Story Tropes: How Do We Twist a Cliché?
Sometimes we’ll hear writing advice like “avoid clichés,” but what does that mean when it comes to story tropes? After all, can’t tropes be helpful? And if so, how do we make them less cliché?
Pin It6 Ways to Show Emotions for Non-POV Characters — Guest: Becca Puglisi
Writers need readers to grasp emotional information from non-POV characters, which can be a struggle. Becca Puglisi, co-author of the Emotion Thesaurus shares 6 techniques to avoid the problem.
Pin ItAspirational Stories: Do They Reflect Your Hopes and Goals?
Aspiration is “a hope or ambition of achieving something,” such as we see with the #RelationshipGoals tags on social media. Not surprisingly, our hopes and goals are sometimes reflected in the stories we write or the books we read.
Pin ItHow Do Pantsers Develop Characters?
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.
Pin ItOur Story’s Essence: What’s the Story We Want to Tell?
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?
Pin ItNeed Help Writing Emotions? The Emotion Thesaurus Second Edition Is Here!
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.
Pin ItCreateSpace to KDP: The Aftermath
Last summer, Amazon announced that CreateSpace was closing and merging with KDP. Now that CS is dead and the migration is over, let’s make sure our books are set up properly at KDP.
Pin It3 Ways to Define the Essence of Our Character
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.
Pin ItMake Characters Unique with Layering
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.
Pin ItWriting: A Form of Therapy? Or a Source of Insights?
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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