Writers Helping Writers^®

Characters

Three Powerful Techniques To Harness A Reader’s Curiosity

January 2, 2018

Three Powerful Techniques To Harness A Reader’s Curiosity

January 2, 2018

Psychology has spent over a century studying human behavior; our emotions, thoughts, needs and wants, what draws us in and what pushes us away. This means psychology can teach us…

10 Methods to Make Your Character Likeable

November 14, 2017

10 Methods to Make Your Character Likeable

November 14, 2017

A key point of writing a successful story is to have likeable characters. This is usually a must for the protagonist, but the cast overall should have a number of…

Differentiating Between Your Characters’ Voices

November 9, 2017

Differentiating Between Your Characters’ Voices

November 9, 2017

Welcome Liam Carnahan, who is sharing techniques for differentiating between characters’ voices. Writing engaging and realistic dialogue is hard enough on its own. When your novel or story has multiple…

A Mother Lode of Resources on Emotional Wounds

October 23, 2017

A Mother Lode of Resources on Emotional Wounds

October 23, 2017

Hi everyone! I thought with the release of The Emotional Wound Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Psychological Trauma, I’d do a round up of posts on emotional wounds to help…

What’s the Dark Night Moment All About?

October 3, 2017

What’s the Dark Night Moment All About?

October 3, 2017

You’re coming to the end of the tunnel, and you see a bright light illuminating the finish line. You are almost through writing your novel! If you’ve done your homework,…

What Is an Emotional Wound?

September 28, 2017

What Is an Emotional Wound?

September 28, 2017

If you’ve hung around Writers Helping Writers, you’ll know that Angela and I have been obsessed with how a character’s emotional wounds impact them on so many levels. I thought…

The 10 Key Scenes You Need to Frame Up Your Novel

September 26, 2017

The 10 Key Scenes You Need to Frame Up Your Novel

September 26, 2017

“How do I write a great novel?” is probably THE question every aspiring novelist has asked . . . but maybe hasn’t had answered satisfyingly and clearly. There are plenty of techniques…

Writing to the Beat: Translating Story Beats to Any Genre

September 12, 2017

Writing to the Beat: Translating Story Beats to Any Genre

September 12, 2017

Readers of my blog know I’m a big fan of beat sheets, even creating a beat sheet for romance stories. Because of that, writers ask me what beats they should…

Why Characters Need Choices in Fiction

August 29, 2017

Why Characters Need Choices in Fiction

August 29, 2017

Choices drive every single conflict in a novel. The protagonist wants something (the goal), something is preventing her from getting it (the conflict), and she must choose what to do…

Making Characters Stuck in the Background Pop Out

August 8, 2017

Making Characters Stuck in the Background Pop Out

August 8, 2017

Maybe you have had some of the experiences I’ve had when writing a manuscript, one of which is finding yourself with a character–could be a side character, a secondary character,…