Hola!!! I’m Botas, the corgi from the Chocoverse. Today I wanted to talk about second chances. I believe everyone should have one – especially dogs. Due to circumstances beyond my owners’ control, I wound up surrendered to a shelter – twice. And each time was the start of a new life. Not that I’ve forgotten […]
We’ve been talking character arcs at SNW, so I wanted to bring out once special kind of arc: the villain arc. A good villain can really elevate your story, so take the time to fully develop all sides of your antagonist. And then think about what makes him dynamic. The Backstory Arc Usually, the main […]
Have you set goals for the coming year? Most of us look at a new calendar, fresh with unspoiled pages, as an opportunity. It’s a reset. A chance to think about what we want to develop in our lives, what we are ready to let go. A story offers your characters that same chance. Kurt […]
Can we be brutally honest? As a writer, you simply cannot be a nice person – at least not when it comes to your characters. There is no quicker way to lose reader interest than to present characters who never face failure or loss, who are never in danger, who never have to make impossible […]
Last month I talked about character self-awareness in the psychological sense. But today, I want to get into the other way this term is used when talking books: literary self-awareness, where we find fictional characters who either understand their genre, or who realize they are taking part in a story. This is also known as […]
So this may get a little introspective, but I was thinking a bit today about self-awareness in fictional characters. Too little, and your character feels cold and unlikable, too much and they feel whiney and overly sensitive. Why is it such a delicate balance? Maybe some definitions would help. What is self-awareness, psychologically speaking, for […]
