Articles for Writers
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How to Write Three-Dimensional Characters
“The protagonist feels a little one-note.”
“The characters feel flat.”
Maybe you’ve heard it from a critique partner, or a beta reader, or you just can’t shake the feeling that your character doesn’t seem as real as some of your favorite protagonists. What gives?
Characters feel real when they act like real people: unpredictably.
Dialogue vs. Exposition in a Scene
Readers are now less tolerant of large blocks of text setting scenes or laying background for pages on end. But too much dialogue can make a reader feel disconnected from the fictional world. How do we strike the right balance?
By making the reader feel like an active participant in the story instead of an observer. They need to witness both what is said and what is left unsaid to feel the tension in the scene.
Why Does Fiction Need Scenes?
Whether you’ve written the story in a flurry of a first draft, or you’re still planning the story you want to write, the quickest way to take your writing to the next level is to focus on developing strong scenes.
Basic Writing Craft: The Power of Mastering Paragraph Breaks
Well-placed paragraph breaks are as important to writing as the punctuation at the end of a sentence. Here are 3 ways to affect reader emotions through the simplicity of intentional paragraph breaks.
More White Space, Please
A densely packed page can slow a story down and turn off modern readers. Here’s how to use white space to pick up the story pace and make your book feel like a page-turner.