Andrew Ferguson
Children's/YA Author
Archives
‘Power Rangers: Once and Always’ Review
Posted on April 21, 2023 Leave a Comment
Lots of butt kicking, lots of cute quips, lots of fun but not nearly as much substance as it could have had.
Writing Non-Human Characters #1: Animals
Posted on February 8, 2021 Leave a Comment
I’ll be spending most of this week dealing with how to write animals in particular (because it’s ever so slightly more complicated), however, no matter what non-human species your protagonist may be, there is one golden rule you absolutely must keep in mind at all times. Ready? This is it:
Your audience is made up entirely of human beings; therefore, your audience must be able to sympathise with your character as human beings.
In other words, you need to anthropomorphise your character to one extent or another. Perhaps only a little, perhaps a lot, but to some extent, you need to give your non-human character certain human traits to make them relatable. At the very least, they will probably need to be able to think like humans in order to work through their goals, conflicts, epiphanies, etc. and possibly will need to speak like humans too (though there are numerous examples of strong animal characters who do not speak).
Throwback Thursday: Writing Non-Human Characters #1: Animals
Posted on March 26, 2020 Leave a Comment
I’ll be spending most of this week dealing with how to write animals in particular (because it’s ever so slightly more complicated), however, no matter what non-human species your protagonist may be, there is one golden rule you absolutely must keep in mind at all times. Ready? This is it:
Your audience is made up entirely of human beings; therefore, your audience must be able to sympathise with your character as human beings.
In other words, you need to anthropomorphise your character to one extent or another. Perhaps only a little, perhaps a lot, but to some extent, you need to give your non-human character certain human traits to make them relatable. At the very least, they will probably need to be able to think like humans in order to work through their goals, conflicts, epiphanies, etc. and possibly will need to speak like humans too (though there are numerous examples of strong animal characters who do not speak).
Writing Non-Human Characters #1: Animals
Posted on May 14, 2017 7 Comments
I’ll be spending most of this week dealing with how to write animals in particular (because it’s ever so slightly more complicated), however, no matter what non-human species your protagonist may be, there is one golden rule you absolutely must keep in mind at all times. Ready? This is it:
Your audience is made up entirely of human beings; therefore, your audience must be able to sympathise with your character as human beings.
In other words, you need to anthropomorphise your character to one extent or another. Perhaps only a little, perhaps a lot, but to some extent, you need to give your non-human character certain human traits to make them relatable. At the very least, they will probably need to be able to think like humans in order to work through their goals, conflicts, epiphanies, etc. and possibly will need to speak like humans too (though there are numerous examples of strong animal characters who do not speak).
Amazon Storywriter
Posted on November 13, 2016 2 Comments
If you’ve ever dreamed of writing scripts for TV and aren’t quite sure where that golden opportunity is going to come from, might I suggest you have a look at this tasty free app I discovered. The Amazon Storywriter (developed by the good people at Amazon Studios, naturally) is a very neat little app for script-writing which formats your script for you as you go and saves your work online for you to access from any computer in the world.
‘So what?’ I hear you cry, ‘There are dozens of online script-writing apps out there!’
True, but unlike most others, this script-writing app will send your completed script directly to Amazon Studios. If it is accepted, your script might well end up being the next TV show or movie to be produced by the same people who gave us Bosch, Mozart in the Jungle and The Man in the High Castle. Tell me, dear would-be screenwriter, that you’re not a little bit interested.
Andrew Ferguson 