by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Clichéd scares are everywhere: racing hearts, creaking floorboards, things that go bump in the night. The best fear tends to come from somewhere quieter and more specific than [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com I’ve written a lot of murder victims over the years, and most of them weren’t particularly nice people. In a cozy mystery, an unlikeable victim means plenty of [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Most writers default to the obvious emotions—happiness, sadness, anger, fear. But readers connect more deeply with stories that explore the subtle, complex feelings that fill real life. [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Tropes get a bad rap, but they’re actually storytelling shortcuts that readers understand instinctively. The problem isn’t using tropes—it’s using them lazily. When you add fresh details and [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Characters who stumble through scenes without clear intentions leave readers feeling equally lost. When your protagonist just “goes with the flow” or reacts to whatever happens next, [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Perfect protagonists bore readers. Characters with rough edges and realistic problems create the memorable personalities that readers think about long after finishing your book. Give Them Believable Contradictions [...]
by Loretta Bushell The most beloved fictional characters aren’t faultless heroes. They’re complex characters who feel real — they have flaws, quirks, likes, and dislikes. Many authors turn to handpicked development questions to [...]
by Angela Ackerman Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we can write about. When readers sense a character is experiencing it, they practically lean in, waiting to see what will happen [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Good dialogue does a lot of work at once; it reveals character, moves the plot forward, and keeps readers turning pages. When conversations go flat, readers start skimming [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com We’ve all written flat characters before. You know, the helpful librarian who exists only to hand over a crucial book, the grumpy neighbor who complains on cue. [...]
by Shannon Symonds ,@shannonsymonds7 I love creating a killer, even if he is a cozy killer. I believe the why behind your bad guy can make or break your story. To show you how [...]
By Nina Amir It would be easy to claim that most books written with the intention of creating change fall into nonfiction genres. However, every fiction book has the potential to move [...]
By Patricia Crisafulli “The minute you walk out this door you show your character to everyone who sees you.” When I was young, my mother admonished me into good behavior with these words. [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Sidekicks are important characters in cozy mysteries. They keep our sleuth from having a lot of interior monologue about suspects and motives, for one thing (which can get [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com The last thing we want for our books is to have readers abandoning them halfway through. I’ll admit that, as a reader, if a book hasn’t grabbed me [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethspanncraig.com Nothing kills reader enjoyment faster than confusion. We lose readers when readers have to stop and figure out who’s talking, where they are, or what just happened. [...]
by DiAnn Mills, @diannmills Throughout time, the world has provided us with real people who attempted feats of courage to survive the odds against them. Those heroes and heroines tapped into mental, [...]
by Hugh Cook A cardinal principle of fiction writing is that effective characterization lies at the heart of all good fiction. This holds true whether you write thrillers, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, or literary [...]
by Yen Cabag When we read a novel, we want a story that grips us, and characters that feel so real they’re almost our friends—or enemies, as the case may be. And when [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig I’ve worked on two of my series for so long that I can’t really even remember the genesis of the protagonists’ personalities. But I do remember creating their [...]
By Mary Kole, Good Story Company, @kid_lit For the last ten years, I’ve been teaching all about characterization: what writers can do to flesh out their characters. As a former literary agent, I [...]
by Becca Puglisi, @beccapuglisi Fight or flight. I think we’ve all heard this phrase. It refers to the way each person is hard-wired to respond to real or perceived danger. Psychologists have recently [...]
by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig Every once in a while, I’ll grind to a halt with my story. I’ll either want to flesh out a subplot or develop the main plot a bit [...]
by Becca Puglisi, @BeccaPuglisi Since Angela Ackerman and I wrote our last book, The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes, I’ve been thinking a lot about personality traits and how [...]
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