by Stephanie Dethlefs | Sep 13, 2022 | Audience, Character Development, Planning your book, writing craft
Who is your main character? More importantly, why are they making the decisions they’re making in the story? If you want your reader to care about what happens next, the best way is to answer these three essential questions about your protagonist. You can’t guarantee...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Jul 5, 2022 | Audience, Character Development, First Draft, Planning your book, Revision
Your protagonist is not just bouncing from one event to another. They are changing as a result of those events. In this episode, we dig into your protagonist’s arc of emotional change, both why it matters and how to establish it. Text version: Hello writers! Here is...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | May 3, 2022 | Character Development, First Draft, Planning your book, writing craft, Writing middle grade, Writing schedule, Writing YA
While secondary characters might seem less important than your protagonist, they actually serve a very important purpose. They drive the story forward and give the protagonist context, relationships, roadblocks, relief, and more. In this episode, we look at the role...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Apr 19, 2022 | Character Development, First Draft, Planning your book, Uncategorized
How do we create primary characters that are nuanced and complex without being stereotypical, flat, or strange caricatures of themselves? The key is to know them. Like, really know them. And it’s more than knowing things like their favorite sandwich or where they grew...
by Stephanie Dethlefs | Dec 14, 2021 | Character Development, First Draft, Planning your book, Revision, writing craft
Why do your protagonist and other characters make the decisions that they do in your story? How do you keep those decisions from running away with your plot? Whether we’re talking the big decisions, those actions that change the course of the story, and the...
