Last week we discussed your character’s subjective image of himself, and now I want to talk about how and when to expose your character’s core self. We all have an ideal self-image we try to portray to the world, but in moments of high pressure, the truth will slip out. Read more…
In this week’s Character Under a Microscope post, I want to zoom in on a character’s image. Specifically, her self-imposed image. While everyone has a persona that society sees, it’s not always the truth. Let’s look at a person’s subjective image and five categories to consider when you are creating Read more…
When I started writing professionally, I was terrible at story openings. So much seemed to rest on how well you started a book that I overthought it. After numerous revisions, I’d end up with what would equate to something wrapped in silver duct tape and bright Christmas lights. It looked Read more…
A while back, I wrote a post about using sentence function to pace your novel. Today, I want to get into story pacing on a scene-level instead of a sentence-level. There is a weird correlation between your words on the page and the reader’s perceived passage of time, and it’s Read more…
In my first six months of writing these posts, I put out a list of five books every writer should read. I still stand by that list, but I’ve been building my library of writing craft books and think it’s time to share a few more gold mines I’ve discovered. Read more…
Let’s examine character development in another Character Under A Microscope post. Today, I want to talk about grieving. If you’re writing your story right, the protagonist should go through many trials and eventually end up in an All is Lost moment and a Dark Night of the Soul moment. At Read more…
Authors get the advice all the time to work emotions into their stories and evoke feelings from the readers. It’s sound advice, and there’s a plethora of resources out there on how to portray emotions, both internally and externally. Today though, I want to talk about what emotions we portray Read more…
Previously, we’ve discussed two types of book series: episodic series and anthology series. Today, we’ll examine the continuous books series, which is centered on plot. We’ll dig into its definition, examples, and key elements. Then, we will go over how to plan a continuous book series as that most often Read more…
Last week we looked into episodic book series that focus on character, and now I want to turn to a lesser known series: anthology book series. I think these ones are largely overlooked, but they can be a lot of fun to write and read. Let’s dig into what they Read more…
I’ve been thinking about book series lately and how much isn’t said about them. Most people state they help increase sales because readers keep buying books, but that’s all you really hear. What about the craft behind writing series? To help bridge this gap in knowledge, I am going to Read more…