The Stuff of Dreams

Imaginary

The snow leopard scribbled on his paper when Po came in. "Early. This is the second time in a row. Do you think you can keep doing that?" Tai-Lung smirked. 

"Ahh, maybe," Po took a seat. Crane followed in afterward as did the rest of the students.

"Today, I'm going to talk about three things in one: Character, Dialogue, and Worldbuilding. Surprisingly, this is where fanfiction actually shines," Tai-Lung announced. 

Po huffed, "Mr. Tai-Lung, do you hate fanfiction or love it? I can never tell." The snow leopard glared at him but then everyone's eyes turned on him, expectantly waiting for the answer. He cleared his throat.

"I have no hard feelings toward fanfiction, but people can grow overly attached to it and never learn anything from it or move forward with their talent." He shook his head and continued. "The reason why I'm telling you this is that fanfiction, on a fundamental level, is extremely lazy writing; it can be great, but it is still essentially lazy. Why?" Tai-Lung quickly said, anticipating Po's next question. "Because everyone already knows the character and the world you're talking about. There's a limited set of originality in it. Other than the relationship, the external circumstances, and some places that you might want to introduce, you're just adding to a map that everyone has already seen."  The panda slowly put his hand down. "But it's important to know how to generate those characters by yourself." 

Tai-Lung wrote on the board as he talked, "You must understand this: Your characters are a part of you and apart from you. When you're writing a villain, find the side of you that would find pleasure in doing that sort of thing and bring it into that character you're making. Remember this characteristic is a part of you but it's not you. That's why I say that your characters are a part of you and apart from you. 

"Or maybe use real-life experience. Some of you have real villains of your own." The snow leopard smirked at the panda who rubbed the back of his neck with a nervous grin. A student asked what Tai-Lung did for his own characters. Mr. Tai-Lung straightened his loose vest.

"There's another way," He continued. "Where you follow ARCS. Attractive quality, Room to grow, Clear goals, and Something to lose. You can flesh them out with memories, secrets, and identities later. The most important part of Character is learning how the person talks. Yes, the visual is important, but if your character is going to be talking most of the time, the visual won't be easily forgotten. After you make that character, listen to it and trust it."

Po squinted his eyes and looked at his avian friend. Tai-Lung continued, "If you want an interesting character, you have to, in a sense, bring it to life; hence why you should trust in them. That's why dialogue and characterization are so closely related. So listen to your characters and trust your characters. Next, worldbuilding. First and foremost, to make your world convincing, you have to put in things that everyone knows. Put in details from your own experience. Take notes about the things you see in reality and use them. The credibility of your world will depend on how close to reality your world is. Next, we have the single thing that unites these two. Imagery. An author's job is to figure out how to make the world around him into words. This is important: when describing something, use Concrete, Significant, Details. Concrete: It applies to one of the senses. Significant: It holds relevance to the storyline. You don't need to worry if everything is accurate; just what's important."

"But," Po interrupted, "How do we know what is important?"

"Simple, if it isn't necessary to the story and doesn't help understand it better, then it's deemed unimportant. You have to use learn economy, or using less to get more, as well as impact in your story. And lastly, detail. That's the difference between a tree and a Redwood. Between a tool and a set of blue latex-handled pliers. Between a cat," Tai-Lung smirked, "and a Bengal tiger."