One of the ways you an improve the appeal and power of your characters for the reader is to create a realistic psychological journey that is mirrored some how in the physical journey of the protagonist. Is your heroine learning to trust? Then show how her external world challenges her trust issues. Maybe she has a job where her colleagues constantly let her down. Perhaps her family says one thing but does another. Every reader will be able to identify with not being able to trust someone. What if your hero is dealing with identity issues. He’s a failure. He believes he can’t succeed at anything. Develop a world around him that proves, at least for a little while, what he believes is right. In the movie Die Hard, John […]
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Don’t Forget the Details
I’m hacking my way through a first draft. I get frustrated with the first round of writing. Everything sounds corny, the same-ole-same-ole, and I either under write or over write. The scenes usually skim the surface of what’s really going on. I write things like, “she walked through a crowd of her friends, greeting them, air kissing their cheeks.” It’s because I don’t really know what’s going on yet. I don’t know how much detail I need in the scene. Sometimes it’s perfectly valid and needed to skim past a detail of friend’s names. Sometimes we don’t need the color of every dress, the table cloths and velvet curtains. But yea, sometimes we do. Most of the time we do. Susie was reading to me from the Pioneer Woman’s book […]
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Conversations: What is Scene Tension?
“Happy Mother’s Day, Sally,” I said, while holding a plate of basil mashed potatoes and beef medallions. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that broccoli salad – the house specialty – and eyed it as another patron of the Sunday Brunch dived in. Sally looked up as she spooned smoked salmon onto her plate. “Hello.” She glanced behind me, and I saw one of her children, the six year old, heading into the buffet line. “How’s the writing going?” “Good,” she said as she reached around me, handing him a plate. “Don’t spill.” She stepped out of line. “I don’t know if we can meet tomorrow. I have a school field trip.” “No problem, I said, we’re just going to talk about Scene Structure.” She made a face. […]
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Brainstorming Strategy # 2: Villains
Have you ever known someone who would put you down in any way that they could? Then you have met with a villain. It is easy to think that a villain is just for suspense or thriller type novels, but they are a great source of conflict in all genres. To figure out the best type of villain for your novel, start with figuring out the end of the book goal for your characters. These would be things like love, safety, freedom, security, etc. Then look for the type villain that would make reaching that goal difficult. Also, at this preliminary stage you should consider the competence of the character, or what they are especially good at. You want the villain to oppose this as well. Romantic Suspense: *Sarah is […]
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