Never listen to any one who says how to make a good screenwriting/movie or any thing. Those are things that needs to be honest, about your emotions. Maybe some random dude from internet will say its wrong because he lives by the rule that every thing needs to be right because he doesnt have a talent, but in art especially there are no rules and every things done by talent, hardwork and emotions. Screenwriting is a process of telling a story etc, and you may have illogical things because its YOURS, never listen if any one says dont do it that way, its your view. BUT do what you do neatly! Do the fuck you want, you shall not change the way you think just bcs someone told you. Its your way and your view.

The "show don't tell" criticism usually comes up because writers have characters say something about a character instead of showing it naturally. I haven't seen anyone use show don't tell to argue against good dialogue. Rather it's a critique of lazy writers who can't think of a natural way to characterize so instead resort to telling the audience something directly, usually through awkward dialogue instead of showing the audience and letting them infer a quality. For example, if you're establishing the charisma of a thief character, telling would be equivalent to having two characters talk and say "oh man, thief character is so charismatic I bet he could sweet talk his way out of a bear trap" and showing would be writing a scene where the charismatic thief talks his way out of a sticky situation. See you can use dialogue to show, the criticism is targeted at lazy writing where you just say characters have all these traits and never actually behave like a character with that trait.

12 Angry Men is a timeless example of the “words are action” mantra

That "it's not about the audience" hit me so hard. I legit have been working cosmic horror western concept for about five years. And I'm just too scared to actually show anyone. All the art, character descriptions/bios are all tucked away neatly in a little folder just waiting to one day be opened.

I’m 16. Earlier today, I sat down with a black document, trying to find the purpose of my story. You’re very well-spoken, and this helped me a lot, on finding the right direction. I hope you don’t quit UKposts. I’ve already watched most of your videos and I want more. Thank you.

I feel like every video of yours that I watch changes my perspective on my own writing. I've been in the process of writing a book for years but I feel like your videos have fundamentally changed my perspective on my story and characters and the process in which I create them. So long story short, thank you, your work is incredible and I really hope you know how meaningful it has been and I am extremely excited to see everything else you create.

9:45 i think show don't tell isn't about having less dialogue, it's about having better dialogue. Effective use of subtext and characterization in dialogue is essential when telling a good story.

The second one is soo real. I've never been able to create "OCs". The only way I can ever create a character have atleast a premise tied to them. This is even more important to me as an artist. I want to tell why my character looks so funky by adding a funky background with lots of things going on. Maybe they love chaos. Maybe this character is a messy artist like me. The point is a character is incomplete without even a hint of story to them.

I can objectively predict that your Avatar video will earn the sequel $2 billion and will singlehandedly save Cameron's reputation. Well done.

Every video you make is fantastic. As a fanfiction writer, who tries to avoid what you criticize, thank you.

Creating characters based on a narrative which then produces conflict is completely revolutionary for Me. I'm a "casual" writer and have messed around with a few different ideas, but I have always tried to produce characters to fit into a story rather than characters which fit into a narrative. It all comes together now.

honestly, fanfiction and fanfiction tropes work because the character already exist in a plot. You go into a fanfiction already knowing everything you need to know about this character's personality therefore, the storytelling surely does gets affected by that. You are not building anything from the start its solely for the excitement of imagining this character (which you are already attached to) in very different escenarios, playing with that, with cliches, with the original plot, doing little change, solely bc you are a fan of this character and bc its fun

“What do you think a plot is? A pinball machine you can throw your fully developed character into?!” This line had me cackling and absolutely tore my own script to shreds because I’m doing exactly that and I needed the wake up call. You’ve pulled one more writer out of their own bs and I can’t wait to go burn my current layout (which at this point is just a string of scenes to develop my character’s development arc without the world being attached to them) and actually do some world building. This series is awesome and I’m binging all your videos today

DONT STOP PLEASE OMFG THIS IS MY FAVORITE CHANNEL IVE SEEN IN RECENT YEARS YOUR ADVICE AND PERSPECTIVE IS EXTREMELY UNIQUE AND INFORMATIVE WHILE STILL BEING FUN AND ITS A HUGE FEAT

The irony of "show, don't tell" is that 80% of the people who tell you that don't "show" you what they mean. Telling and showing are both important tools that the writer needs to know how to use efficiently to move a story. You can't and shouldn't show everything because then you'll never get though the story and if you tell everything, well you just have a plot summery. Knowing when to show and when to tell is the true skill of a storyteller.

A few years ago I decided to re-watch Terminator in a language I only barely knew at that time, just to see how proficient I am in it. That made me realize, how little is said in this iconic movie.

The latter half of your "Purpose Before Personality" segment spoke to me on a personal level. I'm currently in the developmental stage of writing a project, and right now I haven't settled on a protagonist. I've always struggled with finding a natural protagonist and the mere idea of finding out where everyone's place in the story is and then a protagonist might emerge was really eye-opening to me.

With your channel blowing up I know there's pressure to put out more content, but I like that you're taking the more methodical approach, and putting effort into quality over quantity. I love that your videos are informative, but also have personality behind them. Keep doing what you're doing Local 👍 Seeing WotW tonight 😎

I’ve taken writing classes and read tips on writing from dozens of people, and nothing has ever come close to giving me a better idea of how to approach the writing process. I read a lot of books, and have always wanted to create a story of my own-not something world-changing, just something that works. Thank you for making that creation seem like something that’s actually possible.

UKposts needs more writers like this. I've rewatched this particular video of yours maybe more times than any other writing video on UKposts. I am reaching the final milestone in my first draft and I'm the kind of person who cannot settle for 'ok'. I knew I could not complete this project until I know it's 'good', not perfect, but good, and I'm so glad I've finally found someone who agrees with me on that. The most useful piece of advice though has to be that It's Not About The Audience. I had planned the ending to my story to be a bittersweet one, simply because I was told that is what the general audience prefers. I spent weeks going over the end and, after watching this video, found that if I did end up going through with this depressing conclusion to my story, I will never forgive myself. My characters do not deserve this and I was being disingenuous to a project I've dedicated so much time and effort into making. I do mildly disagree on the whole 'cut out the fluff'. I do think that too much of it can stretch your story needlessly, but I am a sucker for small moments of melancholy, joy, sadness or just character exploration and I will vouch for them. As you yourself have said in your video on Avatar: The Way of Water, the movie would have felt incomplete without the scenes exploring Jake's relationship with his kids, despite them adding nothing to the overall plot. They make the characters feel real. They are ESSENTIAL. I do think it all depends on the story you are trying to write, however. Thank you so much for making this, for being honest, authentic and putting so much effort and heart in each and every one of your videos.

I love how the "How to make a character's death sadder" post image (7:24) starts off with "Don't let them die of old age after a long, fulfilling life" and yet the character I cried most over when he died, was Hazel from Watership Down (I cried when my dad read it to me aged 8, and I cried even more when I read it again aged 27). Goals all fulfilled, long life, all that. But it was the saddest death I have ever read still...

2:30 something my art teacher said something that really stuck with me “it doesn’t need to be realistic, it just needs to be believable.” And I think that applies to writing as well, your characters and their reactions just need to be something you could see happening in real life, even if it is absurd.

I hit such a major roadblock a few days ago on a story I've been writing for six years. The characters have gone and turned into these amazing damaged things with so many different layers and motivations. I know how all of them would act in any situation. And for the life of me, I could not figure out how to put them into the one situation I needed them to go to. Your snarkly little video here saved me from killing all of them just for a literal hand of the author character to revive them under the employ of the necromancer I want them to kill, completely dissolving their agency. I put away my forced clunky outline and I looked at the biggest theme I wanted to convey in my book. I wrote down a sentence or two on what I can rely on the characters to do when reacting to that theme. Tonight, I'm going to just write out a beat by beat of what these characters do when I put them on a boat together. If they go to the necromancer I want them to kill, then hurray! But if not, it'll be a story I love anyway. Thanks for your contribution to the writing world. You've made your mark already.

Please don't quit for the benefit of all us writers who need your unique perspective!! And humour which is a great addition.

Dude, I found your channel literally two hours ago and you have already become one of my favorite video essayists on the platform. You seem to know a lot about film writing and I hope to see more content from you, if you keep up this standard of content your channel WILL grow! Well done bro

I've never seen a channel that i'm so confident in reaching a mill and more. Even at 10k your videos are brilliantly scripted, wonderfully edited and just interesting, you create simply quality content i can't wait for watching you get better and better as your channel grows.

Letting characters do their thing is very important. I've written so many short outlines for chapters, only to later sit down to write them proper and have the characters just take the whole thing in a completely different direction, because with what I've established, there is absolutely zero chance they will do X or Y the way I drafted earlier. There is this spark of agency to well motivated characters that truly feels like you're breaking their legs by forcing them to do the plot - so screw the plot, let's instead see where the characters take this scene. Let them steal the story and go for a joyride, let them go wild - but also keep in mind the new consequences their actions create. This is the really fun part, because this is where the writing will surprise you, the writer. Because you didn't think about what would happen if the two quarreling siblings ended up crashing this plot of yours, and ended up causing a ripple effect across the whole story. The bad guys still keep going as planned, but now, instead of being foiled, they've gathered even more forces, and a week later they've taken over the place! And oh no, now your quarreling siblings realize it's all their fault - and all of a sudden one may deeply wish to atone, while the other falls in despair, and... you get the picture. Outlines are cool, but no artist draws with ink right away unless they -really- know what they're doing and are confident in it. Most just go in with pencil first, are loose with shapes, and often explore in this stage various what-ifs. And then, when it comes to the inking of the picture, they have found the image. Not everyone likes this garderner type approach and may prefer instead architect-style plot building and plot execution. Architect writing is faster, it is more efficient, it gets novels and scripts done on schedule. That's totally cool! But in my personal experience, I've found taking the time to garden your characters and plots to result in a much more captivating story. The time also gives you some distance, where I pick up some older piece of writing to edit it, then spend three hours absorbed into just reading it it because of how engaging it ends up - as a few months down the line I have already half-forgotten the details of that writing and it feels fresh again (and the errors much more obvious for editing). There are obviously still some loose plot threads to cut, and some narrative folding to do in order to really reinforce it, but with this method, there's no writers block in sight because you already have the characters, you have the situation - now you just need their reactions and followup actions to it.

My biggest project suddenly changed protagonists recently. I was originally writing a story about a character’s son and how he was sent to a different dimension, but as I was outlining and organizing it, I realized that it had become a story about the father himself, his grief, and how it paralleled his best friend’s journey of grief. And then I realized that before it was a spy thriller, it was a double murder mystery, in a way. TLDR; let your characters do the work because they will as soon as you give them the space to work and the pen to do so.

Your avatar video legitimately changed my life and put into words something I felt for over a decade. It felt like there was finally someone besides me who understood. Your style is great, your editing is great, and I feel like you actually have cool shit to say. I'm so happy your channel is popping off. You're gonna do great things!

My rule is: Write a story and imagine what it would look like if it was a movie. Because if it was presented as a movie, you'd realize how many unnecessary writings you'd have to scrap out. As an instance, stories I've read where the writer wrote some of their introspection about a character, it would not really show when it was portrayed in 3rd POV. And it was not all bad, but there are some writers who writes chapters of such a thing that the plot just takes forever to progress. Of course, there would be inner monologue 1st POV of a character, but that can be portrayed in a movie 3rd POV where it would be a voice in the background as the character introspects. I agree the most about the dialogue part. Im mostly just a reader and what I noticed is that novels that use less dialogues, I tend to just skim over the writing because it felt hollow for me. These are the types of writings that focuses too much on describing certain things in the story that when there is finally a dialogue, it took freakin forever for the character to just speak or have their inner monologue. Some writers included chapter of flashbacks or defining things in the middle of conversation, that when they continue talking, I already forgot what the character was talking about in the beginning. But when it have dialogue, it's more entertaining as it really build the character profile. As an instance, a writer wrote that Character A and B talked so many things along the way, had fun, and exchanged number before parting ways, this felt so hollow for me because it's just a summary. But when a writer included the conversations, what the character felt, what they talked about, how they reacted, this really capture the characters' appeal to me.

All film/tv essay channels offer their opinion on films. Only a few seem to understand the craft of writing on a granular level (Tyler Mowery, Lessons From the Screenplay, to name a couple) and in just as few videos you've become one of them. You've earned it!

genuinely some of the most relevant and helpful advice ive seen in years in the modern writing sphere. i will say, with the whole oc thing, that IS in my opinion, the most common way i see young people try to enter the sphere of writing and creating narratives, and many of these people (myself included) are now reaching adulthood and trying to actually branch out into how to make those character fantasies a reality in a story, animation, comic, game or whatever. and its so damn difficult because you realise you have been literally working BACKWARDS. i will refer this video to friends i know with ocs with similar ambitions, thank you!

Another great video. Your perspective on writing is a breath of fresh air and I honestly like your video style. Its entertaining and leaves you engaged. Your definitely hitting 10k soon.

I've been working on novel writing for a while now, and I've seen a lot of 'tips' videos for storytelling. This one genuinely gave me a lot to think about that I hadn't heard before. Definitely a new subscriber here.

As a 14 year old fanfiction writer, I'm surprisingly pleased with myself

I made a sequel to this video, it’s out now!

I want to write this comment as some encouragement because I like what you do and I hope to keep seeing your videos. I’m not a writer, I wouldn’t even call myself a story or film enthusiast, but your content is FANTASTIC. I find the conviction you bring to your takes super entertaining. I hope you take your time and keep doing what you’re doing. I watch enough UKposts to know the amount of work this sort of thing takes. Looking forward to the Avatar 2 video!

Even though you just made them up, I feel like your videos on writing has been so sublime and introspective that I feel like I can trust your advise, or at least entertain them. :3

One last thing, I really appreciate the way that your arguments have made me look back at my own work and reevaluate it through the points you've made. I've been writing a book for a long time and am in the stages of editing right now. Your Avatar video made me look at the basic plot and characters from a story standpoint and made me realize why I love the story so much and why I've been working on it for so long. I love watching video essays of this nature, but yours in specific make me want to write. Like the wake up at six in the morning and want to start writing after a six month slump kind of write. Your videos remind me why I love writing and why I want to get into screenwriting as a profession. I'm grateful your channel has gotten the attention it deserves, and I wish you nothing but the best. I can't thank you enough, and I can't wait to see where you go.

The purpose over personality technique has been so valuable to my writing, and it is integral to connecting themes within my stories. Love the video

Dude, you are breaking my perspective on literature. Every video I see more and more ways to improve my writing and notice flaws in other works. Keep doing what you're doing! I enjoy every minute of learning from your videos!

I really love the way you talk about writing and developing characters and story. It’s really helped me get out of a multi-year writing block with a few of my stories and start making me question what is necessary and how I can clean it up. Loving the content you’re putting out! You deserve all the growth you’ve been getting!

This was genuinely so helpful as someone who's always been an aspiring writer, but never been able to commit to a piece.

Please continue making videos! Obviously do what you want and what you enjoy, but as someone who has been consuming youtube for what is almost the entirety of my conscious existence, I feel *deeply* that you are going to be huge - and soon. Your videos are so high quality, the analysis is fantastic, there is no wasted time, and all while keeping a great sense of humour. I was honestly shocked after watching your Avatar video when I scrolled down and you had like 5000 subscribers. I hope you keep it up, but if you choose not to, thank you for the great content you have already put out

Holy shit this video is better than 99% percent of any writing channel I've seen. The perfect balance between snarky and earnest, and some really insightful advice that made me reflect on how I write stories.

I'm in a script-writing class rn and I keep coming back to this video & your newest one. They've really helped me stay grounded in what i know to be true about my own writing process (v similar to yours) instead of getting carried away by advice like "always start with character!" or the over-generalized "show don't tell!" blanket advice Ive been hearing lately, so I just wanted to say a quick thank you for sharing!!

Wow, this is one of the best pieces of writing advice I've ever heard, along with Scriptnotes 403 -- and I've watched a LOT of essays, interviews, and podcasts (I've combed FilmCourage's entire channel). Yeah dude, you should make more like this, I'd love to hear some granular dialogue advice because it's my biggest weakness. Also, your admission at the end lit a fire under my ass; I had a video blow up on my anon writing channel and i was first overjoyed at the supportive comments, but then I eviscerated my own work and stopped making videos. It's been a year since my last release. I'm about to get into it again, and the sincerity of your self-expression and excitement just...got me. Enjoy climbing the UKposts mountain; nice job jetpacking up the slope so far.

This channel slaps man keep it up. I’m a writing beginner who’s trying to hone as much information and skills as possible before my first book and your content is one of the few things keeping me going man. Love your content.

Nice music thanks for the shoutout 😎 This approach to character, where you throw a bunch of different viewpoints manifested into humans in a room together and see what happens, has been a real game changer for me. I can’t remember where I first heard it, it might’ve been our conversations, but it actually keeps me interested in writing because I don’t know where the story will go. It’s like a little game of discovery. Nice video and congrats on the recent success!

I love how you talk about having a rough framing for a story, but still letting the story and characters tell it first! Overthinking my stories is why I am where I'm currently at: feeling stuck but still constantly writing, just... not able to put an entire book together. Your channel is definitely helping give me some stuff to mull over and think about. Many thanks for putting this up!

2. Purpose before Personality Sounds like an "architect" writing problem, us "Gardners" relish in the chaos of not knowing what our fully fledged characters will do. I'm not into the 3 act structure constraint either - it just sucks the soul out of the writing and nowadays it just telegraphs the story's ending. I think character driven stories with natural and emergent, cause & effect, are refreshing, "unpredictable" but rational and exciting.

i watched all of your videos immediately after the avatar one, you are really good at this, im looking forward to anything you decide to make

I am not a writer, but these videos really give a nice insight to a writer and as cinephile it gives me a better grasp of things to look for when watching films. I love your channel and i hope it grows exponentially

Underrated channel. Out of all the channels I have seen I personally took more valuable suggestions from here. It did not feel repetitive, saying the same stuff everybody says about writing. It was very unique and made me think a lot. Glad I found this channel I’ll stick around for more videos.👍

I'm in love with your channel. Like this is legit some of the best writing advice I've heard. Keep it up man!

Glad you're keeping at the UKposts stuff man! I'm looking forward to adding you to the list of UKposts channels that drop videos that go so hard I develop new personality traits.

Please keep making videos!! I was shocked to hear you almost stopped doing UKposts because you’re genuinely so good at it, your advice has helped me so much and it’s inspired me to work on my own stories, please keep it up :))

On that dialog note: In 12 angry men which is basically a court drama, the two most powerful moments are when he reveals he has the same switchblade(visual) and when he gets the main opponent character to try to attack him (visual plus the line of dialog “I’ll kill you!”) Plus that part where he demonstrates how long it would take to walk with a limp to the hallway door. If you can get visual stuff into a dialog heavy story it will help.

This is literally the best advisory video I've seen, purely because the advice comes from your experience, and your delivery matches your personality (and you humour is big funny)

No joke this is one of the best writing advice videos on UKposts. I hate it when people say to create character profiles and take it from there. It feels so damn amateurish

Yeah I've been writing Halo fanfiction since I was around 12, and I always cared more about the story being cool than the Spartan and elite characters I made, I just made the story told through them. I started off with a team of unusual Spartans and Sangheili who were forced to work together, a team who bonded to family through their conflicts on planet Agartha. And their perspective wasn't the only thing you witnessed in the story, there was the enemy aliens perspectives through multiple angles... the leaders, the infantry, the medics and scientists. This made the story so multidimensional even though it was meant for a game. It also led me to creating more depth for my main characters, like the Spartans. I made the main protagonist, Ajax, less empathetic and sociable, less funny and brotherly with his ally Hermes, and made him more like a calculated machine since that's how he was trained. He doesn't cry out in pain when you shoot him in the leg or cut open his skin to install implants, and literally no torture works on him because he is a psychopath in ways where he controls his psyche so well he doesn't feel pain. It's what separates him from the other characters because despite being a cold machine, he is still the Smartest and most ethical on the team. Makes all the right calls even when it seems there are none. He does the impossible, and doesn't stop after, he keeps doing the objective. All these traits define him and determine the story. Hermes was a much more average Spartan both mentally and in stature, and yet he was the more bold and exciting character because he was the dumb risk taker who was a very effective killer, even if nothing compared to Ajax. They compliment each other better now because they fill each other's gaps as opposed to them being the same character in different bodies before. I've done this process to nearly every character in my story which had more importance than just a few scenes, and it really follows the advice you gave so I know I'm doing something right if other people say it. The main idea of this story is humanity inheriting their ancient ancestors tech that they left behind for later humans to discover. This story goes into the flaws and benefits of that, and my characters strongly reflect that, what if one species had all the power? What if your great grandparents (aka ancestors here) were rich beyond belief but lost touch with the family despite leaving an inheritance, and you found it? Would you share it with the family? Or would you take control, or just be selfish with it and leave the family on their own.

I love that your videos immediately get to the point

love what you're doing with these man

Honestly, thank you for this. I follow a number of channels dedicated to writing advice, fixing bad media, and praising the good media for what it does. And this is amazing! I especially love your inclusion of dialogue. Words are extremely powerful when arranged in correct and coherent sentences. After all, books are just words painting a mental picture. Movies are different, but powerful in the sense that words get the added bonus of reaction, be it facial, bodily, mentally. All of it becomes a symphony of storytelling that I believe has been lost to most (modern media outlets. Fans pump out breathtaking stuff these days) Thank you for such a refreshing perspective! You've earned my subscription!

I love your videos man, they've inspired confidence in my own writing while teaching me new techniques and principles without feeling like I'm being told how I MUST write like its literally 1984. You've defended some works and criticized others in ways many creators wouldn't as to not go against the opinions generally seen as "correct" online. You don't do so for the sake of being provocative, but rather to be fair to these pieces, and it's not only refreshing, but inspiring. I can tell that your channel is gonna grow ALOT from here, and I wish you the best!

This is probably the best and most relevant video I've seen in my entire life. I'm just getting into writing, and one of the first videos I find is well edited, well scripted, and delivers a new perspective that is not only logical, but one I've never seen anywhere else. The second writing rule hit the hardest for me.

Your channel is a goldmine, and I love hearing your way of thinking about things. Looking forward to future content!

The reason people say "show don't tell" it is to avoid the 'exposition/narration effect'. It's said that 60% of communication come from body language, 30% from intonations and only 10% from the actual words we choose. So when you're finished writting the dialogue, only 10% of the actual work is done. Just think of a simple 3 words sentence: "I'm fine" How the character say the line? angry, confused, happy, reassuring ? And how do the other characters react to it? Sympathy, boredom? Imagine one being empatic and one laughing to the statement, no word prononced, but a billion things said. If there's a million possibility with 3 word sentence, imagine a whole speach. If you're crafting a speech without this is mind, you're missing out on 90% of the info you could send to readers.

I don’t write as much as I read, but I definitely resonated with the 3rd rule. As an audience member, I just want to consume a body of work that makes me feel; Period.. Not tell me how I should feel in this scene or that. Well, I guess some people like that if there’re “How to make a character’s death sadder” lists 🙃, but that’s not my cup of tea.

Dude I never turn notifs on for any channels, but I am so eager to see what you put out next I couldn't help myself. Your insights have been so valuable to me, but on top of that your videos have been clear, concise and engaging as fuck. I typically cringe when I see videos over 30 minutes long, but I sat and watched your entire Avatar video completely glued to the screen, belly laughing and taking notes because it was so fantastic. Not to apply pressure, but I'm glad you're sticking around and finding an audience. Your stuff is really valued and appreciated, keep doing what you're doing!

Thank you so much for this! This was far richer and had more value than a handful of writing masterclasses I've seen!

This dude's putting these incredibely high quality videos out and I'm watching one after the other but only by hearing that outro I noticed that he's "only" at ~10.000 subs now. You deserve much more success than you have my man

I've always had the problem of creating characters I love yet struggling to make a good story for them. Now it seems quite obvious what was wrong with my process. Trying to retroactively create a plot around a character is much more difficult than letting the plot create the character. I've watched a lot of "how to write a story" videos and this one has helped me with one of the biggest problems I didn't know I had!

Afternoon choom, you hit right on the exact points I needed for production today. Thank you

Loved your outro. You deserve all the praise!

Another banger Local! Love this channel

I've never taken writing properly seriously, but I unabashedly admit that in my late teens I was a reasonably popular Fanfic author in my little niche corner of tumblr. I wrote enough trash and improved enough over time that I learnt a lot of lessons which are, honestly, SO well distilled and unpacked concisely in this video. I feel you could do a great deep dive on any of these topics. Love your channel, dude, I'm glad you found success. I'm not in the least bit surprised though, your ideas are quality and the presentation is straight to the point. Magnificent.

your channel is genuinely awesome and ill always be excited when you upload im glad you did not give up

So happy for you and your growing channel. I hope it never stops. I’ve never seen writing analysis videos that are so precise and intricate that are at the same time super accessible. Amazing stuff. Can’t wait to see your video on Avatar 2!!!

This is a really cool take! I've been allowing myself to wallow in writer's block for a few weeks. This is just the creative boost I needed. Thanks!

I have never finished a novel. But with this method, I might have a shot.

I love the way you explain your writing process, everything in this video makes sense thank you for this vid 💗 💕

Omg thank you so much for the content, i’m a struggling writer and this is everything to me. I’d love to see more about story structure, outlining, and writing process if you ever feel like it. Your advices are invaluable. Thank you so much! Can’t wait for your next videos

I remember finding your channel when your latest video was the Rogue One video. The video was very high quality so I was surprised you had under 20 subscribers back then. You definitely deserve all the subs you have, amazing videos.

It feels deeply satisfying to have your writing process validated. People always ask me, well what is x character like? What’s their personality? And my answer is always, good question, but hey, wanna hear how they interact with the plot?!!

You're actually fantastic. You're simultaniously giving me completely new things to ponder, while also explaining things I've had in the back of my head for years, but could never articulate. Thank you.

I really needed to hear this - thank you very much this was the best writer advice i have heard in a while and brought me joy back in writing.

Finally, another writer UKpostsr who knows what they’re talking about :3

Bro I have fallen in love with your channel in a matter of like, 2 minutes from when the first of your vids popped into my recommendations. Obviously, if you find that you’d rather spend your time doing things other than creating UKposts videos, do that. But just know, you make incredible content. And as long as you continue to post, I know for one I will watch, comment on, and like every single video you make. I’m a stickler for who I subscribe to, and whose videos I click the like button on. You don’t even have to encourage it though. Just by making great content you had me liking and subscribing before I got even a quarter way through the first of your videos I saw. I really hope you continue to make videos. And also, as someone that wants to write but can’t really afford college and has no idea where to start, I’m really glad that you made this video specifically. If you want more ideas, I think a series on how one can get started as a writer by learning how to construct scripts, learning new vocabulary and just any other writing tips you have would be awesome. Anyway, I love this shit man. Lots of good comedy in your vids too that has me actually laughing out loud. I hope you never stop posting, and if you don’t stop I think, very soon, you’ll pop off big time. Lots of love bro!

Really excited for the future of this channel. I feel like this is what video essays used to be before those channels felt pressure to churn out content

this is a brilliant gem, thank you for sharing!!

I'm not even a writer, but this was still very interesting to me! It's nice to understand how some writers make decisions in their work and how some things are established and build! It really makes me appreciate writers even more. I am also so incredible happy for you, Local! It would have been so sad to loose such an amazing talent, everything you made until now is incredible! I'm really stoked for everything you have planned

That's exactly why it's not easy to write fanfiction. You already have the characters someone else created, now you need to come up with a plot that not only explores a theme of some kind, but also suits the characters' personalities (that, once again, were made by someone else before you). Fic writers have their own work processes that differs from original book writers, and it's fine. It is a different type of art in the same way that drawing and photography are different. Also, it's fine to do whatever you want when you write fics. You do it for free for your own and people's entertainment, and only a small part of ficwriters want to become actual writers. Not to mention that a big part of them are kids and teens who just started exploring their creaivity. So, go there and write your 200k words enemies to lovers angst with happy ending soulmates AU hurt/comfort fic. And if it lacks the theme or whatever, at least you had fun with it

Incredibly -eye opening. Great video man!

Love your channel! It’s crazy to see how it’s blown up as of late, and it’s very well deserved!

I think on point number 2, I think there's some sharp relief to be had if you look at that advice in the context of writing sequels. I'd love to see a video on that point if you find it a meaningful avenue of exploration. My vague thoughts: Making a sequel movie to follow up a strong stand-alone movie is... well let's just say the track record isn't great for the sequel being of the same quality. And your point #2 may be a good initial indication of why. In a good movie, the plot serves the character and the character serves the plot. You suggest plot before character, while i'd say it's more of an interactive back-and-forth build-simultaneously thing, but we both agree that designing a fully fledged character before you figure out what plot they're in is a... well let's just call it a *bold* strategy. But that's exactly what's happening in a sequel movie. You have a fully fledged character already. Even worse, it's a character that already had life-defining flaws that they outgrew in the first movie. So now where do they go? You have to build a plot suited to your already-formed character. And to give them some kind of growth, what are you supposed to do? Revert their previous progress and do movie 1 all over again? Come up with some never-hinted-at flaw that suddenly becomes a defining character trait ("What's wrong Mcfly? Chicken?") that makes the sequel character incongruous with the original? Somehow you need to come up with some new flaw and motivation that reasonably/plausibly didn't come out during the first movie, and then put the character in a plot that magnifies it. Al of which is easier said than don. In fact, while originally you should fit a character to a plot (to varying degrees), I could see it being easier (ie. more likely to succeed) to fit a plot to a new character flaw than to fit a new character flaw to both an existing character and plot. So maybe the right advice for a sequel is the reverse - come up with a meaningful elaboration to a character's flaws and motivations without undoing their growth, and then fit a plot to that.

Writing feels harder to grow up with these days because the methods of online writing that you would find in communities--fandoms--tend to be the dominant thing you learn from. Maybe you write with other friends and if that's your thing personality is still the trumpet that is sounding over plot. And for that, this video was crucial to me because it feels like no one has ever told me some of these points despite how *obvious* they feel. I always would sit down and be confused over the structure of stories I find online because so many of them ignore a story for the sake of thrusting two characters with no aligning interests together. It's such a massive part of it that it felt wrong to do what is, objectively, by this video, the right thing. Thankfully I am still young enough to have time to do the right thing before college hits. I appreciate this video, tremendously, for all its points, but especially that one. It's not like a slap in the face it just feels like a stern reminder. It ain't all about "omg this character x meeee :3" that means nooooothing if you don't have some sort of advancing plot around it.

This video really gave some writing advice I had never heard. It opened a knew perspective for me and It made writing feel more free now. You're a real one and your videos are amazing, please continue making them!

These videos are fantastic dude, I really hope you don't stop making them. Good quality (and useful) writing advice is surprisingly hard to find, and you've provided quite a bit already for me alone

As a fanfic writer, I do agree with your take on purpose over personality, especially when it comes to OCs. I usually prefer to write about canon characters, so that often means they already have their places in the plot predetermined, and I'll create OCs for where there is a gap. The best OC I ever created was a villain for a Legend of Zelda fic. The canon villains are always designed to be some kind of big bad boss fight at the very end, with underlings who provide progressively harder combat challenges. To tell my story, one that has a rich internal narrative alongside the external one, I needed a villain who offered more than mere force and couldn't be toppled via combat alone. I needed a villain who could manipulate the main characters, make them question their realities, destroy their reputations, and strip them of what defines them, so that they can be built back up anew. I needed a villain who could challenge the heroes in ways that the canon villains cannot. I can confirm that my readers love to hate him and are absolutely fascinated by him, to the point where they're keen to read a possible spin-off from his POV showing his backstory, deepest insecurities, and some of the behind-the-scenes of his schemes. My favourite thing about him will always be how he serves the story: he began as a character made for a narrative purpose, and personality just naturally followed along.