The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide To Character Expression can help you by giving you various emotions broken down into elements that you can pick and choose what you need. Continue reading [Zetta’s Reference Desk] – The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression
Here’s a few of the topics addressed: “Never Say He Thought/She Thought,” “Ditch Prepositional Tells” (e.g. – she licked her lips in expectation), “He Saw/She Saw—Let’s Get Off the See-Saw.” Sound provocative? Do you have problems in these areas or have beta readers or critique group members “ding” you for these things? Read this book. Continue reading [Zetta’s Reference Desk] Rivet Your Readers With Deep Point of View
Realism can come into the story by way of the plot itself, but even if your plot is one of the most unusual, fantastic plots every conceived, you can still insert realism into it by way of the story’s characters. We tend to criticize books and movies with unrealistic characters. Not everyone likes Mary Sue or Marty Stu, so why not provide characters with some realistic attributes? Continue reading Realism in Romance. Why not?
Here’s the scenario. A man and women are alone in an elevator when the foul, sulfuric, tell-tale sign that someone has committed an olfactory offence occurs. It’s a real nose stinger so rank it melts your nasal hair. The man and woman look at each other. Who farted? It’s the ultimate whodunnit. Continue reading Who Farted? : Why Character Development is Important to Your Plot
When we create a character for our story, we usually start with a typical laundry list of traits: eye color, hair color, height, weight, gender, ethnicity, occupation. We may even go so far as to detail their habits, likes, and dislikes. But when we assign the character an age, we need to think about more than just a number. Continue reading Act Your Age! : Why the age of your character is important.
