Become a master at writing creative fiction and creative nonfiction with these short lessons on the art of storytelling.
One of the jokes about being a writer is trying to explain the search history on your computer. I know I’ve fallen victim to this stereotype, thanks to the genres I write. Whether it’s getting details about a location, the effects of certain medications, or the decomposition rate of the human body, writers use this information to add realism to their stories. Part of writing, after all, is research.
Dialogue has got to be one of the most difficult things to write, but it can also be one of the most rewarding. Well written dialogue can paint a very detailed picture of your character’s personality and can really help your readers to lose themselves in your story. It can also move the plot forward and help to develop character relationships.
Around writing circles we always hear the same question about writing bilingual and multicultural characters: when and how do people slip from their mother tongue into their second language?
Many tools exist to help you craft believable and engaging characters. Below you’ll find some of the best I’ve encountered and a very helpful technique called the secret snapshot approach which can help you discover and reveal your character’s inner most self in a way which readers will love.
The fantasy genre is rich with imagined monsters, creatures, and beasts. Creations which haunt our dreams and make us walk that little bit faster after dark. This article will first look at a few of the more common monsters, and then will explore the methods to assist you in becoming the next Dr. Frankenstein.
Writers always hear “Show don’t tell!” I remember as a newbie that phrase would be thrown at me a lot and I never understood it.
Writer’s block. Every writer has dealt with it at some point (Stephen King claims he hasn’t but I’m calling bull), and it can be a huge deterrent when it comes to expressing yourself and getting your stories out. I will touch on some of the main issues that cause writer’s block, but the focus of this article is to explain how to push past the block and to go over the strategies I’ve personally found to be beneficial to me.
Giving Your Characters Believable Qualities
One of the most known rules for creating fictional characters is making them realistic. Besides their appearance and actions, how can you achieve this? You need them to have personalities that are consistent, a story that’s interesting and easy to follow along, and one or two qualities that add to their character and make them stand apart from the others.
I remember the first time I saw “NaNoWriMo” mentioned in an online writer’s forum. I immediately thought it must be some new, millennial slang term or text-cronym that I had yet to learn the meaning. So when I Googled it, I was thrilled to discover it instead to be an incredible, month-long challenge presented to writers everywhere: 50,000 words in 30 days.
It may be the salty aired beach or a long-ago molten path on a dormant volcano that brings us into the story, and the main characters who introduce themselves and take the reader by the hand for the journey. However, without secondary characters, the story wouldn’t get far. Main characters can’t be everywhere at once, even though they are the main focus in stories. There’s no way for them to gain every tidbit of knowledge they need without the help of their comrades. That’s why writers should never forget the importance of creating and casting unforgettable secondary characters.
