Create intrigue with your inciting incident

Or if you’ve hit on a killer concept but feel stumped by character development, try these character profile and character questionnaire templates to flesh out your protagonist. 💡 Inspiration checkpoint! Our writing prompts and plot generator tools are perfect if you have a character in mind, but aren’t sure what to do with them. The concept here being: What if there were more than one way to experience time? This possibility raises fascinating questions about determinism and free will - which Chiang explores in the events of this novella, narrated by linguist and professor Louise Banks.

The Story of Your Lifeby Ted Chiang is decidedly concept-based.

But the beauty of the novel is in Emma’s character arc, the lessons she learns, and where she ends up. Austen even described her plans for the novel as thus: “I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.” Indeed, the opening lines of Emma - “handsome, clever, and rich” - paint a spoiled girl without a care in the world.

Emmaby Jane Austen is famously character-based.

Character and concept examples Anya Taylor-Joy as Emma in the 2020 adaptation. But while they seem very different on the surface, they have the same essential DNA - that of an expertly told story. One story derives from a character, the other from a concept one is a novel of manners, the other a sci-fi novella. To demonstrate this - and to identify the most important elements of any story - we’ll look at two examples throughout this post.

If you have a strong preference for one over the other, be careful in these early stages! How you conceptualize and outline your story will inevitably affect how you end up telling it. The Da Vinci Code, The Hunger Games) while the second will yield a more “character-driven” story ( The Catcher in the Rye, The Vanishing Half). Both methods are effective, though the first will often result in a more “plot-driven” story (e.g.

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