Bringing a Cast of Characters to Life
Your cast of characters fills certain roles in the plot to bring forth an engaging story. Let’s talk about your protagonist, antagonist, sidekicks, and more!
Sneaky Writing Tip: Character-Building Characters
Characters populate our stories but what does it mean to write a character-building story? How do you help build character without preaching at your audience?
Series Books: The Trouble with Character Transformation
How do you handle character transformation in series books where readers fall in love with characters and expect to meet those same people, sometimes exactly the same people, book after book?
Series Books: 3 Popular Ways to Orient Your Reader | IFW
Each book in a series must somehow orient the reader to what is going on in the series overall and the specific book in hand. Today, we look at three ways to orient your reader.
Trade Publishing: Single Book or Series?
Trade publishing recognizes a simple truth: when selling a series to individual readers, the first book gets the most readers. Jan Fields shares tips for increasing your series odds.
Planning a Book Series: The Premise
All series books have a basic premise, something that links the books through time. Today we talk about how a good premise is interesting but also has repeatability.
How to Build a Good Mystery Part 1 – Institute for Writers
096: How to Build a Good Mystery Part 1
April 20, 2018
NaNoWriMo Success: You’re This Close – Institute for Writers
228: NaNoWriMo Success: You’re This Close
November 27, 2020
NaNoWriMo Success – Throw in a Dragon ? – IFW
227: NaNoWriMo Success – Throw in a Dragon?
November 20, 2020
225: NaNoWriMo Success – Digging In
225: NaNoWriMo Success – Digging In
November 6, 2020
Where Do You Get Your Ideas?
Ideas can come from many different directions, so we’re going to look as some of the ways ideas spring up so that you can try them for your own writing.
222: Planting Clues
222: Planting Clues
October 16, 2020
215: How Structured is Your Picture Book?
215: How Structured is Your Picture Book?
August 28, 2020
211: How Story Elements Work Together
211: Interview with Paula Morrow
July 31, 2020
208: Playing Fair with Plot
208: Playing Fair with Plot
July 10, 2020
Getting Down and Dirty with Plot – Institute for Writers
204: Getting Down and Dirty with Plot
June 12, 2020
203: Interview with Wanda Brunstetter
203: Interview with Wanda Brunstetter
June 5, 2020
122: Get Tense: The Plot Thickens
122: Get Tense: The Plot Thickens
October 26, 2018
149: Set Up Your Plot
149: Set Up Your Plot
May 17, 2019
Let’s Talk About Plot
Many writers struggle with plot. Plot has to mix and blend characters, theme, premise, and more. So, let’s break down the essentials of plot.