Character

Wrestling-wise, listen, wrestling-wise, he's playing Jane.

Character-wise, he had the character, which that shot him to the top throughout his years.

But in-ring?

Five Moves of Doom.

right.

But as far as the movie Character, the previous year.

Yeah, Character was the 97, but it was a 98

release.

And we'll talk about that, I guess, when we get to the top 10, our criteria for that.

The foreign language films, the international releases, especially get tricky.

But that's why we stick to that criteria.

So some films like Character, for example, again, it might have won the Oscar the year previously in 97, but it got a U.S. limited release in 98, in March, I believe, of 98.

I remember Knocked Loose had some, had some shit in a song.

Yeah, we have a fu- w- the same sample in the beginning of Character Development, Poppy used in one of her songs.

It's like, uh-

Oh, shit

We, we finish with Veteran Villain.

Yeah, which you probably will be forever.

And then into Character Development, yeah.

What do you think you're gonna do with From a Distance with Alex's part?

It's not like I'm a method writer, but you do get into a sort of state of mind where you're writing something, and I just, the, the degree of anxiety you had to live in, you know, doing stuff like that.

Unless you're just completely sociopathic and have no empathy whatsoever for your characters.

Um-

No, I, I, I have empathy for them.

[laughs] Yeah.

But it's just like, I'm just flowing.

The characters are making sense.

What they're going through makes sense.

You didn't?

Character-wise, no.

I mean, they mentioned them multiple times.

Yeah, I know, but none of it stayed with me, which we'll talk about when we get to it, but none of it stayed with me.

um like he's like he sucks as in he's uncool um this is

this is the condition of being um like a character that that straight white boys are supposed to like

Yeah.

Gendo Ikari for the uninitiated is a character from Neon Genesis Evangelion, and he does that pose.

He does this pose.

That's

The spinoff series, The Slime Diaries, which are drawn by different animators than the main show.

It's really funny because they only know how to draw women.

He may have had an idea of, here's how we can maybe save S.H.I.E.L.D. And she was like, no, I'm going to burn it all down on national television.

And so to me, for those two characters to not want to interact and her to be kind of there but a few steps back... because she's kind of trying to respect the inner circle and stepping up when he steps away, I do think that makes sense.

Whether or not the writers were actually that smart or just the choreography of the scene was weird, I have no idea.

But that was certainly...

that's the one okay we're in the age of miracles because we

see that they've been experimenting with something and it's loki's staff before we jump to that

though i just want to say one other moment of the importance i think of those two characters because we talked a lot about the second one but the first one the baron I don't know how much you guys were involved in this, but I was at this point very involved in the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. world and dove very deeply into the Netflix MCU that was going to start only a year after this with Daredevil.

Yeah.

I'm excited about getting my two-by-two.

Pet, she said, referring to the kind-hearted kids program the Dubuque District hosts each year from local nonprofit 2x2 Character Development.

The program aims to teach children values such as kindness, responsibility, respect, empathy, and citizenship by asking them to care for a stuffed cat or dog.

Helen also looked forward to reading books in class, while fellow second grader Oliver Martin, 7, was eager to meet new playmates.

One more time, that's SavannahGilbo.com/training, and I hope to see you there.

Two characters can have incredible banter, obvious chemistry, and plenty of reasons to be in the same room, and you can still end up with an enemies-to-lovers romance that doesn't quite feel believable.

Because what makes this trope work isn't just the attraction between your characters, it's whether readers can buy into every step between, "I can't stand you" and "I choose you." And so in today's episode, I'm sharing 10 things that can make or break that progression from enemies to lovers, including what writers often get wrong about the initial conflict, why chemistry alone can't earn the romance, and why the tension can't disappear just because the characters stop being enemies.

So if you want readers rooting for your characters as they move from enemies to lovers, then this episode is for you.

[gentle music] Welcome to the Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast.

My name is Savannah Gilbo, and I'm here to help you write a story that works.

And when you don't have this kind of clarity, it's easy to let a romantic subplot start taking over your main story, or if you're writing a romance, to give so much weight to the external plot that the central relationship starts feeling secondary.

All right, so before you start planning all the banter and all the kissing scenes, I want you to ask yourself, "What role does this relationship play in the story you're actually writing?" And that is tip number one, know the role that your enemies-to-lovers relationship plays in your story.