Writers Helping Writers^®

Characters

How To Turn Your Setting Into a Conflict-Rich Obstacle Course

May 18, 2016

How To Turn Your Setting Into a Conflict-Rich Obstacle Course

May 18, 2016

Every story element should pull its weight—including the setting, which is a built-in source of conflict just waiting to be used. A simple first-date picnic in the park? Cue the…

How To Share Your Protagonist’s Deepest Feelings With Readers

April 26, 2016

How To Share Your Protagonist’s Deepest Feelings With Readers

April 26, 2016

Our job as writers is to make the reader FEEL, empathizing with our characters, feeling invested in the outcome of events, and immersed in the story’s world. When a reader’s…

How a Protagonist’s Friends Can Cause Problems in the Story

April 19, 2016

How a Protagonist’s Friends Can Cause Problems in the Story

April 19, 2016

One thing Angela and I discovered time and again as we put the Rural and Urban Setting Thesaurus books together is just how influential setting is on a story. Setting…

The Emotional Roller Coaster: Why Characters Resist Change

April 11, 2016

The Emotional Roller Coaster: Why Characters Resist Change

April 11, 2016

I’m reading this fascinating book about the human brain and how we can evolve through concentrated intention and awareness. One of the terrific nuggets is the belief that every emotion,…

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…

Writing Memorable Characters, via Finding Nemo

February 9, 2016

Writing Memorable Characters, via Finding Nemo

February 9, 2016

Courtesy: Creative Commons Watching Finding Nemo for the dozenth time, I got to thinking about why I wasn’t bored, and it occurred to me: it’s the characters. They’re memorable, and…

Use Character Vulnerability to Grow Reader Empathy

January 26, 2016

Use Character Vulnerability to Grow Reader Empathy

January 26, 2016

As writers, we all want to encourage a powerful bond to form between our audience and the protagonist so that readers care about the hero or heroine and root for…

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 to Decide How Many POV Characters Our Book Needs

November 18, 2015

How to Decide How Many POV Characters Our Book Needs

November 18, 2015

Marcy Kennedy is here with some excellent metrics to consider when planning a novel and choosing how many POV characters to include. One of the most common challenges for us…