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®.

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®.

We were happy. Writers were happy. But because we left one thesaurus out of that sale, our Character Trait Boxed Set was definitely not happy.

So, we’re rectifying our transgression by having a special sale just for our digital box set. Until the end of December, you can grab it for only $7.99.

What is the Character Trait Boxed Set?

In a nutshell, we combined the bestselling Negative Trait and Positive Trait Thesaurus guides and embedded hyperlinks in each entry so you can move between connected flaws and attributes. This means it’s easier to build memorable characters and write their actions, behaviors, and attitudes as you can access over 200 personality traits without having to swap out ebooks.

If I already have the Positive Trait and Negative Trait books, do I need this one?

The same material from those two books are in this boxed set, so if you have those, and don’t mind switching volumes when you want to go from positive attributes to character flaws, you don’t need this book. But if you’d like the ease of use of having everything together and cross-referenced, you might want to pick it up to have on hand.

Where can I find out more?

This boxed set is available through the Writers Helping Writers bookstore. Whatever type of reader you have, we have the book file you need. If you prefer the PDF format, we have that too

Visit the description page for the Positive Trait volume
Visit the description page for the Negative Trait volume

Sale ends Dec 31, 2023.

This boxed set makes a great gift if you need a little something for a writer friend, too.

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 The Character Trait Boxed Set Is On Sale 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®.

As you may know, Angela and I have recently reached the unbelievable milestone of having sold a million books.

I say “unbelievable” because this was never in our sights. We started out as two writers with no formal education in the field. We had no publishing experience. What did a couple of stay-at-home moms really know about succeeding as authors?

Needless to say, when we sold our thousandth book in 2012, we were over-the-moon excited. And then we hit the 10,000 mark. Then 100k… With every milestone, people asked us how we had done it—because I think a lot of writers can relate to our feelings of uncertainty, of having a goal but not knowing how to get there, and not wanting to dream too big.

But here’s the truth: if we can succeed, you can succeed. Full stop.

Granted, it would have been easier with a little more information when we started. So we’d like to share some of the things that have worked for us, because we believe they can work for you—no matter what you’re writing or what goals you’ve set for yourself.

Give the Readers What They Want

Some of you may not know that the very first thing we blogged about in 2007 was The Emotion Thesaurus. As critique partners, we had both struggled with how to show emotions in new and realistic ways, and we knew it was also a problem for the other members of our group. So we thought: maybe this is something other writers need help with, too.

That suspicion was confirmed almost immediately. We started putting up a new emotion post each Saturday, and our readership just blew up. Before long, people were asking for the content in book form. And that’s when we knew we had something people wanted to read.

Takeaway: Whether you’re writing nonfiction, cozy mysteries, thrillers, steamy romances, or a memoir, you have stories that people want to read. Write what excites you. Hone your craft so you can write those stories well. And start building connections with the people who want to read what you’re writing.

Take Risks

Angela and I had always dreamed of being traditionally published, so when it came time to turn The Emotion Thesaurus into a book, we assumed we’d go that route. Then we started seeing our thesaurus content popping up on other people’s sites, and being distributed as a PDF. Suddenly, we couldn’t afford to wait two years or more for our book to be available; we had to get it out quickly before someone else did, and that meant publishing it ourselves.

But this was 2011. Self-publishing was openly poo-poohed in the industry, with many people bemoaning the substandard quality of self-pubbed books (and some asserting that authors only went this route if they couldn’t get a traditional contract). Oh, and we had zero idea how to publish a book. Going down this path was a huge risk for us, but Ange and I knew we needed to do it, so we got to work figuring out file formats, and distributors, and cover designers, and the logistics of co-authoring a book. And we made it work, and in 2012, we launched The Emotion Thesaurus.

Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to take risks with your writing. Try new things. Dive into uncharted waters and educate yourself. Sometimes, the scariest opportunities have the biggest payoffs, but you won’t reap the rewards if you don’t try.

Put Your Own Spin on Your Work

Another thing that made us nervous was the unconventional format of our books. Instead of the typical narrative structure, our thesauruses consisted mostly of two-page entries full of lists and phrases. It was a risk to deviate from the norm, but we went for it because our blog readers liked it.

Not only did readers love the “user-friendly” structure, other writing books with lists soon began popping up all over Amazon.

Unfortunately, it’s also led to copycat covers and many books that have similar titles to those in our series. We feel bad every time someone tells us they bought a book they thought was one of ours only to discover it wasn’t. So if you are trying to find our thesaurus guides, just look for the Writers Helping Writers® logo.

Takeaway: Always put your own spin on your writing. Infuse it with your unique voice. Explore the themes that interest you and the subjects you’re passionate about. Write as your authentic, one-of-a-kind self and you’ll end up creating books that will stand apart from the others in your genre.

Make Your Books Available to as Many Readers as Possible

Because readers have their own preferred storefronts and formats, we wanted to reach as many of them as possible by going wide and making our books available in lots of places. We also offered PDF versions, since people like having their book files open on their computer while working. We even created a Character Traits Boxed Set to sell directly from our website.

The bulk of our sales do come from Amazon, but by distributing through many digital storefronts and independent bookstores, and making our books available in PDF, we ensured that readers could get our books where they liked to show and in the format that worked best for them.

Takeaway: Make it easy for people to buy your books. Sell through multiple distributors, in different formats. Listen to what your followers are saying about how they like to read and make those options available to them.

Explore Every Opportunity

As you grow, opportunities are going to come along that you never considered. Ange and I had published three books and were working on the fourth when we got an email from a publisher asking if the Korean rights to The Emotion Thesaurus were available. Foreign translations weren’t on our radar at all. We didn’t have an agent, couldn’t negotiate an international contract ourselves, and couldn’t market a book overseas if we wanted to. So it would’ve been easy for us to dismiss the request as being too far outside our wheelhouse and something we just didn’t have time for.

Instead, we looked into it. We found an agent who specialized in negotiating rights deals with foreign publishers. We talked to her about the email we’d received, and we realized this was a gift that had fallen into our laps. So we sold those rights. And, boy, was that the right decision. We now have books in 9 languages that have sold almost 400,000 copies to date in markets we never would have reached on our own.

Takeaway: No matter how busy you are, explore every opportunity that comes your way. You don’t have to invest a ton of time. Just do some basic research, keep an open mind, and see if it’s something you should pursue. When in doubt, see Point #2.

Run Experiments

It can be hard to know if an opportunity is a good one or not. In those cases, it doesn’t hurt to experiment.

In 2018, KDP started contacting us with requests to highlight our Kindle books in their daily and monthly deals. We were skeptical about how this would affect our sales. Sure, more people might buy our Kindle book if it was priced at $1.99. But wouldn’t we end up making less money that way? Would those discounted sales cannibalize our paperback sales?

So we ran an experiment and started participating in those deals. It became clear that while we made less per book, our revenue still increased. Why? Because it lowered the barrier to test out one of our thesauruses, and if the person found it helpful, they would often collect more volumes in the series. Also, because we have observed our readers prefer print to digital, some kindle deal buyers would go on to pick up a print copy also. So this experiment has really paid off for us.

Takeaway: New opportunities don’t have to be permanent. If you’re not sure about something, set aside a prescribed period of time to test it out. Setting a timeline and recognizing that the experiment is temporary can ease your mind about trying new things.

Know When to Cut Bait

But remember that not every experiment is a success. Prior to 2019, we hadn’t utilized ads on any platforms. Sales were flagging a bit at Amazon and a lot of people were finding success with ads there, so we decided to give it a shot. After eight months, we realized that the investment just wasn’t paying off, and we stopped.

Takeaway: Accept that some experiments won’t pan out. Keep a close eye on those trial runs and the risks you’ve decided to take. And do the same with your day-to-day tasks—you know, the processes and systems you’re using because that’s the way you’ve always done them. Be deliberate about monitoring what you’re doing and assessing if it’s worth the ROI. If it’s not working, stop doing it or find a new way.

Seek Out Multiple Revenue Streams

Let’s face it: it’s hard to make a living from book sales. But Ange and I learned early on that our skills as writers lent themselves to other ways of bringing in money. So we branched out as speakers, running workshops for local writing groups and at larger conferences. Then we explored another collaboration that resulted in One Stop for Writers, a subscription-based website that contains all our thesauruses (not just our books) and writing tools and resources designed by us that help writers in a new way.

Workshops and One Stop for Writers have provided additional revenue for us in and of themselves, but they also generated more sales by introducing us to new people who had never heard of our books.

Takeaway: What additional career opportunities could you pursue that utilize your writing skills? What else could you be doing “on the side” while you’re writing books? Here are some options you may not have considered.

Partner with the Right People

If there’s any one secret to Angela’s and my success, it’s that we found each other. It’s really, really hard to do this job alone. I can’t imagine having to handle everything by myself. At some point, most writers will need to partner with other people, be that a business partner, editor, agent, cover designer, copy editor, bookkeeper, etc. Those partnerships can save you—as long as you choose wisely.

Takeaway: Research potential partnerships carefully. Look for people who complement you, people who are strong where you’re weak. Find people who share your values and work ethic and are pulling in the same direction.

There’s more we could share, but this post is long enough already, and we’d rather hear what has worked for you. Let us know in the comments!

More quick facts about the books
Enter our celebratory giveaway

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 Selling a Million Books: What Worked for Us (and Can Work for You, Too) appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Two novice writers met in an online critique group called the Critique Circle and became fast friends. Angela (a Canadian) wrote about zombies and pirates and a magical bookstore that kidnapped customers. Becca (an American) wrote everything from a coming of age YA during California’s Gold Rush to a dark tale of a doughy gingerbread boy being baked alive (and here you thought Angela was the weird one).

The two also shared something else: a passion for learning and helping others. So they turned to studying the craft of writing and how they could help others work through common writing struggles.

One of the bigger hurdles writers faced was showing and not telling character emotion, so the two collaborated on a list of ways to show fear. This brainstorming list was well-received, and led to the next, and the next. Then in January 2008, they decided to start a blog so they could share these lists more widely. At The Bookshelf Muse, this collection of lists was given an official name: the “Emotion Thesaurus.”

This thesaurus became the first of many on different aspects of description, and finally, on May 9, 2012, they self-published their first writing guide: The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression.

Truth be told, it was terrifying. The industry wasn’t so keen on self-publishing back then, and some experts were vocal about how they believed writers were throwing their careers away if they self-published. To know about this bias and then put a book on the same industry-dominated shelf anyway took a lot of inner convincing, especially as this was their first publication, meaning they had no bestselling-this or editor-that to give them credibility.

But they did have something special. You.

Right from that first list, first blog, and first book, YOU were in their corner. You supported, cheered, and encouraged. You helped spread the word, told other writers about the helpful nature of this book, and then did the same for all the ones that followed.

Thank you for being in our corner!

Becca and I are stunned that a million of our books are in the world. Never could we have dreamt of being able to help so many writers, but we’ve been able to because of all of you. Your kindness, generosity, and support is unmatched. We are so grateful–thank you so, so much!

(Find Out More: Press Release & Quick Facts)

Giveaway Alert

A milestone like this calls for a special giveaway, so we reached out to our Resident Writing Coaches for help.

And boy, did they ever deliver!

Look at this incredible load of writerly things you can win…

The Prizes

A Story Audit from RWC & Editor, Lisa Poisso

This small but powerful diagnostic examines your one-page synopsis, a comprehensive assessment of the story’s narrative elements (story structure, plot, character arcs, conflict, and more), and an overview of the writing in your full manuscript. It will help you determine if your book is ready for editing, saving you time, energy, and money by diagnosing any big-picture issues before you pay someone for editing. A winner can redeem this Story Audit anytime after July 2023. (Psst. Lisa is great to work with!)

First 5000 Critique from RWC & Editor Michelle Barker

Your query letter and synopsis are important parts of the submission package, but your writing sample is the true test. In fact, many agents read the sample first. This service includes a developmental edit of your first 5000 words & complimentary access to Query Quest. Find out more.

Online Confidential Platform & Networking On Demand Course from RWC, Script Editor & Author, Lucy V. Hay

Marketing and platform building can be a challenge, but this step-by-step guide will help you utilize the online space to your best advantage as a writer or screenwriter. If you feel you aren’t getting traction online now, or you just don’t know where to start, this course will help you! Find out more.

A Wicked Good Bootcamp Seat from RWC, Editor, & Author Suzy Vadori
The 8-week virtual book coaching experience will teach you to write a book that readers will love. Get clear on the story you’re dying to tell (and WHY you want to tell it), so you can turn it into a book readers actually want to read without compromising your creative vision. Skip the writers’ learning curve and get over a decade’s worth of Suzy’s insider writing industry tips in just 8 weeks to make your writing as strong as possible. Come away with a detailed action plan to get your ideal book written and into the world this year.

A Crime Scene or Climax Critique, (Winner’s Choice) from RWC & Thriller Author Sue Coletta

Attention, mystery, thriller & crime writers! This unique prize has been designed just for you from an expert in crime scenes, serial killers, tension, and suspense! (Did I mention she has her own Murder Blog?) Sue will assess your scene and offer feedback to help you ramp up the intensity. Note: the winner will need to provide a short synopsis of the story so Sue has context for the scene.

A $150 credit toward a Cruising Writers Writing Retreat with RWC & Author Christina Delay

Have you ever dreamed of joining a bunch of writers on a writing retreat in some beautiful location? Then imagine a situation where you get to visit several stunning locations, be pampered as you relax, and have a chance to learn and network with industry pros! Cruising Writers is a fantastic option for retreaters – rest, relax, and fill your creative well aboard a stunning cruise ship. The winner will get a hefty $150 discount on your package when you book! (Stating the obvious, but you must be a writer to win.)

A 20-Page Critique of Your Middle Grade or YA Novel by RWC & Editor, Marissa Graff

Wouldn’t it be great to have help with the opening of your story, especially from someone who was a freelance editor and reader for former literary agent Sarah Davies (ranked #2 in middle-grade fiction sales) for over seven years? Someone who has had clients go on to nab agents, sell their books, and even win the Newbery Award? Heck yes it would! Marissa Graff will help you bring out the best elements of your MG or YA opening by critiquing your first 20 pages.

A Full Picture Book Critique from Our WHW Blog Wizard & “PB Fairy Godmother” Mindy Alyse Weiss

Mindy is the mastermind behind PBParty, an annual contest that connects talented picture book writers and author/illustrators with agents and editors. This has led to many success stories. Mindy has a ton of experience in what agents and editors are looking for in a picture book. The winner of this prize can send up to three PB manuscripts. Mindy will give light comments on two and in-depth feedback on the PB with the most potential.

A 1-Year Subscription to One Stop for Writers from your biggest fans… Becca and me!

We have created many thesauruses over the years, but not all of them become books…some go straight to a THESAURUS Database at One Stop for Writers. This web app is how we help writers beyond our books and where we’ve built powerful tools that make it much easier to plan, write, and revise your way to a publish-ready book. Take the tour, start a free trial, and make sure to enter below for a chance to win a 1-year membership! We’d love to help you bring your best story to the page.

To Enter:

Want a chance to win one of these amazing prizes? Click the link below.

WHW’s 1 Million Book Milestone Giveaway

(Final day to enter is May 9th, 2023, EST).
Winners are being notified! Watch your inbox!

Note, one entry per person. Prizes have no cash value and cannot be transferred. For full legal rules and conditions, please go here.)

Thank you again for all your kind support. We are honored to be part of your storytelling journey!

If you’d like to help us celebrate this milestone, feel free to share this post. And good luck in the draw!

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 We’ve Reached the One Million Books Milestone! appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

The most relatable characters are ones who mirror real people, meaning they are complex individuals with a blend of strengths, failings, attributes, and flaws. Of these four, flaws are often the most difficult to figure out, because knowing which negative traits will emerge in someone means exploring their past to understand who negatively influenced them and what painful experiences they went through. It also means digging up unresolved emotional wounds which have left dysfunction and fear in their wake.

Flaws, or negative traits as they’re also called, are unusual in that the person who has them probably doesn’t view them as dysfunctional and instead believes these traits are helpful and necessary. Why? Because these traits are very good at creating space around your character. And when your character goes through life afraid of being hurt again, keeping people and experiences distant when they seem like they could lead somewhere painful is exactly what your character will want to do.

So, what does this look like?

Let’s take a character who dropped the ball in the past. He was babysitting his nephew, feeding him in the high chair, and the phone rings. He goes to retrieve the phone from his jacket pocket in the other room, and a scream sounds from behind him. His nephew wriggled free from the chair and fell, breaking his arm.

Mom and dad are alerted, and they are not happy.

Moving forward, our character, once the brother who always helped out, stepped up, and volunteered, becomes the guy who shows up late, loses or breaks things, and is always “busy” when asked. What happened? What caused this change?

Easy, that situation with his nephew, and the fallout that came after for not being there when he should have been.

By becoming irresponsible, unreliable, and self-absorbed, what are the chances someone will ask him to take on a big responsibility again? Pretty low. And as long as he’s never the one who has to come through, he’ll never have a chance to fail and disappoint like he did when he was caring for his nephew.

Logically, he was only out of the kitchen for a moment, and whether it were him or the child’s parent, probably the same thing would have happened. But when a person fails, they often take it to heart, blame themselves, and don’t ever want to be put in that same situation (because they’re sure they’ll only screw up). Adopting a character flaw or two will ensure he’s never going to have to worry about dropping the ball again.

Well, heck, that’s great right? No, not at all. Because while his flaws will keep people from requesting he be responsible in some way, he’s also denying himself the chance to be responsible and have a better outcome, which leads to growth and being able to let go of the past. It may also cause friction in his relationship, and even for him to not be there for others when he really wants to be, all because he’s too scared of making a mistake again.

Flaws are normal and natural. We all have them, and so will a character. And in order for them to solve their big story problems and succeed, they will need to examine what’s holding them back…their flaws, and the fears that caused them. So don’t be afraid of giving your character some flaws. Remember, the most relatable characters are those who think, act, and behave just like real people…and that means they’ll be far from perfect.

Now, some writers tend to rush character development in their eagerness to get words on the page, and randomly assign certain flaws without thinking about why they might be there. Unless these aspects of a character’s personality are fleshed out down the road, a character can feel like they lack depth. So make sure you know the “why” behind a flaw…it will help you understand what’s holding them back in the story, how they need to grow, and will point you toward conflict that will trigger them in negatives ways so they become more self-aware. After all, your character won’t realize his negative traits are a problem until failure because of them is staring him in the face.

How do we decide which flaws are right for a character?

1) Make Friends with the Character’s Backstory
Backstory gets a bad rap, but the truth is, we need to know it. Understanding a character’s past and what events shaped them is critical to understanding who they are. So brainstorm your character’s backstory, thinking about who and what influenced them, and what difficult experiences they went through that soured their view in some way, damaged their self-esteem, and cause them to avoid certain people and situations. This isn’t so that you can dump a bunch of flashbacks and info-heavy passages into your story to “explain” the source of a flaw. Rather, this information is for you as the author so you better understand what motivates your character, what he fears, and how his goal will be impossible to achieve until he sheds his flawed thinking and behaviors.

2) Poke Your Character’s Wounds
Past hurts leave a mark. Characters who have experienced emotional pain are not eager to do so again, which is why flaws form to “protect” from future hurt. A man who loses his wife to an unfortunate infection picked up during a hospital stay is likely have biases toward the medical system. He may grow stubborn and mistrustful, refusing to see a doctor when he grows sick, or seek medical treatment when he knows something is deeply wrong.

This wounding event (his wife’s death) changed him, affected his judgement, and now is making him risk his own health. Had his wife survived, these changes would not have taken place. Knowing your character’s wounds will help you understand how flaws form in the hopes that the character can protect himself from being hurt again.

3) Undermine Your Character’s Efforts
In every story, there is a goal: the character wants to achieve something, and hopefully whatever it is will be an uphill battle. To ensure it is, think about what positive traits will help them achieve this goal, how you can position the character for success. Then brainstorm flaws that will work against them, making it harder. This will help them start to see how their own flaws are getting in the way and sabotaging their progress.

4) Look for Friction Opportunities
No character is an island, and so there will be others who interact with them or try to help in the story. Maybe your character has certain flaws that will irritate other people and cause friction. Relationships can become giant stumbling blocks, especially for a character who wants connection or really needs help but has a hard time admitting it. Make them see how the path to smooth out friendships and interactions is to let go of traits that harm, not help.

5) Mine from Real Life
We all have flaws based on our own experiences, as do all the people around us. Some are small, minor things, others are more major and create big stumbling blocks as we go through life. Flaws are often blind spots, because the person who has them doesn’t see them as a bad thing, just that they have reasons for acting or thinking a certain way, meaning it’s okay. But whenever things don’t go well and we’re frustrated, there’s a good chance one of our flaws is getting in the way.

So, if you’re feeling brave, look within and find the bits of yourself that may not cast you in the best light. Do you get impatient easily? Do you feel like you always have to be in control? Are you sometimes a bit rude, quick to judge, or you make excuses to get out of responsibilities? Thinking about situations where our own behaviors crop up and cause trouble can help us write our character’s flaws more authentically.

If you need brainstorming help…

Don’t forget, one of our guides covers all of this and more. The Negative Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Flaws explores a vast collection of personality flaws and breaks down each, showing you how they might cause your character to think, feel, and behave in a certain way.

It also helps you better understand how flaws can be used, their role in character arc, and the growth that will be necessary for a character to minimize or defeat a flaw if it is holding them back from achieving their story goal.

If you’d like to get a feel for what’s in this book, zip over here to see a list of the flaws we cover, and a few sample entries. 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 What Are Your Protagonist’s Flaws? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

This 40-minute recording is packed with great takeaways, and gives you a window into how Becca and I think when it comes to characters, psychology, and making sure only the strongest details make it to the page. It will be available until January 8th, so we hope you get a moment before then to watch it!

Need a Last Minute Gift?

We hope you’ll consider one of our bestselling thesaurus guides, or a One Stop for Writers subscription. We love helping writers, and your support allows us to keep doing that, so thank you!

Strengthen Your Description for Stronger Characters & Scenes

Each guide focuses on a specific topic, educates you on how to best use it in your story, and provides you with brainstorming lists to help you describe it with authority. (To see a sample from each book, download our free Show-Don’t-Tell Pro Pack.)

Available in Print, Ebook, and PDF.

VISIT OUR BOOKSTORE

Everything You Need to Create In One Place

Become a powerful storyteller with One Stop for Writers! Angela & Becca have built you the largest show-don’t-tell Thesaurus Database anywhere, intuitive tools to make story planning easier, a Storyteller’s Roadmap that guides you step-by-step as you plan, write, and revise, & much more.

Visit One Stop for Writers

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 Writers, Have You Watched This Free Webinar on Reader Engagement? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

We’ve all read stories where our breath slows, the world falls away, and the page disappears. We’re somewhere else, a place that isn’t real, yet is. We’re with people who don’t exist, yet somehow do. We see what they see. Feel what they feel. We are in the moment, captive, compelled, not just reading words, but living them.

When we come up for air, as writers, we sort of sag in place, awed by the power the author had over us. It’s beautiful and enviable, this story sorcery. We want it for ourselves, of course. Thankfully, we know what it is. We even have a name for it: emotion.

Emotion is the bridge between characters and readers.

It’s what draws the latter out of the real world and into the fictional one. And above all else, emotion is the one thing storytellers MUST get right.

We know how important emotion is to story, and we want to write it in a way that grips readers, whether it’s rage or fear, amusement or curiosity. Our universal goal is to show the character’s feelings in a way that rings true – readers recognize the emotion, connect with it, and share this emotional moment with the character in a way that’s meaningful.

It’s a tall order, especially when we feel like all our characters tend to express emotions in the same way. You know, the smiles, frowns, and smirks. The racing heartbeats. The shuddery breaths.

(Did you wince a little? It’s okay. We all have expressions we tend to overuse.)

Becca and I created The Emotion Thesaurus to help writers brainstorm unique ways to show any emotion, but having lists of body language, thoughts, visceral sensations and vocal cues is really just the starting gate. Each idea we provide needs to be tailored to a character for it to become an authentic portrayal of their most honest feelings.

And here lies the biggest reason why emotion fails to draw readers in: the writer hasn’t gotten to know their character well enough to create tailored responses.

Each Character Is Unique…Their Emotional Responses Will Be, Too

We are all individuals, right? What makes us anxious, happy, jealous, etc. may be different, but even if an event triggered the same emotion for all of us, our reactions would still be unique. Put us both in a hospital waiting room as a loved one undergoes a risky surgery, for example. I might be a pacer, unable to sit still. I might go to the reception counter several times to ask questions they can’t answer, constantly text my family to keep them in the loop, and then discover my phone battery has entered single digits, be unable to control the shrillness of my voice as I beg staff to use a hospital charger. You, on the other hand, might sit and not move, not for hours, frozen in time. Only your fingers are active, mercilessly picking at your cuticles until they bleed, completely unaware of the damage you’re doing to them.

Like us, our characters will have their own way of processing emotion, and to understand what that will look like, we need to know more about who they are.

Know Their Past

The people and situations from a character’s past will influence their behavior and who they ultimately become. A nurturing grandfather may have taught patience and encouraged the character to think things through before making decisions. A high-achieving parent might have instilled the idea that fortune favors the bold, and any action is better than none. Imprints are powerful. Think about who was influential in your character’s life, and how their worldview, beliefs, values (or lack) may have shaped your character.

Know Their Experiences

People have survival instincts, and your character will, too. Hardwired to watch for danger, experience informs your character, helping them spot potential problems as they go through life. Bad experiences may have made your character risk-adverse, and good ones, the opposite. Do you know how past positive and negative interactions steer them now? Do they invest their time, money, and hearts freely…or utterly refuse to?

Know Their Pain

Painful experiences can scar, not only physically but emotionally. The fear of pain is powerful, but the fear of emotional hurt can derail a person’s goals, damage relationships, make them avoid certain things, and leave them unhappy and unfulfilled.

Knowing your character’s emotional wounds will guide you to understanding what emotions they are sensitive to because those feeling bring them back to that past event that cut them deeply. When these emotions are triggered, your character will have a hard time controlling their responses and their behavior will become more volatile. They will become prone to negative coping mechanisms that can damage their life further.

Know Their Personality

Another facet of humanity is our personality. Certain traits, positive and negative, become part of us and help us solve problems, interact with others, and navigate life. Personality traits come with certain behaviors and inclinations, so knowing what these are will really help you line up emotional responses that fit a character’s personality like the proverbial glove.

Know Their Emotional Range

Personality, genetics, experiences, and personal preferences will create an emotional comfort zone of expressiveness. Understanding how a character behaves in everyday situations serves as your ground zero. Are they open and transparent with strangers, or protective of their thoughts and so keep to themselves? Do they talk a lot, or must words be pulled out of them? Do they make big movements, gesture as they speak, tell jokes, and revel in attention? Or do they listen rather than speak, choose stillness, and only shift and fiddle when put on the spot?

Once you get a feel for “typical” behavior it serves as a baseline and you can make sure their actions, choices, and decisions line up with these preferences. The baseline will become part of their emotional range, helping you plan what a typical response will look like vs. an extreme one. In this way, their responses will always ring true to readers!

Peel Back a Character’s Layers & Showing Emotion Gets Easier

Describing emotion in a way that readers will feel something isn’t easy, but it becomes easier when you really know who your character is and what’s steering their emotions. The more you unearth about someone, the more you will intuitively know what their actions, choices, and behaviors will look like, achieving that authenticity that hooks readers. So grab a notebook and start thinking about the things above, or use a tool like the Character Builder to help you.

To get a feel for the range of feelings your character might experience in your story, check out this list of 130 emotions.

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 How to Write Emotion Well: Know Your Character appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

As we dig through our characters’ backstories, we quickly come to find that the most formative element is the emotional wound—a terrible past experience that was so debilitating they’ll do anything to avoid going through it again. Wounding events are particularly insidious because the harm they cause isn’t limited to the event itself; it’s often the first of many toppling dominoes that alter the character in alarming ways, molding her into who she’ll be at the start of your story.

Her wound, and the emotional shielding that follows, will contribute to her personality, beliefs and morals, story goals, and more. It’s important to understand those aftereffects and what they’ll mean for your character so you can write her in an authentic and consistent way that will resonate with readers. 

What is Emotional Shielding?

The aftermath of a wounding event is a chaotic time full of questions with no easy answers. How did this happen? Why me? And the most critical one: How do I make sure it doesn’t happen again? Out of a desperate need to safeguard herself from further pain, the character knowingly or subconsciously deploys her emotional shielding—protections meant to keep her safe. These are universal to the human experience and come in a number of forms that can be applied to your character after a traumatic experience.

Flaws

(Click image to download)

Many times, a character will seek to keep trauma from recurring by adopting new traits that she believes will make her stronger or more impervious to harm. A woman who has escaped domestic abuse may think that the key to avoiding further mistreatment is in controlling every part of her life—and maybe the lives of those around her. The teenager who told the truth about a crime but wasn’t believed may become apathetic. An employee whose work was stolen by his boss could easily become uncooperative, believing that keeping his ideas to himself is the best way to protect them.

On the surface, these new traits seem to be a good way to ward off danger. In reality, they cause ancillary problems that make it difficult for the characters to succeed in many areas of life.

Dysfunctional Behaviors

When flaws are adopted, new behaviors inevitably follow. The abuse survivor who needs to now control everything may become hypercritical, making impossible demands of herself and those in her charge. The apathetic boy might withdraw emotionally from others. Our uncooperative businessman could hold back at the office, not contributing in meetings or team projects and thereby sabotaging his success at work. The habits that grow out of a character’s flaws are typically damaging, destroying relationships and making it difficult for them to achieve story goals.

False Beliefs

When trauma occurs, one of the first things we do is examine what happened, mentally replaying it to see how it could have been avoided. We want to identify who was at fault so we know who to blame and where to direct our negative emotions. Very often, we end up pointing the finger at ourselves. If I hadn’t been so self-involved, I would’ve seen the warning signs; if I’d been more obedient, my parents wouldn’t have divorced. 

The lies that result lead to a form of self-blame or the belief that had the character been more worthy, chosen differently, trusted someone else, paid more attention, safeguarded herself, etc., a different outcome would have resulted. Lies like these undermine the character’s confidence, making it virtually impossible for her to reach her dreams and find fullness and contentment.

Biases

In some cases, the victim of a trauma may find blame elsewhere: the government, a corporation, God, “those people.” When this happens, it’s easy for a wider sense of disillusionment to take shape in the form of biases. The abuse victim may come to believe that all men are violent. The teen who told the truth and wasn’t believed may decide that no adult truly respects children. Biases affect the way we view and treat others and therefore impact the character’s ability to relate to people in a healthy way.

As you can see, characters, like real people, adopt emotional shielding as a way of protecting themselves. But this shielding actually does the opposite. It creates dysfunction in relationships and undermines the character’s ability to succeed at work and in her passions.

The emotional shielding resulting from a wound can actually impact her basic human needs, creating a void: new flaws rob her of love and belonging as her relationships are compromised; the false belief takes aim at her esteem, destroying her self-worth; growth and self-actualization screech to a halt because the character is so focused on what happened in the past that she’s unable to move forward into the future. 

This is why it’s so important to know your character’s wound and what kinds of shielding have resulted from it. This information will tell you exactly who your character is in your story, what beliefs or habits are holding her back from achieving her goal, and what she’ll have to do to overcome the trauma and take steps toward wholeness.

Once you’ve identified your character’s wounding event, here are a few helpful questions to ask:

1. What flaws might my character adopt as a way of keeping the event from occurring again? On the flip side, which positive traits might she downplay or reject because she believes they contributed to what happened (kindness, generosity, obedience, being trusting, etc.)?
2. What dysfunctional behaviors could flow out of these changes in her personality traits?
3. What lie might the character believe about herself in the wake of her wounding experience?
4. Are there any biases about other people or groups that might arise because of what happened to her? How might those biases affect her life?

Wounding events and their aftershocks are as relevant for our characters as they are for us in the real world. But the resulting emotional shielding is really a combination of a lot of factors that pertain specifically to your character: her personality going into the traumatic event, the wound itself, the lie that emerges, the human need that will be impacted, and so on. Putting it all together can be daunting, but Angela and I are making it easier with the Character Builder at One Stop for Writers.

This intuitive tool collects all the necessary information as you figure it out. As you can see with the following example, the Character Builder pulls information from The Negative Trait Thesaurus and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus, providing a list of emotional shielding behaviors and attitudes that make sense for your character in her situation. It removes the guesswork and simplifies the process for you.

(Brainstorming via the Character Builder)

It’s our hope that the Character Builder and the information in this post can help you better understand your own characters. This will enable you to write them realistically in a way that reads true-to-life for your audience. 

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 What Is Your Character’s Emotional Shielding and Why Does It Matter? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Sam Gamgee: Loyalty
Anne Shirley: Impulsivity
James T. Kirk: Boldness

However, if each character was made up of only that one trait, they probably wouldn’t make many “favorites” lists because they’d be paper-thin—caricatures, rather than characters with depth and nuance. Real people are complicated and deep, embodying more than one quality. And so must our characters be if they’re going to draw readers in through authenticity and relatability.

However, by including too many traits, you run the risk of creating a character who’s all over the map and doesn’t ring true. So how do we create multi-dimensional characters who make sense to readers? For simplicity’s sake, I’d like to focus today on how to accomplish this in regards to a character’s positive attributes (although this process also apply to flaws).

First, identify your character’s positive traits. Though there could be dozens, narrow the list down to the dominant ones—no more than five or six. Let’s use our beloved Captain Kirk as an example.

Along with boldness, he also exemplifies loyalty, daring, decisiveness, extroversion, and charm. But focusing on so many traits can make for a scattered character with hard-to-define motivations and emotions. To avoid this, look at your short list of traits and determine which is your character’s primary one. This is the attribute that will drive his choices. It is often also tied to his moral and ethical beliefs, his sense of right, wrong, duty, and worth. 

Going back to Captain Kirk, while he clearly owns a number of positive traits, boldness is the one that most motivates him. It determines how he relates to others and responds to crises, and it directly affects his career path and choice of hobbies. It also serves as a header from which many of his other traits—adventurousness, extroversion, and decisiveness—stem. 

Once you’ve figured out your character’s primary attribute, show that trait to the reader. Whenever your hero is faced with a choice, that trait should push him to a decision. When crises arise, the primary attribute should be the one that influences him on an internal, subconscious level.

Narrowing the list down to one trait will also make it easy for the reader to identify who the character is. For good or bad, human beings like to categorize things and put people in boxes. When readers can say, “Oh, he’s like this,” they’re able to put their finger on who the character is, and he becomes accessible. Relatable.

To add dimension, make sure you show those secondary traits, too—just, not as often. They should offer support, strengthening your character’s personality without overpowering it. Showing these traits to a lesser degree will add dimension while ensuring that your character’s primary trait shines through.

If you’ve got a multi-flawed character, which is a good idea, you can follow these same steps to balance his negative traits and make sure you’re focusing on the one that truly drives him. Very often, this will be tied to his fatal flaw—the thing he has to overcome or learn to deal with for him to successfully traverse his character arc.

Resources

You know that we’re all about making things as easy as possible for you, so we’ve got some resrouces that can help you with this process:

• One Stop for Writers’ Character Builder: This tool lets you collect all the important information about your character, including their positive and negative traits. It also encourages you to choose the primary one of each. If you’d like to see what this hyper-intelligent and multidimensional resource is all about, sign up for a free trial to give it a whirl.
• Character Target Tool: This resource helps you identify your character’s primary moral, achievement, identify, and interactive traits, making it easier to zero in on what makes him or her tick.
• The Positive and Negative Trait Thesauruses: These books look at over over 100 attributes and flaws: where they come from, how they manifest, the behaviors and attitudes associated with them, and the good and bad aspects of each. If you’re on the fence about who exactly your character is, these books can help you narrow the field. They can be purchased separately or in a boxed digital set.

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 Identifying Your Character’s Primary Attribute appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Full disclosure: Becca and I have been a bit sneaky this year.

First, we decided that rather than tell everyone which thesaurus we would publish next we would surprise everyone, and in February we launched an EXPANDED version of the Emotion Thesaurus (130 entries). And now, we have another surprise for you…our first boxed set!

Many of you have asked if we would consider boxed sets, and while there’s too many barriers for a print boxed set we decided to go ahead and try a digital one. This is a pilot project, to see if the interest is there, because our books are very link-heavy and so require a lot more work to bundle up than a fiction boxed set.

So, meet the Character Trait Thesaurus Boxed Set. Inside are the complete volumes of The Positive Trait Thesaurus, which covers the different attributes and strengths of a character’s personality, and the Negative Trait Thesaurus, which looks at the different human flaws we can hobble our characters with. These books span more than 200 critical traits and lead you through the process of character creation. Not only will you understand how the past affects the present when it comes to personality, worldview, and so many other aspects of characterization, you’ll find everything you need to build a story cast that feels authentic and memorable, and be able to write their actions, thoughts, and decisions in a way that lines up with their core traits.

Everything contained in the original Positive and Negative Trait books is in this bundle, but with a terrific enhancement: we’ve cross-linked each trait so you can reach the master list of attributes and flaws from any entry. We’ve also linked the options under the section TRAITS IN SUPPORTING CHARACTERS THAT MAY CAUSE CONFLICT so you can quickly maneuver to those entries with a single click:

Basically, navigating is twice as easy, and twice as fast. And that’s what these guides are about, giving you what you need quickly so you can get right back to what you do best: writing the book!

This boxed set is only available here at Writers Helping Writers.

We have every format you need: Mobi (Kindle), ePub (other e-readers like kobo, etc.) and PDF. Instructions are provided for putting these on your device, so it’s all nice and easy. If you would like to know more, visit our bookstore.

Powerful characters lead to powerful stories!

We hope this boxed set is just what you need. Happy writing, all!

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.

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