Writers Helping Writers^®

Emotion

Determining Your Character’s Emotional Range

November 17, 2020

Determining Your Character’s Emotional Range

November 17, 2020

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…

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.…

What You Can Learn from Rhetorical Questions in Your Manuscript

October 20, 2020

What You Can Learn from Rhetorical Questions in Your Manuscript

October 20, 2020

It is such an easy thing to do. Once you become aware of author intrusion and what that looks like in limited third person, first person, or deep POV, the easy…

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…

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…

3 Ways to Differentiate Your Characters

May 30, 2020

3 Ways to Differentiate Your Characters

May 30, 2020

We’ve invited Resident Writing Coach Sacha Black to give us an extra dose of wisdom as she’s just released a new book that I think will help a lot of…

What Is Emotional Context And Why Does Your Story Need It?

April 21, 2020

What Is Emotional Context And Why Does Your Story Need It?

April 21, 2020

Have you ever had an editor or critique partner say “go deeper”? And you throw up your hands and glare at the screen because you DID go deeper. Deep point…

Breathe Life into Your Prose with the Sense of Touch

April 14, 2020

Breathe Life into Your Prose with the Sense of Touch

April 14, 2020

Humans are social beasts: we live together, we yearn for the comfort of quality time, of family memories, and of physical closeness. But right now, touch has a bad rep.…

How a Career Can Reveal Your Character’s Deeper Layers

February 29, 2020

How a Career Can Reveal Your Character’s Deeper Layers

February 29, 2020

Did you know that before Becca became an author and writing coach, she was a teacher? It’s true. And if you know her, you’re probably thinking, I can see that.…

How to Build Powerful Character Relationships

February 20, 2020

How to Build Powerful Character Relationships

February 20, 2020

Character relationships are, in many ways, the glue that holds a story together. Almost every tale has at least one relationship at the heart of it, often more. Rarely can…