could recall, and though she did not know everything, she was eloquent and bright and could – at the very least – pretend that she knew all. But her eyes stared agape at the scene before her. No words could be formed amidst the pandemonium.
“Ino…”
A hand gently pulled on her sleeve but Yamanaka Ino did not shift her gaze away from the commotion.
Haruno Sakura did not stand as tall as Yamanaka Ino, nor did she possess the same commanding aura to make her way through the more senior of the ladies in waiting, but since her arrival in the palace, she and Yamanaka Ino had been closer to each other than they had ever been to any other female in their lives.
“What is happening?” Sakura looked on in horror. The sight of the captain of the guard and chief strategist so frantic and out of sorts made her heart quicken in panic and worry. Why attack the king’s door with such brute force?
“What is the meaning of all of this?” Ino commanded.
She was shoved to the side. A sea parted for a line of men and women of the court, their midnight locks and pale white complexions crowding in, ghost in demeanor and stature. And the figure at the head of the line could be recognized without fault, standing with head tilted high in uniform with the family around him, advisor of the royal court and head of the empress’s militia, Hyuuga Neji.
Upon the court’s arrival, everyone but the soldiers became silent. The pounding of the door continued and Nara Shikamaru did not rest. The sweat that lined his features grew stick and hot but his determination did not fade, his strokes did not falter.
Uzumaki Naruto, having caught immediate sight of the disturbance, did not hesitate to approach the older man. His teeth barred and face red in anger, when he grabbed onto the Hyuuga robes with such ferocity, it was like looking into the eyes of a wild fox.
“Would you care to explain…? Neji?” He grunted through ragged breaths. “Why in all heavens is Her Majesty trying to assassinate the king?”
No seriously, can you imagine it? As in the Disney movie, Neji surrounded by Nukenin, and he goes like “Find your humanity! Has one of you ever had a dream?” and Tenten being like “wth Neji what are you talking about” and everyone starts singing
NEJI HITTING TENTEN WITH A PAN
I’M DYING
oh mY GOD LMAO
I couldn’t resist..
I JUST REALIZED THERE WAS A LEE CHAMELEON ON NEJI’S HEAD OMFG
Lee Chameleon the power of camoflouge and youth OmG!!!
To all the writers who have ever been told “Your characters have to be three dimensional!” or “They should be well-rounded!” and just felt like saying: “What does that even MEAN?! What goes into a 3-dimensional character? Specifically? And how do you go about creating one?!”
Good news. There’s a way.
Great main characters – heroes, protagonists, deuteragonist, whatever you want to call them – have ten things in common. Ten things that are easily developed, once you know what to create within your character. So no one will ever be able to tell you “needs to be more three dimensional!” ever again. Ha.
1) Weaknesses: Main characters should be flawed, but I’m not saying this because it will make them more realistic (though it will) – I’m saying they need to be flawed because if they’re not, they shouldn’t be a main character. Story is another word for change, or more accurately, character growth. Not character as in “fictional person”, character meaning “heart and soul”. Story is someone’s character changing, for better or worse. Main characters at the beginning of the story are lacking something vital, some knowledge of themselves, some knowledge of how to live a better life, and this void is ruining their lives. They must overcome these weaknesses, if they’re going to become complete, and reach a happy ending. There are two types of weaknesses: Psychological and Moral. Psychological ones only hurt the main character. Moral ones cause the main character to hurt other people. Easy.
2) Goal: Characters exist because they want something. Desiring something, and the fight against opposition for that desire, is the lifeblood of story; and because character is story, it’s also desire that can breathe life into words on a page, and begin the process of creating a real person in a reader’s mind. It’s this ‘desire for something’ that sparks that first connection between reader and character. It makes us think “Well, now I have to find out if this person gets what they want.” This is a powerful link. (How many mediocre movies do we suffer through, when we could easily stop watching, because we’re still trapped by that question of “what happens?”) So if this is powerful enough to keep people watching an annoying movie, imagine how powerful it can be in an excellent story.
Like in Up, the goal is to get the house to Paradise Falls.
3) Want: If the main character wants something, they want it for a darn good reason. Usually, they think that attaining the goal will fill the void they can sense in their lives, the deficiency they can feel, but don’t know how to fix. And they’re almost always wrong. Getting the goal doesn’t help anything; which is why, while pursuing that goal, they discover a deeper need that will heal them. Which brings us to …
4) Need/Elixir: Main characters are missing something, a weakness in their innermost selves is causing them to live a less-than-wonderful life. Through story, these main characters can be healed. Once they discover what’s missing, and accept it, and change the way they live to include this truth they’ve uncovered … they’re healed. Learning this truth, whatever it is, forms the purpose of the story for the main character. The reader, and the character, think the story is about achieving that big tangible goal the premise talks about; really, underneath it all, the story is about someone achieving a big intangible truth, that will ultimately save their life and future. Often, this need is exactly what the character fears or professes to hate.
Like Finding Nemo, where Dory states exactly what Marlin needs to learn.
5) Ghosts:
Not this kind of ghosts.
Ghosts are events in your character’s past which mark the source of their weaknesses and strengths. Because these happened, the character became who they are. All we need to know about backstory are these moments, because who the character became is all we care about. There’s really only one ghost you absolutely need: the source of their moral and psychological weakness. Something happened that knocked the character’s world off kilter, and everything from that moment onward has been tainted by what happened. This moment haunts them (hence the name), and holds them back from uncovering that need that will heal their weaknesses. Pixar are masters of this: the source of Carl being stuck in the past, curmudgeonly, unable of loving anyone new? Ellie dying; his ghost. In Finding Nemo, the source of Marlin being suffocating, protective to the point of being harmful, possessive, and fearful? His wife and 99% of his children being eaten in front of him; his ghost.
6) True Character: These are the strengths, values, convictions, fears, faults, beliefs, worldview, and outlook on life that make the main character who they truly are.
7) Characterization: This is everything on the surface of a main character. The way they look, talk, act, etc. All of this originates from those deeper elements of their being, the strengths, values, ghosts, weaknesses, needs, that make them who they truly are. So often, you can think of this as a facade they’re projecting, a way to shield the the truth about themselves, how they wish to be perceived. The story, and the other characters, are slowly going to see deeper than this characterization, revealing more and more of the reasons it is the way it is.
8) Arc: If the character is going to change from “Incomplete Person” to “Complete Person” there’s going to be a journey they go on to make that possible. The external story, the pursuit of that big tangible goal the premise is about, is causing an inner journey to take place. What they have to do in pursuit of that external goal will apply pressure to those weaknesses, and pressure causes change. This process has seven steps, but if I write it all here this post is going to be obscenely long. So I might wait and give this its own post.
9) Changed Person: Who is the character going to be at the end of this story? They better be different, or else the story didn’t work. How do they show how different they’ve become? What is the moral choice they make, that spins their trajectory from “the future doesn’t look so great” to “happily ever after”? This should be known right away, maybe even before anything else is settled about the character. This gives a distinct end goal, a way to work backwards, a destination in mind that you can navigate towards.
10) Fascination and Illumination: The surface characterization, and the brief glimpses of the true character underneath create curiosity in the reader/audience. What the character says, and the implied subtext beneath the dialogue, creates a puzzle the audience wants to solve. Actions they take work the same way; if the writer indicates there’s deeper motivation behind why a character behaves in the way they do, we buy into solving that mystery right away. We can’t help it. “Who are you really? Why are you the way you are? And how is that going to effect the story?” These are all the unspoken, almost not consciously acknowledged, questions that fascinating characters provoke. Searching out meaning, connecting the dots to find the truth – we can’t resist this. We’re not fascinated by tons of backstory and exposition about a character; we’re fascinated by story, by mystery, by the technique of withholding information and having to interpret and hunt out the truth on our own. So gradually, the story and the characters will force that character to reveal a little more, and a little more, until we have a complete picture of who this person is. Crucial that this information isn’t told up front. Gradually illuminate it. It’s just like getting to know a real person.
So how does this work in a real character? Let’s take a look at Flynn Rider/Eugene Fitzherbert, because almost everybody has seen that movie.
Moral Weaknesses: He’s selfish. He’s a little greedy. He’s a little rude. He uses his charisma and bravado to keep people at a distance from the real him.
Psychological Weaknesses: Insecurity, fear of vulnerability, feels like the real him (Eugene) would be unwanted, unlovable, and have nothing – just like when he was an orphaned kid. Also, he doesn’t know who he wants to be, what he wants to live for.
Goal: Flynn wants to get that crown. So he has to get Blondie to see the floating lights, so she’ll give it back to him, and then they can part ways as unlikely friends.
Want: Why does he want the crown? What does it mean for him? He actually states it (reluctantly) in song: “I have dreams like you, no really. Just much less touchy feely. They mainly happen somewhere warm and sunny. On an island that I own, tanned and rested and alone. Surrounded by enormous piles of money.” He senses there’s something off in his life, something is missing. But he mistakenly believes this missing piece is money, which will allow him to buy a lonely island, where he can live out his days as Flynn and no one will ever know Eugene.
Need: “All those days chasing down a daydream. All those years living in a blur. All that time never truly seeing, things the way they were. Now she’s here, shining in the starlight. Now she’s here, suddenly I know. If she’s here, it’s crystal clear, I’m where I’m meant to go.” He wants a crown … he needs to fall in love with Rapunzel. He needs to love something more than himself, and find out that love isn’t something to fear and push away. He needs to abandon the ‘Tales of Flynnagin Rider’ ambition, and get a more worthwhile, new dream.
Ghost: The source of all of his weaknesses can be linked to his “little bit of a downer” childhood as an orphan. Interestingly, he isn’t aware of another facet of that ghost, and Rapunzel points it out to him. “Was he a thief too?” she asks. He looks taken aback, before answering “Uh, no.” Something’s gone wrong. The choices he’s making are not living up to that original role model.
Characterization: Flynn’s charming, funny, smart, charismatic, and arrogant (in a somehow charming sort of way). He’s also rude, contemptuous, and sarcastic. All traits that help him keep up that ‘swashbuckling rogue’ facade, and push people away from the real him.
True Character: Underneath all that, he’s a Disney prince. That pretty much sums it up.
Changed Person: “Started going by Eugene again, stopped thieving, and basically turned it all around.” He started the story as the guarded and evasive Flynn, he ends as the selfless and thoroughly-in-love Eugene.
Fascination and Illumination: Imagine if everything about Flynn had been told, right up front. We know he’s an orphan, we know he’s upheld a fake reputation, we know he’s a kind and loving guy underneath it all, we even know about his “tales of Flynnagin” childhood dream. You know what happens? We like him … but we’re not interested in him. There’s nothing we need to find out. There’s no curiosity. And if there’s no curiosity, and nothing being illuminated, your story’s not going anywhere. So instead, we find out – alongside Rapunzel – more about Flynn as the story progresses. And that is how it should be.
So!
Developing characters in this way, I’ve found, really reduces worries about how “well-rounded” and three dimensional I’ve made them. They feel real to me. And besides helping me create characters, this ten element technique has also let me analyze characters I like, which is strangely fun. It’s a great way to figure out why a character works, what causes them to be so effective, and how you can go about creating them yourself.
Yeah, I’m a bit of a nerd.
But if you want, try it out. Develop a character. Analyze a character. You might find it as useful/fun as I do.
how many of them do you have open at once for any given length of time? Is it just me? Right now I have 13 (yikes bad luck) open documents, only one has a title, they are all different stories. They’ve been like this for a little over a week. Am I an oddball in this? I just figured this was how weird eccentric people wrote. Did I miss the organized author memo?
Ink Child Writing 