The 12 brand archetypes all successful businesses are built on Successful brands have a strong sense of identity, one that mirrors the hopes and aspirations of their customers. But finding your voice – especially as a small business – can be difficult. And expensive. Identifying your brand archetype from this list will save you time and money and connect you instantly to your audience. Why do so many films seem to have the exact same characters in them? These characters seem to pop up all the time in books and films – and in the ways we categorise real people too. These all-too-familiar characters are called Jungian archetypes. Jungian archetypes have been adopted and examined by all sorts of groups. Branding houses will charge a premium to work out what personality types your target audience are likely to have. But it needn’t be complicated – explore the list below to finding a style that speaks to you. If you can work out what archetypes your business best fits, you’re already on the path to better communication with your customers. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
50 Essential Mystery Novels That Everyone Should Read In these weeks of midwinter, there’s nothing more satisfying than curling up by the fire with a good novel — and in particular a good mystery novel, because they somehow seem to keep you the warmest. Plus, what with a new season of Sherlock starting this week, your appetite for more murders, clues, and suspicious persons might just be piqued. After the jump, check out 50 essential mystery novels (and spy novels, and crime novels — the genre tends to get a little blurry) that will bring color to your cheeks and set your brain ticking. Usual rules apply: one book by any given author, and all choices subjective — add your own favorites in the comments and keep the list of essentials growing. Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle Really, you should read this as all the Sherlock Holmes stories, but choices have to be made.
writing 8 ½ Character Archetypes You Should Be Writing Here’s the thing about character archetypes: everybody’s got his own take. Do you run with Joseph Campbell’s gazillion and one Jungian archetypes? How about Dramatica’s double quad of eight archetypes? Or maybe screenwriter Michael Hauge’s simple offering of four main players? Nothing wrong with running with all of them. Today, we’re going to explore my take, which is primarily based on Dramatica’s eight characters. (Featured in the Structuring Your Novel Workbook.) 1. This one doesn’t need much explanation. The main actor.The person most greatly affected by the Antagonist.The person whose reactions and actions drive the majority of the plot.The person with whom the readers will identify most strongly.The person whose inner journey, as influenced by the outer conflict, will be the most obvious manifestation of your story’s theme. Examples Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Lightning McQueen in Cars, Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, Mattie Ross in True Grit 2. This one’s also pretty clear.
John Berger: ‘Writing is an off-shoot of something deeper’ I have been writing for about 80 years. First letters then poems and speeches, later stories and articles and books, now notes. The activity of writing has been a vital one for me; it helps me to make sense and continue. Let’s begin by examining the activity of translating from one language to another. The conventional view of what this involves proposes that the translator or translators study the words on one page in one language and then render them into another language on another page. Why? This practice reminds us that a language cannot be reduced to a dictionary or stock of words and phrases. Consider the term “mother tongue”. And within one mother tongue are all mother tongues. Words, terms, phrases can be separated from the creature of their language and used as mere labels. What has prompted me to write over the years is the hunch that something needs to be told, and that if I don’t try to tell it, it risks not being told. Another confabulation begins ...
5 Disturbing Reasons Not to Trust the News (From a Reporter) Growing up, I remember wondering why major catastrophes were relegated to just inches of column space somewhere in the middle of the newspaper, while knocked-up celebrities farting into a maternity gown would crack the front pages. Then I started working as the editor of a U.K. tech news site at the dawn of citizen reporting, social media, and the Web, and I realized that the gulf between the newsworthy and the filler has been widened on an enormous scale. Here are just some of the reasons journalism has gone (and continues to go) to shit: #5. The Money Is in PR Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Jupiterimages/Stockbyte/Getty Images You can spot a press-sourced news article miles away. Sky NewsWhat, journalism can't take a day off every now and always? This same story wound up in my inbox before Sky News ever covered it. Crisis specialists, meanwhile, are former journalists who help corporations and governments do PR damage control in the wake of some colossal cock-up. #4. #3.
RanGen - Random Generators For All! Top 15 Great Alcoholic Writers - Listverse Books Many great writers of the 20th century (especially American writers) struggled with addictions to alcohol. Some believe that this may have contributed to their great artistic abilities, while others believe that the alcohol served as a medication for other problems in their lives. This is a list of the 15 greatest writers who were alcoholics. 15. Hunter Thompson Hunter Stockton Thompson (July 18, 1937 – February 20, 2005) was an American journalist and author, famous for his novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. 14. Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an author of crime stories and novels of immense stylistic influence upon modern crime fiction, especially in the style of the writing and the attitudes now characteristic of the genre. 13. John Cheever (May 27, 1912–June 18, 1982) was an American novelist and short story writer, sometimes called “the Chekhov of the suburbs” or “the Ovid of Ossining.” 12. O. 11. 10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. Listverse Staff
Tips For Your About Page, Blog Monetization Idea, More In this week’s roundup we have a great collection of advice for improving your website, from using your under-appreciated Thank You page for conversions (nice!) to actually monetizing your blog (bonus!) There’s also a good dose of reality for anyone still looking for marketing secrets plus a unique perspective on using search to benefit your brand. So grab your favorite beverage, find a comfortable chair and read up! 7 Steps To Dominate Search Results For Your Brand Written by Laura Click Do you Google yourself? Read the article at FlyBlueKite.com and follow Laura on Twitter @lauraclick Two Very Harsh Truths That Will Make You A Better Marketer Written by Ross Simmonds Sometimes people just tell the truth. Read the article at RossSimmonds.com and follow Ross on Twitter @TheCoolestCool 6 Ideas For Your Blog’s About Page And Why They Work Written by Daniel Sharkov If your “About” page is a dull litany of your accomplishments and life story, read this. Written by Marc Andre
Main/Character Flaw Index To make characters realistic and relatable they are given flaws, because if there is anything a writer can be sure of it is that no one in their audience will be perfect. Flaws are character traits that have a negative impact in the narrative, unless they are simply informed. They can also be exploited. See Good Flaws, Bad Flaws for a scale of flaw acceptability. Compare Seven Deadly Sins, Ego Tropes. Abusive Parents: Habitually violent and cruel to their own children, often because that's how they themselves were raised.
The writing life: Why do novelists write novels about novelists? Ruling over a global empire brings with it many benefits, the chief perk being unlimited access to illicit sex. When Britannia dominated the waves, the English were famous for being prudes at home and lechers abroad. Men who were models of self-control in the mother country kept harems in the hinterland. Queen Victoria, Empress of India, reigned over a planet-encompassing booty call. Yet if lust was a motive for seeking domination, it could also be a solvent of oppression. In his eye-opening monograph The Rise of Gay Rights and the Fall of the British Empire (2013), the human rights scholar David A. Damon Galgut’s Arctic Summer, a lightly fictionalized biography of E.M. Yet behind Forster’s trim mustache and languid manners, there hid yearnings that he could never publicly acknowledge (his one novel about same-sex love, Maurice, was published in 1971, a year after he died). A novel about novel-writing might seem too meta or parasitic to be tolerable.