Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Dalton. We’ll be discussing his latest novel, This Last Adventure, a middle-grade story about the bond between a teenage boy and his grandfather, how that boy copes with his grandfather’s memory loss, and what it means to live a life worth remembering. Have you signed up to… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Sacha Black. Sacha is an author, rebel podcaster, and professional speaker. She has five obsessions; words, expensive shoes, conspiracy theories, self-improvement, and breaking the rules. Sacha writes books about people with magical powers and other books about the art of writing. When she’s not writing, she can be… Read more »
Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Leslie A. Rasmussen. 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… Read more »
On Monday we talked about how character’s are the story. Today, I pose another idea: while characters may be the story, what really makes your story interesting is the antagonist. And in the case of most thrillers, the antagonist happens to be a villain. If you’re wondering about the distinction between villains and antagonists, check… Read more »
To wrap up our week-long series about naming characters we’re going to play a game. In the picture below there are two lists of names. Select one name from each list (or even pick two names from the same list.) You can pick names that you think go well together, or if you’d rather leave… Read more »
Today I thought I’d give you all a peek into one of my works-in-progress and how I’ve named a couple of key characters. This project is a middle grade fantasy, and it involves magic. The story revolves around a group of sisters who are very close. It’s sort of like Little Women, only set in… Read more »
The first thing you learn when writing for children and teens is that you have to get rid of the parents. With parents or other adults around, the kids don’t have as many opportunities to go on adventures or get into trouble. The easiest way to solve this problem is to kill off (or otherwise… Read more »
Before we get to the discussion of character archetypes, I’d like to make a request: please strike the term “secondary character” from your vocabulary. Not only does it imply that somehow these characters are less important than the protagonist, but the term itself doesn’t tell us much about the role these characters play in the… Read more »
Every story needs a “bad guy,” someone or something that gets in the protagonist’s way and keeps making trouble for him or her. For instance if my life were a novel, the “bad guy” would be an impossibly cute 3-year-old ginger cat, whose offenses include: “Decorating” the living room with shredded articles of mail Skulking… Read more »
