Your Story’s Promise: Do You Need an Epilogue?
Given reviews about too-abrupt endings, readers might want a sense of closure beyond what authors deliver. Should we use epilogues—or epilogue-like endings—to breach the gap?
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Character Conflict: Goals, Needs, and False Beliefs
Just as our characters can have inner and outer layers, the same applies to their goals. Those two types of goals can give them internal and external arcs. But what do we mean by conflicting goals—and how do false beliefs play a role?
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What Does It Mean to Create Layered Characters?
In the writing world, we’ve probably heard the advice to create layers in our stories and characters. But the word layers can refer to many different aspects of writing, so let’s take a deeper look at one aspect of layering: character layers.
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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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Breaking Down the Steps of Revision to Improve Our Storytelling
Recently, a blog reader asked me whether she should worry about her word count while she revised. Her question highlights how a better understanding of the revision process can help our storytelling.
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How to Develop and Show a Healthy Romance — Guest: Bran L. Ayres
Whether we want to know for real-life purposes or for our writing, Bran’s post today helps us identify elements of healthy romances. Authors need to be careful of sending readers the wrong message. Everyone deserves to be in a healthy, loving relationship—including our characters.
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How Much of Yourself Is in Your Writing?
How much of yourself is in your writing? This question can dig much deeper into who we are than just the superficial, and the more we’re aware of our influences, the more we can improve our stories.
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Why Is Head Hopping Considered Lazy Writing?
Several writing craft issues tend to be hallmarks of what’s called “lazy writing.” The practice of head hopping is usually considered lazy writing, but we might not understand why it earns that label. Let’s learn more and see how we can avoid head hopping and the “lazy writing” trap.
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How to Create a Redeemable Villain — Guest: Becca Puglisi
We all love a “good” villain, but sometimes we want our bad guy to see the light and find redemption (or at least start on that path). Becca Puglisi is here to show us how with four paths to redemption for our villain.
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What Is Line Editing and What Should Line Editors Do?
I’ve said before that line editing is the hardest type of editing to nail down. We can say that line editing is about how we write scenes and paragraphs, but what does that mean? What does line editing encompass?
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