Writers Helping Writers^®

Character Arc

Why You Should Side-Write Your Protagonist’s Origin Scene

November 10, 2020

Why You Should Side-Write Your Protagonist’s Origin Scene

November 10, 2020

Side writing: Any exploratory piece of writing that helps a writer get to know elements of their story but isn’t intended to make its way into a draft in its entirety.…

Dropping Breadcrumbs: How to Show a Character’s Emotional Wound Through Behavior

November 5, 2020

Dropping Breadcrumbs: How to Show a Character’s Emotional Wound Through Behavior

November 5, 2020

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.…

4 Ways to Fix a Boring Story

October 27, 2020

4 Ways to Fix a Boring Story

October 27, 2020

Is your story boring? Would you know or acknowledge it if it was? No one wants to admit that their story is slow, lackluster, or zzzzz. But hey, that’s what…

The Best Resource for Planning Your NaNoWriMo Novel

October 22, 2020

The Best Resource for Planning Your NaNoWriMo Novel

October 22, 2020

We’re creeping up on the biggest, craziest, event in Writerville: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). That means 50,000 words written in one month, and all the coffee, stale pizza, and…

6 Tricks to Layer on Stakes

August 11, 2020

6 Tricks to Layer on Stakes

August 11, 2020

Stakes are what are at risk in a story. It might be that the protagonist’s life is at risk, or perhaps a romantic relationship, or maybe the opportunity to go…

The Occupation Thesaurus: Firefighter

June 23, 2020

The Occupation Thesaurus: Firefighter

June 23, 2020

Sourced from The Occupation Thesaurus OVERVIEWA firefighter is a rescuer who extinguishes and prevents fires that threaten life, property, and the environment. They also respond to car accidents, chemical spills,…

How To Avoid A Half-Baked Idea

June 16, 2020

How To Avoid A Half-Baked Idea

June 16, 2020

Half-baked ideas are everywhere in the spec pile. But what does ‘half-baked’ mean? After all, whether a script reader, agent’s assistant or intern LIKES the idea behind a story is…

Character Introductions: Making the Right Impression

June 9, 2020

Character Introductions: Making the Right Impression

June 9, 2020

Many aspects of writing can be hard to get right, especially in our first draft. For just two examples: With our story beginning, we might struggle to find a good…

Character Building: How Much Planning Should I Do? (PART 1)

May 26, 2020

Character Building: How Much Planning Should I Do? (PART 1)

May 26, 2020

Not sure how much brainstorming needs to go into each character? You’re not alone. It’s a struggle for many, and unfortunately, there’s no single “right” answer. It really depends on…

How Plotlines Add Dimension

May 12, 2020

How Plotlines Add Dimension

May 12, 2020

When writing a novel, you need to use more than one plotline. In fact, most successful books need at least three. If they only have one or two, the story…