What drives your character? Story involves characters who have some motivation, something that moves them forward. Desire, wish, need, problem and the motivation to seek a solution. This can’t simply be announced: we wouldn’t believe it. It has to be felt and enacted. Motivation is the agent of change, and change is the key to […]
Motivation and Change Read More »
My kids and I are reading the Harry Potter books for the first time. One of the techniques J.K. Rowling uses again and again is this: something is happening, characters are reacting to it, but we readers don’t quite know what is going on. We are catching up. The reason I know this happens again
Try This at Home: Harry Potter Read More »
Lucy Jane Bledsoe, in our soon-to-be-released video interview, talks about how in fiction, people are stressed by something. Often, in America at least, we turn to violence for this stress. In her engaging new novel, The Big-Bang Symphony, Bledsoe uses, among other things, the harsh and beautiful setting–Antarctica–to stress her characters. This comment inspired me
Stress: How to Create Problems for Your Characters Read More »
One course the Book Writing World offers members is “Trading Trade Secrets.” Here, we peer at sharp passages of writing to tease apart the techniques that make great prose sing. I’ve already covered openings, dialog, voice and point of view, character in conflict, symbol, desire and escalation and the crisis choice. Each month, when the
Serving Verbs: Trade Secrets from Kate Moses Read More »
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