A small figurine stepping on a keyboard by KayVee.INC, via Flickr

How Outlining Can Bring Out Voice

Editor Gabriela Lessa explains how to use outlining to generate a strong voice for your characters.
How to Plot and Outline Without Using a Formula

How to Plot and Outline Without Using a Formula

When we talk about plot as separate from the characters, the symbols, the locales, the dialogue, and the philosophical introspection, what we are doing is privileging events over everything else. But nothing exists in a vacuum.
Christine Sneed

Incorporating Someone You Know Into Your Novel

If you can't portray someone you know personally in a positive fashion, you will probably lose this friend and/or be sued for libel.
E.A. Durden

The Problem With Overly Nice Characters

What's wrong with overly nice characters? To begin with, they're boring. This is because they can't abide conflict, and smooth it over every chance they get.
Yelizaveta P. Renfro

6 Exercises for Stronger Character Relationships

As writers, we can spend so much time "fleshing out" our characters as individuals that we forget about the connections