Are You in Pain?

Are you in Pain? Question for your character.
So, I’m sitting at the hosptial, waiting for my husband to follow in Harry Smith’s footsteps and get the Couric Procedure (screening colonoscopy). Every wall has a sign asking, “Are you in pain?

0 No Pain/Happy face

Develop Sympathy with Character Traits 9

Use Character Traits to Make Your Character Sympathetic
Yesterday, we looked at 9 character traits that can be used to develop sympathy for your character. Today, we’ll look at using those traits in your story. It’s not enough just to tell yourself, or write on a checklist, that your character has these traits and is, therefore, [...]

Simple Narrative Arcs, 2

Narrative Arc in Less Than 100 Words: Example 2
Very simple picture books still have a narrative arc, even though the word count is extremely small. Yesterday, we looked at an example of a great simple narrative in My Friend, Rabbit. Today, here’s a look at a narrative arc in 80 words (with the help of [...]

Simple Narrative Arcs, 1

Narrative Arc in Less Than 100 Words: Example 1
Very simple picture books still have a narrative arc, even though the word count is extremely small. Here’s a look at a narrative arc in 80 words (with the help of some illustrations), as it appears in My Friend, Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann, winner of the 2003 [...]

YWriter

While my WIP novel is out with readers, I thought I’d look at my process for this novel and how it differed from others.
Writing Process for Novels Vary Widely
Writing process varies. First, my process was different for this novel. I find this to be always true, that what worked for one novel, won’t work for [...]

Connecting Emotional and Narrative Arcs

This entry is part 8 of 13 in the series How to Write a NovelConnecting Emotional and Narrative Arcs
The emotional arc is the inner conflict; the narrative arc is the outer conflict. How do you get these two arcs to mesh?
Peter Dunne, in his book Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot has [...]