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 Every Antagonist Needs a Humanizing Moment
When it comes to writing our antagonists, we face a tricky balancing act: we want them to be bad, but we also want them to be three-dimensional, faceted human beings. In short, we want to create villains who aren’t all bad. We want to write characters with a smidgen of reliability, for whom readers can […]
October 9, 2013 by 54 Comments CharactersImprove Your Characters Instantly: Just Add a Backstory Ghost
When you’re exploring how to improve your characters and digging up ways to get readers to invest in them, you probably start with the usual list—which includes important things, such as a relatable motive, a winning personality, and an engaging narrative voice. One other thing you can add to your characters to instantly make them […]
