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Characters

Personalizing Your Protagonist’s Emotional Wound

June 1, 2023

Personalizing Your Protagonist’s Emotional Wound

June 1, 2023

Emotional wounds are tricky to write about. Abuse, betrayal, victimization, and the death of a loved one may exist in a character’s past and so should be explored, but these are…

How a Show-Don’t-Tell Mindset Helps You Write Stronger Stories

May 25, 2023

How a Show-Don’t-Tell Mindset Helps You Write Stronger Stories

May 25, 2023

Show-Don’t-Tell is something we hear a lot about as writers, and yet many struggle to apply it. Why? Because while most understand the basics of show-don’t-tell, not every writer can…

Adversarial Conflict: Who Is Making Trouble In Your Story?

May 4, 2023

Adversarial Conflict: Who Is Making Trouble In Your Story?

May 4, 2023

Is there anything better than well-written conflict? The vengeful enemy, sharks circling a sinking boat, a carefully guarded secret getting out in the open. Readers, fearful for the characters they…

Using Wound Categories & Pointed Questions to Identify a Character’s Past Trauma

May 2, 2023

Using Wound Categories & Pointed Questions to Identify a Character’s Past Trauma

May 2, 2023

The wound is a fascinating and vital piece of your character’s past that has lasting, formative effects on who they’ll be at the start of your story. As such, it’s…

5 Ways to Crash Your Character’s Pity Party

April 18, 2023

5 Ways to Crash Your Character’s Pity Party

April 18, 2023

We generally craft characters with the intention of making them someone the reader cares about. One of the primary ways to achieve that is to tap into reader empathy, and…

What Are Your Protagonist’s Flaws?

April 13, 2023

What Are Your Protagonist’s Flaws?

April 13, 2023

The most relatable characters are ones who mirror real people, meaning they are complex individuals with a blend of strengths, failings, attributes, and flaws. Of these four, flaws are often…

Why Readers Love Anti-Heroes

April 11, 2023

Why Readers Love Anti-Heroes

April 11, 2023

To understand why readers love anti-heroes, we first need to define what they are. An anti-hero is a flawed, complicated character who thrives in shades of gray. They play the…

Introducing…The Character Type & Trope Thesaurus!

April 1, 2023

Introducing…The Character Type & Trope Thesaurus!

April 1, 2023

Character building is hard work, and when we see certain types of characters appear again, and again in fiction and film, we wonder if there’s a way to start with…

How to Uncover Your Character’s Deepest Fear

March 28, 2023

How to Uncover Your Character’s Deepest Fear

March 28, 2023

Fear is a disruptive force, even though its job is to keep us safe. When there’s a perceived physical or psychological threat, our brain blasts us with a shot of…

Character Arcs: Making a Long Story Short

March 14, 2023

Character Arcs: Making a Long Story Short

March 14, 2023

A well-structured story uses events (also called story beats) to move the narrative forward — with compelling issues, rising stakes, and an organic sense of cause and effect — toward…