Writers Helping Writers^®

Emotion

Fighting Attraction in Romance (Body Language Help)

February 2, 2023

Fighting Attraction in Romance (Body Language Help)

February 2, 2023

Emotion is the heart of any story, and there is no genre where this holds more true than romance. Readers look forward to a romantically tense roller coaster ride (how’s…

Writing Insecure Characters

January 12, 2023

Writing Insecure Characters

January 12, 2023

Angela Ackerman and I got our start telling anyone who was interested (and some who weren’t) what we’d learned about the importance of showing a character’s feelings. So I’ll start…

Writing Antagonists Readers Can’t Help But Like

December 1, 2022

Writing Antagonists Readers Can’t Help But Like

December 1, 2022

There’s a dirty little secret among many of us readers: well-written antagonists get our blood pumping. When a scene come along with them in it, well, we lean closer. Grin…

How to Uncover Your Character’s Inner Conflict

November 10, 2022

How to Uncover Your Character’s Inner Conflict

November 10, 2022

Conflict is a powerful element within the story and can be loosely categorized as either Outer (external) Conflict or Inner (internal) Conflict. The difference is that outer conflict is something…

Use Conflict to Target a Character’s Soft Spots

August 25, 2022

Use Conflict to Target a Character’s Soft Spots

August 25, 2022

Conflict is a key story ingredient, one we need a lot of, but this doesn’t mean quantity is better than quality. Fiction isn’t a video game; waves of bad guys…

Identify Your Character’s Emotional Triggers

July 19, 2022

Identify Your Character’s Emotional Triggers

July 19, 2022

Every one has emotional triggers – are you using this to increase the emotional tension in your story? What does your character pride themselves on having, being, doing, possessing, needing,…

Using Vocal Cues to Show Hidden Emotion

March 31, 2022

Using Vocal Cues to Show Hidden Emotion

March 31, 2022

“My Precious” By Becca Puglisi Any Tolkien fans in the house? I remember, as a teen, reading The Hobbit by the fire on a rare cold evening in Florida. It became a…

Setting Description Mistakes that Weaken a Story

March 29, 2022

Setting Description Mistakes that Weaken a Story

March 29, 2022

When you think about the key elements of storytelling, characters and plot immediately come to mind, but what about the setting? Do you view it as 1) a vital story…

When to Kill a Character

February 22, 2022

When to Kill a Character

February 22, 2022

Well, Valentine’s Day is in the rearview, so it’s time to move on to a less lovey-dovey topic: killing people. Fictional people, of course! Let’s face it, some of our…

Fear Thesaurus: Failure

February 19, 2022

Fear Thesaurus: Failure

February 19, 2022

Debilitating fears are a problem for everyone, an unfortunate part of the human experience. Whether they’re a result of learned behavior as a child, are related to a mental illness,…