Everyone is afraid of something — heck, even Indiana Jones is. And you know what? That only makes us human. We all know what it is like to be afraid, whether it’s snakes, heights, confined spaces, fire, death, rodents, flying, aliens, dogs, drowning, etc. I personally have an almost debilitating fear of heights; I getContinue reading “Character Series: Fears and Phobias”
Tag Archives: characters
Characters, touchy subjects and framing
While going through the revision portion of my novel, one of my readers expressed dislike for a statement made by one of my character. The character is a woman who mused aloud, something to the extent, that she could not imagine being a soldier. I personally have nothing against women as soldiers as long as theyContinue reading “Characters, touchy subjects and framing”
Exposition and Dialogue: How to Get the Perfect Mix
I will never forget finishing my first novel, or how quick I was to show it to all my English teachers, hoping for feedback as to whether it was good or needed some TLC — never even thinking that I might kill the project in the future (which I did, though I reminiscence fondly onContinue reading “Exposition and Dialogue: How to Get the Perfect Mix”
Character Series: Habits — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Habits — the good and the bad… and sometimes plain ugly — can add spice to any character, making them complex and flawed. Habits are routine behaviors that occur repeatedly and can happen on a subconscious level. So what habits do your characters have? Are they good or bad? Some habits only appear when aContinue reading “Character Series: Habits — The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”
Names: You have one, I have one, characters have one
Most writers will send hours pouring over names, searching for that perfect one that fits a character like a shoe. We can spend hours on this endeavor until we finally arrive at “The One.” There are many name website out there to help us on this task; I personally love http://www.behindthename.com, which is my go-toContinue reading “Names: You have one, I have one, characters have one”
Character Series: Education
What was your characters’ education like? It is an aspect of your characters that you should know since education will be a deciding factor on what jobs your characters can have, their world views and how easily they can navigate through life. Ask yourself what type of students your characters were. Did they engage inContinue reading “Character Series: Education”
Killing your darling characters
There are many darlings writers kill: words, scenes, characters or even complete story lines and books. Rather than look at the whole, I am going to focus on characters — they are often the hardest to visit death upon, whether by killing them in a novel or completely removing them from a manuscript. Let’s faceContinue reading “Killing your darling characters”
Character Series: Clothes make the man or woman
Clothes say a lot about a person, and it should be no different with characters. Albeit writers need to beware of info-dropping about clothing, or setting a character in front of a mirror just for said-character or narrator to go over ever inch of their appearance. However, little bits of description here and there aboutContinue reading “Character Series: Clothes make the man or woman”
World-building Series: Courting (Valentine Bonus)
As we celebrate the overly commercialized Valentine’s Day, I decided to do a themed piece for the day and settled on a world-building related topic, because to be honest, I’m not the most romantic person in the world so a how-to-write romance is a little out of my league. However, courtship is an important topicContinue reading “World-building Series: Courting (Valentine Bonus)”
World-building Series: Culture
While this may seem like putting the cart before the horse, when world-building, writers need to consider what their world’s cultures will look and feel like. This is a step some writers never fully realize, making their worlds feel like cardboard or a carbon copy of another world, built by another writer: Let’s face it,Continue reading “World-building Series: Culture”
Blood & Ink 