When it comes to generating conflict, your character’s personality can help ensure that sparks fly, especially when their traits clash with someone else’s.

When people grate on one another their interactions become filled with misunderstandings, power struggles, one-upmanship, and impatience. Whether allies, enemies, or something in between, contrasting viewpoints and attitudes sharpen dialogue, and if tempers flare too far, friction can become all-out conflict.

And guess what–we want these escalations to happen! They keep relationships from getting stale, add plot complications, and keep the pace moving. So bring on those clashes, problems, and fallout, I say. Let characters get under each other’s skin. When people get along, it sucks the tension out of your story faster than a three hundred year old vampire enjoying a human buffet.

There are many ways to create friction– characters could have opposing goals, be competing for the same thing, or have opposite ideas about the path forward. These setups can all work, but only if they don’t come off like a plot device. For readers to see friction as natural, not manufactured, it needs to come from within the characters. An easy way to do this is to let their opposing personalities do the work.

Leaning into Opposites

The low-hanging fruit of clashing personalities is to play with opposites. Methodical and impulsive. Proper and flamboyant. Perfectionistic and lazy. These combinations can be fun to write while juicing interactions with friction. To find trait combos that will cause natural friction, check out these lists from the Positive Trait Thesaurus and the Negative Trait Thesaurus.

Is your character an obsessive rule follower afraid to step outside his comfort zone? Have him be swept up in friendship with someone spontaneous and a bit rebellious. Or is a coworker stealing the credit for your protagonist’s hard work, but she won’t speak up for herself? Pair her with a new cubicle-mate who has confidence in spades and a vengeful streak that ensures all wrongs will be put right.

Opposite traits can be negative, positive, or one of each. It’s all up to you. And, with a bit of extra thought, opposing traits can serve an even deeper purpose: to spotlight a character flaw that’s holding your protagonist back.

Introduce a Character Foil

A character foil is someone whose traits contrast with the protagonist’s, either in big, obvious ways or through a few key differences. This contrast helps readers see how the protagonist is navigating life differently, and maybe it’s not going so well for them.

When a foil character exhibits traits the protagonist lacks (but needs), it creates a mirror moment. The protagonist starts to see their flaws more clearly, and that realization can become a turning point in their character arc. If they want to move forward, something has to change.

Double Down on the Same Trait

Another method is to give two characters the same trait: controlling and controlling, manipulative and manipulative, idealistic x 2. Positive or toxic, characters with identical traits tend to cause the relationship pot to boil, and soon, the battle royale for dominance is on.

Clashing Traits Don’t Always Mean Fireworks

Sometimes writers get a bit too excited over creating relationship tension, as it can lead to some spectacular clashes. Realistically, though, friction is more about getting under each other’s skin just enough to behave like a passive-aggressive jerk.

When irritated, characters may get snarky in their responses, offer backhanded compliments, or deliver a narrow, you’re so stupid stare. Decisions in the moment can be emotion-driven, too. Maybe they withhold advice, information, help or even share a half-truth, knowing it will mess up the other’s plans. My point is, have fun with your friction, especially if it leads to well-deserved consequences!

Also, Friction Isn’t Always Negative

Not all friction is hostile. It can come from navigating healthy boundaries that characters aren’t used to. It can be a part of the learning curve of new cultures and customs. Even people who want the same thing must figure out how to work together, encountering friction through trial and error.

In romance, attraction creates tension. And much of what makes chemistry sizzle on the page is emotional friction—conflicting desires, fears, and how each handles vulnerability.

Friction happens in friendships, family dynamics, the workplace, and other relationships. Whenever two people are wired differently, there’s an opportunity for tension. Unravelling the ‘why’ behind it is what readers show up for.

Choose a Character’s Personality Traits Carefully

While it might seem like a fun way to add drama, clashing traits shouldn’t be assigned without thought. Each character’s personality is a unique window into who they are, where they came from, and the people and experiences they were exposed to before your story began. Credible characters have traits that make sense for their unique history–that’s a big part of what makes them authentic to readers.

If you’d like to understand more about personality traits and how to choose the right ones for a character, give this a read. Happy writing!

What clashing personality traits have you woven into your relationships? Let me know in the comments!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Using a Character’s Personality Traits to Generate Conflict appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Writers hear it all the time: Show, don’t tell. This advice is so iconic that I wouldn’t be surprised if a few tattoos are kicking around the community. After all, our job as writers isn’t to explain what’s happening to readers, it’s to help them experience the story themselves. And show, don’t tell is how we do it!

Showing Creates an Experience.
Telling Hands Out Information.

Imagine your story as a culinary masterpiece and your reader a dinner guest. Sure, you could slap a plate down and say, “It’s lasagna, enjoy,” or you could slide the steaming dish in front of them and let those saucy layers, bubbling cheese, and heavenly aroma rev them up for the first bite.

Telling has its place -and for more on that, zip over here- but showing engages readers. It will bring them in close, make them feel involved, and awaken their emotions and memories.

One problem with show, don’t tell?

Somewhere along the way, it became so integrated with character emotion that writers didn’t necessarily think to use it for other things.

To be clear, showing emotion is great advice! I’m sure you’ve attended workshops and been told not to say your character is sad—instead, describe them standing at their school locker, clutching a break-up note, blinking fast and swallowing hard. If you’ve read The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, you know Becca and I preach loud and proud about showing emotion. But it has so many other applications, so let’s recap a few.

Showing Can Anchor Readers in the Setting

When it comes to worldbuilding, readers should be able to imagine the character’s world and feel part of each scene.

Telling: The castle was massive, with stone walls and high towers.

Showing: The castle loomed over the village, its stone walls etched with centuries of wind and war. Torchlight flickered along the high towers, where banners snapped against the night sky.

Telling works for delivering details that aren’t important, but showing can draw a reader in, help them imagine what they reader, convey the history or importance of a location, and more.

Showing Can Set the Mood

Part of creating an experience is steering how readers should feel. The details we share, especially sensory description, can nudge them to view a setting a certain way—safe, dangerous, calming, worrying. It’s up to us.  

Telling: The alley was dark and scary.

Showing: The alley narrowed, its brick walls leaning inward, swallowing the last flickers of streetlight. Garbage bags sagged against dented cans, the air thick with something damp and rotting.

Here, telling is factual, but showing creates foreboding. Only one will push readers to eagerly read on to see what sort of bad thing is waiting in the dark.

Showing Can Define a Relationship Without Labels

Characters shouldn’t have to say they’re best friends, mortal enemies, or hopelessly in love. Their actions should make that obvious.

Telling: Jake and Connor had been best friends for years.

Showing: Jake barely knocked before pushing open Connor’s door. “Bro, I got a problem with someone and need backup.”
Connor shut his textbook. “Let’s go. I’m driving.”

Best friends? Yup! Telling would work if this friendship wasn’t relevant, but if it is, we need to see that closeness in action. Showing does that, pulling the reader along for the ride.

Showing Can Reveal Character Motivation

Characters need to have agency, doing and saying things for a reason. But if we just tell readers what’s driving them, it falls flat.

Telling: Olivia wanted to prove she was just as capable as her older brother.

Showing: Olivia tightened the laces on her running shoes. She could still hear her brother’s voice from last night: “You won’t last a mile.” Gritting her teeth, she stepped onto the track. She’d make it ten.

A character’s motivation is more likely to land with readers if they empathize with their reasons. Showing here utilizes a common human experience—a lack of support and voiced doubt—and places readers in Olivia’s corner. They want her to succeed.

Showing Helps Deepen Conflict and Stakes

If the stakes matter, readers should feel it.

Telling: If Sam lost, he’d have to leave town for good.

Showing: Sam rolled his poker chip across the felt. One hand. One chance.

Across the table, Mason smirked. “Don’t worry, I’ll pass on your goodbyes to everyone at the wedding tomorrow.”

Here, telling readers what’s at stake is equivalent to a sad trombone (womp-womp). Showing makes readers care about Sam and invest in what happens next.

Showing Can Showcase Characterization

Each character will have their own personality, talents, beliefs, tendencies, quirks, etc. How you convey who they are can mean the difference between a cardboard character and someone so authentic it feels like they stepped out of the real world.

Telling: Jonas was a germaphobe.

Showing: Jonas pinched the edge of his plate, avoiding contact. Across the table, a man sneezed into his palm, then grabbed the breadbasket. Jonas stiffened. Bacteria—everywhere. He chewed fast, breathed shallowly. The sooner he finished, the sooner he could scrub this place off his skin.

When we show it, Jonas’ fear feels authentic. Readers can surmise how this phobia will shape his life in the story.

Look for Opportunities to Make Your Story Immersive!

Showing can vastly improve a story, but crafting the right descriptions is not easy. This is why it can be so tempting to slip into telling. It’s worth the worth, though, when the situation in the story warrants showing.

It comes down to knowing what to show, and what to tell. Readers never need to know every little thing about the story and your characters, but they know the important stuff that helps them follow the story, care about the characters, and feel invested in the outcome.

Focus on what’s important, what readers need to know, and what makes them care the most. If you need help finding telling that you suspect needs to be converted to showing, try 7 Ways to Find Telling in Your Writing.

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post How to Use Show, Don’t Tell to Strengthen Your Story appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

There are a lot of Dos and Don’ts for a story’s first pages. Do introduce the protagonist(s). Do start in medias res. Don’t start with a dream sequence. Don’t info dump.

These techniques are important because they accomplish one of the main purposes of your opening: they encourage reader connection. And that’s key because if the reader doesn’t make that connection in the first few pages, they likely won’t read on to chapter two or ten or The End.

Because of the first page critique contests I do, I have a lot to say about story openings—what works and what doesn’t. And today I’d like to share some story elements you can include in your first pages that will pull readers in, along with some opening-page examples from fiction that show this in action. You don’t want to include them all, but if you can add even one, you’ll increase your chances of hooking readers right away so they become invested in your story.

1. Characterization

We know readers connect primarily with characters. When you can start characterizing right away—showing readers how the protagonist is likable or relatable, their defining traits, where they’re vulnerable—the connection is forged.

In the following example from a classic, we learn quite a lot about one of the main characters in the very first paragraph. This is an older book, published before show-don’t-tell became a cornerstone writing technique. Even so, we begin to form a picture of this character—her personality traits and a few physical features—that starts the process of us getting to know them.

In Fort Repose, a river town in Central Florida, it was said that sending a message by Western Union was the same as broadcasting it over the combined networks. This was not entirely true. It was true that Florence Wechek, the manager, gossiped, yet she judiciously classified the personal intelligence that flowed under her plump fingers and maintained a prudent censorship over her tongue. The scandalous and the embarrassing she excised from her conversation. Sprightly, trivial, and harmless items, she passed onto friends, thus enhancing her status and relieving the tedium of spinsterhood. If your sister was in trouble and wired for money, the secret was safe with Florence Wechek. But if your sister bore a legitimate baby, it’s sex and weight would soon be known all over town.

~Alas Babylon

Tools to help you build relatable, vulnerable, and well-rounded characters: The Positive Trait Thesaurus, The Negative Trait Thesaurus, and One Stop for Writer’s Character Builder.

2. What’s Missing?

If your character’s navigating a change arc, there will be something wrong or missing in their life from the get-go. This is important for readers to see early on, because it plays into those vulnerability and relatability pieces. We’ve all been there. We all have things in life we wish were different, or we feel stuck in some way. If you can hint early on at something missing for the character (their inner motivation), readers will empathize with them and immediately want that void to be filled.

It is my first morning of high school. I have seven new notebooks, a skirt I hate, and a stomachache.

The school bus wheezes to my corner. The door opens and I step up. I am the first pickup of the day. The driver pulls away from the curb while I stand in the aisle. Where to sit? I’ve never been a backseat wastecase. If I sit in the middle, a stranger, could sit next to me. If I sit in the front, it will make me look like a little kid, but I figure it’s the best chance I have to make eye contact with one of my friends, if any of them have decided to talk to me yet.

The bus picks up students in groups of four or five. As they walk the aisle, people who were my middle-school lab partners or gym buddies glare at me. I close my eyes. This is what I’ve been dreading. As we leave the last stop, I am the only person sitting alone.

~Speak

Most of us could empathize with this character simply because it’s the first day of school, and we recognize the associated nerves and angst. But in these opening paragraphs, we learn that this character has lost all her friends. She is utterly alone. There’s a lot we don’t know about her situation, but at the very least, we know that for her to find fulfillment, she’ll somehow have to reconnect with others.

3. The Story Goal

In a story with a change arc, the character’s overall goal (their outer motivation) is often (subconsciously) chosen because it’s going to meet their internal lack. Getting into Harvard Law and becoming a lawyer will help her get the boy (Legally Blonde). Catching the serial killer will help the quadriplegic ex-detective once again fine purpose in his life (The Bone Collector).

It’s not always possible to include the goal on the very first page, but if you can pull it off, do it. Then, readers will know straight away what has to happen for the character to succeed, and they’ll know what to root for.

Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love.

~The Raven Boys

Here, we see in just one sentence what Blue’s story goal will be: she’ll have to somehow subvert the curse to find true love. There’s so much more to her situation, but this is all that’s needed to create a killer opening line that pulls readers in.

Tools for understanding character arc, inner motivation, and outer motivation: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus and One Stop’s Story Maps.

4. Foreshadowing and Conflict

When we see a character in conflict, we feel for them. We know how it feels to be in conflict, whether the conflict creates awkwardness and discomfort or impending pain and death. Including conflict in the opening pages is a good way to tweak the readers emotions and get them firmly on the character’s side.

When possible, we want it to tie directly to the main conflict or storyline. In other words, it’s not random. Let readers see a small piece of the character’s overall struggle that will plague them throughout the story.

Foreshadowing is a great way of enticing readers with future conflict, or the promise of it.

“We should start back,” Gared urged as the woods began to grow dark around them. “The wildlings are dead.”

“Do the dead frighten you?” Ser Waymar Royce asked with just a hint of a smile.

“We have a long ride before us,” Gared pointed out. “Eight days, maybe nine. And night is falling.”

Will could see the tightness around Gared’s mouth, the barely suppressed anger in his eyes under the thick black hood of his cloak. Gared had spent forty years in the watch, man and boy, and he was not accustomed to being made light of. Yet it was more than that. Under the wounded pride, Will can sense something else in the older man. You could taste it; a nervous tension that came perilous close to fear.

Will shared his unease. He was a veteran of a hundred rangings by now, and the endless dark wilderness that the southron called the haunted forest had no more terrors for him.

Until tonight. Something was different tonight.

~A Game of Thrones

Tools for writing conflict: The Conflict Thesaurus, Volumes One and Two

5. Questions

One of the best ways to keep readers reading is to create intrigue. Raise questions that will only be answered if they keep going. In the first pages I critique, I look for at least one question—something that isn’t fully explained that whets my whistle and makes me want to know more.

Pip knew where they lived.

Everyone in Fairview knew where they lived.

Their home was like the town’s haunted house; people’s footsteps quickened as they walked by, and their words strangled and died in their throats. Shrinking children would gather on their walk home from school, daring one another to run up and touch the front gate.

But it wasn’t haunted by ghosts, just three sad people trying to live their lives as before. A house not haunted by flickering lights or spectral falling chairs, but by dark spray-painted letters of “Scum Family” and stone-shattered windows.

~The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

What happened to this family?
Why do their lives look so different than before? Before what?
Why are the people in town so afraid of them?

Full disclosure: I haven’t read this book. I found it in a stack of library books in my kid’s room when I was paging through first pages, looking for examples. But I’m adding it to my list simply from reading the first four paragraphs and wanting answers to the questions the author raised.

6. An Unusual Character or Authorial Voice

This one is impossible for every story because not every narrator has a stand-out voice. And that’s perfectly fine. But if yours does, get it out there right from the start. This gives readers an immediate feel for the character, and they’ll know they’re in for a treat.

Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages­—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

~Percy Jackson and the Olympians

I’ll close with this example because it hits a lot of the points: strong voice, some some characterization, foreshadowing, and questions. It’s a great example of how multiple techniques can be included on the very first page to pique the reader’s interest.

So next time you’re revising your opening, see if your first few pages tick any of these boxes. If not, revise to include one or two of them, and you’ve got a better chance of pulling readers in right from page one.

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post 6 First Page Inclusions for Drawing Readers In appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Has an editor or critique partner said, “Your character is flat” when offering feedback on your story? Or perhaps they worded it another way: “Your protagonist didn’t grab me,” or “This character needs more depth.”

However it’s phrased, being told we’ve missed the mark on a character is a bit of a gut punch. But it’s okay. Flat characters, like anything else, can be fixed.  

A flat character is one-dimensional, lacking the depth and human complexity required to feel true to life. Not only do they seem unrealistic, they also fail to capture a reader’s curiosity or interest.

Flat characters can be written as such on purpose: a surly shopkeeper unwilling to bargain on price or the nosy neighbor trying to unearth your protagonist’s secrets. These types of characters have a small role or specific function (comic relief, mentorship, etc.) and don’t need a lot of depth.

But if an important character is seen as
shallow or boring…we have a big problem.

Characters are the heart of a story. For readers to care about them, they must feel like real people. Distinct personalities, belief systems, emotions, and histories shape them and their behavior. Personal needs, desires, struggles, and worldviews give them depth. All this, and a capacity for growth, is the magic recipe that will draw a reader in. 

What Causes a Flat Character?

Characters can feel underdeveloped for many reasons, but it often comes down to one thing: something essential about them has been overlooked. Some common offenders:

Shallow Backstory

A character’s past influences who they become, how they behave, and how they view the world around them. If a character’s backstory is missing, weak, or generic, their behavior may lack credibility or be inconsistent.

The Cure: Go deeper. Explore their past, including their emotional wounds, experiences, life lessons, fears, and insecurities.

Tools to Fix Backstory Issues: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus and One Stop for Writers’ Character Builder Tool.

A Too-Basic Personality

A character’s personality should contain specific traits that emerge because of their history/upbringing, the people who influenced them, and formative their life experiences, both good and bad. When writers gloss over the building out of a unique personality, they tend to give character ‘typical’ traits and so they come across as generic and unrealistic.

The Cure: People are complex, and characters will be, too. Spend time thinking about who your character is and why, and the traits most likely to appear in their personality. Be sure to also understand how negative experiences lead to personality flaws (and the behaviors and tendencies that go with them). Each character should have a mix of traits as no one is ever all good or bad.  

Tools to Fix Personality Issues: The Positive Trait Thesaurus, The Negative Trait Thesaurus, and One Stop for Writers’ Character Builder Tool.

Over-Reliance on Character Tropes or Stereotypes

Due to their familiarity, using character tropes (e.g., the villain, reluctant hero, or absent-minded friend) can fast-track the reader’s understanding of a character’s role. But leaning on one too hard turns them into a stereotype or cliché, which is a huge turnoff.

The Cure: Use any trope generalizations as a starting point only. Do the work and make each character someone fresh. Readers loved to be surprised by interesting and meaningful qualities that elevate the character in ways they didn’t expect.

Tools to Help Fix Overused Character Types: The Character Trope and Type Thesaurus or One Stop for Writers’ Character Builder Tool.

Tunnel Vision

Characters who are only about one thing—the mission or goal, proving loyalty, success, etc.—come across as one-dimensional and unrealistic. For readers to connect with characters, they need to have relatable life layers. Relationships and social interactions. Dreams and desires. Responsibilities. Quirks, interests, problems.

The Cure: Real people can get obsessive about certain things, but they have other things going on. To give your character a better balance, imagine their entire life, not just the plot of your story. Explore how your character’s professional life or obsessions may collide with their personal life.

Tools to Help You Create Dynamic Characters: One Stop for Writers’ Character Builder Tool and The Occupation Thesaurus.

A Lack of Drive

In the real world, it can take time for us to know what we want, but in fiction, characters must be motivated and act. If your protagonist is wishy-washy about what they want or can’t settle on a goal, they’ll come off as weak.

The Cure: Characters who lack urgency when it comes to choosing or achieving a goal need to be put in the hot seat. Raise the stakes. Add conflict and tension. Make it clear that doing nothing leads only to pain and consequences. Additionally, know your character inside and out (#1) because past trauma, fears, and negative interactions will point you to their soft spots and unmet needs.

Tools to Fix Unmotivated Characters: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, The Conflict Thesaurus Volume 1, Volume 2, and The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus.

Distanced Emotions

Showing a character’s emotion, even when they’re trying to hide what they feel, is one of the most important tasks a writer has. Emotions are central to the human experience, and readers expect a front-row seat to whatever the character is feeling. When someone is closed off or seems imperviable to vulnerability, readers find it unrealistic.

The Cure: Become an expert at showing your character’s emotions, even when they try to hide what they feel from others. Readers must always be in the loop to empathize and feel invested. Understand how each individual will express emotion in their own way based on their personality, comfort zone, and backstory.

Tools to Help You Show Authentic Character Emotion: The Emotion Thesaurus, The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus, and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus.

Inadequate Internal Conflict

A well-developed character should have inner struggles, doubts, conflicting needs, fears, and insecurities, all of which make certain actions and decisions agonizing for them. If a writer doesn’t know a character well enough, their struggles will seem generic and readers will feel disconnected from their struggles.

The Cure: Understand your character inside and out, especially backstory and unresolved wounds that haunt them (#1). Know their life, their stresses, their pain, and how loyalty, expectations, or beliefs may tear at them so you can show powerful, meaningful inner conflict. Use psychology in fiction to show inner turmoil in ways readers recognize as they’ve experienced the same tendencies themselves.  

Tools to Help You Show Internal Conflict and Psychological Processes: The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, The Conflict Thesaurus, Volume 1, and The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus.

Little to No Growth or Change  

In any story, characters will face challenges—often life-changing ones. Even in a flat arc, where the protagonist remains steadfast in their beliefs, they should still learn, adapt, and navigate obstacles in a way that feels authentic. Primary characters who respond to every problem the same way, repeat mistakes without growth, or remain rigid in their viewpoints can feel unrealistic and unconvincing to readers.

The Cure: All roads lead back to characterization. Go deeper. Get to know your character, and why they think, act, and behave as they do. Choose specific conflict scenarios that force them to confront misconceptions and fears that lead to change and growth.

Tools to Help You Write About Change and Growth: For growth journeys and the path of change, try The Emotional Wound Thesaurus. The Conflict Thesaurus Volumes 1 and Volume 2 are packed with help to craft powerful conflict that will strengthen and support character arc. The Character Builder Tool will take all your character-building information and create a character arc blueprint for you.

You can fix a flat character. It’s worth the effort because once readers bind themselves emotionally to a character, they’re hooked. If you’re lucky, they’ll enjoy your characters so much they’ll seek out your next book, too!

READ NEXT: How to Write a Protagonist with True Depth

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post How to Avoid Flat Characters in Your Story appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

When it comes to story heroes, there are many kinds, from reluctant to tortured to tragic. But the one that’s getting a lot of airtime these days is the antihero.

Heroes get the moniker because of the qualities they embody: they’re honorable, courageous, selfless, and good. They’re people of high integrity. These characters make good protagonists because readers value and admire those qualities. We’re eager to walk with them on their journey, and we naturally end up rooting for them.

Antiheroes, though, lack many of the traditionally heroic traits—or they embody the opposite. As such, they really shouldn’t work, because why would we root for people who stand for things we don’t like? But many readers do get sucked into their stories and end up on this unconventional protagonist’s side, wanting what’s best for them. Authors make this happen with a few tried-and-true techniques for writing these characters:

• They’re complex, with complete backstories
• They’re well-rounded characters with a mix of positive and negative traits
• They adhere to a strong moral code
• They struggle with internal conflict

But with all the villain origin stories and other antihero offerings on the market today, we’ve got to move beyond tried-and-true if we want our stories to stand out. So let’s look at 7 additional techniques we can use to make our antiheroes more compelling and memorable.

1. Make Them a Reluctant Antihero

Getting readers to fall in love with an antihero can be tricky if, in the reader’s mind, their undesirable traits and habits outweigh the good. So start these characters out as the good guy.

Walter White (you knew we’d get there eventually, so let’s get right to it) starts out as a barely-getting-by chemistry teacher with a physically disabled son and a baby on the way. And then he’s diagnosed with terminal cancer. We like Walt straight off because he’s an honorable person in a crappy situation with a relatable goal of just wanting to provide for his family. In the beginning, he doesn’t want to resort to making meth. He doesn’t want to become a criminal. He’s just doing what he has to in a desperate situation.

The reluctant antihero works because they don’t start off bad; they start as a protagonist people can relate to, ensuring that readers are fully drawn into the story as they see the hero being pulled to the dark side.

2. Show Their Full Tragic Arc

These stories can start one of two ways: with the protagonist as a fully actualized antihero, or with a character who will become an antihero over time. Each approach has its merits, but the latter highlights the protagonist’s entire journey from start to finish. Readers will often stick with the character because they’re already invested, and by the final page, they understand why the character is who they are.

Estella Miller is the star of Cruella, a young woman who dreams of being a fashion designer and is doing her best to get along in a society where she doesn’t quite fit. Over time, her need to succeed grows, turning her into someone who is controlling and disloyal, someone who will manipulate others and be downright mean to get what she wants. Then she discovers that her mother was murdered by her mentor, and her desire for revenge turns her into the full-blown Cruella we’re all familiar with. As a kid, I never empathized with Cruella, but I do after seeing where she came from and what makes her tick.

3. Make Them Sympathetic

Reader sympathy is often a byproduct of a show-don’t-tell character arc—another benefit of letting the whole arc play out in your story. But even if your character is an antihero from page one, you can still engage reader empathy through the character’s vulnerability or weakness, as we see in the following examples.

• Tony Soprano: the ruthless, hardcore mafia boss whose panic attacks land him in therapy, where he must look at himself honestly and analyze his actions
• Lisbeth Salander, whose history of extreme abuse makes her violent and antisocial nature seem almost acceptable
• John Rambo: the Green Beret war hero who is mistreated and misunderstood and finally pushed past his breaking point by a bigoted small-town sheriff
• Michael Scott, the neediest, most desperate-for-attention, most annoying office manager ever, who you still can’t help but feel for…

Revealing your antihero’s weakness or internal struggle is a great way to get readers empathizing with them, which will encourage them to overlook the habits and traits that would normally turn them off.

4. Make Them Unusual

When it comes to creating unforgettable characters, never underestimate the power of a unique premise. Sometimes, giving an antihero a twist or fresh idea that hasn’t been done before is enough to make them stand out. It’s Sherlock Holmes’ almost-extrasensory powers of deduction. Or Dexter Morgan, a high-functioning sociopath and serial killer who satisfies his compulsions by killing bad people. And who can forget Johnny Depp’s Keith Richard’s-inspired version of the dishonest and egocentric Jack Sparrow?

To make your antihero stand out, give them a twist via an unexpected character trait, quirk, hobby, skill, or job.

5. Give Them Good Intentions

The most questionable of methods can often be overlooked if the character’s intentions are honorable. I really like Scarlett O’Hara for this one. She’s a despicable person—manipulative, a liar, completely self-serving. She should be universally disliked, but so much of what she does is to save her home. Author Margaret Mitchell is a master of making the setting a character, and readers come to love Tara as much as they love the cast. They don’t want to see it fall into enemy hands and be destroyed. And they recognize that Scarlett’s identity is so wrapped up in her family’s land that if she loses it, she’ll lose herself. Readers almost can’t blame her for doing what she does to save it.

Give your antihero a strong goal and meaningful purpose for doing what they do, and in the reader’s eyes, the end will often justify the means.

6. Establish Limits

Writing an antihero requires us to walk a fine line between remaining authentic to who the character is while still keeping them likable. One way to maintain that balance is to set limits beyond which the character won’t go.

In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, The Man’s purpose is to protect his son in a brutal post-apocalyptic world. It’s a noble and relatable goal, and he’s an antihero because of the things he must do to keep them both safe. But there are lines he won’t cross that many of the other survivors have already embraced—namely, kidnapping and killing people as a food source. Readers may not like a lot of what The Man does, but his adherence to certain ideals, even when doing so puts his goal in jeopardy, keeps us in his corner. 

7. Keep Readers Guessing

Let’s be honest here; it’s a lot of work, trying to make your antihero sympathetic and relatable. So maybe there’s another way. With the right circumstances, it’s possible to write a story that disguises your antihero as something else.

<Warning: spoilers ahead>

In the first full half of Gone Girl, we think Amy Dunne is innocent, that her husband is the horrible person and she’s his victim. But it turns out she’s as antihero-y as any antihero ever was.

Flip the scenario, and you end up with everyone’s favorite antihero, Severus Snape, whose good qualities were deliberately downplayed to make readers think he was simply a villain. When the curtain’s pulled back, he’s revealed to be one of the most awesome examples of all time.

Antiheroes aren’t new. They’ve been alive and kicking since the time of Shakespeare, Greek mythology, and the Bible. But their recent revival has created a slew of them, and you don’t want yours to get lost in the maelstrom. Use these tips to create a new—dare I say, Snape-worthy?—antihero that will top readers’ lists of favorite and most memorable characters of all time.

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post 7 Tips to Make Your Antihero Stand Out appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Is there anything more frustrating than knowing there’s a problem with our story, but not being sure how to fix it?

We wish for an easy button in these moments, but sadly, none exist. Occasionally though, we get lucky and discover a versatile story element or technique so useful it can help us navigate past MANY story problems!

So, storytellers…ready to meet your new best friend?

The All-Powerful Emotion Amplifier

Emotion amplifiers are unique states or conditions that act as a challenge, conflict, and emotional destabilizer all rolled into one. They generate internal strain and emotional volatility which can lead to a loss of control, sending your character on a crash course with missteps and mistakes!

Sounds bad, right? Well, it is…for the character. But for your story, it’s great!

Let’s look at a specific amplifier: scrutiny.

Scrutiny: being observed or critically examined.

Now, imagine yourself for a moment, will you?

You’re merrily typing away on your computer, drafting your latest story. Your brain is full of ideas! The words are flowing! And then your mother-in-law appears and begins reading over your shoulder.

Or:

You’re hosting the family barbeque and your sister-in-law arrives, sits at a picnic table, and proceeds to scowl at everything in view. She examines your cutlery as if it has never seen a dishwasher, smells the potato salad before adding it to her plate, and makes a show of picking off the burned bits of her chicken.

Can you hear the lambs screaming, Clarisse?

Face it, scrutiny is not fun. Whether it’s you, me, or a character, it gets in our heads, makes us hyperaware of our flaws, and whatever task we’re working on instantly becomes harder.

Even if an observer is expected–say at a competition–a person will have to have a strong mental focus not to be thrown off their game. So, you can imagine how our character, grappling with the weight of story problems, responsibilities, and emotional struggles, might react if we added scrutiny to the mix. You can just see how it would become that one burden too much, and in their frustration, they’d lash out or do something else that would take their situation from bad to worse.

Pain, exhaustion, hunger, competition, danger, attraction…amplifiers come in all shapes and sizes, and can help with story problems when used strategically.  

Common Story Problems

NOT ENOUGH CONFLICT:

An amplifier is an added challenge to navigate that, when intense enough, will cause our characters to lose control. When they do, they act on emotion, not thought, and this has repercussions: poor decisions that lead to mistakes, choices that carry unforeseen consequences, and new complications they didn’t think about in the heat of the moment. In other words, conflict!

LOW STAKES:

When there’s not enough on the line, readers tune out. One of the best ways to raise the stakes is to make things more personal. Imagine your character poorly navigating an amplifier like danger, competition, or intoxication and making a mistake that hurts someone or puts an important goal at risk. When a character screws up and feels responsible, undoing the harm they did becomes a personal mission. Readers will tune in because 1) they can’t help but empathize over making a costly mistake and 2) they feel tension knowing the character can’t afford to fail or lose control again.

PASSIVE CHARACTERS (NO AGENCY):

Readers are drawn to characters with agency, those who steer their fate and take charge, not ones who let others solve their problems. Emotion amplifiers get passive characters to step up because they inflict urgency, motivating the character to find relief from the strain one causes.

A starving character must find food (Hunger), a character lost in the woods must find their way to safety (Physical Disorientation), and a character suffering from Sleep Deprivation must secure rest before their body gives in.

LOW TENSION:

Tension, that stretchy feeling that comes when a person is unsure what will happen next, is something we want to build into every page. Because amplifiers cause characters to be emotionally unstable, readers feel tension as they read on to see if the character can handle the strain because if they can’t, it will cost them.

HIDDEN EMOTION:

In many situations, characters hide what they feel because they don’t want to be judged, feel vulnerable, or be viewed as weak. Unfortunately, this makes it harder for readers to get close enough to know what’s going on behind their stony exterior and feel empathy for what the character is experiencing.

This is why amplifiers are great to deploy. Like a boiling kettle, adding a nice dollop of pain, pressure, exhaustion, or even arousal, and suddenly those repressed feelings bubble up and spill out, putting the very emotions they’re hiding on display!

SHOWING CHARACTER GROWTH:

How well (or poorly) a character responds to problems and stressors can say a lot about them, revealing how much growth is required to achieve their goal. Emotion amplifiers are many things, including tests. If the character handles an amplifier poorly, they face the fallout and deal with the consequences. But it also teaches them what not to do next time, so if you later hit them with the same (or similar) amplifier again and they handle it better, it is a neon sign to readers that the character is evolving.

PERFECT CHARACTERS:

Perfect characters are a turn-off because they don’t feel realistic. Readers are drawn to characters who are true to life, meaning they’ll lose their cool, have bad judgment, and screw things up at times. You can show all this through the poor handling of an emotion amplifier! Characters who don’t handle stress and pressure will feel more authentic because readers have had their own struggles in that department and know what it’s like. Seeing characters in the same situation is relatable, and makes it easier to cheer them on as they work through the complications in the aftermath.

UNCLEAR MOTIVATION:

In every scene, readers should know the character’s goal and why they are pursuing it. If you need to redirect and show a clear scene goal, amplifiers can help. Whatever it is–pain, stress, pressure, dehydration–it’s causing a form of strain, meaning your character’s goal will be to manage or free themselves from it.

HAPPY CHARACTERS IN A HAPPY LAND:

Like low-conflict situations, we also don’t want characters to be happy for too long. Time to time, your character comes out on top, ending a scene in a win. An emotion amplifier like an injury, illness, or exhaustion is a great way to give them a new situational problem to focus on.

LACK OF RELATIONSHIP FRICTION:

Stories where everyone gets along and supports one another will eventually elicit yawns from readers. People rub against one another, and it’s not always a bad thing when they do so. Sometimes it needs to happen for important realizations to take place for a character to examine boundaries, and expectations, or achieve personal growth.

An amplifier can bring forth friction because if a character mishandles the strain of it, they may lash out, question loyalty or motivations, shut people out, or do other things that will cause misunderstandings. Any damage they do to the relationship will need to be undone, giving the character a chance to see things from the perspective of the one they hurt, and to practice accountability, both of which can strengthen the relationship long-term.

PREDICTABILITY:

Some stories can become predictable if certain plot elements, character types, and other genre expectations strain a writer’s ability to be creative. Emotion Amplifiers come in all sizes and shapes, meaning choosing the right one can easily transform a premise, conflict scenario, or relationship dynamics, elevating it into something fresh. For example, wouldn’t it be great to see a pro-athlete character struggling with sensory overload when he hits it big, a love interest trying to manage her compulsions, or a pregnant police detective hunting down serial killers?

LOW READER ENGAGEMENT:

If an agent, editor, or beta reader has even mentioned that they struggled to connect with your character, chances are two things have happened. One, the character’s emotions are not accessible enough to the reader, meaning they are too well hidden or repressed, or two, there isn’t enough common ground between the reader and your character for empathy to form.

Emotion Amplifiers help with both issues, bringing emotions to the surface through volatility and a common ground experience readers can bond with characters over.

All readers know what it is like to feel internal strain and, if they give in to it, make mistakes they’ll regret. They empathize with characters having to do the hard work of fixing what they’ve broken. Should the character successfully stay in control of their emotional responses despite the strain an amplifier causes, readers rejoice with the character for mastering the moment and rising above their stress and struggle. Win-win!

If you’ve not yet dove into the wonderful world of emotion amplifiers, I hope you’ll change that. Start by reading this introductory post, checking out this list of amplifiers, and then seeing if The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Stress and Volatility is the life preserver your story needs.  

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post How to Fix Big Story Problems appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Another book joins the family today: The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Stress and Volatility!

Writing authentic emotional reactions can be difficult when a character is the sort to hide what they feel. Whether it’s due to fear, painful past trauma, or personal insecurities, they believe that if they keep their emotions in check, it will save them from being judged, feeling vulnerable, or being viewed as weak.

Sure, self-preservation is common in the real world (don’t we all hide our feelings at times?) but in fiction, it can spell disaster.

Why? Because emotions need to be accessible to readers if we want them to care.

One way or another, our characters need to reveal what they truly feel, and this is where an emotion amplifier can be a handy tool. These states or conditions act as a challenge, conflict, and emotional destabilizer all rolled into one.

Pain, pressure, competition, mortal peril, arousal…these and other amplifiers have the power to increase a character’s volatility, making it nearly impossible for them to emotionally self-regulate. This sets them up for overreactions, misjudgments, and (hopefully) colossal mistakes they will need to fix and learn from. 

A Companion to The Emotion Thesaurus

What began as a small ebooklet is now an expanded second edition that explores 52 unique amplifiers capable of causing physical, cognitive, and psychological strain. In addition to our signature descriptive lists, this companion will show you how to use amplifiers to enhance inner conflict, overturn the status quo, reveal deeper emotions & vulnerability, and create opportunities for your characters to gain self-awareness and personal growth!

A more detailed look at this book
The list of amplifiers covered in this guide
What writers are saying about The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus
Where to find it in print and digital formats or buy direct as a PDF.

Win a Free Workshop!

We are so excited for you to meet this new book we’re doing something fun to celebrate: a workshop giveaway! If you’d like to win a seat in a Zoom webinar where we’ll dive into Emotion Amplifiers and show you their superpowers, enter below.

Giveaway now closed – watch your inboxes!

Psst! Your odds are great – our Zoom room holds 100 seats!

The date and time for this workshop are yet to be determined, but if you win and can’t make it in person, don’t worry. A recording will be available for a limited time.

Enter by May 17th, and good luck!

Don’t forget to let your writing friends and clients know about this giveaway – we’d love to see you all win seats!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Release Day: The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus Is Here (& a Giveaway!) appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

As you may have heard, we recently released The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Stress and Volatility, a companion to The Emotion Thesaurus.

If you aren’t familiar with this term, let me explain. An emotion amplifier is a special state or condition that can make a character emotionally reactive. Whether it’s pain, scrutiny, pregnancy, competition, or other state, when a disruptor messes with a character’s psychological and emotional equilibrium, it’s bad for them, but good for the story. And this is but one way to use them.

Emotion Amplifiers are unbelievably versatile. In addition to making a character volatile, check out how else they can help you level up your story!

1. Amplifiers make it harder for characters to hide what they feel.

Characters are like people–they often mask what they feel to avoid judgment, vulnerability, and the perception that they are weak. But if your character is hungover, enduring high levels of scrutiny, or it’s been ten hours since they last had a cigarette (withdrawal), it becomes harder to keep their emotions in check. A slip–forgetting their filter, telling someone off–and suddenly their emotions are on full display.

2. Amplifiers are great for uncovering a character’s faults, flaws, and sensitivities.

Characters are motivated to control events around them as much as possible, which can make them seem more capable and strong than they actually are. Derailing their plans with an amplifier is a great way to show readers they don’t have it all together and can lose their emotional grip just like anyone else.

3. Amplifiers infuse scenes with tension.

When a character’s stress levels are heightened because of an amplifier like hunger, illness, or pain, the reader becomes glued to the page, wondering if the character will be able to handle the extra strain.

When a reader is unsure of what will happen next, the tension they feel causes them to read on…exactly what we want!

4. Amplifiers generate conflict.

Sometimes your character can manage the strain of an amplifier, and sometimes they can’t. If distraction, sleep deprivation, or even attraction causes your character’s attention to drift, they could fail to spot a threat or worse, taking their situation from bad to worse.

5. Amplifiers can help make a character relatable.

Most amplifiers are common enough that readers have experienced them themselves, or at least know the challenge they represent. So when a character is struggling with something like stress, pressure, or bereavement, readers relate to the character because this situation feels like common ground.

6. Amplifiers pressure characters to deal with their inner conflict.

It can be tempting to ignore personal problems when there’s a difficult decision to be made, but if characters continue to avoid the hard stuff, readers will disengage.

Deploying an amplifier at the right time can make the character’s situation untenable, forcing them to search within and find a way to change their situation for the better, even if this means a cost or sacrifice.

7. Amplifiers provide the opportunity to grow.

In a story, characters should make plenty of mistakes so they can learn from them. Letting emotions take over because of an amplifier like addiction, burnout, or confinement might mean taking a foolish risk, doing or saying something that damages their reputation, or creating big problems for themselves. Dealing with the fallout of bad decisions and emotional volatility will teach them to find a better way next time.

8. Amplifiers support your story’s structure.

Stories contain a framework of turning points and characters must move from one stage to the next for the story to progress. The problem? Fear can make them resistant to take on certain challenges, and they become resistant to leaving their comfort zone. An amplifier like danger, dehydration, arousal, or physical disorientation can force them to march into the unknown so they can secure what they need most.

9. Amplifiers give the story’s premise or conflict scenario a fresh edge.

Stories naturally contain elements and scenarios that will be similar, especially within a genre. The addition of an amplifier, perhaps one like brainwashing, an injury, mental health condition, or intoxication, will help readers see your events as unique, and give you a way to show a character’s individuality in the way that they handle the challenge.

10. Amplifiers encourage readers to connect with your characters on a deeper level.

Amplifiers are familiar to readers as these states and conditions are part of the human experience. When an amplifier brings a character’s emotions close to the surface, readers can’t help but be reminded of their own feelings and humanity. This fosters empathy and connection, and the reader becomes invested in what happens next.

Becca and I explore over 50 amplifiers in this second edition of The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus. As a companion guide, each entry is styled very close to The Emotion Thesaurus. If you’d like a look at the list of amplifiers and a few sample entries from the book, just go here.

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post 10 Reasons Why Emotion Amplifiers Are Good for Your Story appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

But Michael Hauge prefers a different term for this phenomenon:

No one likes to be grabbed. It’s a jarring, unpleasant experience. A far better way to approach the opening of your script (or novel) is to realize you’ve got to seduce the reader in the first ten pages. Everybody likes to be seduced; it’s a gradual, enjoyable, and emotionally involving experience that thoroughly captures our attention.
(Writing Screenplays That Sell)

Whatever your terminology, drawing in readers is a vitally important process that needs to happen at the beginning of your story. Also called the setup, it’s everything that occurs before the all-important catalyst that propels your character out of their regular world into a new one.

According to Blake Snyder (Save the Cat), the setup should consist of roughly the first 12% of your story. This is a guideline you can set in stone or take with a grain of salt, depending on your plotting/pantsing style. But 12% is a good rule of thumb because it’s enough real estate to set the stage and draw readers in without it dragging on and putting them to sleep.

Unfortunately, we can get the length of the setup right and still not achieve the goal of pulling readers in. To do this, we have to tap into their emotions. If we don’t make them feel, they won’t be invested in the character; if they’re not invested in the character, they won’t care what happens and won’t keep reading to see what happens. So it’s incredibly important that the setup elicit emotion from the reader. There are a few things you can include in your opening pages that will help accomplish this.

Character Empathy

Readers start reading a book for a variety of reasons: they liked the premise, it was a recommended by a friend, they’re a fan of the author. Readers keep reading because they connect with the characters. We have a very small window—that first 12%—to achieve the reader-character connection, and eliciting empathy is a great way to make it happen. Here are a few ways to encourage that special something between the reader and your protagonist.

Universal Needs

Readers like characters they can relate to in some way. One way to bond your audience of unique individuals to the protagonist is to remove one of their basic human needs, such as belonging or surviving. Because everyone understands these needs, taking one of them away from your hero can endear readers to them.

This is one reason Katniss Everdeen was such a successful protagonist. Most readers couldn’t relate to her circumstances of having to kill others to survive, but they could understand needing to protect a vulnerable loved one or providing for one’s family. If you want to increase your reader’s empathy for the hero, try taking away a universal need, and the reader will stay tuned to see if she can get it back.

Admirability

People are drawn to those they admire, so it’s a good idea to give your hero some qualities that readers will appreciate or aspire to themselves. Intelligence, a sense of humor, kindness, generosity, honor—these are attributes people long for. Seeing them personified in the hero opens us up to them, making us want them to do well.

Notice that I didn’t say a protagonist must be likable (though that works, too). As a selfish and manipulative character, Scarlett O’Hara isn’t exactly a glowing role model, but people relate to her because of her shrewdness, tenacity, and confidence. It’s her admirable qualities that win readers over.

Uniqueness

Readers, along with editors, agents, and publishers, are tired of seeing new versions of the same old characters. We want someone who surprises us with something new. A janitor who anonymously and effortlessly solves impossible math theorems at M.I.T. (Good Will Hunting). An art student in Prague who collects teeth for the demons who raised her (Daughter of Smoke and Bone). When you’re creating your protagonist, see what you can do to make them stand out from the crowd and be remembered.

Remarkability

Few people truly excel in any area, but most would like to. Characters who are remarkable in some way speak to our need for esteem and recognition, whether it’s because they’re intelligent, incredibly talented, or have an unusual ability. Make your character extraordinary and readers will often respond.

Conflict

Well-written conflict inherently elicits emotion—anticipation, yes, as the reader worries about the protagonist’s well being, but it also can generate feelings like nervousness, frustration, or fear. Create a situation many readers have experienced or can imagine going through, and you’ve added relateabilty, too.

This conflict can be overt and obvious, such as a fistfight, terrorist attack, or someone fleeing for their life. But this doesn’t always work in the setup because the reader hasn’t had enough time to get to know the protagonist and care about what happens to them. Conflict at this stage is often more effective when it’s hinted at or implied.

In Stephen King’s Under the Dome, we first see Dale Barbara as he’s leaving town after “taking a pretty good beating at The Mill.” That’s the only reference to his altercation, but it’s enough to tweak the reader’s empathy meter and pique interest. Why’d he get beaten up? Who did it? If he’s innocent, why is he leaving town?

Conflict can also be internal rather than external. A character struggling with an important decision, questioning themselves, or denying a wounding event from the past can be just as compelling as a five-care pileup. However it manifests, be sure to include some conflict in your setup; done well, not only will it tug the reader’s heartstrings but it will keep up the pace, too.

The Need For Change

Most people—readers included—want to improve and grow, to be better tomorrow than they were yesterday. They understand that change, though difficult and sometimes painful, is needed in order to achieve growth. This is why, at their most basic level, stories are about necessary change. Sometimes this change is internal, played out through the character’s arc as they work to overcome fears or wounding events and embrace the fullest version of themselves. Sometimes it’s external—something within the world itself that needs fixing, such as the existence of the one ring in Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The most compelling stories often contain elements of change that are both internal and external.

The setup is the perfect place to show what needs to be changed for your character; it allows you to hint at what has to happen for them to be fulfilled by the story’s end. Sometimes this means showing their biggest flaw, the one they think is a strength but is really crippling them. In other cases, it might require showing an inequality or injustice in the world that they must alter in order to pursue her dreams. What has to change before the character can achieve their overall goal? Reference this in your opening pages and you’ll clue readers in to what has to happen for your hero to emerge victorious.

Story setups are tricky; we always want to include more information than they need. To stay on the straight and narrow, remember the two-fold purpose of the setup: introduce the character in their everyday world, and draw readers in by activating their emotions. Stay focused on these outcomes, and you’re on your way to drafting a story start that will keep readers engaged well beyond the opening pages.

PRO TIP: The Story Maps tool at One Stop For Writers can help you organize your setup and other important turning points while keeping them in proper proportion.

BECCA PUGLISI

Becca Puglisi is an international speaker, writing coach, and bestselling author of The Emotion Thesaurus and its sequels. Her books are available in five languages, are sourced by US universities, and are used by novelists, screenwriters, editors, and psychologists around the world. She is passionate about learning and sharing her knowledge with others through her Writers Helping Writers blog and via One Stop For Writers—a powerhouse online library created to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Three Essentials for Engaging Reader Emotion in the Setup appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

No one in the real world is perfect, and so characters shouldn’t be either. To seem as real as you or me, they should have flaws and strengths, and these sides of their personality should line up with who they are, how they were raised, and reflect the experiences they’ve had to date, good and bad.

While we develop our characters, however, we need to remember that flaws come with a tipping point. If we write someone with an overabundance of negative traits and behaviors that are a turnoff, the character will slide into unlikable territory. And yes, if the goal is to make a villain, antagonist, or other character loathsome, that’s fine–mission accomplished. But if we want readers to be on their side, too much surliness, negativity, secretiveness, or propensity for overblown reactions can cause a reader to disconnect.

Like a joke taken too far, it’s hard to claw an audience back once they’ve formed negative judgments, which is why we want to be careful and deliberate when showing our character’s negative side. Antiheroes tend to wear flaws more openly and can be semi-antagonistic as they battle the world’s constraints, so this line of likability is something to pay close attention to if we want readers to ultimately side with them. Here are some tips to help you.

How to Write Flawed Characters
& Not Turn Readers Off

Show A Glimmer: no matter how impatient, uptight, or spoiled your character is, hint there’s more beneath the surface. A small action or internal observation can show the character in a positive light, especially when delivered in their first scene (frequently referred to as a Save the Cat moment.) It can be a positive quality, like a sense of humor, or a simple act that shows something redeeming about the character.

Imagine a man yelling at the old ladies crowding the hallway outside his apartment door as they pick up their friend Mabel for bingo, and then seeing him swear and fume at the chuggy elevator for making him late. Not the nicest guy, is he? But when Mr. Suit and Tie gets to his car outside, he stops to dig out a Ziploc bag of cat food and carefully roll down the edges into a makeshift bowl.

What? Here the guy seemed like an impatient jerk, but we discover part of his morning routine is to feed the local stray cat! Maybe he isn’t so bad after all. (Talk about a literal interpretation of “saving the cat.”)

Use POV Narrative for Insight: characters are flawed for a reason, namely negative experiences (wounds) which create flaws as an “emotional countermeasure.” Imagine a hero who stutters, and he was teased about it growing up. Even his parents encouraged him to “be seen and not heard” when they hosted parties and special events. Because of the emotional trauma (shame and anger) at being treated badly, he’s now uncommunicative and unfriendly as an adult. This type of backstory can be dribbled into narrative with care, as long as it’s active, has bearing on the current action, and is brief as to not slow the pace.

Create Big Obstacles: the goal is to create empathy as soon as possible, and one of the ways to do that is to show what the character is up against. If your character has a rough road ahead, the reader will make allowances for behavior, provide they don’t wallow and whine overmuch. After all, it isn’t hardship that creates empathy…it’s how a character behaves despite their hardship as that gives readers a window into who they really are.

Form a Balance: No character is all good or all bad. Give them a mix of positive traits (attributes) and negative traits (flaws) so they feel realistic, and ensure their negative traits contain a learning curve. For example, their negative traits may be good at keeping people and uncomfortable situations at a distance in the past, but in your story, they won’t help your character get what they want. Your character will have to see this for themselves, and it’ll only happen when that flawed behavior and way of thinking leads to poor judgment, mistakes, relationship friction, and other problems, the poor sap.

Eventually the character will see that they need to change up their behavioral playlist if they want to succeed, and this means letting go of the bad and embracing the good, opening their mind to a new way of thinking, behaving, and being. This is where their positives get to shine, so lay the foundation with qualities that may start in the background, but come forward and show them to be rounded, likable, and unique.

Of Special Concern:
Your Story’s Baddies

It’s easy to give an antagonist flaws because your intent is to make readers dislike them, but even here, caution is needed. Hopelessly flawed antagonists make shallow characters and unworthy opponents, so we want to also give them strengths (like intelligence, meticulousness, dedication, and discipline, for example) to make them formidable and hard to beat.

This forces your protagonist to work their hardest, and in a match up, nothing is guaranteed. Being uncertain about the outcome of these story moments is what will hold the reader’s attention to the very end.

To build balanced, unique characters and find traits, positive and negative, that will make sense for them, take a look at the Positive Trait & Negative Trait Thesaurus Writing Guides. We created these to make character building easier for you.

Happy writing!

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Writing Flawed Characters Who Don’t Turn Readers Off appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

For the better part of two months, Becca and I have been exploring pain, and how to write about it in fiction. It’s been enlightening for us, and we hope for you as well. So many ways to torture characters, who knew?

(Well, we did. And you did. Pain is sort of our bread and butter, isn’t it?)

But maybe you missed a post or two. It happens. You were on a writing retreat, or vacationing at the lake. Maybe you were hiding out in a sleeping bag in the woods, denying the arrival of fall and Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

Whatever the case may be, we’ve got you. Here are all the posts in this series.

The Three Stages of Awareness

Pain has 3 stages: Before, During, and After. For realistic and logical description, you’ll want to know what all three will look like for your character and the type of injury.

Different Types of Pain to Explore

Discomfort comes in all shapes and sizes, including physical, psychological, and spiritual pain. Mine this post for ideas on how to bring something fresh to your story by targeting a variety of soft spots.

Describing Minor Injuries

Cuts, stings, and scrapes create discomfort and can easily lead to bigger problems. You’ll find loads of descriptive detail for showing smaller injuries here, and how they can make your story more realistic.

Describing Major or Mortal Injuries

Sometimes a wound is serious, casting doubt on whether your character will survive this crisis. Fill your mental toolbox with ideas on what happens when your character is stricken with an injury with no easy fix.

Describing Invisible Injuries and Conditions

Not every injury leaves a physical mark, and when you can’t see it, you don’t know how bad it is. Invisible injuries and conditions are a great vehicle to encourage readers to worry about characters they care about.

Factors that Help or Hinder One’s Ability to Cope

We all hope we’ll cope well when injured, but certain factors make it easier–or harder–to handle pain. This list will help you steer how a character responds!

Taking an Injury from Bad to Worse

No one likes to get hurt, but when circumstances are afoot that cause that injury to worsen? Tension and conflict, baby. So, when you’re feeling evil, read this one to see how you can raise the stakes.

Everyday Ways a Character Can Get Hurt

We want to immerse readers in the character’s everyday world, so it helps to think about where dangers and threats might be lurking so we can create a credible collision with pain that comes from a believable source.

Best Practices for Writing Pain in Fiction

Finally, we round up this series with unmissable tips on how to take pain scenes from good, to great. Authenticity is key, and of course, showing and not telling. Don’t miss these final tips to help you write tense, engaging fiction!

We hope this mother lode of pain posts helps you level up your stories.

Pain is an Emotion Amplifier, and a powerful one at that, so putting in extra effort to showcase it well is worth the time.

Pain presents a challenge for your character while making them more emotionally volatile, and prone to mistakes. This means tension and conflict, drawing readers in!

Pain also helps empathy form because people know pain, and so when a character they care about is battered and bruised, or beset by trauma, readers can’t help but be reminded of their own experiences, and worry over what will happen next.

Other Compilation Posts

If you found this collection of resources helpful, you might be interested in some of our other posts that contain a mother lode of topic-related information.

How to Write about Character Occupations
How to Show (Not Tell) Character Emotions
How to Create Phenomenal First Pages
How to Write Conflict that Has Maximum Impact
How to Choose & Employ Your Character’s Talents and Skills
How to Write about a Character’s Emotional Wounds
How to Use Amplifiers to Stress Characters & Elevate Emotion

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Want to Show Your Character’s Pain? Here’s Everything You Need to Know appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

When we put characters in dangerous or unfamiliar situations, they can get hurt, and when they do, things become harder to do. Injuries can mean reduced mobility, pain makes it difficult to think clearly, or something they must do (win a fight, escape a threat, or be independent, for example) may become all but impossible.

Injuries and pain can cause an array of problems, generating tension and conflict. Readers also tend to become more invested when something happens to a character, either because they care and want them to be okay, or readers feel a rush of schadenfreude because a nasty character is finally getting what they deserve.

A writer’s mindset is all about How can I make things more difficult for this character? so it can be tempting to pile on the injuries and pain, but this isn’t always a good strategy. Too many ouchies and a protagonist won’t be able to continue their quest, meaning they can’t logically achieve an important goal (unless the author manufactures a ‘Hail Mary rescue’ that will feel contrived). Or, if injuries are piling up like a serial killer’s body count, readers might get angry and feel the author is going too far. So we really want to find the sweet spot of making things hard, not impossible for the character.

When you need to make life challenging, rather than adding new injuries, a better option may be to add a complication.

In the right circumstances, even a small injury can cause big problems. Cuts get infected. Bites may be poisonous. A blister can make it hard to run fast enough to escape. Complications are not only realistic, they raise the stakes and make readers worry, generating tension.

How to take an injury from bad to worse

Being unable to treat the injury. Some problems require medical intervention, but that doesn’t mean your character can access help. They might be on a remote hiking trail, in the middle of a farmer’s field, or simply unable to go to the hospital because if they do, it will alert the authorities. When a character can’t get the help they need, this not only ramps up the pain, it ramps up the consequences.

An underlying condition. Does your character have a clotting disorder that means a cut on their thigh won’t close? Are they being treated for an illness that leaves them fatigued? Will that concussion re-awaken difficult side effects caused by a previous traumatic brain injury? When you want to make an injury more complicated and particularly dangerous for a character, think about what underlying conditions or illnesses they may have that will make it harder to function.

Infection. Your story doesn’t need to be in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse to cause characters to worry about viruses. Wounds exposed to the wrong conditions can cause fever or delirium, compromising your character’s ability to function and make rational decisions. Untreated, infection can lead to blood poisoning, gangrene, or even flesh-eating disease. Yikes.

Reduced mobility. If your character breaks a bone or injures their back, they may be unable to move on their own. This can put a strain on others who must step in to help, causing delays or forcing them to expend energy they need for other things. If your character is on their own, say with a broken leg at the bottom of an embankment, an inability to move much will become a crisis if they cannot source food, water, or find help. Sitting or laying prone too long can also increase blood flow related issues, making injuries worse and healing slower.

Muscle tears or nerve damage. A bike accident, overdoing it at the gym, or a pell-mell flight from a pack of wild dogs can mean more than bruises. A muscle tear or nerve damage can affect mobility and dexterity, and generate high levels of pain. These injuries take time to heal, and sometimes require special treatments or even surgery. So think carefully about how this type of complication might play out in the story. Your character might be damaged in a way that their recovery may not fit the timeline for conflict resolution.

Scar tissue. Everyone has a few scars, but what if your character’s reduces function in some way, or even disfigures them? What will this mean as far as their dexterity and range of movement, or how other people view them? Will it close doors because they’ve lost their edge as far as a skill goes, or reveal a lack of depth in their relationships because people can’t accept this change?

Extreme swelling. Injuries cause tissue to swell, and if this happens to a body part that is confined somehow (a swollen foot stuck in a boot, or a wedding ring cutting off circulation due to a broken finger), it can cause intense pain and the need for intervention to avoid losing the limb.

Improper healing. Sometimes a character can’t get help when they need it, and the injury starts to heal in a way that is less than ideal. Bones may not be fully aligned as they knit together, causing a limp or malformation. A deep cut that can’t be stitched in time can lead to an ugly scar, loss of sensation, and reduced function.

Fears or phobias being triggered. Characters who have suffered past trauma may have their deepest fears awakened when an injury occurs, especially if they are reminded of that painful experience. Or a phobia of doctors, hospitals, dying, or another fear can make them resistant to being treated.

Addictions. A character in recovery will not want to risk medication that could trigger a relapse. Instead, they may have to bear extreme levels of pain to stay drug free, or have no choice but to have drugs in their system so a surgery can be performed, or an infection is stopped before it can spread.

Making the injury worse. When there’s danger present or a character is faced with a ticking clock, they can’t take it easy. A strain the character must ignore to escape a threat can become worse if it isn’t treated. Over time, increased fatigue or reduced strength will make a character unstable and more prone to additional injuries, too.

Ideally, injuries should push characters to think of creative solutions to their problems.

When they do, it makes for great reading. Too, characters who don’t give up (even though they may want to) are the ones readers admire most!

Other Posts in This Pain Series:

The Three Stages of Awareness
Different Types to Explore
Describing Minor Injuries
Describing Major and Mortal Injuries
Invisible Injuries and Conditions
Factors that Help or Hinder the Ability to Cope
Everyday Ways a Character Could Be Hurt
Best Practices for Great Fiction

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post Writing About Pain: Taking an Injury from Bad to Worse appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.