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Writing World

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Featuring everything new and experienced authors need to develop creative and technical skills. Check out writing development articles, our Word of the Day, writing prompts, anthology opportunities and more!

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Writing Tips - Character

Character Flaws

Are any of us perfect? I mean, I'm sure that a lot of us realize that we're not actually perfect...and the few that do believe they're perfect are often blind narcissists...hehehe, and therefore NOT perfect! Honestly, that's not even something that I would ever want to shoot for. If perfection is determined by some sort of direct formula or standard, if it's a bunch of little boxes that all have to be checkmarked to be considered a part of that group...then that would mean it's our imperfections
Writing Tips - Character

Killing Off Characters

When writing your stories and creating a tapestry of drama and conflict, occasionally putting your readers through a roller coaster ride of ups and downs from beginning to end...you may make the choice to lose a character or two in the process. It happens. It's a part of more stories than most people realize. In fact, with very few exceptions, all of your favorite Disney cartoons from when you were young...have an orphaned protagonist. From Peter Pan, to Bambi, to Dumbo, to Aladdin, to Cinderell
Writing Tips - Character

Cheating (Part One)

Cheating (Part One) It can be soooo tempting sometimes! Hehehe, trust me, I know. And there have been quite a few times when I’ve done it myself, and you want to know something? I go back and look at those stories sometimes, and I really regret making some of the decisions that I did to get those stories over and done with. Was I successful in that pursuit? Well, sure. I mean, it worked. But if I mentioned a bunch of those stories or their characters by name...chances are most of you wouldn’
Writing Tips - Character

Conflict

Conflict... ″I love you!″ ″I love you more!″ ″Unh unh! I love YOU more!″ ″No way! I love you more than ANYTHING in this world! I love you to infinity!″ ″M′kay! You win! Kiss me!″ Mwah mwah mwah mwah...blechhh! Hehehe! Honestly, how long can a story like this go on before folks get the point and grow weary of the content? There are only so many ways to say ′I love you′. Only so many ways to hang out and have a good time. Only so many holes to fill in a sexual en
Writing Tips - Character

Love Rivals

What would an involving and engaging story be without some sort of conflict written into it? And what could possibly be a bigger conflict in a romantic/erotic story than a direct rival for the love and affections of the boy of your protagonist's dreams, right? Here he is, making all the right moves, saying all the right things...and here comes some drop dead gorgeous stranger to throw a monkey wrench in the whole works and screw it up for everybody involved! Arrrgh!!! How upsetting is that?
Writing Tips - Character

Character Descriptions

Who is this person? And that person? Who are the characters populating this fictional world that I'm reading about? What do they look like, what are their personalities, and why should I care? These are all questions that need to be asked and answered with every new story that you put out, as you are trying to paint a vivid picture with the words you type on the screen. No matter how clear the vision of your main characters and love interests may be in your head, you have to keep in mind th
Writing Tips - Character

Insanity

Insanity The classic saying is that insanity is the act of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. And yes, I’m sure that’s a part of it. But I truly believe that there’s a lot more to concept than that. And I have to admit that I really do enjoy writing insanity in many different ways for my characters because it’s so fascinating to me to explore the mindset of someone who has become completely detached from reality. Detached to the point where reality an
Writing Tips - Character

MaryGary Sue

I have to be 100% honest here... I had NEVER once, in my entire life, heard the term 'Mary Sue' used in any writer's discussion, ever...until "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" was released in theaters a few years ago. Never. Not once. Since then it has become this weird 'buzzword' that a lot of people have weaponized to use as a criticism in a variety of stories, movies, and comic books, and while I don't really use it myself I think it is an attempt to point out a certain flaw that authors ma
Writing Tips - Character

Sex Appeal

What is sex appeal? Take a moment and really think about that. What is it that we find ′sexy′ about the people we dream about? Now, not everybody writes romance or sexually themed stories online, but that doesn′t mean that your characters don′t have some sort of appeal to them that acts as a direct interest to your main character. What is it that draws your protagonist in? What is the bait? Why this particular boy over all others? Today...we′re talking about sex appeal. What it is, what it
Writing Tips - Character

Ensemble Casts

Ensemble In one of my stories, "Savage Moon", I write about a teenage boy who gets drawn in with a bad crowd of misfits...who later turn out to be a pack of werewolves. (Don't worry, that's not a spoiler. It's, literally, the plot of the story. And it's practically given away in the title. So I didn't ruin any surprises with that one! Hehehe!) However, the 'alpha' tells their potential recruit about what it takes to build a strong pack. A family unit. And the key is in the personality traits of
Writing Tips - Character

Morally Questionable Heroes

What is a hero? I mean, when you think about it, it doesn't have to mean a streak of red and blue racing overhead as Superman gets to his next big disaster in the world. Sure, that's a part of all that, but a hero can a police officer, or a particularly smart detective...or it can just be a loving parent. Perhaps just a good friend. The hero is the one who's willing to make sacrifices for someone else in their time of need. A hero might be someone who breaks up a fight, or a preacher that gives
Writing Tips - Character

What's With the Theatrics?

As many of you guys already know (Those who have been around for a number of years, or possibly from the very beginning) I was both an actor and a boy model back when I was in my tweens and teens. It was what I wanted to do. I had a passion for it. But the fantasy of it and the business side of that whole industry are two completely different things! So buyer, beware! if that's what you want to get into, I wish you the best...but it's not what many of you might think it is. So you really have to
Writing Tips - Character

Character Empathy

Character Empathy As a 'self proclaimed' writer...I've found that there is no stronger, no more engaging, tool in your arsenal than character empathy when it comes to truly crafting an immersive experience when it comes to your readers' involvement in your story. This is something that a lot of writer's believe they can 'tell' their audience, and they'll obviously fall in line and agree with the author, because how you can not feel bad for people (fictional as they may be) going through such
Writing Tips - Character

Writing Tip: Character Building

Interesting characters are usually one of the most important elements of good writing. That's why this great tip by CassieQ is a welcome addition to our GA News Blog. If you have a great tip that you'd like to share with the community, let me or Renee Stevens know.   Character Building by CassieQ   To be 100% honest, writing about characters was hard. Characterization is something that always seemed to flow naturally, so trying to take it apart and explain the mechanics o
Writing Tips - Character

One Life to Live

When writing a story of your very own, I think there is an added effect that comes from using your own personal experiences as a blueprint for the writing itself. Your memories, your feelings, your beliefs, your personality...drawing from these sources gives the whole feel of a story a certain ′touch′ that can′t be achieved by just putting words on the screen. You may often hear the term, ″write what you know″ being thrown around a lot, and I couldn′t agree more. No matter what the content of yo
Writing Tips - Character

Engaging Dialogue

The thing about having a dialogue with someone in real life, versus having a dialogue in written prose...is that, more times than not, prose demands a sense of purpose from its characters' interaction. There's very little room for fluff and small talk. The words being spoken have to actually 'say' something about the current situation and add to the story. It doesn't have to be forced, but I think it helps to know what your intentions are as a writer when adding dialogue to the scenes you have i
Writing Tips - Character

Who's In Charge

When trying to put the idea together of this particular article in my head, I had to be careful to steer clear of the whole idea and philosophy of 'determinism' and 'free will', hehehe...which is an entire novel's worth of intellectual discussion that would probably ehaust all of us before I even BEGIN to scratch the surface of the point that I want to make here in terms of our skills as writers, and crafting a story of our very own. Simultaneously using one side of the argument while giving the
Writing Tips - Character

David and Goliath

David And Goliath A few weeks back, I briefly mentioned the difference between being more brazen and direct with the content of your stories, and the subtle grace of tenderly sliding it past your audience...along with developing the natural instincts to know which is which. Well, here we are now. This time around we’ll be talking about when it’s best to just be straightforward and bluntly say what you need to say, and when that’s the best plan of action for certain parts of your fiction, whe
Writing Tips - Character

Angst

Hahaha! Raise your hands if you saw the title of this writing article and immediately groaned and rolled your eyes at the idea of hearing me talk about it! Yes, yes...I know. If you thought it was a secret, it's not. I am well aware of my use of teen angst in my stories, and have gotten countless angry emails about it over the years. Trust me...I know. BUT...if any of my readers feel angry, impatient, worried, or sexually FRUSTRATED beyond belief, when reading my stories...then congra
Writing Tips - Character

Writing Teen Characters

Considering the fact that almost all of my stories involve teenage characters, a great deal of my readers (perhaps more than half) are teenagers themselves. So...if any of you guys are reading this right now...hehehe, don't take any offense over anything that I say here in this article! It's not like it's anything that I wouldn't have said to you in an email or the chatroom at this point anyway. I'm just placing it here as a disclaimer so you don't get all pouty on me. Besides, I've got yo
Writing Tips - Character

Character Motivation

I always go through a certain three-part process when it comes to putting a story together in my head. The first part is creating the idea and the theme. What kind of tone will it have? Some stories can be playful and happy, others can be sad and deal with heavy subjects, others can be full of anger and/or regret. But whatever the story is about, I try to flesh that out first. It usually doesn't take very long as it's usually just a vague outline of what the story is about and a few of the event
Writing Tips - Character

Writing Tip: Believable Characters

K.C. has helped by stepping up and writing a great self-interview on creating believable characters. I found it a fantastic read - hope you do too. THANK you KC!   How do you develop believable characters?   What makes a great character is goes beyond skin deep. We know that every sexy main character is six feet tall, has a full head of lush gorgeous hair and a flawless smile…right? Wrong! Fiction is where anything can happen, so why not throw out the cookie cutter molds and start thinkin
Writing Tips - Character

Writing Tip: Character Interviews

We're always looking for stuff for our Wacky Wednesday and this time, Cia came through with this piece on Character Interviews. Enjoy!! Character Interviews by Cia   I recently answered a tip request with some information regarding character interviews and I thought I’d take it site wide, so to speak. When you write a story, especially anything approaching novel length, you need to make it as vivid as possible for readers to keep them interested. One way to hook readers is throug
Writing Tips - Character

Underwritten

Underwritten The characters that we create with our fiction are meant to be treated with the consistent notion that they all have something to say. That they all have certain motivations, needs and wants, flaws and problems, of their own. At least that’s how I always think of them in my head as I position them in different situations throughout my own stories. Now, it would be impossible, or at the very least...incredibly distracting, for a writer to go through each and every single characte
Writing Tips - Character

Character Interaction

Character Interaction Not long ago, I was talking about my love for working with ensemble casts in my stories. It’s something that I really love to engage in as a writer, and it sort of fleshes out the world that I’m working with. I mean, even if you happen to be a fan of video games, you might remember way back when it was just your character on the screen trying to complete some kind of quest or whatever, and a horde of enemies trying to stop you. But video games have evolved since then. W
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