characters Archives

What I Learn from Theater about Writing Characters

May 5, 2016
Student Contributor
Guest posts, Help with Characters, Push Your Imagination
2 Comments

By Irie Odessa Browning, Guest Contributor I love to act, but I’m a writer, too. One of the reasons I love acting is how it helps me develop my writing, mostly in the area of character development.

Writing Characters When You Don’t Hear Voices in Your Head

December 16, 2015
Student Contributor
Guest posts, Help with Characters, Writing Tips and Tools
2 Comments

Miguel Flores, Guest Contributor People have told me their characters “talk” to them. These fictional characters use our brains as home base but are otherwise free to explore both their world and ours. When these vagabond ghost squatters re-enter our brains, they kick up their feet, scatter our neatly organized plot bunnies, and babble about their lives or rudely commentate on ours.

You Weren’t Born in a Vacuum! – Real Characters from Real Worlds

December 9, 2015
Student Contributor
Guest posts, Help with Characters, Push Your Imagination, World building, Writing Tips and Tools
0 Comments

Janae Leeke, Guest Contributor: World building is just backwards sociology, piecing together a culture instead of picking it apart. It asks the same questions. What is important to your people? What do they treasure? What do they believe is right and wrong?

How to Write Evil, Awesome Villains

December 12, 2013
Student Contributor
Help with Characters, The Writing Life, Writing Tips and Tools
11 Comments

Rebecca Harrison, Guest Contributor Villains can be some of the most difficult characters to write and they can be the difference between a stagnant story and a powerful one.

When Your “Perfect” Story Falls Flat

November 14, 2013
Daniel Schwabauer
Daniel's Writing Log, Help with Characters, The Writing Life, Writing Tips and Tools
9 Comments

Daniel Schwabauer I had re-written the novel, then titled Baht, in 2012, as 70,000+ words of first-person narrative. Only in writing the second-to-last chapter did I realize the book wasn’t working. Though it had a lot going for it (in my opinion, anyway), it still lacked something. It lacked oomph. Drive. A sense of compulsion. I wasn’t being pulled along by the story; I was driving the story ahead of me with a cattle-prod.