Category Archives: Backstory
The Author’s Guide to Redeeming Villains
Have you ever fallen in love with a story villain? Or at least found yourself liking him or her somewhat against your will? Seems a little weird, experiencing all the happy feels for this character, but I think we’ve all … Continue reading
Your Character’s Job May Be More Important than You Think!
Confession time: when I was a newer writer, I didn’t think much about my character’s occupation. In fact, if they needed one, I’d pretty much assign the first thing that came to mind. I didn’t think hard about their career because … Continue reading
10 Steps To Revise Your Nano Novel
by Lucy V Hay So, you did Nanowrimo and you made it to 50K! Congratulations, but you still have work to do. That’s right, now you need to revise … But where to start?? If you are feeling overwhelmed, then … Continue reading
Stuck in No-Man’s-Land: Your Novel’s Middle
If you have hit the point in your draft where you’re looking out at the vast landscape of your novel with no idea where to go next, congratulations…you’ve probably made it to Act 2. I know, I know, there’s an … Continue reading
Determining Your Character’s Emotional Range
I firmly believe that while readers sometimes do connect with our stories, they more often fall in love with our characters. If we want to really pull readers in, we’ve got to make each protagonist relatable and easy to connect … Continue reading
Dropping Breadcrumbs: How to Show a Character’s Emotional Wound Through Behavior
Emotional wounds are transformative and have the power to re-shape a character in many negative ways, impacting their happiness, their self-worth, and causing mistrust and disillusionment to skew their worldview. This critical piece of backstory is key to understanding their … Continue reading
How To Research Mental Health and Trauma For Your Characters
Giving a character a trauma or mental health backstory seems like an easy way to add internal conflict to our characters – and it is. But where do you start that research? What should you be looking for? No one … Continue reading