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Writing fictional characters who learn and grow or find redemption is this week’s topic. Writing Tip for Today: What are some ways to write redemptive characters? Start with Loss An effective character is one with a goal. This implies that the person has lost something or hasn’t ever achieved it—but who longs to. The character […]
Much has been written about developing three-dimensional characters in a novel. How do we animate secondary characters? Writing Tip for Today: Here are some tips for writing animated secondary characters. Iron Sharpens Iron Your protagonist, or main character has this passionate desire. Yet too many novels leave the MC on stage alone for too long. […]
If you are writing a NaNoWriMo novel, you’ll still need the six elements of a Story Chain. Writing Tip for Today: What’s a Story Chain and how do you create one? Character + Desire Most novels start out as a character the writer envisions. When you create a character, you imbue them with personality, values, […]
Last post, we discussed how creating a passionate character helps readers engage. Today, we’ll talk about how conflict helps your characters move through their passions to achieve a goal. Writing Tip for Today: What are some ways to increase conflict in your characters? Pros and Cons If we call our character the protagonist, it […]
In fiction/memoir, our characters carry the story, and writers must understand their strengths and weaknesses. Writing Tip for Today: Here are some tips for your character development: Shallow v. Deep In forming characters for your novel, memoir or story, you’ll give each one personality traits that make up the bedrock of your story. You want […]
Writers concentrate on our protagonists, spending lots of time creating a three-dimensional character. But what about your antagonist or bad guy? Writing Tip for Today: Let’s look at some ways to make antagonist characters more engaging. No Clichés When we write an adversarial character, it’s tempting to include tropes and clichés to help readers love […]
Anti-outline-writers often feel frustrated when it comes to pre-planning a novel, but it’s possible to write your NaNoWriMo novel as a pantster with a little help. As we head into NaNoWriMo season, writers everywhere hear a lot about plot points, beats and storyboards. How about Flash Cards? Writing Tip for Today: Here’s a simple method […]
With NaNoWriMo coming up in November, it’s a good time to brainstorm story ideas. But is the fiction you hope to write really a story? Writing Tip for Today: Here are three ways to tell if the novel you’re writing is a solid story: Arc or Episodic? Some novel writers are not quite sure […]
For novelists, pace, or rate of revelation is one of the more advanced writing skills. Knowing how fast or slow to reveal story information, managing time and choosing the right scenes to dramatize can either pace a novel brilliantly or doom it to an excruciating reader experience. Writing Tip for Today: What are some […]
In my debut novel, The Fence My Father Built, my antagonist, Linc Jackson, chewed on a toothpick. An editor told me this trait made the antagonist a cliché. Over the next few revisions, I worked hard to make Linc more believable. I hope I succeeded. Writing Tip for Today: Many of us put more effort […]