Where Normal Need Not Apply
Plotters might find any kind of pantsing hard to understand, but even pantsers can struggle with pantsing our characters’ development, as that process comes with a different set of problems from developing our plots.
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Last week, we talked about discovering the essence of our character, but what about the essence of our story. What makes a story idea the one we want to tell? And why does understanding our story’s essence matter?
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I’ve been helping Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi at Writers Helping Writers keep a big secret: The Emotion Thesaurus Second Edition! Angela and Becca have added new responses, new entries, and new writing tips.
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A character’s essence is about more than just unique characters, but what is their essence? These 3 perspectives on character essence teach us about our characters.
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Somewhere along our learning curve as writers, we’re likely to come across the skill of layering. Layering can help us create unique characters, no matter how stereotypical or tropey they might be on the surface.
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As writers, we often joke about how writing can act as therapy. Yet beyond the typical therapy aspects, writing—with its direct connection to our subconscious—gives us an open door to our brain and thought processes.
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The processes and techniques that worked on our last story might not work on our next one. So the more tools at our fingertips, the better our chances of finding something that will work.
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With the New Year, I like the idea of fresh starts, so I’m sharing a tip from Twitter on how we can draft our story in a different font than usual to help us see everything with fresh eyes.
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Suffering from writer’s block? Lisa Bell shares the brain science behind what causes writer’s block and gives us “brain hacks” we can use to beat it.
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When we’re drafting or editing our story, we usually have to keep track characters, secrets, plots, research, and story bible details. But for complex stories, we might want to create a Writer Crime Wall.
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