This week we’re getting to the heart of the major conflict in any plot. James Scott Bell emphasizes that every story is about a character confronting death, but it’s not as straight forward as it sounds. There are three types Read more
This month brings a new trail marker in my author journey. As writers, we need to set goals to achieve on our way, or we may feel like we are going nowhere. It takes time and dedication, and maybe a Read more
This week is about application of what we are learning. I’m going to take the eight character types we discussed the last few weeks and apply it to one book: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I picked this story Read more
The last pair of characters I’m going to discuss at this time is the love interest and the temptress. These may seem straightforward, especially in the romance genre, but they are more complicated than they appear. They can also be Read more
Next on the list of character types are the sidekick and the henchman. There can be one or more of each of these characters. Though they don’t play a huge part in the overall story, they are important characters who Read more
Now that we have discussed the most important characters in a story, let’s move down on the tier of character types. These next ones are powerful side characters that either help or hinder your main characters. They aren’t powerful enough Read more
For the next few weeks I’m going to focus on the main character types found in stories. As with everything in life, if you have one thing you also have its opposite. Therefore, I’m presenting these character types in pairs Read more
Dependent clauses are useful when telling a story. It can help vary your sentence structure and enable you to form more complex sentences to convey more meaning. Though they are a useful tool, they often get misused. I would like Read more
There is no such thing as a good story with no conflict in it. While we like to have conflict-free lives, we must have conflict in our books in order to keep the reader’s attention. This, my fellow writers, is Read more
As one of the biggest culprits of inflating a word count, repetition is something everyone does that writers have to teach themselves to avoid. If you listen to people talk, they will repeat themselves numerous times even if they don’t Read more