That’s the thing with parents in Young Adult literature—can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Teens are exploring their world for the first time, attempting to establish their own identity separate from their families of origin, so you will find almost all characters going on adventures independent of their parents.

If you are writing a young adult novel, it’s important to consider your characters’ parents on the front end, and develop them into three-dimensional, well rounded, fully fleshed out people to avoid stereotypes and cookie cutter plot devices.

Where it Started, Where We Are

When some of the first young adult novels came out in the 1960s, Julie Just from the New York Times said the parent narrative “fit in neatly with the classic narratives: its strongest stories were about orphans and lost boys of one kind or another.” In these novels, issues weren’t with parents but with other kids. 

But by the 70s and 80s, the narrative started to shift the conflict from friendships to what was happening at home. This is where the problem parent narrative entered the scene, and has never left. It’s not to say all parents should be problematic, because surely there are still supportive parents out there, but you do have to consider the role the parents will play because it’s a significant part of young adults lives…and of course, how to get rid of them so teens characters can go on their adventures.

Approaches to Developing Your Characters’ Parents

Active and supportive parents 

By all means, you can make the parents a positive force in your protagonist’s life. Or even if the protagonist’s parents aren’t the greatest, one of the side characters could have supportive parents. They can serve as mentors, confidants, or sources of guidance for the protagonist. 

This approach emphasizes a positive parent-child relationship and showcases the protagonist’s growth while navigating challenges. 

Here are a few examples of novels who took this approach:

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas: The protagonist, Starr, has parents who are actively involved in her life, providing support and guidance as she navigates the aftermath of witnessing a police shooting.
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling: Although Harry’s parents are deceased so you wouldn’t consider them active, their love and sacrifice play a significant role throughout the series, shaping Harry’s journey and providing emotional support.

Tips for crafting Active and Supportive Parents

• Show moments of emotional connection between the parents and your characters.
• Illustrate how the parents’ guidance and presence positively impact the protagonist’s journey.
• Use the parents’ wisdom or advice to provide insights and lessons for your characters’ growth.

Absent or Neglectful Parents

Absent or neglectful parents create a ton of opportunities for tension and conflict. This can lead the protagonist down the path of having to fend for themselves or seek support from alternative sources, such as friends, mentors, or other family members. It allows for a greater sense of independence and self-discovery as the protagonist overcomes obstacles. 

And the reality for a lot of kids is this is their lived experience, so experiencing a character overcoming this struggle can help them process their own life circumstances. 

Check out these novels for examples of this approach to parents:

• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas: The main character, Feyre, has a neglectful and unsupportive family. Her journey takes her into the magical Fae realm where she finds a new family and discovers her own strength.
• Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell: The novel tells the story of two misfit teenagers, Eleanor and Park, who bond over music and comics. Eleanor comes from a troubled home with neglectful and abusive parents, which adds to the challenges they face in their relationship.

Tips for crafting Absent or Neglectful Parents

• Explore the protagonist’s emotions and reactions to their parents’ absence, such as feelings of abandonment or independence.
• Emphasize the impact of the absent or neglectful parents on the protagonist’s self-reliance and resilience.
• Showcase the protagonist seeking alternative sources of support and building relationships with other characters.

Overprotective or Controlling Parents 

This is basically the opposite of the parental figure we just explored. There are so many challenges characters can face when dealing with overprotective or controlling parents, and a tremendous amount of conflict can come from this. 

In some novels, this role of the parents actually creates the plot in the novel. Obstacles arise as the main character tries to assert her independence, make her own choices, or pursue her dreams. The positive side, it creates opportunities for the protagonist to develop resilience and assertiveness. 

Here are a couple novels that wrote this kind of parental figure well:

• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon: This is a novel where the main character’s overprotective mom creates the plot for the whole novel. Olly has a rare disease, where she is allergic to basically the whole world, and her mother keeps her protected from it. But when the new boy next door catches Olly’s eye, she begins to push the boundaries of her mother’s rules thus setting the story into motion.
• We Were Liars by E. Lockhart: The story features a wealthy family known as the Sinclairs, and the main character, Cadence, has overprotective parents who try to control her life. Their actions and secrets play a significant role in the unfolding mystery.

Tips for Crafting Overprotective or Controlling Parents

• Highlight the tension and conflict arising from the overprotective or controlling behavior.
• Explore the internal struggle of the protagonist, torn between their desire for independence and their parents’ restrictions.
• Allow the protagonist to assert their autonomy and challenge their parents’ control throughout the story, creating opportunities for the protagonist to defy their parents’ expectations and find their own path.

Complex Parent-Child Relationships

No one is really all good or all bad, right? Creating nuanced parent-child relationships that blend positive and negative aspects might be the most realistic approach to developing parents in young adult novels. 

Showing the complexities of family dynamics, with parents who have their own flaws, conflicting expectations, or differing values from the protagonist can add depth and realism to the story. 

A couple examples of novels that did this well are:

• Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver: The main character, Samantha, experiences a time loop, reliving the last day of her life repeatedly. Her complex relationship with her parents, including their expectations and conflicts, contributes to the overall narrative and Samantha’s self-discovery.
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo: The characters in this novel come from various backgrounds with complex relationships with their parents or parental figures. Kaz Brekker, for example, has a complicated history with his deceased parents, which shapes his actions and motivations.

Tips for Crafting Complex Parent-Child Relationships

• Unveil the layers of the relationship through meaningful dialogue, flashbacks, or shared experiences.
• Explore the conflicts, misunderstandings, or differing values that shape the complexity of the parent-child dynamic.
• Show instances where the protagonist learns from their parents or reevaluates their relationship as they grow and change.

Parental Absence Due to External Factors 

Sometimes parents might be absent, but it’s not because they don’t care or are neglectful. External circumstances could be forcing the parental absence, such as work commitments, illness, death, or other external factors. 

This can create a sense of longing or loss for the protagonist, leading them to seek understanding or fill the void in their lives. It also offers opportunities for personal growth, resilience, and the formation of unconventional support networks. 

Check out these novels that show this type of parental relationship:

• Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi: In this West African-inspired fantasy, Zélie’s mother is absent due to being killed in a brutal raid. Her absence fuels Zélie’s desire for justice and sets her on a quest to restore magic to her world.
• The Clock Strikes by Dominique Richardson and Sorboni Banerjee: This is the fourth novel in my Everbeach series, and Elle’s father is absent but not because he doesn’t want to be there, but because he’s a truck driver and his work takes him on the road. This leaves Elle at the mercy of her soon-to-be-step mother Juniper, and she seeks guidance and comfort with her godmother, Titania. 

Tips for Crafting Parental Absence Due to External Factors

• Establish the reasons behind the parental absence, such as work, illness, or other circumstances.
• Depict the protagonist’s emotional response to the absence, capturing their longing, grief, or resilience.
• Introduce surrogate parental figures or unconventional support networks to fill the void left by the absent parents.

Whether the parents in your young adult novel will have a positive or negative impact (or even a mix of both) is yours to determine. Hopefully these ideas, examples, and tips will help you craft well-rounded, three dimensional parents for your young adult novel.

Dominique Richardson is the coauthor of The Everbeach Series—a young adult, romantic suspense series full of forbidden romance, deadly twists, and scandalous secrets that will keep you turning pages into the night. The fourth and final book in the series comes out June 6th. Check out the first book, Red as Blood, if you’re looking for your next bingeable read. Passionate about all things books and giving back to the community, she is also the Executive Director and cofounder of YA by the Bay, a nonprofit young adult reading and leadership festival, dedicated to inspiring teens to “be the author of your own life.” Raised between Jamaica and the United States, her biracial heritage finds a home in her books. She spends her free time passing on her love of unicorns to her twin boys, running in the Florida heat, and drinking all the coffee. She now lives in Tampa, Florida with her family.

She would love to connect with you! Find her online on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. If you’d like to stay in the know about her upcoming book releases, sign-up for her email list. To learn more about the YA by the Bay Young Adult Book Festival, check out the website.

The post Crafting the Parents in Your YA Novel appeared first on DIY MFA.

negative, or flat arc. As your novel unfolds, your characters will “arc” from one place to another, undergoing some shift that leaves them meaningfully different from how they began.

However, I’d argue that this definition is missing something.

Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time experimenting with character arcs, and I’ve realized there’s another layer beyond the usual positive, negative, or flat arcs. These are what I like to call secondary character arcs, which are specialized character arcs based on common journeys like coming of age or redemption. These universal stories are flexible enough to apply to a wide range of characters, but also provide a more detailed blueprint for planning your cast.

Though there are about a dozen secondary character arcs in total, here are five of my favorites!

1. The Hero’s Arc

Based on The Hero’s Journey, the hero’s arc follows your character as they set out into the unknown, face tests and trials, and eventually gain some reward. This reward might be new tools, skills, or allies, but whatever it is, it’s the key to protecting their community. With this key in hand, the hero will then return home, sharing their reward and thus resolving the conflict of their story.

The hero’s arc looks something like this:

• With their community under threat, the hero leaves home (literally or metaphorically) in search of a solution.
• They face a series of trials that teach them about their world, allowing them to earn some reward.
• Realizing this reward can help their community, they return home to face their story’s conflict.
• Finally, they end their arc at peace, acting as a bridge between their community and the outside world.

It’s this return that sets the hero apart from other characters, because it demands they sacrifice some of their own desires in order to better their society. In doing so, they not only grow as a character, but also earn the title of hero!

Example: Hiccup from How to Train Your Dragon, who starts as a timid runt, masters the world of dragons, and then uses that mastery to save his people from destruction.

2. The Heroine’s Arc

The heroine’s arc is a mirror of the hero’s arc, with one important twist: while the hero sets out in search of physical mastery over their world, the heroine is searching for their true self.

This heroine’s arc is based on the work of Maureen Murdock. In her book, appropriately titled The Heroine’s Journey, she outlines an alternative to Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, focused on a character discovering their identity and—through it—some truth about their world.

The heroine’s arc looks something like this:

• With their community under threat, the heroine leaves home (literally or metaphorically) in search of a solution.
• They face a series of trials that teach them about themselves, allowing them to discover some truth about who they are.
• Realizing this wisdom can help their community, they return home to face their story’s conflict.
• Finally, they end their arc at peace, acting as a bridge between their community and the outside world.

As you can see, this closely matches the hero’s arc, but with a more internal focus. Rather than gaining a physical reward, the heroine instead gains a deeper connection with themselves, and thus the wisdom needed to achieve their goals.

Example: Moana from Disney’s Moana, who starts out searching for her true ancestry, discovers her people’s connection to the ocean, and then uses that wisdom to save her tribe from destruction.

3. The Coming of Age Arc

Next, the coming of age arc is exactly what it sounds like. This is a journey all about a character’s transition from dependent child to independent adult. As your character leaves the safety of their guardians behind, they’ll have to learn to survive on their own, face the consequences of independence, and eventually earn their place in their new adult world.

The coming of age arc looks something like this:

• Straining beneath the restrictions of childhood, the child ventures out in search of independence.
• Though they struggle to gain respect at first, they eventually prove they’re capable of standing alone.
• Of course, adulthood isn’t all benefits. The child will face a final test, leading them to sacrifice something in exchange for freedom.
• Now a full member of the adult world, the child is free to chart their own path.

With that said, this arc isn’t restricted to literal children. Any character who struggles to gain their independence can follow this arc, regardless of their age!

Example: Rose from Titanic starts out trapped under the thumb of her fiancé, embraces the freedom of life below deck, and then rejects her fiancé’s control—even as doing so risks her own life.

4. The Hermit’s Arc

Often the domain of anti-heroes and other less “traditional” characters, the hermit’s arc is about reintegrating into society. These are characters who have been driven from their communities by some past event, and must now undergo the difficult process of returning to their old world. To do so, they’ll have to forgive their wounds and eventually find a new place in their society.

The hermit’s arc looks something like this:

• Though they start out isolated, the hermit is dragged back into their old world when someone comes to them for help.
• Slowly, the hermit develops a renewed connection to their community.
• Forced to face their wounds, the hermit decides to forgive the past and fully embrace these new relationships.
• Now a full member of their society, the hermit settles into life among their community.

Often found in westerns, thrillers, and crime novels, the hermit is definitely my favorite secondary arc!

Example: Rick Blaine from Casablanca, who starts out emotionally isolated from his world, slowly learns to fight for a greater cause, and eventually overcomes his anger to protect the people he cares about.

5. The Redemption Arc

Last but not least, the redemption arc is all about forgiveness. Unlike the other secondary arcs on this list, this arc begins with a character that’s detrimental to their world. They’re destructive and dangerous, and so their journey is about recognizing the harm they’ve caused, atoning for the past, and earning their world’s forgiveness.

The redemption arc looks something like this:

• Unaware of how destructive they are, the character sets out in pursuit of some goal.
• In doing so, they’re exposed to new people and perspectives, and slowly realize their actions are harmful.
• After much internal conflict, they accept that they were wrong, and set out to make things right.
• Finally, they earn the forgiveness of those they’ve previously hurt, completing their redemption.

It’s this balance of repentance and forgiveness that really makes this arc work. By having your character truly repent for their actions and gain the forgiveness of others, it’ll be much easier to convince readers that their transformation is genuine.

Example: Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, who starts out as the violent prince of a warring nation, realizes the destruction his family has caused, and then dedicates his life to fighting for peace.

All told, these secondary character arcs open a lot of exciting possibilities for us as writers. No matter what type of story you’re creating, I hope these journeys inspire you with new ways to power up your cast!

Tell us in the comments: Do you plan to use any of these secondary character arcs? Which one is your favorite?

Lewis Jorstad is an author and developmental editor who helps up-and-coming writers hone their writing craft over at  The Novel Smithy. When he isn’t working on the next book in his Writer’s Craft series, you can find him playing old Gameboy games and sailing somewhere around the eastern half of the US. You can also check out his free ebook, The Character Creation Workbook, and grab a copy for yourself! You can also follow him on Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram.

The post #5onFri: Five Secondary Character Arcs to Strengthen Your Cast appeared first on DIY MFA.

Whether you’re writing romance, mystery, or literary fiction, when you’re incorporating romance into our work, the task is the same—to write a believable, engaging relationship that keeps readers turning the pages. (I write contemporary fiction, for example, but I write contemporary fiction that sometimes has romance in it, and so, of course, I want to do that well.)

So let’s talk about how to keep readers turning the pages with a heart-tugging romance—maybe even one that sticks with them long after they’ve read it. (I think about Rebecca Serle’s book In Five Years all the time, for example, and I read it well over a year ago.) 

Before we get into the tips of how to write a love story, I want to briefly tell you how I came to this advice, myself.

Learning How to Write a Love Story

Before I started publishing novels, I was a lawyer.

I had no time to write, and I’d been dying to be an author since I was twelve.

So I quit my law job only seven months after graduating from law school. I found a tutoring job on Craigslist, broke my lease to move to a cheaper apartment, and then the real work began.

I was going to write a book, but I didn’t know where to start. So I signed up for writing classes.

I took writing class after class on everything from how to write a short story to how to write a funny essay to how to write beautiful sentences. Six years into writing classes, I had managed to eke out my novel.

I was submitting it to literary agents—which is how you get a book deal from a publisher, typically—but, over and over, I was hearing “no.”

I couldn’t figure out why. So I choked up $3,000 I didn’t have and hired a freelance editor to tell me what was wrong with my book. And this editor wrote me a letter that changed my writing life.

Here is an excerpt from the letter, with the part I want to highlight in bold:

“You have the humor in spades. It’s the heart that you need more of. And heart demands deep work. (I should say here that I was really impressed to find as I was reading that the prose was near-flawless. On a sentence-to-sentence level, your writing is remarkable.) If you are serious about this novel, I want to encourage you to reshape it, to give your characters more love.”

My work needed heart.

This letter changed my entire approach to writing.

I felt exposed reading it, and I knew that she was 100% right. As she notes here, I’d mastered writing individual sentences, but that wasn’t enough—that wasn’t the heart of the story.

I hadn’t been showing up emotionally on the page because I was too worried about inciting incidents, themes, and foreshadowing to believe in the characters I was writing about. I was too hung up on writing devices to feel my characters.

I didn’t even open the attached manuscript with her line edits; I didn’t need to.

Over the next six weeks, I rewrote my draft yet again, but I showed up emotionally this time, and I wrote love into my story.

Within six weeks, I had a literary agent. And that was the version of my first novel When You Read This, that sold at auction in the United States and to major publishers around the world.

Again, whether your work is formally classified as romance doesn’t matter—the tips I want to share next will be useful if there is romantic love in your story, at all.

Let’s dive in! Here are my top four tips for how to write a love story.

Tip #1: Be brave enough to draw from your own experience.

The first tip I have for you today may sound obvious, but if you’re anything like me, it wasn’t always.

As fiction writers, it’s a given, to an extent, that we’re always drawing from life.

But sometimes we are hesitant to do this with romance writing, especially physical or erotic scenes rooted in attraction, where we’re trying to construct a degree of wish fulfillment for the reader, due to personal inhibitions.

We feel like our Sunday School teacher is looking over our shoulder and going to tell our parents.

But just like with other emotional experiences in life, this is where we mine for the good stuff—inside the secret chambers of our own emotional experience.

So if you’re feeling bashful or vulnerable, here’s something to remember: you’re writing fiction, and you don’t owe anyone any kind of answer as to what part of your own life the inspiration came from.

If a reader says, “Dang, Jessica, that hot scene—was that real? How’d you think up that?”, just smile and say, “I’m glad you liked it.”  

Tip #2: What are your character’s primary attraction drivers, and what makes this time different?

We’ve all heard the saying, “she’s/he’s/they’re my type,” right?

And if you’re unlucky, you’ve been told that you’re someone’s type…as you’re dating them.

There is nothing less appealing than thinking that someone wants to be in a relationship with you because you look or act like other people they’ve liked before, right? It’s objectifying; it removes personal uniqueness from the equation.

On the contrary, when someone is attracted to another person in a way that plays against their tendencies, our ears perk up. We pay attention. If it’s us, we feel good.

We think, huh, what’s going on here? There can even seem to be more potential validity to the romantic feelings—they hold more promise—because it’s the exception, not the rule.

A fun way to play with creating a believable love story that’s genuine and special is to play with this idea—to identify your character’s primary attraction drivers, so that you can work against them.

Ask: how is this love interest different from the love interests that came before? Brainstorm. Pick your favorite(s). Make this time different.

Tip #3: Love in real life is not one-dimensional—and real love is hotter love. Lean into complexity.

Often when we write romance into our stories, we are writing a kind of wish fulfillment for the reader—we want the reader to want to be in the shoes of a character who is experiencing the romance. We are hoping to offer that pleasurable experience.

But for the reader to have that pleasurable experience, they need to believe in the love story.

Readers are smart. You may have heard the adage, which I think is a great one, to assume that your reader is at least as smart as you are.

If the love story feels one-dimensional—if it’s all light and positivity—it’s going to strike the reader as false in some way. Maybe not false as in fictional or made up, but false in the sense that one character is idolizing another, putting them on a pedestal, willingly indulging their blind spots to prolong the romance. And that’s going to create space between the reader and the character, thereby making it harder for the reader to want to identify with the character.

Follow me?

For the enticement of wish fulfillment to work, the relationship must seem realistic. And for it to seem realistic, we need some degree of complexity.

So lean into the complexity—be willing to get into your character’s mind and heart and explore the complex feelings that come up there. Don’t worry; it won’t make your love story feel less deep—it will do the opposite. It’ll make it feel real.

Tip #4: What limits (perceived or real) can you explore to deepen a character’s longing?

The last tip about writing a love story here—we all know that what carries a story forward is tension, right?

I tell the writers I work with that when you don’t know what to write next, ask: what tension is the reader most nervous about at this point in the story, and how can I ramp it up even more?

In writing romance, leaning into that tension serves an additional purpose, which is that limitations and obstacles to the realization of romance tend to heighten longing.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, right? So does forbidden love.

So what externally imposed—or at least perceived—limits could make it harder for these people to be together? How might you use limitations to infuse the longing in the story with even more energy, which the reader will feel?

Want some writing prompts for how to write a love story?

Those are my romance writing tips for you! I’ve written 10 writing prompts to help you write compelling romance stories in your work, and you can get them by going here and dropping your email—I will send them right over.

Tell us in the comments: What did you learn about how to write a love story?

Mary Adkins is the author of the novels When You Read This (Indie Next Pick, “Best Book of 2019” by Good Housekeeping and Real Simple), Privilege (Today.com Best Summer Read), and Palm Beach (New York Post “Best Book of 2021,” and “like a sandy beach, equal parts beautiful and uncomfortable” according to the Associated Press). Her books have been published in 13 countries, and her essays and reporting have appeared in the New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, and more. A graduate of Yale Law School and Duke University, she teaches storytelling for The Moth worldwide and runs The Book Incubator, a program for aspiring authors. You can also follow her on Instagram.

The post How to Write a Love Story: My Top 4 Tips appeared first on DIY MFA.

I would like to introduce you to Kids on Bikes and its magical younger sibling Kids on Brooms. These are indie games from Renegade Game Studios and Hunters Entertainment. Kids on Bikes was created by Jonathan Gilmour and Doug Levandowski, and the pair collaborated with Spenser Starke for Kids on Brooms.

Kids on Bikes

Kids on Bikes takes place in a small town where the whole table works to create together. I like this collaborative world-building because it eases the Game Master’s job in creating and populating the world, and aids in cementing the players in the setting of the game. Collaborative world-building can also be a boon to your writing because your table will flesh out parts of the world you may not have considered. Other people will make decisions that inspire your own creativity, and you’ll create something collectively that you could not have created on your own.

The idea of Kids on Bikes is that the players take on the roles of inhabitants of the small town you create together then investigate a mystery or supernatural conspiracy that the Game Master creates. Think Stranger Things or Stephen King’s It.

Kids on Brooms

Kids on Brooms uses a very similar system, but rather than the characters being inhabitants of a collectively created small town, they are the faculty and students of a collectively created magical school and the Game Master creates a magical mystery adventure for the table. Think J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter or Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea.

The Logistics

Indie games are fun because they tend to be rules-light in their systems, favoring narrative decisions from your table. These two games are no different in that respect. The systems focus heavily on narrative drive rather than character stats and rolling the dice. One thing that I love about the system these games use is that character abilities vary widely from character to character because stats are assigned dice to roll rather than points.

Character Stats

The character stats in these games are Fight, Flight, Grit, Brains, Brawn, and Charm. When creating your character you assign each standard polyhedral die to a stat. The thing your character is best at would get your d20 and the thing your character struggles with most would get your d4. If a character fails a roll they gain an adversity token which can be spent later to boost the outcome of a roll by 1. This is used in the storytelling to show the times when someone does something outside of their normal abilities in the heat of a moment, like when a mom lifts a car off of her child in a rush of adrenaline.

The Difficulty of a Roll

The difficulty of a roll is set by the Game Master but the average difficulty threshold of a roll is between 5 and 9. This may sound like characters will always fail rolls involving their d4 stat but if the maximum is rolled on any dice roll, then that die “explodes,” meaning the player gets to roll it again and add the new result. This means that if you roll a 4 on a d4, then roll the d4 again and get a 3 your end result would be 7. There is no upper limit on the number of times a die can explode, so you just keep rolling until you do not roll the maximum. This mechanic leads to excited shouting around the table as players cheer for roll streaks and intense moments of pregnant silence while players wait with bated breath to see if their teammates succeed. 

Narrative Control

Another unique aspect of these games is that narrative control passes based on the level of success or failure. In most tabletop games, narrative control lies firmly in the hands of the Game Master. Players control what their characters do, but typically their control ends where their character does. In Kids on Bikes and Kids on Brooms, narrative control shifts between the players and the Game Master. 

If the outcome of a player’s roll is over the difficulty threshold by a significant margin, then narrative control switches to the person who rolled that outcome. That means they get to dictate not only how their character does something but also how the world around them responds. If the outcome of a player’s roll is under the difficulty threshold by a significant margin then narrative control switches to the Game Master, or remains with the Game Master if it were not in someone else’s hands, and the Game Master may also explain how the character reacts. This loss of character control is not for every table, but I do appreciate that these games attempt something new.

Applying It to My Writing

The area in which these games have contributed something different to my writing practice that I haven’t found in other games is in their focus on sensitivity. These games have entire chapters focused on setting boundaries for safe play and maintaining sensitivity in the portrayal of diverse characters. They recommend a session 0 before active gameplay starts where the Game Master can ask players about the subject matter they are comfortable with and the types of characters they want to play. This session also serves as a place to let players know that they can come to the Game Master with their sensitivities privately. 

These games suggest an outline for these boundary-setting conversations called Lines and Veils and it was created by Ron Edwards in his 2003 game Sex and Sorcery. This activity involves players and the Game Master sharing the things that they are not comfortable having in the game at all. These “lines” are topics that should not ever be in the game. Once these borders are put in place, the conversation then should turn to topics that table members are OK with having in the game but should take place off-camera, not described in detail. These are called “veils.”

This boundary-setting conversation is helpful in writing because it not only expands your mind by thinking about things that are sensitive to others that you may not have thought to consider. Veils also give you a chance to flex your creative muscles to evoke something sensitive without being too graphic.

Kids on Brooms and Kids on Bikes also recognize that a single sensitivity conversation is not always enough to keep the game a safe space for everyone so they also encourage the use of a system called the Script Change Tool by Brie Sheldon. This is used during active gameplay to allow players to “pause” the game to give them room to deal with something that is playing on their sensitivities before the game proceeds that way, “fast forward” over-sensitive description that they do not want described in detail and to “rewind” the game to change the direction of storytelling entirely to avoid a topic they’re uncomfortable with.

Though I don’t believe that sensitive topics should be avoided in writing entirely, I do think that practices like these allow writers to consider how and why sensitive topics are used in their work.

Tell us in the comments: Do you think you’ll make use of these exercises?

Kris Hill is working on several genre fiction novels because she has difficulty sticking to writing one project at a time. In her daily life, she attempts to navigate the corporate world as a data analyst. When Kris is not working, she can be found sprawled on a couch reading or running tabletop adventures for her friends. She lives in Canada’s capital city with her husband, her best friend, and four cats.

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If you want to experiment with parts of your planned story before you commit time to writing it, then collaborative storytelling can help you flex narrative muscles in a low stakes and fun way. Collaborative storytelling also provides a lot of opportunities for writers to work in concert to create something wonderful.

Last time, I discussed how you can use table top games in your world building as a writer. I hope since then you’ve given some thought to making collaborative storytelling a part of your writing practice. If I haven’t sold you on role playing games by explaining how useful it can be in world building, then allow me to present how you can use it when creating characters.

Character Headspace

In most collaborative storytelling games, players will create a character. If you’re a player, you will use one of many methods for character creation such as assigning number values to attributes and skills as in Dungeons and Dragons, assigning descriptive traits to your character and other characters in your group as in FATE system, or by selecting one of many archetypes particular to your setting as in the Powered by the Apocalypse system. 

While creating your character, think about the person you want them to be on the page. As you are required to select traits or apply number values to your character, you will have to prioritize what is most important to your character and what they have spent their time doing. You’ll ask yourself questions about how they deal with conflict and how they approach other people. Asking these questions will get you closer to your character and help you work out how they make their decisions, but the best way to get into your character’s headspace is to play as them. 

In a collaborative storytelling game, as you play your character, you’ll occupy their headspace and become intimately familiar with not only the choices they make, but how they come to those decisions and how they rationalize the outcome. This level of intimacy with your character makes writing them easier because whatever happens as your story unfolds, you’ll know how they would approach it.

This works well even if the setting that you’re playing in differs vastly from the setting of your story because decision making, rationalization, and prioritization are deeply rooted in who your character is as a person. You can apply that deeper personality to your character in any setting.

Character Relationships

Collaborative storytelling games involve a party of characters, and you’ll be playing as only one of them. The friends you’re playing with will make their own characters and you’ll work together to solve problems. It is valuable for you to experience how your character interacts with others, and party members are especially useful to explore relationships because they will be the people your character interacts with most. 

As your party moves through the game together you’ll decide how your character works in a group, how they collaborate to solve problems, and how they argue or debate to defend their positions against people they must continue to be around. You’ll see what qualities they value in their party members and how they form friendships and develop trust.

I think the most valuable part of character development using party interaction in a collaborative storytelling game is that you’ll see how your friends and their characters perceive the character you’re creating. This is helpful because it will allow you to fine tune your character. 

Maybe you want to create a sneaky thief with a heart of gold, but you cross a line that makes your party see you as irredeemable or evil. When you’re writing your story, you’ll know that you will need to pay particular attention to explain those types of decisions carefully to your readers. 

Perhaps you want to make a principled and stalwart character who is lovable and vulnerable, but your party members only see one side of your character. You then know that you need to do more to illustrate the fullness of the character you’re trying to portray. 

Regardless of the character you create, the perception of that character from other party members is priceless feedback you can use to bring the truest version of your vision to life.

NPCs

Non-Player Characters (NPCs) are plentiful in role playing games. The friendly bartender, the cagey espionage contact, and the wise mentor are all NPCs. Though you may not realize it, there are NPCs in your story as well. The minor characters who flesh out your world and make it seem lived in, but aren’t important to the plot in a major way, are your NPCs. These characters don’t require as much development as major players in your story, but the more interesting they are during their short time in your story, the better.

If you are running a campaign for your friends to play you’ll need to populate your world with people for the party to interact with. You can see which NPCs capture the party’s attention most and you will be able to tell why. You’ll also get an opportunity to see how many different characters interact with your minor characters as player characters will have different styles and personalities. Getting to see your minor characters in these different situations will help you craft memorable characters and natural dialogue in your writing.

I hope that I’ve inspired you to try collective storytelling in your writing practice. I wish you much success in your writing, but not on your role playing adventures because failure is usually more fun!

Kris Hill is working on several genre fiction novels because she has difficulty sticking to writing one project at a time. In her daily life she attempts to navigate the corporate world as a data analyst. When Kris is not working, she can be found sprawled on a couch reading or running tabletop adventures for her friends. She lives in Canada’s capital city with her husband, her best friend, and four cats.

The post Creating Characters Using Collaborative Storytelling appeared first on DIY MFA.

Brandie spent most of her childhood onstage or reading, as both activities let her live in fantastic stories. She moved to Los Angeles to study acting at UCLA, and eventually branched out into costume design and playwriting. While she spends most of her free time writing, she will still take any excuse to play dress-up, especially if it involves wearing a crown. 

She happily promotes more stories as a marketing director for kids’ films and anime. When not writing or marketing, she can often be found doing aerial arts, playing board games, drinking too much espresso, and coming up with new art projects. She lives with her husband, two spoiled rescue pups, a spoiled cat, six fish tanks, and five bookshelves.

Today we’ll be discussing her debut novel, Gold Spun.

In this episode Brandie and I discuss:

• How a love of fairytales and a unique NaNoWriMo project led to her debut novel.
• Why she likes morally grey characters and how she brought that out in Goldspun.
• What factors influenced her decision to not worry about historical accuracy.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Brandie June

Brandie June spent most of her childhood onstage or reading, as both activities let her live in fantastic stories. She moved to Los Angeles to study acting at UCLA, and eventually branched out into costume design and playwriting. While she spends most of her free time writing, she will still take any excuse to play dress-up, especially if it involves wearing a crown. She happily promotes more stories as a marketing director for kids’ films and anime. When not writing or marketing, she can often be found doing aerial arts, playing board games, drinking too much espresso, and coming up with new art projects. She lives with her husband, two spoiled rescue pups, a spoiled cat, six fish tanks, and five bookshelves. 

You can find her on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok.

Gold Spun

Nor was once the happy daughter of a miller, but that was before her father died in the Southern War and soldiers set fire to her village. Now, she’s a seventeen-year-old swindler, performing whatever tricks and deceptions will bring in enough coin to feed her and her brothers. One day she finds a faerie boy being held captive by outlaws. Though Nor knows all the tales of the fay and their deadly blood magic, she goes against her better judgement and frees him. In return, the beautiful and mysterious faerie, Pel, gifts her with a golden thread.

Nor decides to use the thread to convince local villages that she can spin straw into gold, but just as the con begins, Prince Casper arrives in town. Seeing through her deception, Casper intends to make an example of Nor, forcing her to spin all her straw into gold, with the promise of marrying her should she succeed. But should she fail, her life and those of her brothers will be forfeit. In desperation, Nor calls on Pel for help, even knowing that his dark magic comes with a price.

From thief to future queen, Nor’s story has only just begun. Attacks from the fay force Nor to question her friendship with Pel, while preparing for her life as a queen makes Nor wonder if this is the life she truly wants to lead.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 367

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 367: Character Dynamics in a Fairytale Retelling – Interview with Brandie June appeared first on DIY MFA.

Leslie was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated with a bachelor’s in communications from UCLA and went on to write television comedies for Gerald McRaney, Burt Reynolds, Roseanne Barr, Norm McDonald, Drew Carey, and Ralph Macchio, as well as The Wild Thornberrys and Sweet Valley High. She later earned a master’s degree in nutrition and ran her own business for ten years.

Most recently, Leslie has written personal essays for online magazines such as Huffington Post, Maria Shriver, and SheKnows. She loves dogs and in addition to having two adorable Labradors, she volunteers at the Burbank Animal Shelter in Burbank, California. Leslie lives in Los Angeles and has two sons, and a husband she’s been with since college. After Happily Ever After is her debut novel and it is out now.

In this episode Leslie and I discuss:

• How she captured family dynamics by writing about three different generations.
• The ways her past as a sitcom writer helped her create a strong supporting cast.
• Why she chose to write about after the typical “happily ever after” ending.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About the Leslie A. Rasmussen

Leslie A. Rasmussen was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She graduated with a bachelor’s in communications from UCLA and went on to write television comedies for Gerald McRaney, Burt Reynolds, Roseanne Barr, Norm McDonald, Drew Carey, and Ralph Macchio, as well as The Wild Thornberrys and Sweet Valley High. Later, she earned a master’s degree in nutrition and ran her own business for ten years.

Most recently, Leslie has written personal essays for online magazines such as Huffington Post, Maria Shriver, and SheKnows. She loves dogs and besides having two adorable Labradors, she volunteers at the Burbank Animal Shelter in Burbank, California. Leslie lives in Los Angeles and has two sons, and a husband she’s been with since college. After Happily Ever After  is her debut novel.

You can find Leslie A. Rasmussen on her website, follow her on Twitter and Instagram, or check out her book After Happily Ever After on Facebook.

After Happily Ever After

Maggie Dolin is forty-five and isn’t dealing with getting older very well. Seventeen years ago, she gave up her job in publishing to raise her daughter, Gia―but now her only child is about to leave for college, and Maggie isn’t sure what her new purpose will be.

She’s been the caretaker and nurturer for so long that she can’t even remember the last time someone took care of her. She wishes Jim, her husband of nineteen years, would take that role on―but he’s been distracted and disconnected, and she’s convinced he’s hiding something from her.

Her self-involved, judgmental mother and resentful brother, meanwhile, are certainly no help, and her father―the only person in her life who’s always been there for her and asked nothing in return―is dealing with increasingly serious health issues, leaving Maggie without her rock.

As all these stressors pile on, a chance meeting with a younger man causes Maggie to act in a way that is completely out of character for her. As she gets deeper in, she’s forced to make some big decisions about what she wants and deserves―decisions that could change her life forever.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 362

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 362: A Deep Dive into the Supporting Cast – Interview with Leslie A. Rasmussen appeared first on DIY MFA.

Jeff grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he spent two of his high school years at a boarding school much like the one depicted in his debut novel Attachments, which we’ll be discussing today.

In the ’70s, he studied film/tv/theater production at Emerson College in Boston and then moved to LA, where he worked as a concert lighting designer and toured the country with national rock and reggae acts while teaching himself to write screenplays on the side.

Years later, he was teaching high school English and running a martial arts school when heard the call to write again. In 1989, he sold the school he’d built, rented a small office, and gave himself one year to write three screenplays. 

The second of those―a quirky romantic comedy where the two lovers don’t even meet until the very last page―sold almost immediately, and Sleepless in Seattle became a surprise megahit worldwide. 

For his screenplay, Jeff was nominated for an Oscar, as well as for Writers Guild and BAFTA awards, among others. His other credits include the Disney adventure film Iron Will, New Line’s romantic comedy Sealed With a Kiss, and the independent comedy Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys. His script for Saving Milly, based on Mort Kondracke’s searing memoir, earned the 2005 Humanitas Nomination, an honor he treasures. 

Jeff is a father, stepfather, father-in-law, and grandfather and is based in Malibu.

In this episode Jeff and I discuss:

• His method for moving characters with their own agendas through the plot.
• How to avoid the dreaded info dump and his advice for what to do instead.
• Why you shouldn’t focus on the theme, but should worry about the story instead.

Plus, his #1 tip for writers.

About Jeff Arch

Jeff Arch grew up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where he spent two of his high school years at a boarding school much like the one depicted in his debut novel Attachments. In the ’70s, he studied film/tv/theater production at Emerson College in Boston and then moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a concert lighting designer and toured the country with national rock and reggae acts while teaching himself to write screenplays on the side. Years later, married and with a young family, he was teaching high school English and running a martial arts school when heard the call to write again; in 1989, he sold the school he’d built, rented a small office, and gave himself one year to write three screenplays. 

The second of those―a quirky romantic comedy where the two lovers don’t even meet until the very last page―sold almost immediately, and Sleepless in Seattle became a surprise megahit worldwide. For his screenplay, Jeff was nominated for an Oscar, as well as for Writers Guild and BAFTA awards, among others. His other credits include the Disney adventure film Iron Will, New Line’s romantic comedy Sealed With a Kiss, and the independent comedy Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys. His script for Saving Milly, based on Mort Kondracke’s searing memoir, earned the 2005 Humanitas Nomination, an honor Jeff treasures. Jeff is a father, stepfather, father-in-law, and grandfather and is based in Malibu. Attachments is Jeff’s first novel.

You can follow Jeff Arch on Facebook and Twitter.

Attachments

At a boarding school in Pennsylvania, a deathbed request from the school’s dean brings three former students back to campus, where secrets and betrayals from the past are brought out into the open―secrets that could have a catastrophic effect on the dean’s eighteen-year-old son.

Told in alternating points of view and time frames, Attachments is the story of best friends Stewart (“Goody”) Goodman, Sandy (“Pick”) Piccolo, and Laura Appleby, the girl they both love. The friends meet in 1972 at a boarding school in coal-country Pennsylvania where they encounter Henry Griffin, the school dean, whose genuine fatherly interest and deep human bond with them is so strong that when he has a severe stroke almost twenty years later, he uses what could be his last words ever to call out their names.

Attachments is a puzzle―and the only one who knows how all the pieces fit is in a coma. In the process, longtime secrets are unearthed, revelations come out into the open, and Young Chip Griffin is about to learn something he may or may not be able to handle.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 359

(Right-click to download.)

If you liked this episode…

Head over to iTunes, Stitcher Radio, Spotify, or Google and subscribe so you’ll be first to know when new episodes are available.

Also, remember that sharing is caring so if you know anyone who might enjoy this podcast, please tell them about it or leave us a review so other listeners will want to check it out.

Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 359: Trust, Threat, and Truth: A Journey Through the Craft of Writing – Interview with Jeff Arch appeared first on DIY MFA.

That was my first encounter with Dr Ruth Galloway, the protagonist of my mystery series set in Norfolk. No other character has appeared to me in quite such a dramatic way. Yet creating people is one of the most important jobs for an author, perhaps the most important. Without Ruth there would be no books; all the action – crime-related and otherwise – comes from her being who she is. Character is plot, I tell my creative writing students, and plot is character.

So how do we create complex characters? Sometimes your protagonist does materialise in front of you but, in most cases, you will have to do the alchemy yourself. And you will have to do it over and over again because you don’t just need a protagonist, you need an antagonist and all the characters in-between. A friend used to work for the long-running TV series Midsummer Murders (top tip: don’t go to an English village, especially if there’s a fete on) and she was told that, at the end of an episode, there needed to be four people still standing who could have committed the murder. That’s a lot of lives to fabricate. So here are some things to consider:

Determine their Names

When you christen your character think why they are called that. Is it a family name? A saint’s name? Who decided on it? Do they like their name or do they always use another? Do their parents insist on calling them James when they prefer Jim? In a crime novel, this could be a sneaky clue, because who would link jovial Jimmy to sinister Uncle James, mentioned only in chapter one? But, even if it’s not crucial to the plot, a name is instant backstory. A student told me that he and his brothers were all named after kings because their mother thought it meant they would be successful in life. Another was named after a football ground, presumably for the same reason. My real name is Domenica de Rosa which tells you that my family were Italian and Catholic, also that they had run out of inspiration after three daughters and so called me after a day of the week. Instant backstory. 

Remember you have to live with them

Jane Austen famously said that, in Emma, she was creating a heroine ‘whom no-one but myself would much like’. I think ‘but myself’ is significant. 90,000 words is a long time to spend with someone you dislike. Remember, also, that readers don’t have to like your characters but they do have to feel something for them. If you follow your character’s feet, you are following their life’s journey and so are the readers. Tension comes from caring if someone lives or dies. If readers don’t have any connection to your characters, your books will have no suspense, no matter how clever the plotting. 

Beware the German Funk Trap

I’m indebted to screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce for this phrase. In short: never give your character interests instead of personality traits. Throwing a lot of quirky hobbies at a silhouette does not mean that it becomes a human being. For instance, where a character’s feet takes them in a story is in itself a unique quality. Musical taste is another unique quality. Could you sustain an interest in German funk for thirteen books? Choose a quality that you can relate to. I made Ruth a Bruce Springsteen fan for a reason. I never have to look up one of his lyrics because they are all written on my heart.

Remember their backstory

Kazuo Ishiguro said, ‘Many of our deepest motives come, not from an adult logic of how things work in the world, but out of something that is frozen from childhood.’ Make sure that you know what happened to your characters before you met them. It doesn’t matter if you never use this backstory, your book will be richer for the knowledge.

Do the math(s)

Who would have thought that writing books required so much maths? I feel like I’m always subtracting a person’s birth date from their death date and coming up with -3. Make sure that your character is old enough to do the things necessary for the plot: marry, have children, drive a car etc. If you’re planning a series, it’s worth thinking about the age your protagonist will be at the start. This is not to say that you shouldn’t write about older characters. I’ve just written a book (The Postscript Murders) where many of the cast are over eighty. These people have lived a long time, they have lots of backstory.

Follow the feet

I didn’t know where Ruth was going so I had to follow her. When you have given your character a name, look down at their feet. Are they wearing stilettos or trainers? How far have they walked that day? They are going somewhere. Follow the feet. 

ELLY GRIFFITHS is the author of the Ruth Galloway and Brighton mystery series and the stand-alone novels The Stranger Diaries and The Postscript Murders. She is a recipient of the Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Mary Higgins Clark Award, and the CWA Dagger in the Library Award. She lives in Brighton, England.

The post Follow the Feet appeared first on DIY MFA.

In fact, it’s remarkably rare to stumble upon writing advice that’s neither too nebulous (“never give up!”) nor too unrealistically prescriptive (Stephen King may be able to write 2,000 words every single day, but most of us cannot). To that end, I want to share a few gems of genuinely useful, actionable writing tips I’ve picked up over the years: tips that have not only worked for the authors giving them, but which have also done wonders for me personally.

1. Start anywhere

This is one of the most popular pieces of writing advice out there — I suspect because many writers suffer from perfectionism, which can make starting each new piece incredibly difficult. I’m no stranger to this predicament: the pressure to get every word right from square one can feel insurmountable, especially when penning something as intricate as a book. Indeed, this is why so many authors spend months outlining to minimize mistakes down the line.

But sometimes, in the (paraphrased) words of Flaubert, you simply have to shut up and get on with it. Or take this actual quote from Hemingway, which puts it a bit more positively: “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.” True, it must be noted, doesn’t always mean beautiful and profound, and it certainly doesn’t mean perfect.

If Hemingway doesn’t do it for you, one has to respect the pure pragmatism of this line from Jane Austen, from a letter to her sister Cassandra: “I am not at all in a humor for writing. I must write on until I am.” Even when you find it hard to write truthfully, begin anyway, and sooner or later you will arrive at the truth you wish to tell.

2. Get up early — or stay up late

When it comes to advice, there’s nothing like a clear, evidence-backed directive. This is one such tip: according to overwhelming testimony, if you want to become a successful author, you need to start getting up early. Or, if that doesn’t jibe with your Circadian rhythm (I’ll be honest — it never has for me), staying up late can produce a similar effect! In a nutshell, you must find a time in the day with no interruptions or impediments to your creativity.

My favorite source for this particular piece of writing advice is Ursula K. Le Guin, whose writing schedule recirculates on Twitter every so often just to remind us all what an icon she was. Still, even Le Guin couldn’t write at all hours of the day; by her own admission, after 8 pm she would become “very stupid and we won’t talk about this.” She consistently capitalized on those morning hours because she knew they were her most productive.

Toni Morrison, another famously early riser, nevertheless acknowledged that inspiration manifests differently for every writer. “Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process,” she said in one interview. “For me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives.” You don’t necessarily need to be up for first light — but whatever your own “golden hours” are as a writer, take advantage of them.

3. Record interesting things and don’t hoard details

This one’s a two-parter courtesy of Andrew Sean Greer and Annie Dillard. Lots of writers talk about taking details from the world around them, but few have done so to the extent of Greer, who revealed in a recent AMA that almost every bit of scenery from his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Less came directly from real life: “One rule I had for Less was that every detail had to be something I wrote down in my notebook while traveling… I did not want to invent a ‘fantasy’ of a foreign country, but the real thing.”

As with Toni Morrison watching the sunrise every morning, you don’t need to be quite this rigorous to make use of Greer’s strategy. Simply start recording more facets of real life — if you don’t already have a dedicated details notebook (or page in the note-taking app of your phone), start one today and make an effort to add to it.

Not sure what this might look like? Another favorite anecdote of mine on the subject comes from Marina Keegan, author of The Opposite of Loneliness, who maintained a 32-page document of interesting things ranging from “descriptions of a waiter’s hand gestures, to my cab driver’s eyes, to strange things that happen to me or a way to phrase something.” Basically, anything and everything that draws your attention is fair game.

The only trouble with recording all these details is that you may not know when to use them. But according to Annie Dillard, any time could be the perfect time. “Do not hoard what seems good for a later place in the book, or for another book,” she urges in The Writing Life. “Give it, give it all, give it now.” This applies to other aspects of writing as well — winning turns of phrase, brilliant plot devices — but I’ve found it especially helpful in the context of real-life details.

4. Follow your protagonist’s lead

Every great series, novel, and even short story must be based in strong character motivations — otherwise, the story has no reason to exist. So if you’re struggling with the direction of your story, the best thing to do is zero in on your protagonist’s motivations. Or, as Ray Bradbury artfully put it: “Find out what your hero wants, then follow them.”

This is easier said than done. One thing I personally have trouble with is separating my characters’ goals and personalities from my own; I often find myself rereading a scene I’ve just proudly finished, only to find it’s completely inconsistent with a certain character because I’ve unconsciously projected my own desires onto the page. And while I do think it’s useful to relate to your main character in some ways, they need to be their own person (as much as a fictional figure can be) in order for them to go on an interesting, satisfying journey.

Hence the emphasis here is on following their lead (again, as much as you can with someone, well, fictional). To facilitate this, flesh out your main characters before you get the narrative underway. Fill in character profiles with questions like “How did their childhood shape who they are?” and “What would they do if someone they loved were in danger?” It might seem silly to answer questions that won’t even come up in your story, but it all contributes to a deeper understanding of how each character will perceive and react to everything that does.

5. Invest yourself emotionally

Other than “get a cat,” this is probably my favorite piece of writing advice ever — it’s by far the most powerful way I’ve found of getting other people invested in my work. And as you’d imagine, it also makes the creative process that much more enjoyable and exciting!

Robert Frost expressed the mutual benefits of this strategy quite succinctly: “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” This doesn’t mean you’ll experience these emotions in the same way as your readers; indeed, the misfortune of being the author is that you can never truly catch yourself by surprise. Still, you should know when you’ve hit upon something good. Every “aha!” moment you have when planning your story will hopefully translate into a moment of narrative satisfaction for your readers.

That said, the trick here is not to become so emotionally invested that it hinders your writing. As I mentioned, this often happens to me when it comes to character motivation. It can also be challenging to detach yourself emotionally when it comes time to edit. But better to be too invested in the story, in my opinion, than not invested enough. (Susan Sontag would agree — she said, on the subject of starting a novel, “The story must strike a nerve in me. My heart should start pounding when I hear the first line in my head. I start trembling at the risk.”)

Of course, at this juncture, I feel obligated to return to one of my very first points: not every piece of writing advice is going to work for every author. But in my own experience — and in that of some of the best literary minds of the past two hundred years — these five tips are bound to set you on a strong path.

Savannah Cordova is a writer with Reedsy, a marketplace that connects authors and publishers with the world’s best editors, designers, and marketers. In her spare time, Savannah enjoys reading contemporary fiction and writing short stories. 

The post #5onFri: Five Bits of Writing Advice (that Actually Work!) appeared first on DIY MFA.