Writing Distinct Voices

I have fallen in love with so many characters over the years. Their voices are haunting, hopeful, sassy, sarcastic, kind, sensitive, and peaceful. They are each unique combinations of emotions, background, interests, and learning. Whether their voices come out only when they speak or when the story is told from their perspective, their history, personality,Continue

Writing Character Descriptions: Emotion

Emotions can be one of the hardest things to convey through the show-not-tell rule sometimes. The show-not-tell rule is describing what a character is feeling, doing, or thinking, without just outright stating it. An example would be writing “her feet landed hard on the pavement, one after another, increasing her speed” instead of “she ran.”Continue

Writing Character Descriptions: Action

Actions can convey so much, and nearly every character will have movement in your writing, whether it’s directly mentioned or not. In many books I’ve read over the last two years, I’ve noticed very little movement described outside the generic ran, jumped, sat,and walked. And I’ve started realising more and more just how much IContinue

Writing Character Descriptions: Appearance

From Harry Potter’s scar to Katniss Everdeen’s braid, from Éowyn of Rohan’s removing her helmet to Klaus Baudelaire’s adjusting his glasses, and from Elizabeth Bennet’s sass to Hazel Lancaster’s increased difficulty to breathe, descriptions in books help understand each and every character, movement, and emotion more and help us to build the film-like pictures inContinue

Writing: Breaking Colour Clichés

Blue eyes, grey skies, red lights, and black nights. Colours are always surrounding us, in life, nature, and fiction. And they have become very cliché over the years and centuries in which they’ve been used to describe appearances of people, the world, and everything in between. They’ve also been used as symbols and pathetic fallacies,Continue

Andrew: I Love the Sound

Andrew tells us a bit about the things he likes to hear.
“I love the sound of my best friend’s singing (she sounds awful).”

Zoe: Five Blessings in My Life

My main character, Zoe, write about five blessings in her life.

Getting to Know Your Characters

There are seemingly countless ways to get to know your characters in anything ranging from short stories to novels. And there are almost as many blogs telling you how to get to know them and what way is the best way. I’m definitely not here to give you a definitive “this is how you doContinue