Characters Physical Appearance

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What do your characters’ appearance look like?

Physical features may explain your characters personality. If you plan to have your character as a roughhouse, put a scar on his face. That scar will have a story to tell. That scar is a back story for you to use throughout your novel.

What about your female characters? Is she shy? That’s because she may have a physical anomaly she’s ashamed of. What horror stories can she tell the torments from her days in public school? She may interact in a negative way to your other beautiful female characters. Her back story shows her emotional scars. Those emotional scars will dictate how she acts.

10 Tips for Writing Physical Descriptions of Your Characters

“Today Charis is wearing a sagging mauve cotton jersey dress, with a fuzzy grey cardigan over top and an orange-and-aqua scarf with a design of meadow flowers draped around her neck. Her long straight hair is grey-blonde and parted in the middle; she has her reading glasses stuck up on top of her head.” -The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood

“You don’t have to give all your description of a character when he or she first arrives on the scene. Instead, scatter brief descriptions throughout multiple scenes. No doubt many of your favorite writers do this.” More…

MASTER LIST of Physical Descriptions!

“Don’t rely too much on attractiveness or ugliness to make me as a reader like or dislike a character. If I’m reading a romance, for instance, it’s great if the hero is physically attractive, but I’m going to need him to be smart or kind or funny or something to get interested. And if you keep talking about how ugly the villain is, I’m going to start to think that you, the writer, might be a mean person, which makes me enjoy your story less.” More …

Need more help to create a great plot? More…

Don’t forget to edit your character’s story. Are you using the right words to describe them? More …

Start Writing Now – This book is for the dreamers who say one day they will write their stories and become a writer. Then they forget their dreams of writing. But they can write now – write those stories now. I mean right now.

How Not To Write A One Star Novel – Do you want to create a five star novel? Learn from other writers’ mistakes and prevent yourself from receiving any one star reviews for you hard work. Here is your free e-book.

R. M. Scott Author Site

Fix Your Story

Fix Your Story

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How to Fix Holes in Your Stories

We can learn how to analyze our manuscript and fix any problem yourself. These fixes are not just for grammar and punctuation alone but fixing your entire story and story structure. Sure, a content editor will help you with that, but the editor would spend more of your money and scribble more red lines you could scribble yourself. Focus on these fixes and your story will come out much better.

“A plot hole is a gap or inconsistency in the story that creates a contradiction that can’t be reconciled by any explanation. Plot holes include illogical events and statements as well as events that contradict earlier events in the story. Plot holes are usually seen as flaws in a story and authors should avoid them to make their stories as realistic as possible. However, if you want to create suspension of disbelief (common in some genres like fantasy and horror among others) plot holes are more acceptable.” More…

Why Your Story Conflict Isn’t Working (And How to Fix It)

“Like many writers, I’ve spent countless hours creating conflict in my novels. I’ve thrown exciting obstacles in my protagonists paths, I’ve developed sinister antagonists to thwart my heroes, I’ve devised cruel ways to put my characters through mental anguish — and my beta readers still told me, “This book needs more conflict.”

Because despite what we “know” about conflict as writers, the concept isn’t so cut and dry. It’s not just about the obstacles in the path, or the bad guy with the evil plan, or the mental anguish of the hero. It’s not the plot or the character arc, even though we often talk about it like it is. It’s a tapestry woven from multiple aspects of writing that work together to create a feeling that victory will not come easily to the characters, and it leaves readers dying to know what the protagonist is going to do about it.” More…

A book in itself is unlikely to make or break you, but it is a powerful extension of your business or blog. More…

Tell everyone about your stories. More…

Need more help to fix your story? More…

Don’t forget to edit your character’s story. Are you using the right words to describe them? More …

Start Writing Now – This book is for the dreamers who say one day they will write their stories and become a writer. Then they forget their dreams of writing. But they can write now – write those stories now. I mean right now.

How Not To Write A One Star Novel – Do you want to create a five star novel? Learn from other writers’ mistakes and prevent yourself from receiving any one star reviews for you hard work. Here is your free e-book.

R. M. Scott Author Site

What Kind of an Evil Villian Suit Your Story

What Kind of an Evil Villain Will Suit Your Story

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3 Ways to Create a Compelling Villain for Your Next Story

“Whether you’re writing a novel, novella, short story or a work of flash fiction, sometimes you need an eye-watering source of evil to spice things up. Something that provokes feelings of disgust, fear, unrest or something that people love to loathe.”  That’s where your villain comes in. More…

How to Create a Kickass Villain

“Creating a powerful and kickass villain is one of the best parts of writing a novel. Not only are they fun to write, give your hero the boost of admiration they deserve, and drive the plot forward, they are also representations of the writer and the reader, and how not everyone walks down the right path.

Villains are perceived to be purely evil corruptions of the world and all that is good. They are the hero’s opposite in almost every way. However, there is more to a villain than just the twisty dark parts.” More…

How to Make a Great Villain

To make sure you don’t choose the wrong evil traits for your character, sit down in a comfy seat with the outline of your plot or your draft so far and consider the kind of antagonist that will slip into your story seamlessly. More…

A book in itself is unlikely to make or break you, but it is a powerful extension of your business or blog. More…

Tell everyone about your stories. More…

Need more help to fix your story to hook in your readers? More…

Don’t forget to edit your character’s story. Are you using the right words to describe them? More …

Start Writing Now – This book is for the dreamers who say one day they will write their stories and become a writer. Then they forget their dreams of writing. But they can write now – write those stories now. I mean right now.

How Not To Write A One Star Novel – Do you want to create a five star novel? Learn from other writers’ mistakes and prevent yourself from receiving any one star reviews for you hard work. Here is your free e-book.

R. M. Scott Author Site

Join a Writer's Critique Group

Join a Writing Critique Group

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Learn from Other Writers in Writing Critique Groups

Want to know if you’re on the right track in your story. Wouldn’t it be great to get someone else’s opinion on your work? When you allow other writers to look over your story you will get honest opinions from other writers. They will point out things you missed and ideas to help you get back on track. How about joining a critique group?

“After hearing stories from countless writers about advice they’ve been given, critique groups seem also to fall into four basic categories: the “any excuse not to write” group (which at least gets you out of the house and among people, but has no effect on your writing one way over the other), the “just make you feel good” group (which will bolster your spirits and avoid hurting your feelings, but prevent you from doing the hard work of facing your weaknesses and improving your craft); and the “I don’t know much about story but I love to criticize” group (which is filled with people who want to stroke their own egos by giving lots of advice and suggesting all sorts of changes that are neither well founded nor consistent with your vision for your own story).” More…

What Happens in a Writer’s Critique Group

Getting feedback on your writing is a powerful tool for improving the quality of your work. At this meetup, we will discuss the following aspects of the critique process. More…

Another benefit to belonging to a critique group is that you will learn much more about writing, style, format and grammar from reading and critiquing other writer’s work. When you see some things that are not right about their work you may realize that you may making the same mistake. Gaining new friends in the writing world will help you keep on track when you write your story.

Need more help to create a great story plot? More…

Don’t forget to edit your character’s story. Are you using the right words to describe them? More …

Start Writing Now – This book is for the dreamers who say one day they will write their stories and become a writer. Then they forget their dreams of writing. But they can write now – write those stories now. I mean right now.

How Not To Write A One Star Novel – Do you want to create a five star novel? Learn from other writers’ mistakes and prevent yourself from receiving any one star reviews for you hard work. Here is your free e-book.

R. M. Scott Author Site