Episode 146: Marvel Character Dynamics with MJ McGriff

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Today, Fable and the Verbivore share our delightful and wisdom-packed conversation with YA fantasy adventure author and Marvel enthusiast M.J. McGriff, as we explore and unpack Marvel character dynamics and character relationships.

Contains Spoilers for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame

M.J. has authored and self-published two YA Sci-Fi books (The Fall, The Takeover) and one novella (The Mission) in her New Earth Series. Over the last three years, she’s written and released three YA Fantasy novels (Macario’s Scepter, The Secret Library, The Spell Keeper *released on 4-21-22 ) in her ongoing adventure series - The Magian. Steeped with adventurous journeys on the high seas, treks through fantastical settings, and snappy dialogue, these stories are centered on the experience of a former pirate named Samara and her twin sister Seraphina - who’s a nun.

We start off this episode by asking about M.J.’s current work and she talks about her newly released book The Spell Keeper which brings a new character into the series - reluctant soldier Zuri Abayomi, who must embark on a quest to save her people from an ancient evil and builds an alliance with some of the cast of characters we’ve come to know and love in the first two books in the Magian series. We highly recommend you check out her work!

As we open up the conversation to Marvel, we dig into character dynamics and relationships and what we can learn in our writing from how they handle storytelling over multiple films and manage a large cast of characters while giving them space to change and grow.

MJ talks about how Marvel didn't throw all the characters into a movie together right at the start, they built up the characters individually first in their own stories and then brought them together.

We touch on a number of Marvel character examples in this episode. Here are a few:

  • Tony Stark and Steve Rogers' interactions that tend to be steeped in conflict

  • Natasha and her found family, especially her sibling relationship with Yelena

  • How writer James Gunn transitions the characters from the intro fight in Guardians of the Galaxy where they all are undercutting each other to them having to work together to escape from prison

  • The difference that removing a character can make to relationships, such as when Falcon and Winter Soldier are forced to work together even though they have some tension

  • All the moments in Infinity War where the writers throw together characters who naturally will have conflict or interesting interactions - the Guardians and Thor, Tony Stark and Steven Strange, Shuri and Bruce Banner

  • The latest Spider-Man film and how the storytellers grew that Peter Parker character up over time and with some surprising mentors

Throughout this conversation, M.J. drops many key pieces of advice for approaching writing a series of stories with an ensemble cast of characters. Pulling from Marvel and her own experience writing her The Magian series, she talks about forcing characters who clash to have to work together, taking your time with character development and using where your character needs to go to dictate what happens in the story, being intentional with characters - making them flawed but relatable, and humanizing your characters by tying the action scenes and what they do in them to their journey.

We hope you enjoy this episode! We both feel so lucky to have been a part of this conversation.

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,

Fable & The Verbivore

Notes:

Margaret “MJ” McGriff is an author, podcaster, and content marketing professional. She’s authored and self-published two YA Sci-Fi books (The Fall, The Takeover) and one novella (The Mission) in her New Earth Series. Over the last three years, she’s written and released three YA Fantasy novels (Macario’s Scepter, The Secret Library, The Spell Keeper) in her ongoing adventure series - The Magian. Information on The Magian series can be found on her website at: http://www.mmcgriff.com/macarios-scepter/

MJ posts regularly on Instagram often with fantasy and adventure images inspired by her work as well as great writing and content marketing advice. You can connect with her and her work on Instagram @mj_mcgriff, on Twitter at @mj_mcgriff, and on her website at http://www.mmcgriff.com/. A free

We’d also recommend checking out “The Content Creative Podcast” series that she created and hosted centering on creatives who are looking to market their work. Episodes can be found here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-content-creative-podcast/id1493974542

Here are some movie and TV series moments that we touch on:

We’ve interviewed author M.J. McGriff on a previous podcast episode. That episode is:

Books, Movies, and Graphic Novels Mentioned:

Music from: https://filmmusic.io
‘Friendly day’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)
Licence: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Bethany Stedman