creating characters in fiction

Basics of writingStory Details

Naming 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

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CharactersNovel writing

Creating 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

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CharactersNovel writingStory Details

How 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

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Basics of writingNovel writingStory Details

Is 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

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Novel writing

Novel 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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