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4 Types of Villain – The Last One is Truly Scary Because He’s So Good
Guest post by K.M. Weiland Ooh, bad guys. Where would our stories be without their spine-tingling, indignation-rousing, hatred-flaring charm? It’s a legit question. Because, without antagonists to get in our heroes’ way and cause conflict, we quite literally have no story. So write yourself a warty-nosed, slimy-handed dude with a creepy laugh. No problemo, right?…
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Point of View: Techniques for Getting Inside a Character’s Head
A story’s point-of-view is crucial to the success of a story or novel. But POV is one of the most complicated and difficult of creative writing skills to master. Part of the problem is that POV can refer to four different things, says David Jauss, professor at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, in his book,…
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Keeping Relationships Consistent
On my current WIP novel, I am revising to make sure the character relationships are consistent. The main character has three main relationships in the story, with a friend and traveling companion, with her father and with the villain. Among other things, a first reader pointed out some inconsistencies in these relationships. I agreed and…
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Dialogue: Make Each Character Unique
Dialogue, what characters say, is an important element in any story. DH, a reader here, is puzzled how to switch from one character to another. Here’s an example she gave: “Hey Danielle! Come check out this new book I got!” says Viola. “Okay just a sec.” says Danielle. See, what I’m asking? I need to…
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Adding Emotional Depth: Video
Adding emotional depth to a novel is important enough to warrant a special pass through the manuscript. This video talks about how I did that on a recent mss. If you can’t see this video, click here. This is an experiment with doing a video to explain something about writing and revising. Please comment and…
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Noses: Think Like a Writer
Here’s another creative writing prompt for your 750 words, a challenge to write 750 words each day to better Think Like a Writer. Read more here. You Can Tell a Lot About a Person by His/Her Nose Yes, noses. Writers of novels, short stories, picture books or other fiction must keep firmly in mind that…