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

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

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

1. Characterization

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

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

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

~Alas Babylon

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

2. What’s Missing?

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

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

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

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

~Speak

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

3. The Story Goal

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

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

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

~The Raven Boys

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

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

4. Foreshadowing and Conflict

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until tonight. Something was different tonight.

~A Game of Thrones

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

5. Questions

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

Pip knew where they lived.

Everyone in Fairview knew where they lived.

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

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

~The Good Girl’s Guide to Murder

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

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

6. An Unusual Character or Authorial Voice

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

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

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

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

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

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

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

~Percy Jackson and the Olympians

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

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

BECCA PUGLISI

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What Causes a Flat Character?

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

Shallow Backstory

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

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

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

A Too-Basic Personality

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

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

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

Over-Reliance on Character Tropes or Stereotypes

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

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

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

Tunnel Vision

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

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

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

A Lack of Drive

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

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

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

Distanced Emotions

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

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

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

Inadequate Internal Conflict

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

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

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

Little to No Growth or Change  

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

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

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

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

READ NEXT: How to Write a Protagonist with True Depth

ANGELA ACKERMAN

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

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

Stakes are a crucial part of your story because they define what will happen if the protagonist fails. To build reader empathy, you need this piece in place because when the reader sees what’s at stake, and they recognize why it matters to the character, the story becomes important. It matters.

Stakes also create tension when the reader realizes what’s on the line. So when the stakes are referenced early on, readers are more likely to be drawn in and root for the character’s success.

But that empathy connection only happens if the reader can see what’s at stake. And that can only happen if the author knows what’s on the line. Sometimes, it’s obvious. What are the consequences if Sheriff Brody doesn’t catch the shark in Jaws? Death and dismemberment. In the original Inside Out, if all of Riley’s emotions aren’t acknowledged and won’t work together, her identity is at risk.

But other times, it’s harder to identify what’s at stake in a story. So I’d like to share a simple method for figuring that out.

Outer Motivation + Inner Motivation = Stakes

All you have to do is figure out a couple of key elements for your story.

First: the protagonist’s goal. This is their overall objective. It’s what they’re hoping to achieve: getting the girl, enacting revenge, catching the criminal, etc. This is also called the Outer Motivation because it’s what the character is visibly working toward; everything he or she does is in pursuit of this objective. In The Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s goal is to destroy the one ring. In An Officer and a Gentleman, the protagonist’s goal is to become a Navy officer. The story goal should be pretty obvious because it’s what your character is actively seeking and pursuing.

But, often, there’s also something internally driving your character toward their goal. This is called the Inner Motivation because its private and is usually related to self-esteem or personal fulfillment. Figuring this out requires some digging into the character’s psyche and their past, but on a basic level, you can simply ask: Why is the goal so important to them?

In An Officer and a Gentleman, why does Zach Mayo want to become a Navy officer? There are lots of possibilities, but the true reason becomes clear when you know his backstory. His mother committed suicide, abandoning him as a ten-year-old. He was sent to live with his father, who was an excellent drinking buddy but not good for much else. And his dad’s military career had them moving all over so he could never put down roots. What Zach craves more than anything is belonging, and becoming a military officer will provide that for him. This is going to meet an internal need that’s missing. Belonging to a group is his inner motivation.

One interesting connection to note:
the inner motivation will often point back to a missing human need.

If you’ve followed Angela and me for long, you’ve likely heard about Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs and how it fits into character arc. The full explanation is here, but to summarize, there are 5 needs that are common to all human beings. If any of these are missing, people become vulnerable, and they’ll take action to fill the void.

Very often, that missing need is the inner motivation.

So, when we’re thinking about how to create meaningful stakes for a character, it’s helpful to zero in on which need is missing or most important to them—and be sure it’s tied to their inner motivation. For Zach, he’s missing love and belonging. He’s chosen a goal that, if he succeeds, will usher him into a ready-made community. So what’s at stake if he fails? Not belonging—continuing to live in isolation, alone.

SIDEBAR: It’s important to note that not every protagonist has an inner motivation. This happens a lot in stories that are plot-driven rather than character-driven: thrillers, action/adventure, etc. Think: Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and vintage James Bond. Those stories are all about the character achieving the goal rather than them growing and maturing, so that internal piece isn’t necessarily needed. In stories like these, the stakes will be very obvious: the end of the world, someone dying, the Nazis getting the Ark of the Covenant and becoming all-powerful, etc.

Bonus: You Can Start from Anywhere

The cool thing about this method is you don’t have to know all your story elements at once; you can start with the inner or outer motivation to figure out the rest of the pieces.

Example 1: Start with the story goal. You know you’re writing a romance with a protagonist who’s looking for true love. What missing human need will be filled if they succeed (inner motivation/human need)?  What’s at stake if they fail?

Example 2: Start with the human need/internal motivation that’s driving their behavior. You know your character inside and out, so you’ve already identified their wound and the human need that’s been compromised. Let’s say it’s Esteem and Recognition. What story goal might they pursue that would fill that void? What’s at stake if they fail to reach their objective?

And now you know how to figure out what’s at stake for your story. Convey that to readers early on, and you’ll show them why the story matters, making it engaging and difficult to put down.

Additional Stakes Resources:

Make the Stakes Personal
Tips for Raising the Stakes
Use Stakes to Establish Reader Expectations

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 Use This Method to Identify Your Story’s Stakes 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!

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 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…

Monitoring Someone Without Their Knowledge

ABOUT THIS SECRET: While there are legitimate uses of monitoring (say, placing a legal wiretap on a suspect’s phone, collecting intel as a private detective or undercover cop, etc.) privacy laws and heavy regulation usually require it be disclosed or in plain view (but never in a private space such as a bathroom). However, what’s legal and what isn’t doesn’t concern characters on the unsavory end of the spectrum—criminals, Peeping Toms, captors, hackers, stalkers, cyberbullies, blackmailers, or other characters who operate outside the law. This entry focuses on these character types.

SPECIFIC FEARS THAT MAY DRIVE THE NEED FOR SECRECY: A Secret Being Revealed, Being Attacked, Being Unsafe, Discrimination, Government, Persecution

HOW THIS SECRET COULD HOLD THE CHARACTER BACK
Having to keep people at arm’s length so their activities are not discovered
Being torn over monitoring another if feelings become involved
Developing an obsession that takes over their life
Being unable to have genuine relationships (due to a fear of discovery)
Not seeking help for mental and emotional conditions that may be lurking beneath the surface

BEHAVIORS OR HABITS THAT HELP HIDE THIS SECRET
Avoiding friendships and personal connections
Having a secure area to plan and store items needed to monitor (computers, hard drives, etc.)
Taking precautions to stay undetected and not raise suspicions
Being disciplined (resisting temptation to take things too far or get close enough for discovery)
Following certain protocols to stay undetected
Being someone forgettable (being polite but not memorable, seeing boring and harmless)

ACTIVITIES OR TENDENCIES THAT MAY RAISE SUSPICIONS
Being a recluse, causing others around them to wonder what the character is up to
Carelessness (sloppy hacking, obvious daytime survellience, etc.) that is noticed
A cold, detached demeanor (that makes the character memorable to others)
Being discovered in a place they are not supposed to be
Not hiding monitoring equipment well enough, leading to its discovery

SITUATIONS THAT MAKE KEEPING THIS SECRET A CHALLENGE 
Circumstances that suddenly change (like a loss of privacy)
An unforeseen challenge that the character is unprepared for
Needing to take in a roommate to keep up with costs
Having a nosy neighbor or family member
Becoming attached to a target

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.

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 Character Secret Thesaurus Entry: Monitoring Someone Without Their Knowledge appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

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

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

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

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

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

1. Make Them a Reluctant Antihero

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

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

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

2. Show Their Full Tragic Arc

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

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

3. Make Them Sympathetic

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

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

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

4. Make Them Unusual

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

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

5. Give Them Good Intentions

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

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

6. Establish Limits

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

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

7. Keep Readers Guessing

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

<Warning: spoilers ahead>

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

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

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

BECCA PUGLISI

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

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

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

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

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

The All-Powerful Emotion Amplifier

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

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

Let’s look at a specific amplifier: scrutiny.

Scrutiny: being observed or critically examined.

Now, imagine yourself for a moment, will you?

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

Or:

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

Can you hear the lambs screaming, Clarisse?

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

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

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

Common Story Problems

NOT ENOUGH CONFLICT:

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

LOW STAKES:

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

PASSIVE CHARACTERS (NO AGENCY):

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

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

LOW TENSION:

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

HIDDEN EMOTION:

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

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

SHOWING CHARACTER GROWTH:

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

PERFECT CHARACTERS:

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

UNCLEAR MOTIVATION:

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

HAPPY CHARACTERS IN A HAPPY LAND:

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

LACK OF RELATIONSHIP FRICTION:

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

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

PREDICTABILITY:

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

LOW READER ENGAGEMENT:

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

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

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

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

ANGELA ACKERMAN

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

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

There’s so much emphasis on making sure that we give our character a goal that’s clear starting from their very first scene. Win the game. Find someone to marry. Land the job. Solve the crime.

We tend to think about goal in terms of the character obtaining the thing they don’t have when the story begins. It’s out there. They can grab it, touch it, and get it if they just do the right things and keep going.

But what if you’re like me and so many of my clients, completely unsure of what your character wants, much less why? What if they’re not an athlete, or in a personal crisis, or craving revenge right out of the gate? What if there isn’t a big mystery to solve starting in your first scene?

Cue creative crisis!

If our character isn’t trying to land a record deal or catch a killer or get some other obvious, tangible thing they don’t currently have, does this mean our story is a total bust?

No.

We’ve just been looking at this elusive concept of goal and motivation all wrong. In fact, I’m here to argue the opposite. That starting from a point of fear—losing something the character already has—can be every bit as motivational and arguably more compelling than starting out with a precise goal of obtaining something they don’t have.

How Can You Mine Your Character’s Preexisting Fear in Order To Give Rise to a Goal In 3 Simple Steps?

Consider What Your Character Currently Has in The Novel’s Opening That They Value.

What does your character cling to, possibly (and likely!) to their own detriment? Is it the approval of someone else, the need to control some uncontrollable aspect of their life? An unhealthy role they play largely to the benefit of another character? What do they care for and how can we see it through what they say and do? What do they believe they must continue doing behavior-wise, or what can’t they imagine living without? Again, focus on what they already have in their lives, well before page one.

For example, in Suzanne Collins’ THE HUNGER GAMES, we meet Katniss as being attached to her younger sister Prim. Katniss is committed to this role of providing for and protecting Prim, and it’s clear that while she loves her, it’s almost to Katniss’ own detriment. Her life seems to revolve around caring for Prim and trying to keep her safe in all forms. Is Katniss even remotely thinking of having something for herself, much less winning the Hunger Games as a goal? No. Her goal is to keep the status quo. This might be the same for your character, whatever their status quo is.

Plan An Event—An Inciting Incident—That Threatens That Valuable Person or Thing.

What might happen to this person or thing your character clings to? Does the person they seek approval from reject them somehow? Does someone new come along and shift the existing dynamic? Is that person or thing your character clings to threatened in some way by an outside force? Does your character lose control of something they thought they had control over? Is their ability to continue to fulfill their unhealthy role compromised?

Returning to Suzanne Collins’ THE HUNGER GAMES, this would be where Prim’s name gets drawn to be a tribute in the Hunger Games—a government-run, fight-to-the-death event where it’s very unlikely Prim will survive. The author directly threatens that unhealthy role Katniss has that’s fueled by the fear of losing her sister, or perhaps being a failure in protecting her. This event directly hits what matters to Katniss. It’s something she already has, and Collins mines Katniss’ fear to force the birth of a new external goal.

Focus On the Logical Outward Act/Choice Your Character Would Then Take, Fueled By Their Original Fear In Point 1 Above.

Even though the event you plan should give birth to a clearer external goal—yay!—it’s important to note that their original fear is in play in whatever choice they make as a result. In other words, whatever the goal may now be, it’s wrongly motivated.

So while it seems bold and pivotal that Katniss volunteers herself in her sister’s place in THE HUNGER GAMES, in all actuality, she is still acting out of her original fear. The same fear as the one we observed on page one. She only forms the goal of winning the games in order to protect her sister (the original fear). To try and control Prim’s safety. But even though her motivation is still driven by a detrimental, unrealistic role (a misbelief), it’s enough to get Katniss out the door with an external goal—one we didn’t have in the very beginning. She is now set up for the external objective of winning the Hunger Games so she can come back home and (so she thinks) keep protecting Prim.

If you’re in the first quarter of your draft, all the guidance I’ve offered might help you to generate a clearer goal for your character by dealing a blow to something they already value. But it’s important to remember that the character’s motivation needs to reflect their initial fear, or misbelief, until the 25% mark (Point of No Return). At that point, the motivation will then shift away from their old fear, letting it go, and replacing it with a different fear—not attaining what they actually need—even if the external goal stays the same.

In other words, at that first-quarter mark, your character’s external goal may or may not change after the Point of No Return. Katniss continues to want to win the Hunger Games for the length of the story. But the fear fueling the why changes.

The motivation of what your character is scared to lose evolves so that around 25%, they must choose to let go of what they initially feared losing, and instead, go after something representative of a bigger loss should they not attain it. A fear that outweighs the fear they had in the beginning. And oftentimes, that fear can be facing, wrestling, and coming to terms with a hard truth related to that initial fear.

In Katniss’ case, she starts to see there isn’t any safety for her sister within their wider dystopian world, regardless of what Katniss tries to do. She has to let go of that protective role and risk dying in order to face a bigger fear—a world like the one they live in. Her motivation pivots toward impacting the larger world conflict in hopes that she can make it better for many more people.

What does your character fear losing when we meet them? If they don’t yet have a clear external goal, what could happen that might threaten their ability to avoid that fear? Does the decision they make then give rise to a concrete goal, still driven by their attempt to avoid their fear? At the Point of No Return, are you able to stick with the same external goal but fuel it by another healthier fear? Or, does your character’s goal change to reflect the fear of losing what they truly needed all along?

Happy writing!

MARISSA GRAFF - Resident Writing Coach

Marissa has been a freelance editor and reader for literary agent Sarah Davies at Greenhouse Literary Agency for over seven years. In conjunction with Angelella Editorial, she offers developmental editing, author coaching, and more. Marissa feels if she’s done her job well, a client should probably never need her help again because she’s given them a crash-course MFA via deep editorial support and/or coaching. Find out more about our RWC team here and connect with Marissa below.

The post Three Easy Steps to Generate a Goal Using Fear as Motivation appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

It’s glorious. So…how do we do it? Psychology.

People are hardwired for stories. For one, they contain experiences that the primal part of the brain likes to mine for information to help with survival. But there are other reasons, too, like the chance to experience certain emotions that act as a release, and the sense of connection a person gets from discovering common ground with others…in this case, the characters.

This is psychology at work.

Certain psychological processes steer us, even though we may not realize it. They shape how we respond to life’s ups and downs, our behavior toward others and ourselves, influence the goals we seek, and more.

Psychology is the study of mental processes and behavior to understand why people think and behave as they do.

Most of us aren’t experts in psychology. We may not even think much about the WHY behind our attitudes and behaviors. Nonetheless, psychological patterns and processes are whirring in the background, drawing from our personal beliefs, emotions, values, identity, and experiences to determine how we think, act, and behave.

Applying human psychology to characters makes them authentic and relatable to readers.

Psychology is part of what it is to be human. Whether it’s a character’s struggles, choices, values, needs, or mistakes, readers can’t help but see a piece of themselves reflected in the character. A bond forms, and if we wish it, we can make that character important to them, someone whose hopes, desires, and goals are meaningful and worth cheering for.

We don’t need to be experts to use psychology, either. We may not always know the terminology or reasoning behind certain processes, but we know what they are like to experience. We can show a character struggling to mentally or emotionally process something and readers will relate—they’ve had to process challenging things, too. This familiarity creates connection and empathy, which is exactly what we want to happen.

Let’s look at a common psychological process: cognitive dissonance.

The best way to explain what this is will be to ask you a question: Have you ever experienced internal tension from an unsettling situation, like seeing a neighbor chain his dog up day after day?

Or maybe this tension crops up when you’re doing something you don’t feel 100% good about, like pulling into the McDonald’s drive-thru when you committed to making better choices and eating healthier.

If so, this tension is called cognitive dissonance, the psychological discomfort caused by contradicting thoughts, perceptions, values, or beliefs. It’s quite common – we all experience it. A few examples:

• We discover information that challenges our current beliefs and sense of right and wrong
• We must choose between competing values/beliefs because, in our current situation, we can’t live by both
• We are behaving in a way that doesn’t match with what we believe in

Cognitive dissonance causes uncomfortable emotions like confusion, worry, guilt, regret, or shame.

To illustrate, let’s go back to the McDonald’s example. Despite your plan to stick to healthy options, it’s been a hellish week, and you pull into the drive-thru. You feel guilty as you order, but when the food arrives, you park the car and indulge—it’s so good! Unfortunately, your Big Mac euphoria lasts only as long as the burger does, and now you’re regretting the decision to cave to your craving. Worse, you’re mentally beating yourself up for not having the willpower to resist.

Cognitive dissonance is powering this discord because you (a) like eating Big Macs but (b) want to lose weight and be healthy. You resolved inner tension briefly by choosing Team Big Mac, but because this behavior didn’t line up with that internal commitment you made to yourself, guilt and regret followed.

This is a psychological process so common readers will pick up on it in the story. The best part? Even if a character experiences dissonance and makes a choice that the reader would not, they still empathize with the character’s experience of internal strain.

Another form of internal contradiction is emotional dissonance. This happens when a person fakes an emotion that they don’t feel.

Can I use you as an example again? Let’s imagine at work you find yourself faking enthusiasm about your boss’s terrible marketing strategy. After all, you know from experience that he won’t listen to contrary opinions, and because you’re a team player, you put on your rah-rah face like everyone else in the meeting.

In this case, your dissonance is mild. You’ve weathered his bad ideas before and aren’t invested enough to state how you really feel.

But emotional dissonance isn’t always minor. Sometimes the emotion you’d have to fake is so far from what you feel that it clashes with your values or personal identity. Acting in alignment with an untrue emotion can mean sacrificing your belief system and going against who you are.

Let’s up the ante. You discover this marketing strategy is driven by a closely guarded secret: the company needs to dump a supply of expired baby formula that they’ve repackaged with fresh dates. When you confront your sales manager she explains that the product is fine, this happens all the time, so keep quiet and get out there and sell, sell, sell.

Can you, knowing the formula could be contaminated? Will you be able to fake confidence as you hit up those neonatal units and pharmacies to convince people to buy your product? Or is this something you can’t do because it crosses a line and violates your core values, regardless of how badly you need the bonus for meeting your sales quota?

Here, the divide between your true feelings (contempt and shock) and the emotion you’d need to fake (confidence) is much wider. Whichever you express reveals your identity: Are you the sort of person who does what’s right or what makes money?

Everyone protects their self-perceptions—things they believe to be true about themselves. Emotional dissonance in a story raises the stakes by challenging the character’s view of themselves, creating confusion, uncertainty, or regret. These difficult emotions are another point of common ground with readers because at one time or another, everyone has reflected on their own identity and whether they are being true to themselves.

Internal dissonance is the heart of inner conflict.

Showing a character wrestle with clashing beliefs, values, or other inconsistencies, no matter what they are, will resonate with readers. The character’s situation may be new to the reader, but the internal tug of war is something they have experience with.

In short, psychology is awesome. Use it!

If you’d like to know more (and discover the best way to encourage internal tension), dive into The Emotion Amplifier Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Stress and Volatility. This companion book to The Emotion Thesaurus will show you how to remind readers of the real world and their own human experiences so they bond better with your characters!

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 Why Writers Should Use Psychology In Their Storytelling appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Some characters are so dynamic, we feel immediately close to them. Everything they say, do, and think is consistent with who they are, they have a past and present, and as we share their experiences, we never have to guess at what they feel, want, or need.

This authenticity happens when the author does the deep work to understand the character inside and out. And, I’m betting they did something else, too: created a reference file about the character, a.k.a., a Character Bible. This is a great way to avoid unintentional inconsistencies and mistakes.

And mistakes do happen, because we forget things —Does Emma fear lizards or birds?—or we change our mind mid-book, and the love interest, Liam, goes from being a skateboarder to the king of parkour. Oh, and name changes? Don’t even get me started!

The point is that nothing pulls readers out of the story faster than when details shift, so implementing a way to keep each character straight in our minds is key.

The Character Bible: A Writer’s Best Friend

A character bible document will contain important details about a character, everything from their appearance, personality, and preferences to their backstory wounds, goals, needs, and secrets. It has a trio of benefits:

1. It pushes you to explore a character’s inner layers to figure out who they really are and what’s driving them in the story
2. Once complete, the bible serves as a reference tool for you to ensure everything about the character is consistent
3. Writing is easier because how the character thinks, acts, and behaves will be second nature to you.

How detailed your bible is depends on how important the character is. Some things you may wish to capture:

Appearance

What does your character look like? Do they have any interesting features that act as clues to readers as to the type of person they are? For example, hair: is their go-to a messy bun, is it chronically unwashed, or is every curl carefully tamed? Or do their clothes suggest a style preference or level of wealth? Do they have scars, marks, or defects that hint at an experience or trauma? Chosen well, specific details do a lot more than just help readers imagine what they look like.

Backstory

Your character’s past affects the present, in good ways and bad. So, who has influenced them to date, either supporting them or limiting them? What personal challenges have they worked through? What negative experiences (emotional wounds) are unresolved, leaving behind fear, biases, and false beliefs about themselves and the world?

Answering these questions will give you a good sense of what their past was like, and the most likely things they will carry forward, like emotional baggage, a sense of duty, a compulsion to fix people, etc.

Personality Traits

Every character will have a unique personality made of positive traits (strengths & identity markers) and negative traits (flaws that keep people and situations at a distance so the character can avoid being hurt by them). Think about both halves – this character’s defining positive qualities, and those that create friction with others.

Moral & Spiritual Beliefs

All characters, even the baddies, will have a moral code. Do you know what beliefs your character hold to so strongly they make decisions and are willing to sacrifice other things to stay true to them? Where is their line in the sand, and what ideas are important enough to them to protect?

Emotional Range & Behaviors

Each person expresses themselves in their own way, and characters will too. Think about your character’s individuality – are they open and communicative about feelings, or keep them inside? Are they demonstrative, or more reserved, extroverted or introverted, or somewhere in the middle? What are their quirks and comfort zones? Understanding a character’s typical emotional range helps you choose emotional responses that feel authentic.

Fears and Misbeliefs

Every character has fears that result from negative experiences, because that dark seed is planted that the same sort of hurt could happen again. So, what fear is making your character a prisioner in some way, shaping their view of the world, themselves, and holding them back from being truly happy? Do they believe they are unworthy or incapable because of this fear, and this destructive lie is one they must cast aside to achieve their story goal?

Talents, Skills, and Abilities

A character should have a few things they are good at, or an ability that make them unique. Giving your character a talent or skill that aids them when it comes to their goal (even in an unexpected way!) will create a sense of synchronicity for readers.

Likes and Dislikes

What are some of your character’s preferences…and why? Will these preferences steer their behavior in the story in good ways and bad? (Yes, the answer is yes.)

Hobbies, Interests, and Passions

What does your character enjoy doing? For a character to be realistic, they should have a few personal interests that make life more enjoyable. These may not even tie into the bigger story, but they do humanize your character to readers.

Current Situation

Just like a character has a past, they have a present, too.  Note a few details about where they live, what their family situation is like, what job they do, the vehicle they use to get around, and any routines or habits that might show up in the story. Knowing your character’s life better will give you ideas on how you can poke their soft spots (people and places they are attached to) and choose conflict that will come with personal stakes attached.

What They Want Most

Every character wants something – a goal that will make their situation better and leave them happier or more complete. This is what your character is striving to do or achieve in your story.

This goal should be something tangible or quantifiable, so readers know the character has done what they set out to do.

What They Need

Sometimes what your character wants and what they need are a bit different. Maybe your character wants a new girlfriend to get past the pain of their latest breakup, but what they need is time to love themselves better and understand why they keep choosing toxic partners. Thinking about what makes them feel incomplete and why can set them on the path of a goal that will help them grow and make them feel more complete.

Secrets

Every character has a secret (maybe more than a few!) so think about what they hide from others. Is there something that could create big problems for them if it was revealed, or does it tie into their unresolved emotional wound? (Readers love secrets, and a hint of one will keep them flipping pages.)

Worldview

How do they view the world – do they believe most people are good, or untrustworthy? Do they put others first, or look out for number one? Do they have biases, avoid certain places and experiences because they have preconceived ideas about what will happen, or refuse to listen to certain opinions that go against their own? If so, try to understand how this might tie to their backstory experiences.

Insecurities & Sensitivities

Life is not always gentle, and experiences where your character’s ego was bruised, or their emotions upended may have left them feeling insecure or easily triggered. If there are emotions your character tries to avoid feeling, or situations they stay away from because they make them feel weak, inept, or emotionally volatile, make a note. These are pointing to past pain, and you might wish to use them in the story to push them to become more self-aware so they can start a journey to healing.

This may seem like a lot to know about someone, but think of how easy it will be to write this character’s thoughts, decisions, and actions. And by writing when you down these details, you’ll have a character bible to reference when you need it!

A Tool that Creates a Character Bible for You

It takes time to uncover a character’s inner layers, we know, so we built a tool to help with that: the Character Builder at One Stop for Writers. Using psychology, it asks you the question you need to know about a character and collects the details into a profile that can be saved to your computer or transferred into certain software programs like Scrivener.

The Character Builder makes brainstorming characters faster and easier because it pulls characterization options from a giant database and shows you how choosing one detail about a character (like their job, or a personality trait) can help you brainstorm other details that naturally connect to that first detail. For example, if you decide your character is a teacher, the Character builder will show you a list of positive traits and skills that a teacher will likely have. With a click, you can add these traits or skills to the profile.

One Stop for Writers’ Character Builder will help you plan your character’s backstory, behavior, skills, goals, personality, fears, and everything else you need to know about them.

This profile is easy to update if you want to tweak something about them, and you can even clone the character profile and adapt a second one if you are thinking about this character and how they change in a series, keeping core details in place like their backstory and personality, but changing their goal, motivation, and perhaps an unresolved wound of set of fears that will play a big part in this new book.

Here’s a Character Bible I created so you can get a feel for what all the Character Builder can help you brainstorm. If you’d like to try the tool for yourself, just start a free trial. Happy creating!

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 Create a Protagonist with True Depth appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

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

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

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

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

The Three Stages of Awareness

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

Different Types of Pain to Explore

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

Describing Minor Injuries

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

Describing Major or Mortal Injuries

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

Describing Invisible Injuries and Conditions

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

Factors that Help or Hinder One’s Ability to Cope

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

Taking an Injury from Bad to Worse

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

Everyday Ways a Character Can Get Hurt

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

Best Practices for Writing Pain in Fiction

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

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

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

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

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

Other Compilation Posts

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

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

ANGELA ACKERMAN

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

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

In story terms, a villain is a person, entity, or force who is cruel, evil, or malicious enough to wish the protagonist harm. Rather than simply blocking a goal or interfering with the hero’s plan, a villain causes suffering, making it vital for them to be conquered by the protagonist. Clarice must find and defeat Buffalo Bill if she wants to rise above her past and become a great FBI agent (The Silence of the Lambs); Chief Brody must kill the man-eating shark to preserve his town (Jaws). 

Regardless of the form your villain takes, there are certain qualities that will make them formidable and credible—qualities and connections they share with the protagonist. Let’s explore these qualifications through a case study of Dr. Lawrence Myrick, played by Gene Hackman in the movie Extreme Measures. 

Villains, Like Heroes, Live By A Moral Code 

It’s been said that the best villains don’t know they’re villains; they think they’re the hero of the story. And this is true because a well-crafted baddie has his own moral code. Compared to the protagonist’s, it’s twisted and corrupt, but it still provides guardrails that guide him through the story. 

Dr. Myrick is a renowned and brilliant neurosurgeon who has dedicated his life’s work to curing paralysis. It’s a noble cause that he believes in more than anything—not so much for himself but for all the paralyzed people in the world. This cause is so important that when he develops a treatment, he can’t wait decades for it to crawl through the testing process and eventually be approved. So he bypasses the animal testing phase and goes right to human trials. It’s kind of hard to find healthy subjects who are willing to take such a risk, so he kidnaps homeless people and confines them to his secret medical facility, then severs their spinal cords so he can test his treatment on them. 

To the rest of the world, this is unconscionable. But to Myrick, the end justifies the means. He’s perfectly okay stealing people, taking away their freedom and mobility, and subjecting them to countless medical cruelties. And if they reach a point of no longer being useful, he’s fine doing away with them because they’re people no one will miss. He actually views them as heroes, sacrificing themselves for the greater good. His morals are deranged, but they’re absolute, guiding his choices and actions. And when you know his code, while you don’t agree with it, you at least understand what’s driving him, and his actions make sense. 

When you’re planning your villain, explore their beliefs about right and wrong. Figure out their worldview and ideals. Specifically, see how the villain’s beliefs differ from the protagonist’s. This will show you the framework the villain is willing to work within, steer the conflict they generate, and provide a stark contrast to the hero. 

They Have A Story Goal, Too 

Like the hero, the villain has an overall objective, and they’re willing to do anything within their moral code to achieve it. When their goal is diametrically opposed to the hero’s, the two become enemies in a situation where only one can succeed. 

We know Myrick’s goal: to cure paralysis. And things are progressing nicely until an ER doctor in his hospital discovers homeless patients disappearing from the facility. Dr. Lathan starts nosing around, and when he realizes someone is up to no good, it becomes his mission to stop them. So the two are pitted against each other. If one succeeds, the other must fail. To quote Highlander: there can only be one. 

As the author who has spirited the villain out of your own (dare we say twisted?) imagination, you need to know their goal. It should be as clear-cut and obvious as the hero’s objective. Does it put them in opposition to the protagonist? Ideally, both characters’ goals should block each other from getting what they want and need. 

Villains Are Well-Rounded 

Because villains are typically evil, it’s easy to fill them up with flaws and forget the positive traits. But good guys aren’t all good and bad guys aren’t all bad, and characters written this way have as much substance as the flimsy cardboard they’re made of. Myrick is cruel, unfeeling, and devious. But he’s also intelligent, generous, and absolutely dedicated to curing a devastating malady that afflicts the lives of many. 

Positive traits add authenticity for the villain while making them intimidating and harder to defeat. An added bonus is when their strength counters the hero’s. 

The villain of Watership Down is General Woundwort, a nasty rabbit whose positive attributes are brute strength and sheer force of will, making him more man than animal. In contrast, hero Hazel embodies what it means to be a rabbit. He’s swift and clever. He knows who he is and embraces what makes him him. In the end, Hazel and his rabbits overcome a seemingly undefeatable enemy by being true to their nature. 

When your villain is conceived and begins to grow in the amniotic fluid of your imagination, be sure to give him some positive traits along with the negative ones. Not only will you make him an enemy worthy of your hero, he’ll also be one readers will remember. 

They Have A Backstory
(And You Know What It Is) 

Authors know how important it is to dig into their protagonist’s backstory and have a strong grasp of how it has impacted that character. Yet one of the biggest mistakes we make with villains is not giving them their own origin story. A character who is evil with no real reason behind their actions or motivations isn’t realistic, making them stereotypical and a bit…meh. 

To avoid this trap, know your villain’s beginnings. Why are they the way they are? What trauma, genetics, or negative influencers have molded them into their current state? Why are they pursuing their goal—what basic human need is lacking that achieving the goal will satisfy? The planning and research for this kind of character is significant, but it will pay off in the form of a memorable and one-of-a-kind villain who will give your hero a run for his money and intrigue readers. 

They Share A Connection With The Protagonist 

In real life, we have many adversaries. Some of them are distant—the offensive driver on the highway or that self-serving, flip-flopping politician you foolishly voted for. Those adversaries can create problems for us, but the ones that do the most damage—the ones we find hardest to confront—are those we share a connection with. Parents, siblings, exes, neighbors we see every day, competitors we both admire and envy, people we don’t like who are similar to us in some way…conflicts with these people are complicated because of the emotions they stir up. 

The same is true for our protagonists. The most meaningful clashes will be with the people they know. Use this to your advantage. Bring the villain in close and make things personal by engineering a connection between the two characters. Here are a few options for you to work with. 

• Give Them a Shared History. The more history the two have, the more emotion will be involved. Guilt, rage, grief, fear, jealousy, regret, desire—strong feelings like these will add sparks to their interactions. They’ll cloud the protagonist’s judgment and increase the chances their villain will gain an edge. 
• Make Them Reflections of Each Other. What happens when the protagonist sees him or herself in the villain? A seed of empathy forms. The hero feels a connection with the person they have to destroy, which complicates things immensely. Personality traits, flaws, vulnerabilities, wounding events, needs and desires—all of these (and more) can be used to forge a bond that will add complexity and depth to this important relationship. 
• Give Them a Shared Goal. When your hero and your villain are pursuing the same objective, it accomplishes a number of good things. First, it ensures that only one of them can be the victor, pitting them against each other. But they’re also more likely to understand one another. They’ll have different reasons and methods of chasing the dream, but the shared goal can create an emotional connection. 

As you can see, a lot goes into creating an enemy that is realistic, complete, and worthy of holding the title of villain in your story. When you’re drawing this character, give them the same thought and effort you’d put into your hero, and you’ll end up with a villain that will enhance your story, intrigue readers, and give the hero a run for their money. 

Want to take your
conflict further? 

The Conflict Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Obstacles, Adversaries, and Inner Struggles (Volume 1 & Volume 2) explores a whopping 225 conflict scenarios that force your character to navigate relationship issues, power struggles, lost advantages, dangers and threats, moral dilemmas, failures and mistakes, and much more!

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 Five Commonalities Between Heroes and Villains appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.