Article links on two topics: IP and Characters
From Rick: Honestly, not for lack of ideas but for lack of time, I haven’t been as diligent lately in doing a blog on a weekly basis. Believe it or not, I often spend the better part of a day
Read morecreating characters in fiction
The importance of your character names
From Rick: I’m trying to un-busy myself enough to get back on schedule of posting weekly on Mondays instead skipping a week here and there or posting on Tuesday. We’ll see how that goes. ===== In the past I’ve talked
Read moreNaming strategies—people, places, and things
From Scott: Naming your characters (and the places and things) in your story can be more challenging than it appears at first glance. After all, they’re your characters, so you can name them whatever you want, right? True, but to
Read moreIs a novel just a long short story?
Rick: You’ve decided to write a novel. Maybe you’ve always wanted to write the novel that been inside you for a long time. You think that it can’t be all that hard—a little scary maybe, but not impossible, because lots
Read moreCreating dynamic characters
From Rick: A few weeks ago, I received an email from Martin Cavanaugh of Reedsy (a UK-based site) in response to the first post in my Book Cover Design-Series 2 (the link to that post is below). BOOK COVER DESIGN-SERIES
Read moreHow to create characters smarter than the author
From Rick: How can you design a character that is supposed to be smarter/more clever/more intelligent than the author? This question came up recently on the Forum at Silver Pen. (Readers of this blog readers who are not members of
Read moreIs there a universal story formula?
One of the topics often discussed in general writing workshops is basic story structure and the elements of a story. Let’s go over those first. A story–and we’re talking a piece of fiction or mostly fiction–in order to be considered
Read moreYour cast of characters
From Rick: A few weeks back an author in one of the chat groups I belong to asked the question: How soon should you introduce your main character (MC)? The reason this author asked the question is that he apparently
Read moreNo post this week, but…
From Rick: Things got a bit busy this past weekend, so I didn’t have a chance to finish my blog post. Next week’s post will be about characters: Thoughts on when/how soon to introduce your main character and some comments
Read moreNovel writing for beginners–Part 2
From Rick: Last time, I ended with the importance of characters. They are the backbone of fiction. Stories don’t exist in a vacuum. They must happen to someone, and that someone must care about the outcome. If nobody cares that
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