Communities

Writing
Writing
Codidact Meta
Codidact Meta
The Great Outdoors
The Great Outdoors
Photography & Video
Photography & Video
Scientific Speculation
Scientific Speculation
Cooking
Cooking
Electrical Engineering
Electrical Engineering
Judaism
Judaism
Languages & Linguistics
Languages & Linguistics
Software Development
Software Development
Mathematics
Mathematics
Christianity
Christianity
Code Golf
Code Golf
Music
Music
Physics
Physics
Linux Systems
Linux Systems
Power Users
Power Users
Tabletop RPGs
Tabletop RPGs
Community Proposals
Community Proposals
tag:snake search within a tag
answers:0 unanswered questions
user:xxxx search by author id
score:0.5 posts with 0.5+ score
"snake oil" exact phrase
votes:4 posts with 4+ votes
created:<1w created < 1 week ago
post_type:xxxx type of post
Search help
Notifications
Mark all as read See all your notifications »
Q&A

Post History

60%
+1 −0
Q&A How can I portray a character with no fear of death, without them sounding utterly bored?

What I suspect you're really asking here is, "How do I make scenes involving this character feel adrenaline-filled and emotional?" To answer that question, you have to realize that portraying this ...

posted 5y ago by PlutoThePlanet‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T12:51:52Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/47717
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar PlutoThePlanet‭ · 2019-12-08T12:51:52Z (about 5 years ago)
What I suspect you're really asking here is, "How do I make scenes involving this character _feel_ adrenaline-filled and emotional?" To answer that question, you have to realize that portraying this character's emotions is only half the problem; the other half is the lack of **stakes.**

It's one thing for your character to want to prevent injury or death to another person, which is a noble goal. Making the reader feel the same rush the character does is another thing entirely; they'll be spending the scene thinking, "Well, if it goes wrong, just reverse it and try again." Whether or not your character succeeds is essentially a foregone conclusion; eventually, she will. What you need to do is give both your character and the reader a reason to _want_ her to succeed, on _this_ try.

Maybe this ability can only be used a certain number of times per day? Maybe the fewer changes she makes the second time around, the harder it is to make changes on the third? When there's very little at stake, there's very little reason for the reader to care what happens. Even if your character doesn't need to fear her own death, she needs to be risking something when she jumps into a situation.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-08-30T19:24:34Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 12