Our readers often want an emotional connection to our story and characters, but sometimes we struggle to explore deep emotions in our stories. Luckily, our lifetime of memories is the perfect repository of emotions for us to mine.
Pin It
Read More
We’ve been talking about the difference types of transitions we might create between scenes and plot events. Today, we’re focusing on the types of sentences that will strengthen our scene endings (and thus our scenes).
Pin It
Read More
Last time, we discussed how to identify and fix episodic writing to make our stories stronger with the “But” and “Therefore” rule. However, there’s another option for transitioning from scene to scene: the “meanwhile.”
Pin It
Read More
It’s time for another post as a Resident Writing Coach over at Writers Helping Writers, and this time we’re talking about how to find and fix episodic writing so we can take our story to “epic” level.
Pin It
Read More
Beyond the vague instruction to “write well,” what can we do to increase the connection readers feel with our story? Jefferson Smith shares specific things we can do that will make our stories more immersive.
Pin It
Read More
One of the most common pieces of writing advice is to Show, Don’t Tell. In many cases, that’s good advice, but as with most advice, that “rule” is imperfect and incomplete.
Pin It
Read More
In Kristen Lamb’s guest post series on antagonists, we’ve talked a lot about the non-evil, non-villain style of antagonists. Today we’re finally(!) focusing on the villain and how we can avoid mustache-twirling by giving them depth.
Pin It
Read More
We’ve explored how antagonists act as the conflict-engine for our story, but our Big Boss Troublemaker isn’t in every scene. What keeps the rest of our story going? Kristen’s going to teach us today about scene antagonists.
Pin It
Read More
We’ve been talking about antagonists lately, and how some writers minimize the conflict in their stories, even though “good fiction is the path of greatest resistance.” In a perfect bit of serendipity, a guest post by Janice Hardy today addresses the most common myth about conflict.
Pin It
Read More
Over the past couple of weeks, Kristen Lamb has been kind enough to let me share her insights on antagonists: what they are, why they help define our story, how to strengthen them, etc. Today, we’re exploring how antagonists create our story from beginning to end.
Pin It
Read More