{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"The Smarter Artist Show: Episode 19 - Your Characters Are Assets. Are You Treating Them That Way?","description":"Saul Goodman was supposed to appear in four episodes of Breaking Bad. He was comic relief. Vince Gilligan read the room, changed his mind, and eventually built a six-season prequel around him.  Sean, Dave, and Johnny use that as the on-ramp for a longer conversation about what separates a character that can carry IP from one that can't, and whether a creator can engineer that kind of popularity or whether it only exists because an audience decided it does. The guys then talk about characters taking over shows not meant for them, why some asshole characters work and others don\u2019t, and much more in this episode of The Smarter Artist Show. Timestamps 01:37 Episode intro: Your characters are assets. Are you treating them that way? 04:20 \u2014 Something Cool: Dave on Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed (new Apple TV show, Tatiana Maslany) 09:04 \u2014 Sean's Something Cool: building custom apps with Claude, and why off-the-shelf task management never quite works for him. 10:00 \u2014 Johnny\u2019s Something Cool - he\u2019s doing an appearance at Comicapalooza  in Houston. 21:34 \u2014 Sean on the Sterling & Stone AI hallucination problem (Forbes quoted something wrong; now the AI believes it) 24:00 \u2014 The actual topic: characters that become bigger than the story they inhabit 25:40 \u2014 Better Call Saul as the case study. Dave's original take: it'll never work 29:20 \u2014 Sean talks about Boricio Wolfe. Why it was their best example, and why it couldn't have been engineered? 34:00 \u2014 Sean on characters that take over shows they weren't written for. 40:00 \u2014 Johnny: what happens when the audience loves a character you don't? \u201cAssholes are fun to write.\u201d 41:00 \u2014 The likability question. Succession, Meyer Dempsey, and why some audiences reject complicated characters. 47:50 \u2014 Dave on what makes an unlikable character work for him, when the reader can understand or identify why they\u2019re the way they are. 51:55 \u2014 Ending, theme song If this conversation gave you something to think about, you won't want to live without the Dispatch. Head to https:\/\/smarterartist.net\/dispatch  Sign up and you'll get two things right away: a copy of The Smarter Artist Method, and the workbook to help you get smarter, faster. We'll see you in your inbox.   ","author_name":"The Smarter Artist Show","author_url":"https:\/\/www.smarterartist.net","html":"