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Do things get worse in your story? Then you are using some sort of progression: good, worse, worst. That’s excellent, because you want the story characters to increasingly feel the conflict and tension of the story. But are you using the BEST progression possible? In my current revision, I am checking my progressions to make [...]
When you write a novel, or revise a novel, the default point-of-view and the most common used is third person. (Though, first person point of view is giving it a run for its money these days. ) The Versatile Point of View Think about point of view as a camera. In the 3rd person POV, [...]
Before December 11, 2006, I wouldn’t have thought to describe a character’s voice. Then along came Vocal Impressions on National Public Radio. Wow! It’s evocative to describe a character’s voice, and if you use a metaphor that also evokes a character quality, you’re even farther along! Raw Voice + Apt Metaphor = Characterization From the [...]
Characters Who Move According to Mehrabian, 55% of communication depends on body language, 38% on tone-of-voice, and 7% on the words used. That’s bad news for novelists because we don’t have direct access to the body language as we work with our fictional characters – they are just words on a page. Adding body language [...]
This is part of a series, 15 Days to a Stronger Character Names and Nicknames: Echo Character Traits Let’s start with the basics. What do you call this character? What difference does a name make to effective characterization? I recently heard of an inner city family whose oldest child is named Chris and the second [...]
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