Can Common Writing Advice Be Wrong?
There’s no “one right way” in writing, so how should we approach writing advice if even the most frequently shared advice is often wrong?
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Character Descriptions: Avoiding the Boring Stuff — Guest: Angela Ackerman
Character descriptions are often necessary in a story, but can be boring. Here’s Angela Ackerman’s 7 tips for how we can keep our character descriptions from slowing our story.
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Worldbuilding Is for Every Story
Everyone understands what worldbuilding is for fantasy, science fiction, historical, etc., but what does worldbuilding mean for contemporary stories?
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Worldbuilding: Your Story World’s History 101
Worldbuilding means we have to create the “rules” for our characters and their story world. How can we can develop our story’s world to make it feel real?
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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?
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6 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.
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Need 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.
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Storytelling: Taking Readers on a Journey
When faced with the many decisions of writing our story, the best choice is whatever tells the story we want to tell, but what does that mean? Let’s take a look at what storytelling really is and how we can improve our skills.
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Showing vs. Telling: The Power of Context
The implication of the advice to “show, don’t tell” is that showing is “better” than telling when our story actually needs both. Let’s explore what “show, don’t tell” really means when it comes to storytelling.
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Beyond Visuals: How to “Show” with Other Senses
The word showing obviously makes us think visually, but same as us, our characters experience the world through more than just their visual sense. What are our options for showing beyond visual descriptions? Can we create a deeper world by engaging other senses?
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