Category Archives: Emotion
11 Techniques for Transforming Clichéd Phrasings
One of the things that pumps me up the most when I’m reading a book is when the author phrases things in a way I’ve never seen before. It could be a familiar concept or image—red hair, an urban street, … Continue reading
Story Resolutions: Mastering the Happy-Sad Ending
Very often, it’s the ending of a story that sticks with us—because it’s our last memory of it, our most recent emotional connection. So nailing the ending is important. This is why I was so excited when Gilbert Bassey reached … Continue reading
How to Evoke Emotions with Book Cover Design
We all know the importance of book covers in helping readers choose books. So what separates an engaging cover from one that potential buyers pass by? Would you be surprised if I said that emotion was part of the equation? … Continue reading
7 Ways Deep POV Creates Emotional Connections With Readers
Deep POV (point of view) is a popular (and lately, divisive) writing style to employ. Many blogs about deep pov will list out the same four or six foundational tools as though any newbie could pick this up and run … Continue reading
Story Tropes: To Avoid or Not to Avoid?
Every genre and medium of storytelling uses tropes, common themes or story devices. For example, a popular trope in the romance genre is “enemies to lovers,” where the characters start as enemies before falling in love. Most articles we come across in … 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