Goal, Motivation and Conflict

Writing Lesson 3.19 – Say What…?

By Lynn Dean, on January 13th, 2012

I just read this headline:

Icebreaker Makes Push to Reach Iced-In Alaska City

and my caring nature*, couple with my earnest desire to be reassured of the imminent safety of my stranded fellow countrymen, forced me to click and read the article immediately.

*ahem, yes, sarcasm…but really, I DID click.

Within three paragraphs I [...]

Goal, Motivation and Conflict, Language usage, Point of View, Showing vs. Telling

Writing Lesson 3.4-Empower Your Writing with these Simple Techniques

By Lynn Dean, on September 16th, 2011

A guest post by Sandra Orchard

Do you scratch your head when someone tells you that you need to “show, not tell”? It’s the key to writing compelling commercial fiction, but an often difficult concept to grasp in all its nuances. Today I’m going to share with you some simple ways to…

“Show” emotion [...]

Writing Lesson 3.3-Is Your Protagonist Too Passive?

By Naomi Musch, on September 9th, 2011

Protagonists, by story-telling nature, are the ones who are in a dilemma.

Sometimes that means they’ve been put upon, taken advantage of, hurt, haunted, or chased after. But occasionally, when we write about their situations, we start to accidentally create such a passive character that we’re really the only ones who are excited about [...]

Editing, Goal, Motivation and Conflict, Plotting

Writing Lesson 2.28 – Are Your Scenes Boring?

By Naomi Musch, on April 1st, 2011

In my last tutorial, I talked about heroes who are too perfect. In that same line, writing scenes that are too nice will lose your readers’ attention. Scenes that just meander on in Niceness, exuding lovely scenery, quiet dinners, bits of dialogue that mean nothing are boring. Something has to happen, even subtly, or [...]

Characterization, Goal, Motivation and Conflict