Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Asking for Help
Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Asking for Help
When a character suffers emotional pain, the brain’s response is to stop the discomfort, and often this results in a coping mechanism being deployed. Whether it’s an automatic response or…
Read more…How to Tell the Difference Between a Hook and Inciting Incident
How to Tell the Difference Between a Hook and Inciting Incident
Opening pages are notoriously hard to get right, especially in early drafts of your manuscript. I’ve read hundreds of opening chapters of novels in my work as a writing instructor…
Read more…Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Embracing Responsibility
Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Embracing Responsibility
When a character suffers emotional pain, the brain’s response is to stop the discomfort, and often this results in a coping mechanism being deployed. Whether it’s an automatic response or…
Read more…The Coping Mechanism Thesaurus is Coming!
The Coping Mechanism Thesaurus is Coming!
Characters don’t always react to stress and threats in healthy ways–like real people, they lean on coping strategies they’ve developed to survive past trauma and avoid new pain. These dysfunctional…
Read more…Writing 101: How to Find & Write Your Character’s Voice
Writing 101: How to Find & Write Your Character’s Voice
Writing a strong and consistent character voice is one of the best ways to make your story stand out. A unique voice tailored to your character makes them feel real…
Read more…How to Show Your Character’s Repressed Emotions
How to Show Your Character’s Repressed Emotions
Crafting characters that readers will connect to is every writer’s goal and dozens (hundreds?) of methods exist to achieve it: deep backstory planning, character profile sheets, questionnaires, etc. Regardless of…
Read more…Show, Don’t Tell: Write Authentic Character Reactions with The Emotion Thesaurus
Show, Don’t Tell: Write Authentic Character Reactions with The Emotion Thesaurus
Showing authentic character emotion isn’t easy, which is why so many writers turn to The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression. It covers 130 emotions, providing lists of…
Read more…Make Yourself the Most Useful Writer in Your Critique Group
Make Yourself the Most Useful Writer in Your Critique Group
Critical response process turns you into the critique partner every writer wants: someone who offers actionable observations instead of opinionated fixes. Developed by choreographer Liz Lerman for dance and theater…
Read more…How to Use the Four Levels of Conflict to Strengthen Your Story
How to Use the Four Levels of Conflict to Strengthen Your Story
A cardinal sin of storytelling is to skimp on conflict, and no wonder. Those problems, challenges, obstacles, and inner struggles help keep readers engaged, casting doubt on the character’s ability…
Read more…Amazing Resources for Neurodivergent Writers
Amazing Resources for Neurodivergent Writers
My last post highlighted Writing Tips for the Neurodivergent Brain, but what about writing resources and tools? What sorts of “helpers” are out there to help people with not-so-great executive…
Read more…How to Use Hidden Experiences to Pull Readers In
How to Use Hidden Experiences to Pull Readers In
No matter who your protagonist is—a formidable galactic emperor, a morally complex teenager, or the retiree down the street with too many cats—readers must find something fundamentally relatable about them,…
Read more…Three Hidden Reasons Writers Procrastinate
Three Hidden Reasons Writers Procrastinate
You know the feeling. You sit down to write, open your laptop, and . . . somehow end up reorganizing your photo files, watching three YouTube videos, or scrolling through…
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