Writers can show a whole world, describe conflict, and trick the reader just by fine-tuning a character’s voice to make it sing. How someone chooses to express their emotions, surroundings, and the situations they get into can convey way more to the reader in a more engaging way than simply stating it.
Category: Advice
Write Better, Right Now: What is Descriptive Writing?
Descriptive writing is often stated as show don’t tell. But that’s kind of wrong, descriptive writing does involve telling. Writers tell the reader many things but dressed up in fancy clothing and paired with showing.
Write Better, Right Now: Inner Character Voice
Nondialogue voice or your character’s inner voice is usually done in a way that aligns with how the character speaks with the rest of the characters in the story. But sometimes an author wants to show that a character has extra depth or perhaps isn’t who they appear to be to the reader or other characters in the story.
Write Better, Right Now: Dialogue as Exposition
Using character voice as exposition may seem like a simple technique, but more often than not, writers do this in a heavy-handed way. This leaves their dialogue stilted, dry, and an obvious story function that drains their prose. Blending story exposition and important story information allow you as the writer to keep your story engaging while feeding your reader what they need to know to stay grounded in your story and characters.
Write Better, Right Now: Developing Our Characters’ Voices
Once you’ve found your character’s voice, how do you deepen it to make it memorable and engaging? This is the second biggest hurdle a lot of writers face. They’ve found that cool voice and they’re like ‘Great! I’m done.’ But going the extra step to develop, deepen, and shape that voice around your story can create an even richer voice and engaging dialogue throughout your story.
Write Better, Right Now: Physically Describing Our Characters
When we’re writing our stories, we make deliberate decisions related to not just the big story event elements but the smaller aspects story like characterization. How do we want our readers to see or know our characters?
What You Need to Know About Writing Scenes
I’m a reader before I’m a writer, so I crave better scenes in all the stories I come across. So, here are all my articles available on scenes in one place. In each article, I push past the basic advice of there are only a set number of scenes or they have to happen in a particular type of order. What I teach are the functioning parts of scenes and how you can use them to heighten your story.
Write Better, Right Now: Interior World of Characters
The interior world of characters or their interiority is an important part of characterization. It gives the reader insight into who the character is when no one but the author is looking.
Ultimate Writing Resource
I’ve joined up with best-selling authors like Jay Thorne, David Farland, and over a dozen others to participate in Writer’s Craft 3.0. It’s the one-stop resource guide for any serious or professional writer and this is the last time it’ll be on sale!
Write Better, Right Now: Character Action
How our characters move through our stories is just as important as who they are within our stories. In fact, a character’s actions and movements give the reader insight into who our characters are and so much more.