2MinWritingTip
#2MinWritingTip – Plot and Story
I have a friend who is a brilliant writer, but she was struggling with a particular manuscript. After reading a few dozen pages, I immediately recognized the problem: while a lot of things happened to the character, and they moved the story forward, none of them actually mattered. This is...
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#2MinWritingTip – Character Secrets
When crafting multi-dimensional characters, it’s temping to think that if you know every detail of your character’s backstory, your work is complete. However, the relationship between that backstory, their behavior, and how much of that history they reveal to others is just as crucial to creating a fascinating, authentic-feeling character....
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#2MinWritingTip – Fix A Flat Character
This tip may sound like a cheat for character development, but it’s really not. When you have a character who feels flat or one-dimensional, it’s usually because you’re playing him or her too close to an archetype. The gruff, hard-boiled detective, the dumb blonde supermodel. You’re relying on your readers’...
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#2MinWritingTip – Character-Driven or Plot Driven?
We hear the question a lot: is your writing character-driven or plot-driven? I’m going to make a bold statement and say that’s a false dichotomy. All stories are character-driven or they aren’t very good stories. What we’re actually trying to categorize is the stakes: are they personal or are they...
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