This week’s video learn how to write backstory that matters to your story and entrances readers with its possibilities. Video Transcript: I get a lot of questions about backstory: How much should you include? Where should you put in your book? When should you put it? And these are all really good questions. Backstory is […]
August 27, 2014 by 3 Comments CharactersJohn Ford on Creating Marvelous Characters With Minimum Effort
This week’s video shows how a little subtext can make vivid characters out of your entire cast. Video Transcript: A few weeks ago, we talked about how we do not want ciphers in our stories. We want fully fleshed-out, rounded, dimensional characters—people who feel real enough that maybe we could see them in the coffee […]
August 25, 2014 by 2 Comments BackstoryHow to Use Backstory to Keep Readers Reading
Today, I’m guest posting over on Elizabeth Spann Craig’s blog, with the post “How to Use Backstory to Keep Readers Reading.” Here’s an excerpt: Backstory is a weapon. And just like any weapon, it can end up doing more harm than good to those who wield it without proper experience and care. But in the hands of […]
July 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment Plotting Your NovelKeeping Secrets: How to Make Your Book Un-Put-Down-able
Did you know there’s only one (count it: one!) reason readers read? This reason manifests in many different ways. One reader might call it a search for knowledge. Another might call it a desire to be swept away to unfamiliar worlds. Others might say they’re after adrenaline or maybe romance. But what those reasons all […]
March 2, 2014 by 165 Comments CharactersCreating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 4: Your Character’s Ghost
What is your character’s ghost, and how does it affect his character arc? Once you’ve figured out the Lie Your Character Believes, as well as Thing He Wants and the Thing He Needs, the next question you need to ask yourself is: Why does the character believe the Lie in the first place? To find […]
February 19, 2014 by 62 Comments CharactersWhy Your Antagonist Needs a Mushy Moment
When it comes to writing our antagonist, we face a dichotomy: we want them to be bad, but we also want them to be three-dimensional, faceted human beings. In short, we want to create bad guys who aren’t all bad, bad guys whom readers will still be able to find a spark of sympathy for, […]
October 9, 2013 by 54 Comments CharactersImprove Your Character Instantly: Just Add a Ghost
I’m taking this week off for some family time, and that means we’ll be spending the next couple of posts digging through the archives. Enjoy! This week’s video talks about how giving your character a haunting backstory can instantly up the stakes and make him a more interesting personality. Video Transcript: When we’re exploring our characters and […]
July 3, 2013 by 22 Comments BackstoryIs Your Novel’s Backstory Big Enough?
This week’s video encourages writers not to skimp on important (and fun) backstory. Video Transcript: With all the superhero movies going around these days, there are a lot of origin stories. And I gotta say: I love that. I love origin stories, not just because they’re a fun glimpse into the beginning stages of a familiar character, but […]
August 12, 2012 by 107 Comments Plotting Your Novel6 Ways to Pull Off Dual Timelines in Your Novel
Some stories are so complicated they require not just one, but dual timelines to tell everything. Often, this is the result of an intricate and integral backstory, such as we might find in Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood or Ann Brashares’s My Name Is Memory, which switch back and forth from a “present-day” […]
March 28, 2012 by 32 Comments BackstoryHow to Tell if You Should Show Your Character’s Backstory
In other recent posts, we’ve discussed the value of backstory, even to the point of writing your backstory as your story when it’s the more interesting of the two. But generally speaking that’s going to be the exception to the rule. Backstory is actually at its most powerful when we don’t tell it—or rather when we don’t […]
