Character motivations make characters’ paths credible. When a character’s behaviour reveals their deeper drives, urges and impulses, they feel fully human. Read 6 questions that will help you work out characters’ motivations: (more…)
Writing tense dialogue: 5 ways to add arresting tension
Writing tense dialogue is effective in making characters’ conversations interesting. When every exchange is a pleasantry or obvious observation, dialogue doesn’t do the work it can to move a story along. Tense dialogue, whether an argument between colleagues, lovers, or hero and villain, adds a note of exciting unpredictability. Here are 5 ways to add […]
Advice from a writing coach: 8 things I learned writing my debut
[This is a guest contribution by Alyssa Hollingsworth, a writing coach at Now Novel whose debut The Eleventh Trade is out this month with Macmillan in the US and HotKey in the UK.] About the same time I began working for Now Novel as a writing coach, my literary agent Amber Caravéo asked to see what […]
5 ways to subvert character clichés and archetypes
[This is a guest contribution courtesy of Reedsy.] Creating the next Harry Potter or Holden Caulfield is no easy feat! When writing secondary characters in particular, it’s easy to fall back on clichéd archetypes and stock characters. Yet this isn’t necessarily bad. Embracing stock characters can be more effective than making your character over-complicated. You […]
How to write mystery: 6 ways to create suspense
Learning how to write mystery is easy when you understand the ingredients of mystery and suspense. Every good story has unknowns readers want answered, yet a good mystery makes us need to know. Here are 6 ways to create suspense and build mystery: (more…)
10 dialogue tips to hook readers
Understanding how to write dialogue in a story enables you to bring characters to life using their individual voices. Great dialogue moves your story along at a good pace, giving your reader a break from non-stop narrative prose. Try these dialogue tips for writing effective speech: (more…)
Finding sentences to start a story: 7 methods
The beginning sentence of a story is often what we’ll tweak last. Finding sentences to start a story is easier, after all, when you know later developments you could echo. Read 7 examples of effective opening sentences and the options they suggest for ways to begin: (more…)
How to develop story themes: 5 theme examples
The recurring ideas or broad themes of books give us insights into ideas such as ‘love’, ‘honour’, ‘good vs evil’ and much more. Read 5 theme examples from books that show how to take your story’s ‘big ideas’ and use them to create additional characters and subplots: (more…)
Character flaw list: 30 intriguing character flaws
Great, character-driven stories often have deeply flawed characters at their heart. Human flaws such as lust for power, greed and jealousy explain the errors many tragic figures from books make, from Mr Kurtz to Lord Voldemort. Read this character flaw list (with examples) for inspiration and develop interesting character weaknesses: (more…)
Character mannerisms: Describing character quirks and tics
Character mannerisms – the things people repeatedly do with their faces, hands, or voices without always realizing – help to create detailed characters. Sometimes we use mannerisms for humour, at other times to tell characters apart. Read tips for creating mannerisms, believable quirks and tics, that tell your reader more about your characters: (more…)