Supporting Characters

Aug 15, 2021 | Blog, Method, Writing

How many characters are too many? I always wonder that when I’m writing. I love to fill my books with people. The fact that I write party scenes where there are supposed to be hundreds of people give me lots of opportunity to fill my books with secondary and tertiary...

Piling it on

Jul 18, 2021 | Blog, Method, Writing, Writing Craft

When I plot out a story I am careful not to overwhelm my reader with too many things going on at once. Especially when it comes to bad things happening. Piling one bad thing onto another onto another could not only get to be too much for the reader, but at some point...

How do your characters grow?

Jun 27, 2021 | Blog, Method, WIP, Writing

I’m in the process of plotting my next series of books. As always, I start my plotting with the characters because my books are character-based novels. I have to admit, with this series, the story kernel idea was one of plot and not character. But before I actually...

Building a story with archetypes

Mar 21, 2021 | Blog, Method, Writing, Writing Craft

Archetypes. They’re not stereotypes! Stereotypes are an oversimplification of a type of person—the evil, mustache-twirling villain who does bad things for the pure joy of being mean. Stereotypes tend to be two-dimensional characters. They have no depth, no reason...

Looking at the big picture

Dec 20, 2020 | Blog, Method, Writing, Writing Craft

When we write a story, it’s so easy to get lost in the details. We want to be sure to include all of those luscious little bits like the smell of her hair, the feel of his skin, the warmth of the sun as it streams in through the windows. We describe the settings in...