Análisis de evidencias en 1_HD1

Waters Dark and Deep

For Waters Dark and Deep, there are dozens of paths I could go down. For starters, each of my three groups, the Hallows, Nephilim, and Trinities need a fatal flaw and false beliefs. Additionally, although I do consider Brie van Rossum my protagonist, there are another dozen characters that have major story and character arcs during the series. These characters are both allies and enemies to Brie at various points in the story, but they also have their own stories worth telling. Each of these characters needs a fatal flaw and false beliefs.

I won't bore you with the details of my decisions for this series, but if you have a large cast of characters you'll definitely want to print out a new set of worksheets for each character and dig in. This is a lot of work, but so worth doing to better understand your story!

I'll give you Brie van Rossum's fatal flaw and false beliefs so we can carry them forward in examples. Again, this story is similar to Harry Potter's, and Brie represents "good" in the "good vs. evil" equation.

Brie's fatal flaw is that she doesn't want to accept her place in the war that is coming, because she doesn't believe in herself. She lacks

confidence, and she's not brave, and she's not willing to make the

sacrifices necessary to win. She's a reluctant hero. She demonstrates this over and over again in her false beliefs:

• She longs to believe that her mother's death was an accident rather than a murder. This is the equivalent of burying her head in the sand, ignoring potential enemies that she might have inherited from her mother

• She refuses to search for the stones, which she learns her mother was searching for before she died. She essentially refuses to take up her mother's cause, even though it's her destiny. She does eventually come around, but it takes a catastrophic event to spur her into action.

• She denies herself many relationships and tons of support that could help her move faster. She believes she's not worthy of them. This is lack of confidence in general.

• She runs and hides instead of facing her enemies.

• She hates being a "chosen one" of sorts. She resents the power that others give her because she hasn't earned it. However, this ends up with her wasting that power… because she could have been wielding it for good this whole time, whether it was earned or not.

Her character arc is very similar to Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, and many other reluctant heroes who have come before her.

Emma + Elsie

Emma + Elsie is a slightly more manageable cast, so I'll share what the fatal flaw and false beliefs I've decided for Emma Woodhouse and Elsie Bennet:

Character: Emma Woodhouse

Fatal Flaw: Bends (manipulates) situations using any means necessary False Beliefs:

⁃ She takes credit for more than is her fair share

⁃ She believes that she knows what's best, then makes it happen, even if it's not what others want

⁃ She wants to better people, even if it's in ways that don't suit them

⁃ She sees only what she wants to see and lives in a dreamlike state most of the time

⁃ She's a schemer, and too often gets her way!

⁃ She rarely fails and thus doesn't think she can fail. She feels invincible (a common trait of someone in their 20's)

⁃ She doesn't have any real motivation to work hard… nothing has ever been hard for Emma

Character: Elsie Bennet

Fatal Flaw: She passes judgment easily and holds tightly to her opinions, forming quick prejudices. She has a chip on her shoulder about the rich.

False Beliefs:

⁃ She does not compromise on her values and doesn't think anyone else should choose money over love, respect, and affection

⁃ She actively dislikes anyone her mother tries to marry her daughters to

⁃ She projects her own feelings onto others, even if they feel differently or have different goals

⁃ She is witty and quick to judge, sometimes cleverly making fun of others right to their faces

⁃ She avoids her true feelings by making everything a joke a lot of the time

⁃ She's quick to dismiss her other sisters' feelings, although it causes them trouble, heartbreak, and shame

Admittedly, I've been handed these from Jane Austen herself. But you can see how these false beliefs each "roll up" into the fatal flaw. In this series, it's my job to enforce and inter-weave them into my new story of friendship.

My Memoir

For the memoir, my fatal flaw might be something like I believed too deeply in society's path for me and made choices based on how others might judge me. In my desire to avoid judgment, I ended up making myself the most unhappy. My false beliefs included:

• I thought that going to a good college was critical to my happiness as an adult. I felt like I was in competition with all my other peers. As a result, I strived to get straight A's and achieve perfection.

• In college, I ignored my interests and instead focused on getting the highest paying job possible right out of college. Again, I was in a competition against my peers, even though most of them didn't care about getting a high-paying job.

• When I got married, I dreamt of being a part of a power couple. I was going to get my MBA, he was going to become a doctor. I was set on

being a millionaire by thirty. (Spoiler alert: didn't happen!) I pushed us both to again get the very best education. I aggressively saved all our money and bought an expensive condo in Chicago at age 23! I was determined to "win" at the game of life… but I didn't really know what game I was playing (and who I was competing against, either).

There were likely many more, but these all represent a similar theme, which is the one I started from. I was making decisions out of fear, not out of a love for life. I was living out someone else's version of success instead of my own. I was competing in a game that plenty of people were playing, but that I shouldn't have been.

Working in Reverse

It's rare to see writers working in reverse on this one, but not impossible. If you know that you need to build a certain antagonist who is a foil to your already created protagonist, you can use the fatal flaw to begin building that character.

For example, in The Hunger Games, Katniss is battling other tributes for survival. She is also battling the Capitol—though in the first book, the Capitol doesn't play a huge role as an antagonist. It is basically just the creator of the environment or situation Katniss is stuck in. You could even

say her enemy is death, because she doesn't show particular anger or fight back at the Capitol much throughout the games, until the end.

However, the Capitol did need a face, a symbol of its corruption. That symbol is in President Snow, who becomes the antagonist for the rest of the series. President Snow's fatal flaw is that he continues to carry out the cruelest of traditions with no empathy for the districts. He may even believe that this is the only way to maintain order (a false belief). President Snow as a character isn't particularly important, and he's not particularly evil in and of himself. He's only evil because he represents an idea. His character is based solely on this idea and grows out of the fatal flaw that is needed only because Katniss needs a manifestation of her real enemy.

If you are interested in learning more about character arcs, check out one of my favorite books on the topic, called 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt. She explains archetypes better than anyone I've read, and I always have a lot of fun looking at my characters and fitting them to the archetypes that are a match.