Eleanor Hecks joins us to share seven writing fears common among writers and how they may be holding you back.

Writing is a journey filled with challenges, many of which stem from internal fears that can stifle creativity and hinder progress. Recognizing and addressing these fears is crucial for writers and educators aiming to foster a productive writing environment. Here are several common writing fears and strategies to overcome them.

1.   Fear of Failure

Writers worry their work won’t be good enough, that publishers will reject them or that readers will criticize their ideas. This fear often leads to self-doubt and procrastination, making starting or completing projects difficult.

Tip: The key to overcoming this fear is reframing failure as a learning experience rather than a final verdict. Every rejected manuscript, critical review or abandoned draft is an opportunity to refine your skills. Seeking constructive feedback from trusted peers and mentors can help you improve and build resilience.

2.   Fear of Inadequacy

Writers often struggle with imposter syndrome — the nagging fear that they aren’t truly skilled or deserving of success — but this phenomenon isn’t exclusive to writers. Over 80% of people experience imposter syndrome at some point. For writers, this can manifest as hesitancy to submit work, reluctance to call themselves “real” writers or constant comparison to more established authors.

Tip: One of the best ways to counteract this fear is through continuous learning. Attending workshops, reading widely and writing regularly can build confidence and reinforce skill improvement with practice. Every writer — no matter how experienced — starts as a beginner. Acknowledging your progress over time can help shift your mindset from insecurity to self-assurance.

3.   Fear of Judgment

Writing is an intensely personal endeavor, and sharing your thoughts with the world can be intimidating. Whether it’s fear of criticism, misunderstanding or personal exposure, worrying about how others will react can hold writers back from sharing their work.

Tip: One way to counteract this fear is by embracing the reality that no piece of writing will resonate with everyone. Some readers will love your work, while others may not connect with it. The most successful writers focus on their message rather than trying to please everyone.

4.   Fear of Financial Instability

One of the most pressing concerns for writers is whether they can make a living from their craft. The financial pressure to support oneself or a family can be overwhelming. Even just owning a home costs an average of more than $500,000, while raising one child to adulthood costs more than $233,000 on average — numbers which many believe a writing career can’t begin to support. Writers may fear that pursuing their passion won’t provide reliable income to support their families or themselves, leading them to abandon their creative aspirations.

Tip: To mitigate this fear, setting realistic financial goals and budgeting wisely can help manage expenses. Many successful writers balance their craft with other income streams, such as teaching positions, editing jobs or speaking engagements. Establishing a financial cushion can provide peace of mind, allowing you to focus on writing without constant monetary stress.

5.   Fear of the Blank Page

Staring at a blank page can feel like standing at the edge of an abyss. The pressure to produce something meaningful can be paralyzing, leading to writer’s block and avoidance.

Tip: Breaking the task into smaller steps can help. Instead of aiming for a perfect draft, focus on getting words on the page. Freewriting, setting timers and outlining can ease the pressure and make the process more manageable. Developing a daily writing habit — even just a few sentences — can also help overcome the inertia of starting a new project.

6.   Fear of Wasted Time

Many writers worry that the hours spent writing will be for nothing if their work isn’t published or recognized. This fear can make it difficult to invest time in writing, leading to stalled projects and unfulfilled ambitions.

Tip: One strategy to help you overcome this fear is shifting your perspective on what makes writing valuable. Writing is not just about publication — it’s about growth, self-expression and mastery of a craft. Even if a particular piece doesn’t gain external recognition, it contributes to your writing development. Setting achievable goals and celebrating progress — rather than just outcomes — can help maintain motivation.

7.   Fear of Success

Some writers fear what comes after success. The pressure to replicate a well-received work, meet reader expectations or handle increased scrutiny can feel overwhelming. Success often brings new challenges, including higher stakes, deadlines and public attention.

Tip: To navigate this fear, focus on what success means to you personally. Rather than being driven by external markers, define your own creative goals. Surround yourself with a supportive network of fellow writers, mentors and loved ones who help keep you grounded. Accept that growth is a continuous journey, and success is simply another step along the way.

Embracing Courage in Writing

Acknowledging and confronting these fears is a vital part of the writing journey. Remember, courage is not the absence of fear but the determination to forge ahead despite it. Writing is a growth process, and every challenge overcome is a step toward mastering your craft.

Eleanor Hecks is editor-in-chief at Designerly Magazine and a freelance writer passionate about helping other writers of all genres grow their following and community. You can find her work featured in publications such as IndependentPublishing.com and Self-Publishing Review, or connect with her on LinkedIn to keep up with her latest work.

The post Seven Writing Fears That May Be Holding You Back from Greatness appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

I truly believe that excellent stories require excellent characters. And with so many books already out there, we’ve got to be able to deliver compelling and realistic characters to set our stories apart. How do we do it? By focusing on the details. And one of the markers that can really boost individuality and memorability for a character is their particular talents or skills.

Every person has something they’re good at. Sometimes it’s a gift they’re born with that comes naturally; for others, it’s a carefully nurtured and honed ability. Many times, a character’s talent says something about who they are: it may tie into their belief system, meet a missing need, honor an influential person in their life, or reveal associated personality traits.

But despite the many talents and skills out there, we tend to see the same ones in books all the time. Now, if your story requires your character have a certain ability, that’s fine; sometimes, we don’t get to choose their special abilities. But if you’ve got more latitude, consider one of the following techniques for coming up with a skill that’s a little more original.

Go for Something Unusual

Sometimes it’s as easy as thinking beyond the obvious options. Instead of being a strong runner or artist, maybe your character could have a talent that’s a little less mainstream, like sleight of hand, lip-reading, or a knack for languages. Do you need them to be an athlete? Consider a sport readers haven’t seen a million times, like cricket, curling, water polo, or parkour. Your skilled forager could be urban rather than rural, fishing goodies out of storm drains or dumpsters. If you’re writing in a genre with fantastical elements, you can get really creative by giving your character an extrasensory ability or something that’s specific to your fantasy or paranormal world. Their skill will obviously have to work within the overall story and the world you’ve created, but you have more choices than you know, so don’t be afraid to branch out and try something new.

Encourage Your Character to Specialize

One way to come up with an unusual ability is to take a popular one and make it more specific. If your character is mechanically inclined, they may be particularly adept with machines from a certain region, time period, or industry. A marksman might specialize in one weapon, and maybe it’s not the typical rifle (Crossbow? Darts? Slingshot?). Your assassin may prefer to work with and have extensive knowledge of poisons. Breathe new life into a ho-hum strength by narrowing the focus.

Give a Common Talent a Twist

It’s not always necessary to reinvent the wheel; often, you can come up with something new by tweaking a popular talent. If musicality is your character’s thing, don’t make her a singer or piano player; maybe she really shines by writing music or crafting certain instruments. A character’s photographic memory may only be reliable for a few hours after events have happened. A person who blows off steam by knitting might use their talent to create blankets for preemies or hats for the homeless. In the latter case, the talent can also hint at personality traits (empathy, selflessness, generosity), hobbies, or other areas of passion. We get more bang for the buck when our characterization and description elements do double duty, so if a character’s skill can also say something about who they are, that’s a bonus for readers.

Pair It with an Unexpected Personality Trait

Many skills are associated with certain traits because they often go together. For instance, people who are good with numbers are usually pretty analytical. But that doesn’t mean the two have to go together. A character with this ability could be highly creative or emotional, instead, and you’d end up with someone unexpected. Likewise, you could have a gifted public speaker who is painfully shy, stumbling their way through one-on-one conversations. This trick can be especially helpful when your story requires a common talent; get creative with your character’s traits, instead, and you can come up with something new that will pique readers’ interests.

In conclusion, an area of skill is a great way to individualize a character—but remember that it can’t be random. There are reasons people embrace and nurture certain talents. They come from somewhere: a natural aptitude, a shared passion with a loved one, the desire for approval or acceptance, etc. So, a special ability shouldn’t be chosen at random. Always know the why behind it. Once you’ve ensured it ties naturally into their overall character profile, use these suggestions to take a character’s talent or skill to the next level.   

Would you like help
finding the perfect
talents and skills
for your characters?

Check out the Talents & Skills Thesaurus
at One Stop for Writers!

The post How to Choose the Perfect Talent for Your Character appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Like many other kids, I got my first job as a babysitter. You’re probably picturing me as a competent, CPR-trained teenager armed with craft supplies and a boatload of determination. But this was 1981, which means I was a whopping nine years old when someone put me in charge of their kids.

Who does that? The mom who couldn’t get anyone else to watch her little hellions, that’s who. Those kids were everywhere, into everything. And they weren’t listening to me, because just the day before, I was making mud pies with them in my backyard.

It wasn’t pretty, but we survived the afternoon. They ate as much ice cream as they wanted, the mom got a few hours to herself, and I walked away (directly to the arcade) with 75 cents in my pocket. In ‘81, we called that winning.

Some days, being an author feels like the same gig. I think I know the characters. I’m sure of their roles and where they need to go in the story. But they just look at me and laugh. No one does what I tell them to do, and I spend most of my time trying to keep them from burning the place down.

Any babysitter worth their salt has a bag of tricks to help them manage the difficult kids, and the same should be true for authors.

Some of the most challenging characters are those that are emotionally stunted in some way; they’re unable to experience a full range of emotions, or past trauma has forced them into a guarded position that shields them from uncomfortable feelings. The tricks we’d use to motivate a run-of-the-mill character just don’t work.

And this is a problem, because our job is to guide every character through a journey of self-discovery and revelation that will enable them to achieve their goals. But if they’re unwilling or unable to be emotionally vulnerable, they’ll never face their past, work through their issues, and reach that place of healing and fulfillment. So we’ve got to use methods that will provide the necessary learning opportunities and reflective moments. A tool that works really well for this is a strategically employed emotion amplifier.

An emotion amplifier is a specific state or condition that influences what the character feels by disrupting their equilibrium and reducing their ability to think critically. Addiction, confinement, boredom, hunger, and exhaustion are all examples. These states heighten the character’s emotions and make them more volatile, pushing them to act or respond in ways that often create more difficulty. Employ enough amplifiers, and the character’s situation will worse until they eventually hit rock bottom and will be forced to evaluate their situation and themselves.

In short, amplifiers serve as catalysts to push characters into action and propel them along their arc. Because of their universal nature, they’ll work on most characters, but they’re especially helpful with those who fall outside of the emotional norm.

Sociopaths and Psychopaths

Like their well-adjusted counterparts, these characters have goals they’re struggling to achieve. Where they differ is that they lack empathy and are less likely to lose emotional control. But at some point, that’s what we need them to do: lose their cool, act rashly, and see the need for change so they can get whatever it is they want. It takes a bit more work to trigger a blowup for a psychopath or sociopath, but a potent amplifier like pain, arousal, or danger can strong-arm them into an unfiltered or explosive reaction that will start them on the journey to self-awareness.

Emotionally Numb Characters

Characters who are disconnected from their emotions may appear to readers as if they don’t feel anything. Forging connections between readers and these characters is especially challenging; using an amplifier can nudge them toward volatility, producing feelings readers can recognize and relate to.

Another reason amplifiers work well for an emotionally numb character is because of their commonality. The character may be unable to express what they feel in the wake of an amplifier, but if the writer can make the cause and effect clear, readers will be able to fill in the emotional blanks. This works even for amplifiers the reader hasn’t experienced but has heard or read about, such as psychosis or possession.

Highly Traumatized Characters

Past trauma is another universal element of the human experience. It can upend a character’s life, sowing dysfunction in key ways.

Painful experiences force characters to emotionally protect themselves, and not always in a good way. They become skilled at keeping people and hurtful situations at a distance, but their methods often cause isolation and difficulty connecting with others. When negative feelings do break through, unhealthy coping mechanisms like detachment, disassociation, or avoidance keep the character from experiencing them. If this repeated buffering prevents them from working through the past and moving forward in a healthier way, the damage from trauma remains ongoing.

Unresolved trauma can also lead characters to believe they’ll be hurt again if they let their guard down. This outlook erodes one or more of their basic human needs, and the emotional shielding they’ve adopted to protect themselves keeps them from achieving the goals that would bring their needs back into alignment.

A highly traumatized character who isn’t open to healing won’t be able to tackle their past head on, all at once. Instead, their confidence and self-worth must be built up a bit at a time. This can be done by introducing amplifiers the character can successfully navigate. Here’s an example:

Mikhail paces a path in his living room carpet, sweating and aching while substance withdrawal sinks its claws into him. As his anguish increases, his determination to get clean weakens. He scrolls through his mental list of places to get what he needs to take away the pain. Those names, those faces, those places . . . all are waiting beyond his apartment door.

He takes a step toward it.

“Daddy?” A sleep-heavy voice cuts through his thoughts. Abel, in his duck-print onesie, stands in the bedroom doorway. “Can I have a drink?”

“Of course.” Mikhail’s voice cracks and he hurries to the kitchen faucet before Abel sees his tears. Remember why you’re doing this.

While putting the three-year-old back to bed, he notices one of Abel’s stuffed animals on the floor. He carries it to the living room, wedges a chair against the front door, and places the bedraggled giraffe on it. All night, through shakes and fever, he stares at the stuffed toy, an unlikely guardian against the darkness on the other side, until the sun rises and the shadows disperse.

The trauma that created Mikhail’s addiction is still there, and he may not be ready to work through it yet. But introducing an amplifier in the form of substance withdrawal provides a stepping-stone opportunity for him to successfully navigate just one night of his recovery journey. This gives him strength and purpose, both of which set him up for more growth in the future.

Amplifiers are super useful for getting a character where you need them to go—especially if they’re resistant to change or have some emotional challenges. To get them there, we need to stop babysitting and start life coaching. Use amplifiers to provide opportunities that will help them grow personally, generate tension and conflict in the story, and keep readers glued to the pages.

The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus will help you:

• Showcase a Character’s Hidden Emotions
• Write Realistic Responses
• Add Tension and Conflict
• Show Character Arc Growth
• Brainstorm High-Stakes Moments

Check out the emotion amplifiers covered in this book!

The post How to Use Amplifiers to Motivate Emotionally Challenging Characters 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.

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

I think we can all agree that characters are the heart of a novel. We build worlds around our story’s cast, spend dozens of hours plundering their psyche to understand needs, motivations, and beliefs, and even envision complete backstories. Then, of course, we go on to produce tens of thousands of words about their vulnerabilities and strengths as they rise, fall, and rise again on the path to their goal. We also revise, dedicating yet more hours to ensure readers understand and care about our characters as much as do.

Yes, it’s fair to say we work hard to make sure our characters live and breathe on the page. But here’s the irony…in all that effort, many of us overlook or underutilize another important area of character description: their physical appearance.

It’s true, a character’s features and physicality can be hard to convey. We may not have a strong mental picture of them ourselves, or if we do, how to sum it all up economically. After all, at the start of the story when we need to provide details on a character’s appearance, we’re also juggling everything else we must show like the action, setting, circumstances, plus the character’s motivation, underlying problem, emotion, and so on.

So we find ourselves asking, does the character’s looks really matter? Isn’t it what’s inside that counts?

Yes…and no.

Obviously, we want to start a story with action, pulling readers in by showing what a character is doing and why. But including some physical description is also necessary, too. Without it, readers may fail to create a mental image and struggle to connect with the character.

Avoiding physical description and leaving it up to the reader will also create a minefield for the writer because if they mention a physical detail (like a character’s pink hair) later on in the story and it clashes with the image the reader has created on their own, well, it breaks the storytelling spell. Worse, the reader loses confidence in the author’s skills and may be unable to fully suspend disbelief from that point on.

The Goldilocks Approach

We all remember that break-and-enter deviant, Goldilocks, right? Well, to take a page from her book, just like avoiding porridge too hot or too cold, we want to avoid both descriptive sparseness and information overload. Dumps of description of any kind hurt the pace and cause readers to skim, so we should make it our goal to offer enough to point readers in the right direction and then drip in more as needed. The rest they can fill in themselves.

Even more important than quantity is the quality, however. If we choose the right details, we open a gateway to great characterization and hook readers at the same time.

Choose Details that Do More

To avoid disrupting the pace it can be tempting to just give a quick overview of a character’s general features and move on, but unless the character is unimportant to the story, this wastes a valuable opportunity to show-not-tell. Whenever description is needed, we want to think about how to ‘spend’ our word currency in the best way possible. Even with physical description, we want to choose details that will push the story forward, reveal characterization, and show readers what’s hidden.

Try using your character’s appearance to allude to…

Personality

Is your heroine the type to wear bright yellow to a funeral? Does your groom show up to his wedding in a tux t-shirt and flip-flops? Is it a toss-up between which is tighter – the pearls strangling Aunt Edna’s wattle or her disapproving glare as a neighbor’s children run amok? Written with purpose, details about your character’s clothes can say much about their personality and attitude, priming readers to see them in the exact light you want them to.

Occupations and Interests

Does your protagonist have the perma-stained grease hands of a mechanic or the meticulously clean ones of a model or physician? Is there a smudge of paint above one eyebrow or a clod of potter’s clay in his hair? Small details can hint at what a character does for a living and the passions they may have.

Perceptions and Self-perceptions

Does the hero fixate on his beard so much he carries a comb and smoothing gel with him everywhere he goes? Does his socially oblivious sidekick have a habit of scratching his leg with too-long toenails at the beach, grossing everyone out? Does your heroine ask friends what they plan to wear before choosing herself or does she throw on whatever is clean? The time and attention a character gives to their appearance can show how comfortable they are in their own skin and whether they care about the opinions of others.

Health

Is your character disconcertingly underweight, does she have a bluish tinge to her lips, or is she always hiding her hands so others don’t see the tremors? Does she carry an inhaler or epi pen? A well-placed detail about her appearance can hint at an underlying condition, hereditary health issue, or lay the ground for an unfortunate diagnosis that will upend the character’s life.

Hidden Lineage

Does your character have a unique eye color, rare skin condition, or sun sensitivity? A physical peculiarity can help you set the stage to reveal your character is the long-lost descendant of a royal family, lead them to finding their birth parent, or shock them with the discovery that they belong to a race of magic users believed to have died out long ago.

Pedigree, Station, Education, and Wealth

Rather than a hidden lineage, your character’s appearance can show-not-tell their importance within society. Wearing colors only a sect of assassins is sanctioned to use, the quality of their garments or adornments, observing the latest fashion, or showing a character’s bearing, posture, and manners can allude to their upbringing, economic status, or caste.

Secrets

Whether it’s a dried blood drop on the face of their watch, a strange tattoo behind their ear, or the fact they are carrying a concealed weapon at a bridal shower, details that are mysterious or out of place show readers there’s more to a character than meets the eye.

Backstory Wounds

Does your character have an odd bite mark on one shoulder, a chemical burn scar, a missing finger, or they walk with a limp? You can be sure that if it’s important enough to describe, readers will be intrigued about what happened that led to that peculiarity and want to read on to find out. 

Talents and Skills

Does your villainess have throwing knives strapped to her sleeves, chest, and back? Or does your hacker protagonist always carry a backpack full of electronic gadgets and a laptop? If a character’s skills require certain supplies, tech, weapons, or tools, it’s likely they will keep them on hand, a neon sign to readers that they have a special talent.

Emotional Mindset and Comfort Zone

Body language, mannerisms, posture, and the buffer of space the character keeps around them (or not) will all help readers understand what a character may be feeling and how comfortable they are in a location. A character who feels utterly uncomfortable may be pulling at their clothes, sweating, and choosing dark corners over conversation. A character standing tense and watchful, ready to grab the knife at his hip is clearly expecting danger. Someone who loves to be the center of attention will be doing exactly that, confidently working the crowd, smiling and telling jokes, making people feel welcome and basking in the attention.

Motivation

A character who tests the release button on his poison ring before heading out to shake hands with his enemy makes it clear what his goal is, just as a grieving widow will by practicing tearing up in the mirror so she’s ready for her police interview to go over where she was when her husband was mugged and killed. Mission-oriented people dress, behave, and act in alignment with their goal, so describing them in the moment will focus the reader’s attention right where you want it to go.

This is by no means a complete list, but it hopefully gets the idea ball rolling. So, the next time you need to describe a character’s physical features, use it to reveal something extra that activates a reader’s need-to-know mindset, hooking them to read on.

Do you find it easy to write physical description, or is it a bit of a struggle? Let me know in the comments!

The post How to Hook Readers with Character Descriptions appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

What secret is your character keeping? Why are they safeguarding it? What’s at stake if it’s discovered? Does it need to come out at some point, or should it remain hidden?

This is some of the important information you need to know about your character’s secrets—and they will have secrets, because everyone does. They’re thorny little time bombs composed of fear, deceit, stress, and conflict that, when detonated, threaten to destroy everything the character holds dear.

So, of course, you should assemble them. And we can’t wait to help.

This thesaurus provides brainstorming fodder for a host of secrets that could plague your character. Use it to explore possible secrets, their underlying causes, how they might play into the overall story, and how to realistically write a character who is hiding them—all while establishing reader empathy and interest.

Maybe your character. . .

Using a False Identity

ABOUT THIS SECRET: A character who has made regrettable choices may need to distance themselves from their old life through a false identity. Perhaps they’re wanted by police, they tried to shake down a vengeful enemy, or they’ve adopted an alter ego to hide criminal behavior. This entry will focus on nefarious reasons for living under a false name.

SPECIFIC FEARS THAT MAY DRIVE THE NEED FOR SECRECY: Being Attacked, Being Judged, Being Returned to an Abusive Environment, Being Unsafe, Death, Government, Losing Autonomy, Losing One’s Social Standing, Losing the Respect of Others, Persecution

HOW THIS SECRET COULD HOLD THE CHARACTER BACK
Being unable to have open, honest, and trusting relationships (lest someone finds out)
Needing to avoid certain places, people, and situations where they might be recognized
Never feeling truly safe or at ease (always looking over their shoulder)
Being restricted to activities that will not require a thorough document check
Having to choose a job for its anonymity rather than an interest or skill

BEHAVIORS OR HABITS THAT HELP HIDE THIS SECRET
Changing their appearance
Being skilled at lying and deception
Aligning with the expectations of others
Moving from place to place, being nomadic
Moving far away from where they used to live

ACTIVITIES OR TENDENCIES THAT MAY RAISE SUSPICIONS
Odd behaviors (a tendency to not touch things, pay only with cash, etc.)
Becoming morally flexible when certain opportunities come up
Being caught in a lie, especially over something that seems silly to lie about
A vice being discovered (such as gambling or drug use) that doesn’t fit who they claim to be
Pointing out things the average person wouldn’t know: See that guy? Stay away from him–he’s a pickpocket.

SITUATIONS THAT MAKE KEEPING THIS SECRET A CHALLENGE 
Marrying into a family who have members in law enforcement
Witnessing a crime (or being the victim of one) and being questioned by police
Winning a prize unexpectedly, becoming the focus of local attention
Running into someone from their old life

Other Secret Thesaurus entries can be found here.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed, the rest of our descriptive collection (18 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, then give our Free Trial a spin.

The post Character Thesaurus Entry: Using a False Identity appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Raptors are some of the most successful predators on the planet. From owls, eagles, and vultures to hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey, raptors are skilled hunters with incredible senses, like binocular vision, that help them detect prey at far distances. The secretary bird even carries mouthfuls of water back to the nest for her young — one of the few avian species to quench a chicks’ thirst.

If a raptor was a character in a book, they seem like the perfect villain on the surface. After all, they kill and consume adorable critters like chipmunks, squirrels, mice, monkeys, birds, fish, and old or injured animals. As readers, we’d fear the moment their shadow darkened the soil.

What we may not consider right away is how tender raptors are with their young, or that they only take what they need to feed their family and keep the landscape free of disease from rotting meat and sick animals, or what majestic fliers they are. Raptors have many awe-inspiring abilities.

Take, for example, the Andean condor, the largest flying land bird in the western hemisphere. In the highest peaks of the majestic Andes, the largest raptor in the world hovers high in the sky in search of its next meal — a carcass or old/injured animal to hunt. Andean condors have a wingspan of over ten feet. If one flew sideways through an average living room with eight-foot ceilings, the wings would drag on the floor!

How could we turn a massive predator like the Andean condor into a hero? It’s difficult to offset their hunting abilities and diet with the innocence of their prey, but not impossible.

A layered characterization holds the key. It doesn’t matter who your protagonist is or what they do. With proper characterization, a raptor or killer can play any role.

Go Deeper than the Three Dimensions of Character

1^st dimension: The face they show to the world; a public persona
2^nd dimension: The person they are at home and with close friends
3^rd dimension: Their true character. If a fire broke out in a cinema, would they help others get out safely or elbow their way through the crowd?

A raptor-type character needs layers, each one peeled little by little over time to reveal the full picture of who they are and what they stand for. We also need to justify their actions so readers can root for them.

A perfect example is Dexter Morgan, vigilante serial killer and forensic blood spatter analyst for Miami Dade Police. Why did the world fall in love with Dexter?

What makes Dexter so fascinatingly different is that he lives by a code when choosing his victims – they must, without a doubt, be murderers likely to strike again. But he didn’t always have this code. In the beginning, he killed to satisfy the sick impulses from his “dark passenger.” If it weren’t for Dexter’s adoptive father and police officer, Harry Morgan, who educated his son to control his need to kill and established tight guidelines for Dexter to follow (the code), he would have been the villain.

Readers accept his “dark passenger” because he’s ridding the world of other serial killers who could harm innocent people in the community. And that’s enough justification for us to root for him. We’re willing to overlook the fact that he revels in each kill and keeps trophies. We even join him in celebrating his murders — and never want him caught.

Jeffrey Deaver couldn’t have pulled this off if he showed all Dexter’s sides at the very beginning. It worked because he showed us each layer to the character of Dexter Morgan over time.

The Characterization for Vigilante Killers Cannot be Rushed

When I created this type of character, he started as the villain for two and half novels while I dropped hints and pieces of truth like breadcrumbs. It wasn’t until halfway through book four that the full picture of who he really was and what motivated him became evident.

So, go ahead and craft a raptor as the protagonist of your story (as an antihero). When characters are richly detailed psychologically, readers connect to them. Perhaps a part of us wishes we could enact justice like they do.

If crafted with forethought and understanding, your raptor may become your most memorable character to date. Just go slow and really think about how much of their mind to reveal and when. Who knows? You may create a protagonist readers will analyze for years to come!

*It’s unfair to draw a parallel between raptors and vigilante killers, but the idea came to me while watching a nature documentary. Make no mistake, I adore raptors.

The post Could a Raptor Play the Protagonist Role? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

This quote by Karl Lagerfeld is pretty heady. I’m still chewing on it, but what I gather is that clothing and other appearance choices are one way we interpret and reflect reality—the reality of who we are, of our passions. Sometimes, it’s the reality we want to project (as opposed to what’s actually real).

In this way, a character’s clothes can say a lot about them as individuals. As writers, we should always be looking for characterization opportunities that allow us to reveal truths about our characters in natural ways. And clothing choices, as mundane as they may seem, can be a great way to do this. Just zero in on a few details about your character’s clothes, and BAM! You’ve revealed crucial information without having to state it outright.

So, what can fashion choices tell us about a character?

Jobs and Careers

Does your protagonist have a job that requires a uniform? Have them head into the coffee shop wearing their hospital scrubs, stained mechanic’s coveralls, three-piece suit, or steel-toed boots and work belt. By referencing their work clothes, you won’t have to mention their profession overtly.

Temporal and Geographic Markers

If the story takes place in a different time or location, your character’s fashion choices can clue readers in to the where and when. Show your protagonist in crinolines and a corset, a tartan kilt and clan badges, or bellbottoms and a halter top. Use context clues to introduce futuristic, paranormal, or otherworldly wardrobe items. Let a few carefully chosen clothing details show readers where and when your character is living.

Personality

Because clothing choices are deeply personal, they can reflect certain aspects of personality. Looking at the main cast of Stranger Things, you wouldn’t define them as haute couture; they’re self-defined nerds with little fashion sense, and their clothes reflect this. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Cruella from the movie of the same name. Antisocial is her defining trait, and her fashion choices consistently fly in the face of what’s popular, traditional, and accepted.

A character who is flamboyant will dress differently than someone who is simple or traditional or lazy. Our personality absolutely influences how we dress, so know your character’s dominant traits, and outfit them accordingly. 

Identity

In specific cases, clothing can quickly establish certain aspects of identity. Traditional cultural garb, like a sari, kimono, or yarmulke, can point to the character’s heritage. The same is true if their dress associates them with a certain group of people, such as the LGBTQ+ community.

Interests and Hobbies

Want to show your character’s interests? Put them in fan merch from a favorite band or a t-shirt sporting a social justice slogan. Reveal their K-Pop obsession by having them show up to a block party looking like a member of BTS. One of the things that makes us each unique is our individual passions. Show those off for your character through their wardrobe.

Individuality

You can’t learn much from someone who looks just like everyone else. But if they take pains to individualize their appearance, it says something about them. Wearing colorful knee socks with a school uniform, only wearing certain colors, or making their own uniquely styled clothes are all ways to show that a character is swimming against the current. More information is needed for readers to know exactly how or why they’re different, but clothing is a good starting point for revealing this desire to break from the pack.

Financial Status

As we all know, clothes come with a variety of price tags. Some are cheap while others are wildly expensive. A character who dresses in name brands, wears only natural fibers, or shops at trendy boutiques is likely to have a bigger bank account than someone wearing hand-me-downs or generic clothes from Target.

Of course, the expensive clothes could be a smokescreen meant to convey the image of wealth. We see this with Coriolanus Snow in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. 

This book, like the original Hunger Games, opens on the day of a reaping, when Snow will learn which tribute he’ll be mentoring. Assignments reflect prestige and status, which is especially important for Snow because his family has secretly fallen into poverty. He’s got to maintain appearances, and we see this in the opening pages as he meticulously picks out his clothes for the big announcement. He has splurged on a black-market pair of pants, and his tired shirt is transformed with dyes, extra purloined cloth, and a fashion-savvy cousin’s needle and thread. He shows up to his meeting looking like any wealthy Capitol citizen, but it’s all a ruse that is carried off by his clothing.

This is something to keep in mind—that looks can be deceiving, and some fashion choices are meant to portray an image that isn’t real. Those false choices, in and of themselves, can be very telling to readers.

Secrets

So, while clothing can reveal truths about a character, it can also be used to conceal those truths. Fashion choices could be deliberately made to hide things, such as

• Scars or skin conditions
• Signs of physical abuse
• A pregnancy
• Their financial standing
• An aspect of their identity or heritage that they’re rejecting
• Beliefs that would make them unpopular
• Insecurity and self-doubt
• Their emotional state

Does your character have something to hide? How could you show that through their clothing?

Mental/Emotional State

Sometimes, a person’s fashion choices can hint at how they’re doing mentally or emotionally—namely, when their clothes change unexpectedly and no longer match their personality. If a fashion-conscious or fastidious character starts living in threadbare leggings and stained shirts, that’s a clue that something is going on with them. Likewise, when an emo character suddenly starts wearing bright colors and clothing with cheery slogans, readers will sit up and take notice because it doesn’t fit with what they know about them.

Final Thoughts

It’s clear that clothing can be used to reveal certain truths. But the clothes themselves don’t always allow for a complete interpretation because they can mean different things. Rumpled sweats and mismatched socks may be a sign of emotional distress, but it also could just mean the character is a slob. Or their washing machine is broken. For clarity about the why, pair clothing choices with dialogue, thoughts, body language, and environmental factors to provide context.

And lay the foundation early for readers about what’s normal for the character. Know their personality, preferences, interests, and personal identity well. Identify what they embrace about themselves and what they’ll downplay. Once you’ve really gotten to know your character, you can write them clearly and consistently for readers. Then, when their appearance changes, readers will know something is going on, and the meaning behind the shift will be more obvious.

I hope this post gives you some ideas about how to make your character’s clothes do double-duty. But, of course, it doesn’t cover everything. Can you think of other truths wardrobe choices can reveal about a character?

The post Using Clothes to Characterize appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Archetypes and tropes are popular storytelling elements because of their familiarity. Upon seeing them, readers know immediately who they’re dealing with and what role the nerd, dark lord, femme fatale, or monster hunter will play. As authors, we need to recognize the commonalities for each trope so we can write them in a recognizable way and create a rudimentary sketch for any character we want to create.

But when it comes to characters, no one wants just a sketch; we want a vibrant and striking cast full of color, depth, and contrast. Diving deeper into character creation is especially important when starting with tropes because the blessing of their familiarity is also a curse; without differentiation, the characters begin to look the same from story to story.

But no more. The Character Type and Trope Thesaurus allows you to outline the foundational elements of each trope while also exploring how to individualize them. In this way, you’ll be able to use historically tried-and-true character types to create a cast for your story that is anything but traditional.

DESCRIPTION: An attractive and popular girl or woman who uses her status, control, and powers of manipulation to maintain her social standing or put people (especially other females) in their place.

FICTIONAL EXAMPLES: Cersei Lannister (A Song of Fire and Ice series), Hilly Holbrook (The Help), Regina George (Mean Girls), Heather Chandler (Heathers), Kathryn Merteuil (Cruel Intentions)

COMMON STRENGTHS: Alert, Ambitious, Analytical, Bold, Charming, Confident, Decisive, Diplomatic, Extroverted, Intelligent, Observant, Organized, Persistent, Persuasive, Sophisticated, Spunky, Uninhibited

COMMON WEAKNESSES: Abrasive, Callous, Catty, Confrontational, Controlling, Cowardly, Cruel, Dishonest, Fussy, Greedy, Haughty, Hostile, Hypocritical, Inflexible, Irrational, Jealous, Judgmental, Manipulative, Materialistic, Melodramatic, Possessive, Pushy, Selfish, Spoiled, Stubborn, Vindictive

ASSOCIATED ACTIONS, BEHAVIORS, AND TENDENCIES
Being assertive and confident
Valuing status and power
Taking great pains with her personal appearance
Being able to work a room
Enjoying attention and being in the spotlight
Being skilled at identifying other people’s weaknesses
Holding those in her inner circle to a high standard
Pitting followers against each other
Using fear or intimidation as a control tactic
Responding poorly to change; not pivoting easily

SITUATIONS THAT WILL CHALLENGE THEM
Encountering someone who won’t be manipulated or controlled
Having to move to a new area or social group and rebuild her position from scratch
Moving to a new school, job, city, etc., where the rules are different and her methods are ineffective
Encountering collective resistance from followers who used to be loyal

TWIST THIS TROPE WITH A CHARACTER WHO…
Has a hidden vulnerability she goes to great lengths to conceal, such as domestic abuse or a person she’s protecting
Loses her position and has to create a new life for herself
Has an atypical trait: Socially Aware, Introverted, Appreciative, Self-Destructive, etc.

CLICHÉS TO BE AWARE OF
The shallow and self-centered queen bee who has no underlying reason for her behavior beyond wanting to be popular

Other Type and Trope Thesaurus entries can be found here.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed, the rest of our descriptive collection (16 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, and then give our Free Trial a spin.

The post Character Type & Trope Thesaurus: Queen Bee appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

One worry that can plague writers is whether their characters are original enough or not. After all, readers meet a lot of characters over time, so how can writers make sure their characters are fresh and interesting? How can they make sure their story’s cast has that WOW factor that ensures they stay with readers long after the book closes?

Luckily there’s a myriad of ways to make a character stand out through their personality, belief system, struggles, interests, and more. Characters will also have their own unique backstories, motivations and needs. This is why making time to uncover their inner layers is always worthwhile.

Today, let’s look at a specific area of characterization that can help you individualize your character: Talents & Skills.

Got Skills?

In the real world, we all have certain abilities. Maybe we have strong listening skills that help us get to the heart of a matter quickly so we can undo misunderstandings. Or we can haggle well and always manage to get a better price. Whether it’s singing, skiing, welding, or transforming pop cans into an ingenious whirligigs, talents and skills help make us interesting and memorable, and can do the same for characters.

As you can imagine, there’s a cargo ship of possibilities when it comes to special abilities. Some will have a big impact on the story too, so we want to think carefully about what talents our characters might possess. Start by considering…

A special ability should originate from your character. What fits with their personality, interests, education, or environment?

Think about what will happen in the story, and the problems the character must navigate. What skills might help them get past hurdles (and hopefully encourage inner growth)?

Consider their story role. A main character will face a crucible of conflict to reach their goal, and their special ability may influence events and/or be part of their growth arc. A lesser character’s skills, however, may not have the same level of importance.

Bottom line, a character’s giftedness shouldn’t be random. Considering the different types of talents and skills and how they can serve the story can provide lots of ideas, too.

An Unusual Talent or Skill

Some abilities are rarer than others, like the ability to talk to the dead, start fires with the mind, throw one’s voice, or use mentalism to gain information and influence others. When we want a character to really stand out we often think about giving them an unusual talent. And that’s fine as long as we know there’s a trade off: unusual talents generate questions that readers will expect to be answered in the story:

*How did this talent come about?

*When did the character discover it?

*Are they alienated because of this ability, or embraced for it?

*And finally, how will their skill impact the story?

This last one leads us to another reader expectation: that this exceptional ability will influence the story in a bigger way. So, if you choose an unusual talent, make sure to follow through on this expectation.

An Ordinary Talent or Skill

Some abilities seem a bit bland, like being skilled at fishing, sewing, or being good with numbers. You might be tempted to skip these and move on to something cooler like being able to hot-wire a car or throw knives.

Spoiler alert: ordinary skills can save the day, too!

*A skilled fisherman can be the only thing standing between villagers and starvation during a harsh winter in a lakeside community.

*A talented seamstress might save lives on the battlefield.

*Having a head for numbers might be how your character helps everyone survive when an Escape Room excursion turns into a psychopath’s maze of puzzles and traps.

Ordinary skills can have a big impact on the story in the right situation. They also resonate and feel realistic to readers. And there’s a message readers connect with, too: that anyone can make a difference, not just the Alphas of the world.

A Useful Talent or Skill

Most often writers choose a skill because it will help their character win. To find the right match, think about what problems the character will face and list out what abilities would help them navigate these situations. Then, challenge yourself to find options that aren’t obvious.

For example, a captive who is a skilled chess player can use strategy and out-of-the-box thinking to escape her captor. A teen who loves parkour might be the group’s only hope of climbing a cavern wall to the surface after a cave-in collapses the tunnel leading out.

“The perfect skill for X situation” can feel contrived to readers, so work to find something that fits the character’s personality, interests, and everyday life.

A Genre-Friendly Talent or Skill

Some talents and qualities show up consistently in certain genres. Billionaire playboys in romances are often charmers with money-making abilities, and tech-thrillers will have someone skilled in computer hacking. Write fantasy? Chances are your band of adventurers will have wilderness navigation, archery, lying, and leadership skills covered.

It’s okay to choose talents and skills common to your genre if you challenge yourself to twist them into something fresh. Maybe your billionaire doesn’t use his charm to bed anyone…instead he smiles his way into securing fat donations for his charitable foundation. Your computer hacker could be a Robin Hood in disguise by taking the paydays of online scammers and returning money to bank accounts of those scammed. Your adventurers can have the perfect skills for a hallmark quest but when they are transported to a foreign landscape full of unknowns, they must adapt their talents to suit.

With a bit of extra thought, there’s always a way to turn a common trope or premise into something fresh.

An Unwanted Talent or Skill

Sometimes a character has an ability they wish they didn’t have. Maybe being a natural peacekeeper means constantly being embroiled in family drama, or good intuition means less mistakes, sparking jealousy among peers. An ability to build explosives could land your character into trouble when a cruel king forces him to make bombs that kill those who stand against the crown.

An unwanted skill can also open the box to internal reflections part of character arc. The unhappiness tied to their ability causes them to think about who they are, who they want to be, and how much this skill controls how they see themselves. This can lead to finding a positive way to use their skill so they gain greater fulfillment.

A Seemingly Useless Talent or Skill

Finally, a great way to subvert expectations is to give your character a talent that seems deceptively useless. Maybe they can solve a Rubik Cube puzzle one-handed, or their steady hands come in handy as a house painter who has to tackle the window trim. Exciting stuff, right?

But what if their dexterity saves them in an emergency? Maybe to help a friend escape wrongful imprisonment they have to they have to pickpocket a key card. Or to undo a curse they must collect magical berries nestled within a thicket of poisonous thorns. Useless talents can transform your story if used the right way!

TIP: Choose a talent or skill that makes your character memorable and helps them achieve their goals.

If this is something you’d like to learn more about, you might find these resources helpful. You can also see the full collection of talent and skill entries in their entirety at One Stop For Writers, where all our thesauruses are cross-referenced and linked for easy navigation. If you’re interested in seeing a free sampling of the Talent and Skill Thesaurus and our other descriptive collections, head on over and register at One Stop!

The post Differentiate Your Character with a Talent or Skill appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Archetypes and tropes are popular storytelling elements because of their familiarity. Upon seeing them, readers know immediately who they’re dealing with and what role the nerd, dark lord, femme fatale, or monster hunter will play. As authors, we need to recognize the commonalities for each trope so we can write them in a recognizable way and create a rudimentary sketch for any character we want to create.

But when it comes to characters, no one wants just a sketch; we want a vibrant and striking cast full of color, depth, and contrast. Diving deeper into character creation is especially important when starting with tropes because the blessing of their familiarity is also a curse; without differentiation, the characters begin to look the same from story to story.

But no more. The Character Type and Trope Thesaurus allows you to outline the foundational elements of each trope while also exploring how to individualize them. In this way, you’ll be able to use historically tried-and-true character types to create a cast for your story that is anything but traditional.

DESCRIPTION: This protagonist doesn’t want to be a hero and actively works to avoid becoming one. Throughout the course of their arc, they eventually embrace and grow into their role as the hero of the story.

FICTIONAL EXAMPLES: Frodo Baggins (The Lord of the Rings franchise), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games trilogy), Vianne Mauriac (The Nightingale), Han Solo (Star Wars: A New Hope), Sarah Connor (The Terminator)

COMMON STRENGTHS: Adaptable, Alert, Cautious, Courageous, Empathetic, Generous, Honorable, Humble, Independent, Introverted, Just, Loyal, Pensive, Resourceful, Responsible, Sensible, Talented

COMMON WEAKNESSES: Apathetic, Cowardly, Cynical, Evasive, Hostile, Indecisive, Nervous, Paranoid, Selfish, Stubborn, Suspicious, Timid, Uncooperative, Worrywart

ASSOCIATED ACTIONS, BEHAVIORS, AND TENDENCIES
Being self-reliant
Having high moral standards
Disliking being the center of attention
Enjoying solitude
Preferring to be seen as ordinary
Being self-serving or self-centered (initially)
Having a strong sense of justice
Tending toward skepticism
Having commitment issues
Underachieving

SITUATIONS THAT WILL CHALLENGE THEM
Having to decide to engage in a difficult situation or do nothing
A loved one facing mortal peril
The stakes becoming personal, making it harder for the character not to act
Others acknowledging the character’s weakness and pushing them to change

TWIST THIS TROPE WITH A CHARACTER WHO…
Has a good reason for their reluctance that goes beyond insecurity or selfishness
Has skeletons in their closet
Has an atypical trait: Flamboyant, Playful, Vindictive, Whiny, Witty, etc.

CLICHÉS TO BE AWARE OF
The character making an abrupt reversal from reluctant to fully committed hero
The reluctant hero who takes on the hero mantle after their mentor or other key character is killed

Other Type and Trope Thesaurus entries can be found here.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed, the rest of our descriptive collection (16 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, and then give our Free Trial a spin.

The post Character Type & Trope Thesaurus: Reluctant Hero appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

We’ve probably seen advice warning that any time our story revisits information, we risk the idea feeling repetitive or redundant to readers if we’re not careful. Not surprisingly, the same risk can apply even across books in a series.

Yet when we write a book series, we usually need to repeat some information from book to book. Depending on the type of series, we might need to repeat character introduction or worldbuilding information, or we might need to touch on events from previous books, and so on. So how can we avoid the repetitive/redundant risk when presenting information in a book series?

Series 101: Types of Series

To understand our options for how to handle repeating information, we first need to determine the type of series we’re writing. In general, books are designated a series because they share at least one element:

• Shared Setting: These series take place in the same “world” but each feature different point-of-view (POV) characters. The characters of book two may or may not have been introduced in book one. The events of book two may or may not be dependent on the events of book one.
• Shared Character(s): These series feature the same POV character(s). The events of book two may or may not be dependent on the events of book one.
• Shared Story Arc: These series follow a story arc over several book installments. Each book usually features at least some of the same characters. Sometimes a story will end with a cliffhanger to be resolved in the next book. These books need to be read in order.

Which Category Best Fits Our Series?

We need to determine which category best fits our series, as the writing techniques that work best for handling repeated information vary for different types of series. For example, when series books are standalone, we use different techniques than when the books must be read in a certain order.

What if the books can make sense out of order but are connected enough to make events of one book affect the next book?

In this case, the series usually has less focus on the overall Shared Story Arc than the other shared elements, so the standalone techniques of the Shared Character or Shared Setting categories will likely be the most helpful to us. However, it’s also possible that that our series may change category near the end.

Some series can be read in any order until the last book(s), when the minor Shared Story Arc threads referenced throughout the series grow in importance to create a series-level story. For these series, to get the most out of the final book, readers should be familiar with the rest of the series first. In this situation, we can use the Shared Character/Setting techniques in the earlier books, and then when that Shared Story Arc finally takes over as the main focus of the book, we can change to use the Shared Story Arc techniques in the later book(s). We should just let readers know that they’ll get the most out of the last book(s) if they read the other books first.

Want to learn the Techniques for Series Based on Shared Setting
or the Techniques for Series Based on Shared Character?
Check out Jami’s companion post!

Techniques for Series Based on Shared Story Arc

The most important aspect of Shared Story Arc series is that if we intend to write the books with an assumption that readers have read previous books, we need to include that information in our marketing materials. For example, our book description/back-cover blurb should mention that this is book number-whatever in our series, and readers should start at the beginning of the series.

So if readers will read the books in a certain order, does that mean we shouldn’t bother repeating information at all? Unlikely.

Even within a single book, we still need to give readers hints about small details they may have forgotten since the earlier reference. For example, we might mention how a minor character is related to the story if they haven’t been on the page for several chapters, such as using a tag like “her brother.” (She couldn’t go to George for help, as her brother still hadn’t forgiven her for the last catastrophe.)

With a series, there’s usually months or years between the releases of our series’ books, or even if we release the series in a bundle, readers might not binge them all at once. So just like our techniques within a single book, we often need to find ways to trigger readers’ memory of earlier information.

Assuming we’ve let readers know that it’s essential to start the series at the beginning, we can focus on repeating a minimal amount of information with these 3 techniques…

#1: Use Just Enough Information to Trigger Readers’ Memory

In standalone series, we need to share enough information to get new readers up to speed, and that means re-introducing characters, the story world, and treating previous events as backstory. However, in story-arc series, we can shortcut a lot of repeated information by sharing just enough to trigger readers’ memory.

For example, rather than re-establishing why our protagonist is estranged from their family, we might just allude to the fact that they’re estranged from them. Or rather than sharing paragraphs of explanation to introduce main characters or the setting/story world, we might just state aspects of characters and the story world as facts and avoid the feeling of a re-introduction. In other words, focus on facts not explanations.

This memory-triggering process may look like one of these options, depending on the importance of the details:

• a short tag: her office nemesis,
• a sentence: She’d still never forgiven her coworker for stealing her idea, or
• a paragraph: She’d still never forgiven her coworker for stealing her idea. In fact, the more she’d thought about Andrew’s undeserved raise and promotion, the more upset she’d gotten. Soon, though, her plan for revenge would have its day.

The more important a fact, such as a major aspect of the story, the more strongly we should trigger readers’ memory with essential details in case they can’t remember. Do readers need to know the protagonist is traumatized by her father’s death in the previous book? Share how that trauma is affecting her currently, and thus include the fact of the death event along the way, much as how we’d treat any backstory.

If we need more than a paragraph or two to share the necessary details of important information with returning readers, we can try the next suggestion to avoid repeating ourselves too much.

#2: Use Different Circumstances to Mention Repeated Information

For important information, we need to ensure that readers remember enough that they’ll understand events. When our story requires us to repeat more than a condensed paragraph of information, we can avoid the feeling of too much repetition by changing the circumstances of our reveal.

For example, if we initially revealed the information in a shocking twist, a follow-up book may remind readers of the information via:

• a dialogue exchange,
• a different character bringing it up,
• internal monologue,
• an exploration of the aftereffects,
• a traumatic flashback, or
• being part of a conflict, etc.

Different techniques will fit best with different storytelling styles. The point is to change the circumstances so we’re forced to use different words, phrases, and descriptions to reduce the sense of déjà vu.

#3: Focus on How the Information Has Changed

In addition, we can emphasize how any repeated information has changed over the story’s arc. Or if the information itself hasn’t changed, we can bring it up by mentioning how characters have changed their perspective about it.

For example, we may explore how the POV character feels about it, how skilled they are at dealing with it, how they plan on taking advantage of it, etc. Revisiting the repeated information with some type of update can be a great way to ensure the repetition isn’t redundant, as readers are learning something new.

Final Thoughts about Avoiding Repetition in Series

With the right writing techniques, we can avoid—or at least minimize—the issue of readers feeling a sense of déjà vu as we repeat information in our series. When we find ways to change the information or how we deliver that information, we ensure readers are learning something new or seeing the information through a different perspective, and that gives them a reason to keep reading. *smile*

Want to learn techniques for Shared Setting or Shared Character series? Visit my companion post!

Have you written a series and struggled with how to revisit information? Can you think of any other techniques we can use to avoid a sense of repetition or redundancy? Do you have any questions about these techniques or how to approach repeating information in a series?

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