Articles about character development
How to Use Satire Like Mark Twain
by Kathy Edens Sep 21, 2017
Writers who use satire to get their point across do so by wielding humor, wit, irony, or sarcasm. They expose an individual or society for its weaknesses, corruption, hypocrisy, or foolishness. And no one does it better than Mark Twain.
Read More »Plot of Gold 30-day Challenge
by ProWritingAid Sep 15, 2017
Are you ready to create a strong, thorough outline for your novel? Brilliant!
From September to November this year, ProWritingAid will be paying for its community to have FREE access for 30 days to Beemgee's world-class novel-outlining software.
Whether you are preparing for NaNoWriMo or just ready to finally write that book, this 30-day challenge is crucial for getting you to the finish line.
Read More »How to Create a CV like Elon Musk's for Your Protagonist
by Kathy Edens Aug 02, 2017
A CV is a tool to capture all of your thoughts about your main character and keep track of the many idiosyncrasies and character traits. Just as important, it helps you capture and record the intertwined relationships of all the characters in your novel. Especially if you use several points of view or have multiple main characters, you need to capture them each distinctly.
Read More »How to Create an Anti-Hero Like Homer Simpson
by Kathy Edens Aug 02, 2017
Homer Simpson has only one focus in this world: himself. He has some pretty unlikable characteristics, I'm sure everyone can agree. Why do we love to hate Homer and hate to love him so much? Because he's a well-done anti-hero, that's why.
Read More »Why We're on the Fence About Writing What You Know
by Kathy Edens Aug 02, 2017
"Write what you know" has been around forever. Some attribute it to Mark Twain and others to Hemingway. Regardless of who came up with this entreaty, my writing would be middle-class, ho-hum if I had to stick with only writing what I've experienced. Isn't that what research is for, right?
Read More »The Nitty Gritty Practical Guide to Giving your Characters Unique Voice
by Katja L Kaine Jul 17, 2017
Character Voice is as difficult to pin down as it is critical.
Plenty of writing advice resources talk about the importance of your main characters each having a unique voice, but how do you achieve that?
The main problem is that all of those characters are essentially coming from the same mind – yours – so you need to find ways to ensure your personal characteristics, speech patterns and nuances don’t all bleed into your characters.
Read More »Why You Should Throw Your Main Character Under a Bus
by Kathy Edens Jul 05, 2017
What is it about a great story that keeps you turning the pages? Think of the last book you devoured in one sitting. What kept you so engrossed you had to stay up until 4am to finish it?
For those of us who sit bleary-eyed in front of a computer because we couldn't put a good book down last night, we stumbled across an author who knows how to raise the stakes.
And the higher the stakes, the better—am I right?
Read More »Why Every Writer Needs A Writing Mentor (And Where To Find One)
by Jesse Barnett Jun 14, 2017
When I began working for Charlie, I knew he was talented. He's the writing partner of a well-known leadership expert and together they've authored over 100 books. Several have become New York Times best sellers.
I embraced the job with a learner's mindset. I determined every day to improve my writing skills. My first professionally edited draft looked like a murder scene. Red letters covered the page with countless words crossed out, rearranged, and rewritten.
Read More »Why a Fully Realized Villain is as Important as Your Protagonist
by Kathy Edens May 12, 2017
Your antagonist can make the difference between a ho-hum novel and a break-out one.
A fully realized villain is someone who shows us parts of ourselves in his or her makeup. If you can connect in some human way with the antagonist, it's going to bring up all kinds of tension for readers.
Read More »Have You Written Your Story's 'Mirror Moment' Yet?
by Kathy Edens Apr 18, 2017
I recently came across a book by James Scott Bell that lays out an interesting premise about something he calls the 'mirror moment'.
Bell's theory is that there is a single moment in the middle of the story where the main character takes a "long, hard look at himself (as in a mirror). He asks, Who am I? What have I become? Who am I supposed to be?"
Bell says if you can nail that moment, everything that comes before and after it will have more depth and resonance.
Read More »The 10 Best Facebook Groups for Writers
by Kathy Edens Apr 10, 2017
Sometimes as I sit at my desk in a remote corner of the house, writing my soul out on the page, I need the company of other writers. Someone who understands how I can both crave and loathe this quiet aloneness. When it's 2am, and I'm working feverishly to meet a deadline or trying to make sense out of the jumble of ideas in my brain, I need community.
What Margaret Atwood Taught Me About Writing Outside Your Genre
by Kathy Edens Apr 09, 2017
Margaret Atwood recently wrote an essay titled "Margaret Atwood on What The Handmaid's Tale Means in the Age of Trump" that caught my eye. There has been a swarm of interest around the book thanks to the upcoming series on Hulu, but I have to admit that I was curious to see if her political views matched mine.
What I found most compelling in the article, however, is how she talked about stretching herself outside her genre when she wrote The Handmaid's Tale:
- "It seemed to me a risky venture. I’d read extensively in science fiction, speculative fiction, utopias and dystopias ever since my high school years in the 1950s, but I’d never written such a book. Was I up to it? The form was strewn with pitfalls, among them a tendency to sermonize, a veering into allegory and a lack of plausibility. If I was to create an imaginary garden I wanted the toads in it to be real."
How to Write the ‘Other’ (Without Being a Jerk)
by Samia Rahman Apr 04, 2017
It was during a Guardian webchat last year that one of my favourite authors, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, offered no-nonsense words of advice to an aspiring writer that rather stopped me in my tracks. The commenter had asked how he, a middle-aged white man, should go about writing the story of a young Bengali girl, who belonged to a culture that he readily admitted was alien to his own. Chimamanda invited him to re-examine his motivation to write about something so unfamiliar and seemed to endorse the age-old adage that you should write what you know.
How to Write Multiple Points of View
by Kathy Edens Apr 03, 2017
When you’re starting a new story, determining POV is a very important choice. Writing from multiple POVs can be frustrating and confusing for readers if it’s not handled well, so you need to have a very good reason for using multiple POVs in your story.
That said, here are a few tips on how to craft a story using multiple POVs:
Read More »Why Your Ending is as Important as Your Book's Hook
by Kathy Edens Mar 14, 2017
Have you ever been so engrossed in a book that if the ending isn't strong and doesn't resolve all the plot threads, you're disappointed in the whole book? I once read a novel with a deeply engaging main character I really connected with. She struggled and overcame and struggled and overcame. And at the very end of the book, the author killed her. WHAT? It's the only time I've ever thrown a book. And I refused to read anything more by that author.
You know how important it is to hook your reader from the very beginning. It's why you start in the middle of the action, plunging your reader right in so they get caught up in the excitement.
Your ending is as important…if not more.
Read More »Why You Should Be Able to State Your Story's Theme in One Sentence
by Kathy Edens Mar 13, 2017
Theme is not your character arc, nor is it the plot or what happens to your character. It's actually the essence that ties those two together. If someone asks you "what is your book about?" you don't respond with scene-by-scene detail, or the changes your character goes through.
You think of your character and what essential thing she or he comes to understand through the course of the book.
If you can't do that, you don't have a firm grasp on your story's theme.
Read More »Advice from Kurt Vonnegut that Every Writer Needs to Read
by Fred Johnson Mar 08, 2017
Kurt Vonnegut, author of such classics as Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions, stands today as one of the 20th century’s most important American writers. I can’t think of anyone better placed to give literary advice, and, thankfully, he agreed with me.
These eight tips were originally written by Vonnegut to apply exclusively to writers of short stories, but I reckon they’re just as useful for writers of longer fiction.
Read More »How to Use Trello to Storyboard Your Novel
by Kathy Edens Feb 28, 2017
You may have noticed that we at ProWritingAid have a fondness for technology that makes writers better, stronger, more organized, and highly productive. If you like creating a storyboard for your novels, or if you want an innovative app to capture all of your to-do’s for your client work, let us introduce Trello.
For those of us who use sticky notes, index cards, and other forms of reminders to help you organize everything you need for a writing project, Trello is the easiest, most intuitive way to organize your work.
Read More »Is it Ever OK to Use Dreams in Your Novel?
by ProWritingAid Jan 16, 2017
If you’ve taken writing courses at the university level, more often than not, your instructors have fervently cried: Never, ever, ever, ever start a story with a dream sequence. And if you Google “dreams in novels,” you will find a huge range of opinions on the matter. For every post scorning the use of dreams, there is one saying that when done well, dream sequences can move your plot forward.
But are there times when dreams are ok to use? Some authors have used them incredibly effectively in the past. .
Read More »How to Construct a 3D Main Character
by Kathy Edens Jan 03, 2017
Have you ever read something and about 50 pages into it, you’re just not feeling the main character? You’re either not invested in her conflict or she’s kind of … boring.
