How to Use the Enneagram for Character Development by Laurel Osterkamp
Laurel Osterkamp explains how to use the enneagram for character development. Try using it next time you want to build a character!
Tagged: characters
Clutter: The Tyranny of Things by Catharine Bramkamp
Hoarding, as a character flaw, creates characters with depth and you can find inspiration for this in the world all around you.
Three Steps to Three Dimensional Characters by Laurel Osterkamp
Three dimensional characters make better stories, here are three steps authors can use to help readers connect to their characters.
Evoke Reader Emotions by Kay Keppler
Figuring out how you want your readers to feel can improve your plotting. Everything you include in your plot should lead to emotions in some way.
Finding Your Character’s Motivation by Kay Keppler
When you develop your characters, you want them to be consistent so that readers can understand and perhaps identify with them. Your characters’ actions don’t have to be smart, but they must be done for a reason.
The Place is the Thing by Nevada McPherson
I’ve written a few times about what inspires me and asked what inspires you in your writing. One thing I keep coming back to are places that inspire my stories and characters.
Writing Characters for the Ages by Kay Keppler
When you reach for a favorite book, the one you’ve already read, or perhaps read multiple times, what draws you to that story? Sometimes it’s the plot, but usually it’s the characters you remember.
Love Your Bad Guys by Kay Keppler
Let’s welcome back monthly columnist, editor, and novelist, Kay Keppler, as she shares with us “Love Your Bad Guys!” Enjoy!
Lift a Sagging Middle with “What If?” by Kay Keppler
Most writers, sooner or later, will hit the problem of the Sagging Middle. The story pacing slows—the plot might even bore you a little bit now—and you don’t know what to do about it.
Is Your Muse-ic Calling Your Name? by Carol Malone
When I was a small child, it didn’t take me long to realize music could be used to tell powerful stories. I’d pop on a 78 record and listen till my parents would cry. I listened to songs like: “Blue Tail Fly” or “Jimmy Crack Corn and I Don’t care,” “The Big Rock Canady Mountain,” “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,”
A Sensory Awakening Game By Wyatt G. Bessing
“…the bearded merchants in furred robes conversing quietly as they picked their way along the slimy stones above the water, the fishermen unloading their catch, coopers pounding and shipmakers hammering and clamsellers singing and shipmasters bellowing, and beyond all the silent, shining bay.”
Playing Games With Your Characters’ Emotional Spaces by Wyatt Bessing
There are multiple kinds of truth, in fiction as in life. As fiction writers, we move as close to the truth as possible without ever quite veering into truth entirely (otherwise we’d be writing nonfiction). One kind of truth emanates from a realism of scene and detail. By identifying with familiar settings and character traits, readers are pulled into a story and become personally attached to it.
How Do You Feel? by Kay Keppler
Many writers, when they sit down to work, look with anxiety or stress at that blank page. Or they’re afraid to send their work out—to editors or publishers—or even for critique. Others are afraid they won’t sell. Or if they have sold, that they won’t sell again.
Be a Game-Changer by Wyatt Bessing
Some writers enjoy the process of rereading and combing through each word, looking for ways to strengthen sentences, remove extraneous detail, sharpen plot and develop characters. But for many it’s pure torture. Editing can feel like it lacks the punch and excitement of the initial writing, too analytical and uncreative.
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