Writers Helping Writers^®

Character Flaws

35+ Posts To Help Writers Elevate Their Craft & Marketing Skills

March 22, 2016

35+ Posts To Help Writers Elevate Their Craft & Marketing Skills

March 22, 2016

A friend of mine asked me for a list of posts that I would like shared online (how nice, right?) and it prompted me to visit my website stats to…

How Your Character’s Failures Can Map A Route To Self-Growth

March 2, 2016

How Your Character’s Failures Can Map A Route To Self-Growth

March 2, 2016

Failure is one thing no one looks forward to nor wants to experience. It doesn’t feel good to work at something only to fail. When we fail, a knot of…

How to Write Characters Readers Trust But Shouldn’t

November 25, 2015

How to Write Characters Readers Trust But Shouldn’t

November 25, 2015

I don’t know about you, but I love reading books where the author encourages me to draw conclusions that are wrong. Case in point–untrustworthy characters who I trust anyway. Like…

How Your Hero’s Past Pain Will Determine His Character Flaws

October 27, 2015

How Your Hero’s Past Pain Will Determine His Character Flaws

October 27, 2015

Authentic characters are usually modeled after real people. I don’t mean pulling traits and quirks from those we know (say, taking Aunt Judy’s laughter and blending it with the overly-smiley…

Writing 101: Character Arc In A Nutshell

October 15, 2015

Writing 101: Character Arc In A Nutshell

October 15, 2015

Confused about character arc? Let’s look at all the pieces and how they fit together: inner and outer conflict, inner and outer motivation, fear, flaws—the whole shebang. So, you’re ready…

One Stop For Writers’ Unique Templates & Worksheets

October 11, 2015

One Stop For Writers’ Unique Templates & Worksheets

October 11, 2015

A Look Inside One Stop’s Templates & Worksheets As you can imagine with an online library, there are many nooks and crannies to explore. One of my favorite places is…

3 Quick Tips To Help Readers Connect To Your Protagonist

June 11, 2015

3 Quick Tips To Help Readers Connect To Your Protagonist

June 11, 2015

There has always been a debate on what is more important–plot or characters. For a long time, I stood on the PLOT side of things, because I thought it was…

How To Uncover Your Character’s Emotional Wound

May 14, 2015

How To Uncover Your Character’s Emotional Wound

May 14, 2015

To build a compelling character (and write them convincingly) we want to make them real as possible, and that means developing a backstory that lets us understand them on a…

The Importance of Grounding Characters in the Reader’s World

April 2, 2015

The Importance of Grounding Characters in the Reader’s World

April 2, 2015

We all know how important it is to build fully-fleshed characters by digging at their core. Exposing their attributes, flaws, morals, emotional wounds and fears that revolve around their basic…

Vulnerability: The Key to Compelling Romantic Relationships

March 3, 2015

Vulnerability: The Key to Compelling Romantic Relationships

March 3, 2015

The connection between two characters is one of the most magnetic forces in storytelling, especially in romance novels. Whether they welcome the relationship, fight it, or fall somewhere in between,…