Good and Evil in Stories

Interesting, complex characters aren't "grey", since grey is still only a mixture of black and white. Good characters have colour. And for that storytellers need to shift more towards an alternative worldview ...

The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that
there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

One advice storytellers often hear is not to make their characters black or white but grey. Everybody seems to be fed up with shiny, good, pretty heroes fighting evil queens, overlords and their ugly henchmen. So the advice is to put both good and evil into one's own characters, to blend black and white into various shades of grey. This, people say, turns two-dimensional characters into complex three-dimensional characters.

However, what people often forget is that grey is, still, a mixture of black and white. It technically isn't even a colour. "Grey" is still a symptom of a two-dimensional, even deeply religious worldview.

Good, Evil and Religion

I'm not quite sure when this binary perception of the world first was created, but there's no denying that monotheistic religions eagerly make use of it. The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

Art and Personal Experience - How Much Do You Need to Know?

Life would be boring if art dealt only with everyday life. We want art to be exciting, we want our characters to face hardships we never faced ourselves. But how can we create art around something we have no idea about?

If you lack personal experience: Do research!

How much personal experience does an artist need in order to create good art? This question has bothered me ever since I started writing. There was so much I wanted to write about, but being a teenager, there was so little I knew.

I still don't know much. But certainly more than fourteen years ago. And so this is what I came to believing during the past years. Please do argue with me, if you disagree:

Does Specialization Kill Creativity?

Sometimes artists we admire don't seem to move forward. They're good at what they do, but they don't seem to evolve. May they be trapped in their respective field? And is it bad for creativity?

The multipotentialite Leonardo da Vinci would have had quite some trouble in our era.

I've followed quite a few artists so far. I enjoyed their books, their music, their paintings, their movies, their jewellery designs ... And even though their art still amazes me, with time, I stopped following some of them. - Why? Because their art bored me.

The Fascinating World of Fan Art - Why Creative Fans Do What They Do

The internet is a free space, and there are people with very diverse ideas and interests.

If you ever came across Harry Potter having SM sex with Draco Malfoy in tight leather underwear and your only reaction was to roll your eyes and say you've seen worse then you truly know what creative fans are capable of. I love fan art, I've been a fanfiction writer for over 10 years, and as an operator on Fanfiktion.de, a German fanfiction community, it's actually part of my job to struggle through really disturbing texts. And considering some rather traumatizing experiences I really understand why Anne Rice, the author of The Vampire Chronicles, used to forbid her fans to write fanfiction:

"I do not allow fan fiction. The characters are copyrighted. It upsets me terribly to even think about fan fiction with my characters. I advise my readers to write your own original stories with your own characters. It is absolutely essential that you respect my wishes."

There are also copyright holders who generally don't mind fan art as long as it respects moral values. For instance, the example above isn't something Joanne K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, and Warner Bros. like to see, since the series is targeted at a younger audience that should be protected from adult content.

Chemistry of Romance - 4 Rules for a Good Love Story

Which rule is most important to you?

Love is one of the most common subjects in all genres of narrative art. And as it is with common subjects, there are good love stories and bad ones. Furthermore, I believe that the romance genre is especially vulnerable to overdoing: If there's too much violence in an adventure story you can just roll your eyes and go on; yet if a love story is too cheesy it's really hard not to throw up.

So what can we do to spare our audience the need for vomit bags? Here are some thoughts on this question.

Clichés: Good or Bad? 

My personal love story trauma is the movie Waterloo Bridge from 1940. And I can take much, actually. I generally enjoy romance anime, I love the movie Désirée (1954) as well as the original novel by Annamarie Selinko and I love shipping fictional characters. I generally like love stories. However, watching Waterloo Bridge was a torture. I hated the story, I hated the characters, and most of all I hated their relationship. I know the movie was made at a time when people had other ideals concerning love, but I still couldn't help but think that Roy is an a****** and Myra a stupid cow without a noteworthy personality. From the very beginning of the movie I wanted them to die, and when Myra threw herself under a bus I was genuinely happy her miserable and annoying existence finally ended.

What is Art? - My Subjectively Objective Definition

Defining art is difficult, since everyone defines it differently.

In my opening post for this blog I tried to define "art" with search suggestions by Google and I also mentioned my wary attitude towards academic definitions. Since defining "art" is the ultimate goal of this blog, however, I sooner or later have to deal with different views on this point.

Yet before I discuss what others have to say about this I believe it's a good idea to record how personally I define it right now, slightly more than half a year after starting this blog. By doing so I can analyze how my views changed later, after I've dealt with the views of others. Will other definitions change my own or will they make me stick to my definition even more?

Defining art is difficult, since everyone defines it differently. We used to discuss it in school, and ... I changed my views several times in my life. With every book I read ... with every story I wrote ... with every movie I watched and every game I played ... with every academic text I read ... My own definition changed with every new experience.

Idealism vs. Realism in Art - Why Characters in Art Usually Are Too Pretty to Be Real

Throughout all of human history we see more idealizing artworks than those showing reality.

There's a question I frequently end up asking myself: Why do people usually create young and healthy characters? Why are at least the main characters almost always good-looking? Why are scars or any other injuries more decorative rather than ... serious?

This isn't a question which is only about modern days. Throughout all of human history we see more idealizing artworks than those showing reality. There's Napoleon's nose on Bonaparte at the Pont d’Arcole that is too straight to be Napoleon's actual nose (just compare it to other portraits). There are all those Greek and Roman statues showing perfect bodies. And today we have photoshopped models and anime girls with thigh gaps that are only possible if you have an extremely dangerous combination of anorexia and a deformed pelvis.

OMFG Y R U SO HAWT??!!!!!!!!11111 - How to Create a Fangirl Magnet

Fangirl magnet characters are good: The creator gets more money,
the fangirls get someone to squeal over and everybody's happy.

Many art genres feature characters. And it often happens that one particular male character becomes extremely popular with the female part of the audience. Some characters are made to be such fangirl magnets and actually succeed (e.g. Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto), some characters are meant to be disliked by the audience, and yet many female readers still fall in love with them (e.g. Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter), and finally, some characters are meant to be total fangirl magnets and totally fail (e.g. Derek from RE: Alistair ++).

What is Narration? - The Main Difference between Prose and Other Narrative Art Forms

There is much media that is narrative, but only prose has a narrator.

There are many art forms out there, and some of them have one thing in common: They tell a story. - Yet isn't narration inseparable from prose? What about stories that are filmed, drawn or carved in stone? What about Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture?

Can other art forms than prose have narration? The answer is: yes and no.

Philosophy of Art Is Born! - Climbing the Mountain Called Art

What is art? - Seeking an answer covered in fog ...

What is art? I've never read a definition I could accept without any objections. The problem is that depending on how narrow or wide the definition is it's something different. You can't really compare the writing of a novel to acting a scene someone else has written. It isn't unproblematic to compare free expression of the artist's feelings to commissioned artworks. What about disciplines that aren't considered art traditionally but require lots of creativity nonetheless? You have also to take into account that in different cultures and epochs art is defined differently.

However, I was surprised to find out that I liked the suggestions I got when I typed "art is" into the search field of Google more than the academic definitions, which is why I'd like to share them here: