By popular demand (i.e. one of you asked, and I thank you for that), here’s a post about the counterpart to the em dash and the hyphen. Let’s get to know the en dash, a special character with a specific function in writing.

An en dash is one of the punctuation marks that most people see all the time, but rarely think about how to use correctly. Here it is: –

Fun fact: the reason the en and em dashes have those names are because of their lengths. An em dash (—) is about the length of the letter m, and an en dash (–) is the length of the letter n.

Isn’t that fun? Now you have a conversation starter for cocktail parties. Let’s look at one of the most misunderstood types of dashes. 

When to Use an En Dash

The en dash is used when connecting ranges, and it replaces “to” in those ranges.

You might have relatives aged 2–52, or a flight to catch from Austin–Detroit, or a baseball game that your team wins 4–2. In all of those circumstances, you would be using an en dash.

You also use one to create a compound adjective when a compound word includes a multiple word proper noun or another hyphenated compound.

For example: The coach knew how to play against the Baltimore Ravens–style offense.

How to Create an En Dash

The en dash isn’t a key on your typical computer keyboard, so here’s a quick guide to help you type them correctly.

If you are on a Mac or iOS device, press option and the hyphen (-) key.

In Windows, there are a few ways to do it. Microsoft Word will automatically replace a hyphen with an en dash if you add a space before and after it. For example, if you type “I’m flying from Austin [space] [hyphen] [space] Detroit.” You’ll just need to remember to remove the spaces afterward. (Annoying, I know.)

If you have a number keypad, you can use the shortcut ctrl and – (the minus sign on the number keypad). Just make sure NUM LOCK is on first.

And finally, you can add one from the symbols menu. Click on “Insert” and then “Symbols.” Click “more symbols” and find the en dash. Press “insert” to add it to your document.

In the current version of Google Docs, you can simply type the hyphen key twice (no spaces), and it automatically creates the en dash (unless you are using an international keyboard).

And if you’d like to copy and paste one, copy away: –

Practice Telling Them Apart

Let’s line up all three punctuation marks in a row for a quick comparison:

— em dash

– en dash

– hyphen

See the difference?

Take a few minutes to play with how to create hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes in your favorite word processing tool. Do you think you have them under control? Complete the practice below and find out.

Dash conventions aren’t always easy to remember, but the en dash is one of the easiest. Remember that it shows a range and replaces the word “to” when showing that distance. 

What tricks do you use to keep your hyphens and dashes straight? Share in the comments.

The article What’s an En Dash? (And How to Use it Correctly) appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

You love to write. People have told you that you’re good at it, and you sense they’re right. But writing is one thing; writing for a living is another. How do you know the time is right, or whether you really have what it takes?

You’d better be certain you know what you’re getting yourself into before you take the leap.

Full-time writing is no hobby. And it’s not easy. But if you’re called to it—oh, the rewards.

Find Your Passion

I’m one of the lucky ones. I knew I wanted to be a writer in my early teens, and I pursued it with a passion I’d shown for nothing else.

But even that didn’t guarantee my success—it guaranteed only that I’d never quit.

I became a sports writer before I was old enough to drive.

At 14, I talked my way into a stringer job at a local daily newspaper, covering high school sports. I was paid a dollar per column inch that survived the sports editor’s red pen, making me a professional writer.

At 19, I became sports editor for that paper. My passion had become my profession.

I became a magazine editor at 22, a magazine publisher at 28, and a book publisher at 31.

On my own time, I became an author at 24, a novelist at 29, and decades later I’m closing in on 200 published books, 21 of those New York Times bestsellers (including The Left Behind Series™), with more than 71 million copies sold.

Several of my novels have been made into movies. I’ve written the first-person as-told-to autobiographies of countless superstar athletes (Hank Aaron, Walter Payton, Orel Hershiser, Nolan Ryan, Meadowlark Lemon, et al.).

I tell you all that not to brag, but to say I’ve been at this game for decades and enjoy a career most people only dream of.

The bottom line?

Dreamers talk about writing. Writers write.

Writing well, well enough to make a living at it, requires knowledge, training, and a lot of practice.

VERY few people are born good writers. I certainly wasn’t. In fact, I don’t know any who were and have read of only a handful.

If you’re like me and nearly every other writer, you’ll need to grow in the craft, especially if you ever want to land your dream job. How do you do that?

• Read as many books on the craft as you can get your hands on. Here are a few of my favorites.
• Write—every day. Maybe take a journalism class or an online writing course. Find a way to get words onto the page every day.

Is My Writing Good Enough to Make a Career of It?

Have you put off pursuing a writing career because you fear you aren’t good enough?

I didn’t become a full-time writer until after my 90th book was published. Until then, I worked full time and wrote during my extremely limited free time.

I quit my day job only after I’d lined up enough book projects to pay me three times the salary I was making. And even then, the decision was difficult.

It wasn’t just my salary that had to be replaced. I had to cover everything: my pension, benefits, supplies, even weekends and vacations.

My biggest breakout project, Left Behind, was hardly my first book. Neither was it my 50th. It was my 125th.

Work hard. Learn everything you can. Write about the things that ignite your passion. And when you’re ready to pursue a writing job, here are some to consider.

10 Popular Writing Jobs

While you could become a:

• Proofreader
• Grant writer
• Resume writer
• Greeting card writer
• Songwriter
• Medical writer
• Translator
• Business plan writer
• Video game writer
• Comic book writer—

— rarely will one of those alone support you. As a freelancer, you must be willing to be all things to all people. I recall years of never saying no to an assignment. A writing job was a writing job.

But here are ten of the most popular writing jobs, the first seven of which I’ve engaged in at one time or another:

1. Novelist

Do you have a story idea strong enough to justify a 75,000–100,000 word manuscript able to captivate a reader throughout?

Begin by immersing yourself in short stories. Learning to write them will teach you the business and how to interact with an editor. You can enter them in writing contests or submit to a literary magazine or anthology from a large or small press for new publication credits! 

Resist the urge to start your writing career by writing a book. That’s like enrolling in graduate school instead of kindergarten. You have a lot to learn first.

2. Nonfiction Writer

Categories include articles, blogs, autobiographies, biographies, essays, memoirs, nature writing, reviews, profiles, reports, sports writing, how-to, self-help, and more.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming nonfiction is easier to write than fiction. Too many details must be gotten right. Do your research. Get the details right, or readers will notice.

3. Journalist

Do you love news and have the ability to be objective?

The best journalists display stellar research skills and the ability to detach from the story to present the most accurate, neutral account possible.

Networking and the ability to ask difficult questions are paramount.

Journalists write for newspapers, magazines, and news websites, or create scripts for radio and television and podcast news broadcasters. Some freelance and build their own brand.

A journalism degree is preferred and was once required for journalists. That may still be true for some high-profile media outlets, but if you have the ability to write well and attract readers, you might still qualify.

4. Columnist

Contrary to a journalist, a columnist offers an opinion and his perspective on current events.

A columnist should know his audience well and write with a distinct voice that can keep readers scrolling or turning pages.

Start a blog, write for free, and step outside your comfort zone to write for out-of-the-box entities.

5. Web Content Creator

Individuals, companies, and organizations need blogs, social media, and website content. They often hire freelance writers to create it.

It helps to be well-versed in SEO, HTML, CSS, and WordPress and social media practices, so if those are new to you, you have homework to do. 

ProBlogger posts a job board of potential projects.

6. Ghostwriter

Are you willing to write, regardless of who gets the credit?

A ghostwriter is often the content creator behind social media posts, scripts, speeches, blogs, other web material, and even books. By definition, the writer’s name does not appear with their work.

Learn more about how to become a ghostwriter in our article here.

7. Speechwriter

Politicians, government officials, business executives, celebrities, and PR firms need speeches. Some people even buy wedding speeches and toasts.

An excellent speechwriter gets to know the voice of the speaker, researches the subject, and writes the speech. Speechwriters rarely get the credit for their work.

8. Screenwriter

Are you great at working with a team? Do you love film and theatre?

Writing scripts for movies, cartoons, television programs, and plays may be the most collegial of all freelance writing. Up to a dozen people may have a role in producing a script.

Script editing, working on a movie set or the stage, and learning the business is helpful experience for writing in this field. As with many other types of writing, if you have raw talent and can prove yourself, formal training isn’t always a must.

9. Copywriter

A copywriter creates publicity, advertising, and sales copy, including brochures, direct mail pieces, billboards, websites, emails, and catalogs.

The copywriter must communicate well with few words and powerfully invoke action. Knowledge of social media and Search Engine Optimization are important.

Most agencies look for writers with a four-year English, Communications, or Journalism degree, and a candidate who has held an internship or has on-the-job experience.

10. Technical Writer

If you can make complicated jargon readable and understandable, this might be for you.

Technical writers rarely get credit for their work. To be competitive, they need to be problem solvers, enjoy technology, and understand procedures and processes.

The education required for this quickly growing field may depend on the subject matter. Many schools offer degrees in technical writing, but a degree in Communications, English, Journalism, or a field related to the specialty are also acceptable.

The Hard Work of Writing Jobs

Writing is hard, exhausting work. If you don’t find it so, you’re probably not doing it right.

Writing a book is especially daunting because of the sheer magnitude of it. Attack it the way you would eat an elephant—one bite at a time.

Don’t let fear of failure stop you. Let it motivate you to do your best work every time.

Immerse yourself in the craft, read and write every day, and you may find there’s room for you in the writing business.

Have you held any of these writing jobs? Let us know in the comments.

The article 10 Writing Jobs You Can Do for a Living appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

ProWritingAid is a grammar checker and style editor meant to help you improve your writing and become a better writer. How does it work? And would it be a useful tool for you? I tested it to find out, and I’ll break it all down for you in this ProWritingAid review.

If you’ve ever written any piece of writing, you know that grammar mistakes are inevitable. They happen to the best of us: from pesky typos to not finding quite the right word to so many grammatical nuances it’s hard to keep track.

Of course, having an editor or a writing teacher always on hand to check those sticky sentences and correct all those mistakes would be ideal. (I’m an editor myself, so I’m a little biased, but it’s true.) There’s no replacing the knowledge and experience of a real, live human who understands how language works and who can help you communicate your ideas in the best way possible.

But if you don’t have access to an editor (or if you do, but you don’t want to hire them to edit your emails or Facebook posts), grammar checking software like the ProWritingAid Desktop App is an accessible, affordable online editing tool. (It also works as a browser extension: add it to Chrome, Windows, or Google Docs to simplify your workflow.)

An Editor’s Review of ProWritingAid

I’ve heard great things about ProWritingAid from other writers I trust. As an editor, though, I was dubious. Could a piece of software really find all the errors in my writing? Could it really serve as a helpful substitute for a human editor? Would it help writers find and fix the problems in their writing and grow in their craft?

And I’ll admit too that I had one more question: could I write so perfectly that ProWritingAid would find nothing to critique?

I set out to test ProWritingAid myself and see how it works.

Before we get started, I wasn’t paid to write this review, but I do want to be fully transparent and let you know that the links in this article are affiliate links. If you sign up for ProWritingAid, it will help me be able to keep writing and sharing editing advice. Of course, this won’t affect your overall price, and it didn’t affect my decision on the program — like I said, I’m starting from a place of skepticism.

Take a look at ProWritingAid here. How does it stack up? Here’s what I’ve found.

ProWritingAid Review: The Basics

First, a brief overview: what is ProWritingAid?

ProWritingAid describes itself as “a grammar guru, style editor, and writing mentor in one package.” It’s a piece of writing software that acts as an intricate system of grammar checkers, spell checkers, and style checkers (and recently, a range of big-picture editing features, along with challenges and tools to help you keep writing).

ProWritingAid is designed for writers, editors, copywriters, students, and other professional writers. Whether you’re new to writing or a seasoned author, it has features that will give your writing a boost at every level.

It’s available in both a free version and a paid premium version. Of course, in the premium version, you’ll get significantly more options and support.

What features does it include? Let’s take a look.

Grammar and Spelling Checkers

This is the cornerstone of any writing aid software, and ProWritingAid delivers. It has robust grammar and spelling checkers, more thorough than even Microsoft Word.

Errors are underlined in red for spelling and blue for grammar. My favorite feature here is that when you mouse over the underlined text, a little box pops up with not only a suggested correction but also an explanation of why it suggests this correction at all.

Plus, there’s a real-time error checker that will count up all the issues it finds and point you to them with a single click. If you’re looking for spelling mistakes, it’ll catch them. Grammar? Yup.

Don’t want to see how many issues it spots as you write? Turn it on or off at any time.

Customization for Your Writing Style

As an editor, one of the first questions I ask of any piece of writing is, who is this writing for? Who is the audience? And with that in mind, what’s the best approach for this piece?

A Facebook post, for instance, is casual and informal. A legal document, on the other hand, is very formal. Blog posts, novels, memos, emails, and essays all fall on a spectrum in between.

ProWritingAid is designed to adjust for your specific writing purpose. You can change your writing style at any time from a drop-down list of options:

• General
• Academic
• Business
• Technical
• Creative
• Casual
• Web

Whether you’re writing a business report or a tweet, ProWritingAid will customize its suggestions for you.

More Than a Dictionary and Thesaurus

Most writing tools come with a built-in dictionary and thesaurus. ProWritingAid takes it a step further with a dictionary, a thesaurus, and a wide variety of word suggestion tools.

Looking for the perfect word for your English paper? Try the standard dictionary and thesaurus. Hover your cursor over any underlined word, and it will offer a list of alternate suggestions.

Writing poetry and need a lyrical line—or want to avoid overusing alliteration in a serious document? There’s an alliteration analysis for that.

Drafting a brilliant new story and want to make sure you haven’t relied on a slew of clichés? The cliché and redundancy report will catch them all.

Not sure if you’ve used the right there, their, or they’re? The homonym check will evaluate your word usage and correct any misplaced words.

With all these tools, you’ll be sure to use the right word at the right time all the time.

Robust Reports on Your Writing

So far, so good. To this point, I’ll admit I was feeling pretty confident in my ability as an editor to best ProWritingAid.

But here, it provided analysis that even I, for all my love of grammar, couldn’t gather without ProWritingAid’s help.

I mentioned several of ProWritingAid’s dictionaries, reports, and checkers above. Those barely scratch the surface of the tools ProWritingAid offers.

There are more than twenty reports you can use to analyze your writing in a variety of ways. I won’t cover them all, but I want to highlight a few of my favorites.

The Writing Style Report

After the grammar and spell check tools, this might be one of the most useful reports for quickly and easily cleaning up your prose. The Writing Style report evaluates your writing for adjustments that can enhance its readability. It identifies writing style elements like:

• Passive voice
• Hidden verbs
• Overuse of adverbs
• Repeated sentence beginnings

At a glance, it will show you exactly where you can make small tweaks to your writing that can improve the style and create a better experience for your readers.

The Word Count and Sentence Length Report

Many writing tools include word counters, but the Sentence Length report is so much more powerful than that.

It will count the number of words and characters in your document, yes. But it will also count every word in every sentence and display them in an illuminating visual. You’ll see your average sentence length and how much your sentence length varies, and it will warn you of any particularly long sentences.

When you know what you mean to say, it can be hard to tell where readers won’t understand. The Sentence Length report is a helpful way to catch lines that might be confusing so you can break them apart.

Three Reports to Beat Repetition

ProWritingAid includes not one, but three reports to help you catch any repetitive words.

The Overused Words report will mark any overused words, ones used so many times that they’ll definitely make readers pause. Plus, it will tell you how many instances to remove so they aren’t overused anymore. It will even compare your use with other published writing to help you see how your style stacks up against other similar works.

The All Repeats report will mark words and phrases up to four words long that you’ve used repeatedly throughout your text. They aren’t necessarily overused, but it’s helpful to be aware of anything you tend to repeat.

The Echoes report will mark any words or phrases that are repeated in close proximity to one another. It will also suggest alternative words you can use to break up the repetition.

The Sentence Structure Report

The Sentence Structure report is one I personally find fascinating. It reviews all the ways you structure your sentences so you can see where you’re repeating certain syntax.

For instance, in this excerpt, 81 percent of my sentences start with a subject, but none start with a gerund. That’s neither right nor wrong, but it gives me helpful direction for how to increase the variety in my writing.

The Pacing Report

This is the kind of report I wasn’t expecting, but was so excited to find. The Pacing report is an amazing tool for creative writers.

Some backstory is good; too much, and you’ll start to bore your reader. This tool will identify any sections of your manuscript that slow the pace so you can see at a glance whether it’s too much or just right.

The Plagiarism Report

Plagiarism is a huge concern for writers, and the Plagiarism report will help put your mind to rest. ProWritingAid has scanned millions of articles, books, and academic papers, and it will analyze your writing for any lines that appear in other documents.

Unlike other ProWritingAid reports, the Plagiarism checker isn’t included in the typical Premium package; however, you can can purchase checks to use as you need.

The House Report

Do you write for an organization that has a house stylebook? Do you want ProWritingAid to check for specific rules or patterns in your writing?

The House report is a blank report you can customize to be completely yours. Tell ProWritingAid what you want it to analyze, and it will produce a report.

Analyze to Your Heart’s Content

I’ve mentioned nine of ProWritingAid’s detailed reports above, but that’s not even half of what this tool can do. I encourage you to take a look at the full list here, or even sign up for a free trial so you can play around with it yourself.

With these reports, you can get as granular as you like in your writing analysis. Take a deep dive into readability with the Readability report, nitpick every inconsistent detail with the Consistency report, or simply correct grammar errors and move on with the Grammar report.

No matter what kind of writing you’re working on, there’s a report that will help you refine your piece and become a better writer.

Where to Use ProWritingAid

You can use the ProWritingAid editor directly on the ProWritingAid website. Draft your writing there in the editing tool, or copy and paste it in from another document.

But you’re not locked in to the ProWritingAid website. Whether you write in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or Scrivener, you can download a plugin to bring ProWritingAid’s writing analysis to your preferred word processor.

Plus, download the Chrome browser extension, and your personal writing checker will follow you around the internet. No need to worry about typos in your Facebook statuses again!

ProWritingAid Free Vs. Premium

So what’s in the box? What do you get when you sign up for ProWritingAid?

The free version of ProWritingAid is a great place to start. Personally, I enjoy the flexibility and increased capacity that comes with the premium version.

What does it cost to go premium? ProWritingAid operates on a subscription model. You can choose to try it for a month or a year, or go all in with lifetime subscription access.

The Editor’s Caveat

I’ll add one caveat here that I think is important to mention in any discussion of grammar checkers and writing tools.

Grammar checkers are meant to help you find spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and style issues in your writing and offer possible solutions. ProWritingAid is remarkably good at understanding context and usage and suggesting the correct solutions. That said, like any online editor, it’s still important that when you use it, you consider each suggestion carefully and feel free to reject any that aren’t helpful.

No matter what grammar checker you choose, if you blanket accept every change it suggests, you will introduce new grammatical errors into your writing. In that sense, grammar checkers will never fully replace a good editor.

But they’ll get you a lot closer to a perfectly edited piece of writing. And ProWritingAid’s features go so far beyond grammar checking and style suggestions, I believe it’s a useful tool for any writer.

Manuscript Analysis and Virtual Beta Reader Reports

ProWritingAid has recently added even more features to its repertoire, including its Manuscript Analysis and Virtual Beta Reader.

These two features go even deeper into your work, with the Manuscript Analysis providing a detailed, technical review of your entire book, and the Virtual Beta Reader offering a more subjective review of how well your manuscript works for readers.

Both programs work for manuscripts up to 300,000 words, and when we tried them out, gave highly detailed, actionable feedback on our test draft’s strengths and weaknesses (with only a few bumps in terms of accuracy).

Check out our full review here!

New Interface and Features

You might have noticed that ProWritingAid’s interface looks a little different as well. Alongside their grammar, spelling, and style checkers, you now have a range of planning, writing, and editing options right at your fingertips. These include feedback on your plan, session timers, character analysis, chapter and manuscript critiques, and other reports.

Some of these features are brand new, such as the character analysis critique, while some are more familiar, like the manuscript analysis we mentioned above. And, of course, your spelling and grammar checker is here too.

You’ll need to buy credits to use some of these features, such as the manuscript report. Others, like the chapter critique, will depend on your plan (you can get one chapter critique per day with the Premium plan and thirty chapter critiques per day with Premium Pro).

There are so many features here to use, designed to support you as you go from idea to polished draft with small and big-picture edits. The sidebar makes everything easy to access, and features like the session timer and daily writing sprints can help you with the most important part: putting your head down and writing. 

The Verdict: Would This Editor Recommend ProWritingAid?

I’ll be honest, I came in a skeptic. I believe strongly in the value of a good editor. Even with all the reports ProWritingAid offers, I don’t think there will ever be a full replacement for the professional editor.

That said, I was blown away by all the features included in ProWritingAid. Here’s my honest ProWritingAid review: I think this is an incredibly helpful tool for writers at every level.

Ready to give ProWritingAid a try yourself and see how it improves your writing?
Click to sign up.

If you’re new to writing, not sure how to find all your grammar errors, or want to practice your English language writing skills, ProWritingAid’s grammar and spelling checkers will help you find issues, correct them, and learn how to avoid them in the future.

If you’re looking to refine your writing style or vary your vocabulary, ProWritingAid’s robust style and word choice tools will help you take your writing to the next level.

And if you’re like me and believe you’ve advanced far beyond what a mere writing tool could teach you, I’d encourage you to take another look. I love seeing the granular breakdown of my writing sentence-by-sentence and word-by-word. ProWritingAid identifies patterns I didn’t recognize in my own writing, so I can understand my personal style better and adjust as I like.

Whether you want an automatic tool to find and correct grammar and spelling, a teaching device to help you master grammar rules, or a style checker to help you refine your prose in more than a dozen different ways, ProWritingAid will give you the feedback you need. Try it out as a part of your writing process and see what you think. 

Do you use ProWritingAid? Do you have any favorite features I’ve missed? Let us know in the comments.

The article ProWritingAid Review: Will This Grammar Checker Fix Your Writing Issues? appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

Halloween is a time to bring out your spooky side, to get creative, and to eat tons and tons of candy. In other words, Halloween is a time to be a kid again.

In that spirit (see what I did there?), my prompt for you today is a little on the lighter side: write from a child’s point of view.

Feel free to get your kids involved in this one!

The Halloween Story Prompt

There’s one simple rule for this prompt: Your Halloween story MUST be from a child’s perspective.

Dig deep and remember what it was like to trick or treat, to get dressed up in a wacky costume, put up Halloween decorations, play Halloween games, and to eat so much chocolate you thought you’d explode (but had one more piece anyway).

Think about your first haunted hayride or scary movie (if that’s your thing).

Think about your motivations when you were young (More candy? Scaring the crap out of your younger sibling? Having the best costume?).

Now take a look at these Halloween story starters. Choose one and write away!

1. It was a cold, dark Halloween night when I saw . . .
2. The black cat hissed at the . . .
3. The silliest Halloween started when I . . .
4. Chills ran down my back when I heard . . .
5. My neighbor opened the door and was dressed as a . . .
6. The house was supposedly haunted, but I wanted to show off, so I . . .
7. I was minding my own business when the jack-o-lantern turned into a . . .
8. I dropped my bag of candy, and when I bent to pick it up, that’s when I saw . . .
9. I was babysitting my little brother when he disappeared into the . . .
10. A mad scientist let loose a monster that could . . .

Write Your Halloween Story!

Let the story starters above get your creative juices flowing! Write a cute story, a creepy story, or a downright gory story. It’s up to you! Just make sure you write it from a child’s perspective!

(And don’t forget to grab some candy before you get started.)

Have a happy and safe Halloween!

Have any other ideas for Halloween story starters? Give us some more ideas in the comments!

The article Halloween Story Writing Prompt: Bring Out Your Inner Child appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

Halloween is right around the corner, and I know a lot of you will be writing some spine-chilling stories to celebrate. What’s the best part of a creepy story? A monster. Which means your task is to create a monster that will terrify your readers.

When writing monsters, you could rely on the tried-and-true vampires, zombies, and giant, man-killing spiders. There’s nothing wrong with adding to the monster canon, but it does get a little boring after a while. It’s often better to create a monster all your own.

But how?

Decades have been spent honing the standard wants and abilities of vampires and zombies. How can you create a monster just as good in a much shorter timeframe?

It’s simple, really: You put some thought into rounding out your monster’s character.

Read on for my tips on making your monster come to life!

How to Create a Monster

Your monsters need to have substance. The same amount of thought should be given to them as your other characters. They are characters, after all. While it’s fun to have a nice slasher romp every so often — with creatures that don’t seem to do anything but maim and kill — the monsters that stick with you, the ones that truly scare, have some thought put into them.

Ready to create a monster? First, you need to create a character profile for your monster, just as you would any other character. Here are some things to think about when developing a monster character profile:

What is it?

This is basic, and you probably already nail this every time you write a monster. What’s it called? What does it look like? What does it sound, smell, and feel like? Can it talk or communicate with other monsters in some way? How about with humans?

Is it evil/bad/a killer? Does it hurt us, help us, or just sit on the sidelines as we ignore it? Remember, not all monsters have to be scary. And even if they are scary, is it because we don’t understand them? Are they trying to be nice, but have been driven to violence?

Where does it come from?

Background is important if your monster comes from another place, wherever that may be. It helps keep you in mind of consistency and logic in your creation.

For instance, if your monster is bright red, why? Is its homeworld red, and it blends in better that way? A monster that comes from a cold area would probably have a thick coat of fur. That wouldn’t be so convenient for something that lives in New York City’s sewers.

Think about the development of your monster; don’t just throw spikes on its back because that seems cool.

A note on logic: Your readers understand this monster isn’t real. It doesn’t need to logically fit into our world. It needs to logically fit into the world you have created. Suspended disbelief is a beautiful thing, but can be ruined by an illogical detail.

What does it eat?

This one may seem mundane, but it’s important for character development and logic.

I recently read an awesome book about a den of monsters who lived underground, had been unearthed, and had a penchant for killing humans but not eating them. They were intelligent. They had a society. They had motives. But their home environment was simply a cave, showing no signs of agriculture or prey.

What on earth did the things eat? It’s a question that’s plagued me ever since I put the book down.

Your monster may eat humans, but why? Is it starving and has no other choice? Does it just have a taste for humans?

And remember, killing isn’t eating. If your monster is simply killing humans and leaving the bodies uneaten, why? Where is it getting its nourishment?

It’s questions like these that get you thinking deeper about your monster and help you round out your character.

What are its strengths?

Your monster needs strengths, and they need to seem impossible to overcome. The thing that makes monsters scary to us is they’re unpredictable. We don’t know what we’re dealing with and don’t know how the monster is going to react. We simply don’t know what else it’s got up its sleeve. (Speaking of, does it have sleeves?!)

Think beyond strength and sharp teeth. Can it learn and adapt? Can it camouflage itself? Is it able to use any sort of supernatural power like telekinesis?

What are its weaknesses?

Technically, they only need to have one weakness: one your protagonist can exploit in order to defeat it. You can have more than one, but normally the monster is scarier and the tension is amped up more if there’s only one. It makes it seem that much harder for your protagonist to defeat it.

Sure, we’ve got the standard stake through the heart or beheading. But what about something more complicated? Try to come up with a non-traditional (i.e. not a bigger, badder weapon than the monster has) or unexpected weakness (bonus points for irony).

In Signs, the water defeated the aliens. In War of the Worlds, it’s a run-of-the-mill pathogen. Medusa was defeated when Perseus got the bright idea to look at her through a reflection.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a good, old-fashioned headshot to kill a zombie if you’d rather not be subtle or you’re working within a word limit. It just might not be as interesting.

What do we know about it?

Ideally, your other characters and your readers know next to nothing about these monsters at the start. Slowly, your protagonist learns more about the creature and develops an often-risky plan to defeat it.

In horror (and a lot of science fiction and fantasy), your characters learn about the monster through the use of redshirts. Redshirts, simply put, are characters who only exist to get killed. They’re the first ones that die, and through their deaths, your protagonist learns a lot about the monster they’re facing.

They learn how it kills, how it hunts, how it moves. They learn its capabilities. And ultimately, they discover its weakness.

What does it want?

You monster must have a motivation. That motivation can be simple, like eating or breeding. (Think Alien or The Meg.)

But it can also be more complicated. Is it intelligent? Does it want to take over the world? Does it just want to protect its home environment, its family, or itself?

Is it forced to come out of hiding for some reason? Was it ever hiding, and why?

Is it just having a fun hunting party, like Predator? Did humans do something to it first? (Poor Frankenstein’s monster.)

All Monsters Welcome

I’ve mostly concentrated on making monsters that are scary, but they don’t have to be. Monsters, Inc. has plenty of lovable monsters. There’s the Grinch and Jack Skellington and every fluffy thing on Sesame Street. Then there’s Frankenstein’s monster, who’s really only mean if you’re mean first.

Even if your monster is more cuddly than vicious, you still need to figure out motivations and background. (Pro tip: You should do this sort of thing for all your characters.)

It’s important to note that this list isn’t all-encompassing, nor is it necessary to answer every single one of these questions. This list is a jumping off point to get you thinking. Take what you want, leave what you want, and add what you want.

Just remember to give your monsters a motivation and keep them consistent and logically grounded in the world you have created.

Do you like to create a monster completely your own, or do you prefer to stick with the standards everyone knows? Let me know in the comments!

The article How to Create a Monster That Terrifies Your Readers appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

Do you love a good cliffhanger? Most readers do. Whether they entail a twist that hits like a tidal wave or employ a more subtle revelation, cliffhangers keep readers eagerly turning the pages—even when they’re unaware of a cliffhanger’s meaning and function.

But what is the definition of cliffhanger? And how can we, as writers, master the use of cliffhangers to write a book that holds readers all the way to the very end?

In this article, we’ll dig deep into what a real cliffhanger is, what it does, and how you can create consistently potent cliffhangers in your own writing.

Cliffhangers Move Readers

You may think a cliffhanger is about setting up a situation fraught with action and danger, and that’s true on a basic level. But the anatomy of effective cliffhangers is more complex, more interesting, and more achievable than you may imagine.

Soap operas and television series make good use of cliffhangers to keep viewers glued to the screen and carry them through to the final episode. Writers can use similar techniques to capture readers.

Consider the oldest joke in the world, right:

Question: Why did the chicken cross the road?

Answer: To get to the other side.

That’s exactly what cliffhangers do for your readers. They move readers from the end of one chapter to the beginning of the next.

And they do it with rocket fuel.

But what if you launch your reader into the next chapter of your book without giving them a solid landing strip? You may have thrown them right out of your book.

Cliffhangers can create a perilous, hanging-by-a-fingernail chapter ending. But that’s only half of the equation.

They can also be a lot more subtle, if you know how to do them right.

Cliffhanger Meaning: Definition and Purpose

Cliffhangers occur when writers do more than just stop writing at the end of a scene. They happen when the writer makes the effort to build something compelling into that chapter ending.

Cliffhangers are writing devices that serve three important purposes:

1. They keep readers from putting the book down at the end of a chapter
2. They hold the book together, creating bridges across the gaps between chapters
3. They provide momentum, keeping readers moving forward to the end of the book

The function of a cliffhanger is to propel your reader along to the end of your story. So, to be effective, you need a whole chain of cliffhangers. This is how the bestselling authors of genre fiction do it.

You can’t deliver a novel in one huge chunk. Few would start reading such a tome, and no one would finish it.

As readers, we need breaks, breathers, indications of progress as settings or characters change. That’s one reason we structure books into chapters and scenes.

The problem is that readers also see those scene or chapter breaks as a good place to stick a bookmark in it. Life is busy. Sometimes they don’t come back.

Correctly using both halves of the equation in an effective chain of cliffhangers will make your book hard to put down and spur readers to come back if they’re forced to stop reading.

The (Often) Forgotten Half of a Cliffhanger Equation

The obvious half of a cliffhanger is what everyone thinks about when they hear the term—a riveting chapter ending.

The other half is the opening of the next chapter.

These two halves must connect like two links in a chain:

Let’s explore this more, starting with the opening of a chapter.

2 Essentials After the Cliffhanger

The beginning of a scene or chapter after a cliffhanger must do two things well:

1. Continue the momentum

When you create momentum in your book, readers feel like something is always happening, driving the story forward. You want them to feel a sense of movement.

A cliffhanger is the ideal place to jump the story to a different character, setting, or timeline—this delays the outcome and keeps your reader in suspense. In most cases, you should take advantage of this and make a jump.

A story is woven of threads: character threads, setting threads, theme threads, plot threads, time threads.

In a multiple viewpoint novel, you’ll most likely jump to another character thread and pick up the storyline from a different POV. In a single viewpoint story, you may jump in time, setting, or theme. Because a story weaves threads, there’s always someplace for you to jump.

If you choose to stay in the same setting, with the same character, you must make the situation worse after the cliffhanger. Think of it like a television show that cuts to commercial just as your character falls into the frying pan. After the break, you need to tip him into the fire.

A perfect example of this is from Will Vinton’s Christmas Claymations Santa Claus is Coming to Town. At one point, Chris Kringle is traveling through the forest when a group of eerie-looking trees seize him. Winter Warlock appears and tells Chris that he’s disturbed him for the “very last time.” As he’s held in the grip of the trees, Chris’s eyes get super big as menacing music (dun, dun, dun) plays in the background. The scene fades to black, and . . .

Commercial break!

Did you feel the suspense? Viewers stay tuned to see what will happen to Chris after the break.

The cliffhanger sets up a suspenseful situation and builds the momentum up to a crucial moment before cutting the scene in half.

2. Ground the reader in the setting and POV character

Earlier in this blog series, we learned six types of key details that ground the viewer deep into the POV.

I cannot overstress the importance of this step. If you neglect it, jumping after the cliffhanger can bring readers to a jarring halt. How deep you go with the detail will depend on the pacing, and we’ll discuss that in a future article.

A rule of thumb is at least 200 to 300 words of pulling readers in with POV details in the scene and chapter openings of the first half of your book. As the pace picks up toward the climax, that will thin out and readers will be carried by the momentum.

But for that to happen, a story needs to hook a reader with POV early and pull them in deep. This facilitates moving readers from one story thread to another without popping them out or giving them an easy exit.

Remember that when you’re opening a chapter, in many cases you are continuing on from a previous cliffhanger that occurred earlier in the book. In the meantime, you’ve taken your reader elsewhere, so it’s vital that you give them reminders and reground them in the setting and POV.

That’s the opening of a scene. Now let’s move to the first half of the cliffhanger, the scene ending.

5 Basic Scene-Ending Cliffhangers

We’ll examine five basic areas for scene-ending cliffhangers, each with countless sub-categories limited only by your imagination. We’ll touch on a few of them you can use to spark ideas for cliffhangers in your own stories.

These cliffhangers are:

1. Physical
2. Character
3. Emotional
4. Plot
5. Thematic

Learn more about the five basic cliffhangers below, and study them deeply with examples of cliffhangers from bestselling authors.

1. Physical Cliffhangers

Physical cliffhangers imperil your character in some physical way, cutting at the height of tension. The classic example is a man hanging from a cliff while the villain stomps on his fingers.

Of course, there are hundreds of ways you could employ physical elements in a cliffhanger that don’t involve the edge of a cliff.

Be aware that you will layer the different types of cliffhangers for deeper impact. Watch for this in the examples ahead. You’ll better understand what I’m talking about as we introduce more cliffhanger types.

The Peril Cut

The peril cut puts the character in some kind of physical danger and then cuts the scene at the worst point.

Make sure, if there is any kind of lengthy setup that needs to happen, that you take care of it earlier in the scene.

When the pace picks up toward the cliffhanger, you need to be quick and to the point. Don’t immediately resolve the danger. Cut and jump, like we talked about before. Let your reader worry.

If you do stay in the setting, you must make the situation worse in the Opening.

Check out this example from Michael Crichton’s book State of Fear:

Sarah stomped on the accelerator and the engine rumbled forward, but in the next moment the ground gave way completely beneath them, and their vehicle nosed down. Evans saw the blue-ice wall of a crevasse. Then the vehicle began to tumble forward, and they were encased for an instant in a world of eerie blue before they plunged onward into the blackness below.

CUT!

This cliffhanger is multi-layered. Layering cliffhangers gives them depth and greater impact.

The Blackout

Think of this like a fade to black on the screen. It can come about in a lot of ways—unconsciousness, sleep, even death.

The blackout nearly always involves a time jump. When you come back to this character’s viewpoint, you must account for that time. Let the reader know how much time has passed and how the character got out of the dilemma that caused the blackout.

You should cut and jump after the blackout, but don’t stay away too long. The farther they get from the scene, the less readers will remember or care about it.

This example is from Labyrinth by Kate Mosse.

Without warning, a rough and callused hand, reeking of ale, clamped itself over her mouth.  She cried out as she felt a sudden, sharp blow on the back of her head and she fell.

It seemed to take a long time for her to reach the ground. Then there were hands crawling all over her, like rats in a cellar, until they found what they wanted.

“Aqui es.” Here it is.

It was the last thing Alais heard before the blackness closed over her.

CUT!

This is a prime example of a blackout cliffhanger, and you can be sure the author infused the wakeup scene with lots of sensory detail, emotion, and opinion to ground the reader in the next opening.

2. Character Cliffhangers

Character cliffhangers can tell us something new about a character, or piggyback off what we already know. Character cliffhangers and Emotional cliffhangers, which we’ll talk about next, are the most common types of cliffhangers in the literary world.

Often subtle, character cliffhangers don’t always include a lot of fanfare, but done right, they are highly effective.

They work by cutting at the optimum point, continuing the momentum, and grounding the reader in the opening.

There are numerous sub-categories of character cliffhangers writers can use to accomplish this. We’ll look at three of them.

Character reveal

This happens when the cliffhanger builds up and peaks by revealing something pertinent about the character.

Think about Indiana Jones at the end of the opening scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He’s just been through a dozen harrowing, life-threatening moments, but as he jumps into the getaway plane and it takes off, he freaks out about a little snake in his seat.

This shows us his fear of snakes, and we know it will come into play later in the story.

Here’s another example from Jeffery Deaver’s book The Blue Nowhere:

The guard left and the door slammed, leaving Gillette alone with his curiosity and itchy desire to get back to his circuit board. He sat shivering in the windowless room, which seemed to be less a place in the Real World than a scene from a computer game, one set in medieval times. This cell, he decided, was the chamber where the bodies of heretics broken on the rack were left to await the high executioner’s ax.

CUT!

This cliffhanger reveals that Gillette thinks in terms of computer games, particularly their more violent aspects. His computer expertise becomes important to the story.

Informational

This gives readers a piece of information about what’s going to happen, and should cut just at the point where the ramifications become clear.

This example is from Echo Park by Michael Connelly:

“Mr. Waits, fair warning,” O’Shea said. “If you make an attempt to run, these officers will shoot you down. Do you understand that?”

“Of course,” Waits said. “And they would do it gladly, I’m sure.”

“Then we understand each other. Lead the way.”

CUT!

This cliffhanger gets everyone—Mr. Waits, the POV character, Harry Bosch, and the reader—all on the same page about what’s likely to happen. It also reinforces the dire consequences of that action.

Tip to the reader

This type of cliffhanger gives readers a little something extra, a heads up about something the characters don’t know. It can heighten suspense or create dramatic irony.

Here’s an example from Clive Cussler’s Valhalla Rising.

“Don’t underestimate them,” said Burch. “Those guys are good. If anyone can ferret out the cause, they can.”

Pitt turned and smiled at Burch. “I hope you’re right, Skipper. I’m just glad it’s not on my shoulders.”

By the end of the week, Pitt would be proved wrong. Never would he have predicted that he would be the one called upon to solve the mystery.

CUT!

Notice how these cliffhangers are layered, combining elements from the different types. When you learn how to build both the blatant and the nuanced into your cliffhangers, you’ll hold readers spellbound, unable to put your book down.

Next up, the third type of basic cliffhangers.

3. Emotional Cliffhangers

Emotional cliffhangers involve some kind of emotion and a character’s response to that emotion. Any emotion can form the basis for a cliffhanger—if the reader is deeply grounded in the POV character.

The emotion can manifest inside the main character, or be from another character and comprise the POV character’s reaction to the emotion. In some cases, it can even be directed at readers, designed to make them feel an emotion the characters are not experiencing.

These types of cliffhangers can be quite subtle and still be powerfully effective, but they must flow from a position of depth inside the viewpoint character. There is no limit to the number of sub-categories when it comes to emotional cliffhangers. They run the gamut of human emotion, but we’ll look at examples for three different sub-types.

Basic emotion

Any kind of emotion can be the vehicle for this kind of cliffhanger—fear, anticipation, dread, joy, uncertainty, grief, jealousy. The list is endless. Using emotion is often a great way to close a chapter.

Look at this cliffhanger based on anger from Echo Park.

Pratt stood up.

“Tell you what, talk amongst yourselves. I’m going over to the boathouse to take a leak. When I come back I’ll need an answer.”

Pratt walked past Anthony, coming close, each man holding the other’s eyes in a hard stare of hatred.

CUT!

Short and to the point, but it illustrates the concept well enough. Show the emotion and cut like a movie director at a dramatic high mark.

Success or failure

Think of each character in a story as having their own character thread—with its ups and downs. Generally, when the protagonist is in a downswing, the villain is up. And vice versa. A great place to put a cliffhanger is right in the peak or valley of your viewpoint character’s swing, their success or failure.

Here’s another Echo Park example:

He was excited. A white van in a house where Raynard Waits had lived.

“That’s it!” he called out. “He has to be in there with the girl. Rachel, we gotta go!”

They got up and hurried to the elevator.

CUT!

This cliffhanger occurs when Bosch is in an upswing, just discovering the long sought-after location of his quarry. And it represents a downswing for the villain, who is—we presume—about to get caught.

Resonating remark

This is a highly effective cliffhanger, and one of the most common. It cuts the scene right after a character says something particularly significant, suggestive, or pertinent.

Look at this example from The Blue Nowhere:

“But . . .” Sobbing now, shoulders slumped in hopelessness. “Who are you? You don’t even know me. . . .”

“Not true, Lara,” he whispered, studying her anguish the way an imperious chess master examines his defeated opponent’s face. “I know everything about you. Everything in the world.”

CUT!

Such a cliffhanger leaves readers with a delicious sense of curiosity and prompts them to turn the page and continue reading.

In the next section, we’ll take a look at cliffhangers that arise from events inside the plot.

4. Plot Cliffhangers

Plot cliffhangers are triggered by events in the story.

The plot of a story consists of a chain of linked events, one leading to another in a cause-and-effect manner. These linked events often use a plot device to drive a cliffhanger, creating an ideal spot to cut and jump for maximum suspense.

You should remember, though, that the plot is not the story. The story is about theme and emotion, so plot cliffhangers tend to be thin unless layered with one or more of the other types of cliffhangers we’ve discussed.

We can’t begin to cover every plot cliffhanger here, but we’ll examine four types you can use as a springboard to create your own.

Leaping into the fray

This cliffhanger sets up a future chapter for high drama. Cut the scene just as the characters are stepping out to confront danger or looming disaster.

This example is from State of Fear:

The author suggested that the real news was the end of this long-term melting trend, and the first evidence of ice thickening. The author was hinting that this might be the first sign of the start of the next Ice Age.

The next Ice Age?

There was a knock on the door behind him. Sarah stuck her head in. “Kenner wants us,” she said. “He’s discovered something. Looks like we’re going out on the ice.”

CUT!

You’ll find many applications for this type of cliffhanger as you weave your stories.

A plan

In this cliffhanger, the characters are faced with a problem, maybe one they’ve struggled with through several chapters without success. And then someone gets a brainstorm. Cut the scene before revealing the plan. Make readers wait for it!

Look at State of Fear for a great example:

Kenner said, “Did you find a computer?”

“No,” she said. “There’s nothing there. Nothing at all. No sleeping bag, no food, no personal effects. Nothing but a bare tent. The guy’s gone.”

Kenner swore. “All right,” he said. “Now, listen carefully. Here’s what we are going to do.”

CUT!

In a subsequent chapter, when you pick up this thread again, you can either go into the details of the plan or simply take the reader along as the plan plays out.

Plot key

This kind of cliffhanger hits the spot and brings a burst of satisfaction. It occurs when a character finds a key piece of evidence or something else that moves the plot forward.

This example is from The Blue Nowhere:

Bishop’s phone rang and he took the call, He listened for a moment and, while he didn’t exactly smile, the cop’s face grew animated. He picked up a pen and paper and started taking notes. After five minutes of jotting he hung up and glanced at the team.

“We don’t have to call him Phate anymore. We’ve got his name.”

CUT!

The plot key cliffhanger scratches an itch and provides forward movement for the story.

Ticking clock

This type of cliffhanger reminds readers that time is growing short and imparts a sort of urgency to the proceedings.

Here’s an example from Valhalla Rising:

“Unless you can get the fire control systems operational in the next five minutes, this ship and everybody on it is doomed,” McFerrin shouted.

Sheffield was becoming disoriented now. All he could think about was: His career at sea was in jeopardy. If he made the wrong decision now . . .

And the seconds ticked away.

His inaction would ultimately cost over a hundred lives. CUT!

Reach for this dramatic cliffhanger as a handy way to add urgency and boost reader anticipation. Notice how, in this instance, it’s layered with a Tip to the Reader cliffhanger.

The last type of cliffhanger we’ll look at is Thematic. This one might be the most difficult to incorporate, but well worth the effort.

5. Thematic Cliffhangers

Thematic cliffhangers incorporate something that illuminates a theme in the story.

Theme is the powerful undercurrent that runs beneath the story, delivering a message to the reader through events, dialogue, imagery and symbolism, character behavior and consequences of choices made, and so on.

As a cliffhanger, it’s most effective to create a chapter ending early in the book which suggests failure in terms of the theme. Then, in one of the last chapters in the book, revisit the theme in another cliffhanger, showing progress and change. Or, in a tragedy, the lack of it.

Here’s an example of a thematic cliffhanger from Echo Park:

It was every detective’s nightmare. The worst-case scenario. A lead ignored or bungled, allowing something awful to be loose in the world. Something dark and evil, destroying life after life as it moved through the shadows. It was true that all detectives made mistakes and had to live with the regrets. But Bosch instinctively knew that this one was malignant. It would grow and grow inside until it darkened everything and he became the last victim, the last life destroyed.

He pulled out from the curb and into traffic to get air moving through the windows. He made a screeching U-turn and headed home.

CUT!

This cliffhanger hits on a deep level, hinting at the pervasive battle between good and evil and acknowledging that sometimes evil takes prisoners.

If you can tap into one of the universal themes of your chosen genre, your message will resonate with readers.

The Nature and Purpose of a Cliffhanger

Remember that a cliffhanger is more than just the place where you stopped writing at the end of a scene. Cliffhanging should provide a sense of movement, stir emotion, and keep readers turning pages all the way to the end of the book.

The most effective cliffhangers are multi-layered and are followed up by a powerfully engaging opening, employing deep POV details to ground readers in the next setting, character, or timeline.

Always read stories for pleasure first. But when you find a book that grabbed you and carried you all the way to the end, go back and study the cliffhangers the author used. Identify them by type, look at the openings that follow, sit down at your keyboard and type it. Get it into your fingers and your front brain, where the technique can work its way into your creative back brain and enrich your own work.

Cliffhangers bridge the gaps between the scenes and chapters in your book. They are important. Spend time working and studying, learning how to cliffhang effectively, and your books will pull readers all the way through from beginning to end!

Be sure to bookmark this page and refer to it often. Read the other articles in this series, too, in order to build a writer’s toolbox that goes way beyond a thesaurus or an English textbook, helping you master the art of suspense.

And don’t miss the next installment in this series—it’s all about pacing! An essential for any book containing effective suspense.

How about you? What’s your favorite kind of cliffhanger? Tell us about it in the comments.

The article Cliffhanger Meaning 101: What They Are and How Writers Use Them appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

Readers love great characters.

Think back to your favorite stories of all time. You might remember the story arc or not. You might remember the best bits of dialogue, or you might not. You might remember the setting descriptions, but let’s be honest, you probably don’t.

But the characters? Original characters? Your favorite characters? You’ll remember them for the rest of your life.

How do you create great characters? The short answer is character development, but what is character development and how can you use it to create characters readers love?

That’s what we’re going to talk about in this article. We’ll start by discussing the definition of character development and why writers need to do it. We’ll also talk about each phase of the character development process, from creating to developing to storytelling with them.

Throughout, we’ll look at lots of character development examples. Finally, we’ll get you started writing with a character development exercise.

Here’s a quick table of contents so you can jump to your favorite tips for character development in the article.

Character Development Video Guide

But first, would you prefer to watch this guide? Here’s a video I made for it:

Make sure to like the video and subscribe to our channel for more videos about the writing craft.

Now, ready to get started with this characterization lesson? Let’s do it.

What Is Character Development? The 3 Steps to Well-Developed Characters

Character development is the process of creating and telling a story about a fictional character. It’s far more than a personality trait list.

When it comes to compelling characters, there are only three steps:

1. Create a character
2. Develop the character (making them more sympathetic and/or villainous)
3. Then, put them into a story

That’s it. Easy right?

Actually, no. It’s not easy at all. You’ll need to make hundreds of decisions to create a well-developed character people can fall in love with. Each of these steps might take you days or months or even years.

Or they might happen in just a few moments.

J.K. Rowling said Harry Potter began when she had a vision of a young boy with a scar on his forehead boarding her train.

You might already have an idea for a character or a whole crowd of characters.

Of course, for Rowling it took her another five years to develop Harry Potter and write her first book.

And that’s what we’re talking about in this article: the process of taking ideas and turning them into living, breathing characters that can drive whole stories.

Let’s begin with the first step: creating characters, as well as the different types of characters you might need to create.

Step 1: How to Create Characters for Your Story

Of all the character development steps, this is the one I have the least advice about. That’s because characters are rarely created—they are discovered.

Before I came up with the idea for my last novel, I had a vision of a curly-haired boy on a beach. I didn’t know what my story was about at that point, but I knew it had to have him in it.

Just as J.K. Rowling discovered Harry Potter when he boarded her train, so most great characters come from a source that their writers have little control over. 

You might come across inspiration in real life—real life people who inspire you—but there are complex characters around you all the time in every movie, book, or story you read. Start noticing, and you’ll get a strong sense of what might inspire strong characters.

That being said, there are types of characters that you might need in your story, and if you know that you need that type, you can sometimes reverse-engineer the characters.

Types of Characters

There are two broad categories of characters and many different subtypes:

1. Protagonists

2. Secondary Characters

Most stories only have one or two protagonists, or main characters, which means that most of your characters will be secondary characters. What is a protagonist?

Protagonist definition: The primary character of a story. The character at the center of the plot, whose choices drive the story and whose fate determines the story’s outcome.

Protagonists tend to be dynamic characters who have a character arc that changes throughout the story. More on character arcs here.

Protagonists also tend to be point of view characters, meaning the narrator follows their point of view or they are a first-person narrator. (More on point of view here.) These characters carry the narrative, and in a story told in third-person limited point of view, they will be the only character whose thoughts and emotions the reader can see.

Warning: Unless you’re writing a love story, which frequently has two protagonists in the couple, be careful about having more than one protagonist. There’s a reason George R. R. Martin is still (still!) trying to finish A Song of Ice and Fire. The more point-of-view characters you have, the more complicated your narrative becomes, and the more problems you face.

There are three types of protagonists:

1. The Classic Hero. Think Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, Atticus Finch, or Katniss Everdeen. Classic heroes are brave, selfless, and try to do the right thing.
2. The Anti-Hero. Think Severus Snape, Huckleberry Finn, or Han Solo. Anti-heroes are not noble, rarely do the right thing, and might, in ordinary circumstances, be considered the villain.
3. The Ordinary Hero. Think Neville Longbottom, Holden Caulfield, and Jane Austen’s Emma Woodhouse. These characters have an even mix of admirable and less noble qualities, just like most of us.

Which type is your protagonist? Let us know in the comments. Also, read more on the three types of protagonists in this guide.

Secondary characters are the next category, and they contain all the other types of characters, including:

• Villain or Antagonist. Not every story has a villain, but for the ones that do, the villain is the chief source of external conflict.
• Love interest and love rival. In stories with a love plot or subplot, the love interest is the chief love interest for the protagonist and may even be a protagonist themselves. They may be static, meaning they don’t change over the course of the story, or dynamic, meaning they do change, but they add to the romantic tension. Similarly, most love stories involve rivals, another love interest who creates a love triangle and increases the romantic tension.
• Foil Character. A secondary character who acts as a mirror to the protagonist and is often very similar but different in one major way that allows us to better understand the protagonist’s personality and choices.
• Mentor. The mentor is a character who steers the protagonist, helps get them out of trouble, and provides chances for reflection. A mainstay of the hero’s journey plot structure, in many types of stories, without a good mentor, the character’s journey will end in tragedy (e.g. think about Hamlet, who had no mentor).
• Sidekick. A sidekick is a character who supports the protagonist. Besides the protagonist and villain, they have the most opportunity for characterization and provide dialogue opportunities and insight into the character’s mindset. Sidekicks appear in all genres, from romance (e.g. Mercutio from Romeo and Juliet) to adventure (e.g. Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings) to mystery (e.g. Inspector Beauvoir from the Inspector Gamache series) and more.
• Side Characters. Side characters often have fully developed personalities, long interactions with the protagonist, and perhaps even deep backstories. However, they rarely make decisions or change throughout the story.
• The Chorus. A term from playwriting, these characters may have names and vague descriptions, but they do not have fully developed personalities and are chiefly there to serve as bystanders.
• Suspects. Specific to mysteries and thrillers, suspects have fully developed personalities, and they serve as objects of exploration for the investigator. They should all have motives and appear at least somewhat guilty of the crime, if only to serve as red herrings.

These tend to be static characters with a flat character arc, at least within the confines of the story. However, great writers know that all characters have their own arc. Your job as a writer is to choose how much of that arc to show the reader in the story.

For more on each of these character types, check out our guide, 6 Character Types Your Protagonist Needs Around Them.

Step 2: Develop Your Characters by Making Them More Sympathetic (and/or Villainous)

Once you have a few characters, your work is not done. Now you have to develop them.

To do that, I’ve created a framework called the Seven Characteristics of Sympathetic Characters.

I learned this from Brandon Sanderson’s fantastic characterization lessons, as well as Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat and my own research into story structure and characterization.

These characteristics are reader candy. We love characters with these personality traits, and by adding them, you can quickly create a bond with your readers.

Think of this list as a checklist. The key is to include at least two or three of these characteristics early in your story, ideally in your protagonist’s first scene.

This list also works for your secondary characters, and it can be used to quickly add depth and connection.

For your villains and antagonists, you can use this list in the opposite way, making the audience dislike them, or even combining negative traits with sympathetic ones to give us a truly round, dynamic villain.

Here are the characteristics:

7 Characteristics of Sympathetic Characters

Use these seven traits to create believable characters who connect with the audience:

1. Takes action. Show your protagonist being proactive. Show them making a hard choice when faced with a dilemma and taking action to get what they want.
2. Treated unjustly. Show your character being bullied, persecuted, treated unfairly, or as the victim of injustice. One easy way to do this is to make your character an orphan, a trait shared by Hamilton, Harry Potter, nearly all of Charles Dickens’s protagonists, Anne of Green Gables, Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and many more iconic characters.
3. Shows competence. Readers are interested in people who have competence, who show off their skill (even if those skills are unusual).
4. Has friends. We’re attracted to people who show that they already have other people who like them. Just having a friend makes us more interested in someone. Show your protagonist is likable by surrounding them with other interesting characters.
5. Does a good deed. “Save the cat,” as Blake Snyder says. By helping someone in need, your protagonist establishes themselves as “the good guy,” despite any other negative qualities.
6. Has a humanizing quirk. Quirks are memorable things that create an instant visualization of someone, like Harry Potter’s scar on his forehead, Ron Weasley’s bright red hair, or Hermione’s frizzy hair. These can also include distinctive mannerisms, like a speech pattern, unique voice, or habits. Humanizing quirks are especially important for side characters, but a simple quirk can be a shortcut to help us quickly get to know a protagonist.
7. Secret vulnerability. Everyone has a secret, whether it’s a phobia like Bruce Wayne’s fear of bats, Superman’s weakness toward kryptonite, or Inspector Gamache’s terror of heights. By letting the reader in on your protagonist’s secret vulnerability, you create a bond that can last the entire story.

Once you’ve picked two or three of these that fit your character, include them in your early scenes. You can also include these throughout your story to make us fall in love with your character even more.

How to Create a Character Sketch

Once you’ve picked the traits, you can create a character sketch or character profile. This is where you record character traits and details to remember for the writing process or to continue developing them.

I’ll summarize the process below, but for a full guide, you can read about how to create a character sketch using Scrivener, one of our favorite writing tools, here.

You can mix and match elements to create your own character sketch template, but here are the character traits you might include in your sketch:

• Character name
• Photo (I just find something on Google image search to serve as a likeness)
• Character type (see 8 types below)
• One-sentence summary
• One paragraph description (including physical traits such as eye color and features, occupation, flaws, good attributes, and mannerisms)
• Goals (what do they want)
• Conflicts (what keeps them from getting what they want)
• Narrative (what they do in the story)

Remember, though, that the best way to develop memorable characters is to throw them into a story. Don’t sketch characters for their own sake, but to find where they fit into the story.

Character Development Questions: 78 Questions to Ask Your Characters

Another development technique is to interview your characters, imagining them sitting before you, asking them a series of questions, and imagining their responses.

You can invent your own questions, but there are also established lists of questions that have been used by writers for decades. Here are three helpful lists that, together, total seventy-eight questions:

The Proust Questionnaire. Used by novelist Marcel Proust when he was just fourteen years old, this questionnaire includes thirty-five questions that writers have used to find out who their characters are.

37 Questions to Ask Your Character. This list of unique and often surprising questions will help you discover many different sides of your character. Here’s an example: “What did you eat for breakfast? Did you make it yourself? What time do you eat breakfast? Do you wash the pan after you cook the eggs or do you leave it for the maid to clean? Do you have a maid?” We first published this list by Pamela Hodges in 2016 and since then it’s been shared over 6,000 times!

6 Revealing Questions to Get to Know Your Protagonist. This one is especially helpful to get to know your protagonist.

Try one or more of these lists and see if it helps you get to know a new side of your character’s personality.

Step 3: Throw Your Character Into Your Story

This is the most important step, and one that many writers take far too long to get to.

Some writers believe they have to know every aspect of each of their character’s personality before they start writing their book, from their earliest memories to their favorite afternoon snack.

However, this is often a waste of time. Why? Because your job as a writer is to put your character into stressful, high-conflict situations, and in those moments, their favorite afternoon snack is going to be the furthest thing from their mind!

That isn’t to say you shouldn’t spend some time getting to know your characters. You should just recognize that that’s only the beginning. The real character development begins when you start telling your story.

6 Steps to Character Development Through a Story

Character arc and story arc are usually the same thing. By telling a great story, your character will change and transform.

This arc follows the six elements of plot, which we go into detail in our plot structure article, but which we’ll summarize here:

1. Exposition. Begin with the character’s “normal.”

What does “normal” look like for your protagonist? In about one-half to no more than three scenes, show what normal looks like for your character.

2. Inciting Incident. A problem or opportunity interrupts the character’s status quo.

In the inciting incident, something interrupts the character’s normal life and forces them to respond.

For example, Harry Potter receives an admission letter from Hogwarts. A dead body is discovered in three pines, leading to a call to Inspector Gamache. William Wallace’s wife is killed by the English. The devil appears to Dr. Faustus, offering him a deal.

3. Rising Action/Progressive Complications. Problems and complications increase, causing conflict for the protagonist.

As the story continues, things must get more and more challenging for the protagonist. Maybe they’re getting better, maybe they’re getting worse, but they’re definitely getting more complicated.

Here, it’s useful to remember the century-old writing advice:

In the first act, put your character up a tree. In the second act, throw rocks at them. In the final act, bring them down.

This is the rock throwing part.

But as you increase the internal conflict and external conflict, your character will develop right before your eyes. You may discover new aspects of their personality you had no idea about as you watch how they handle adversity.

4. Dilemma. Give your character an impossible choice.

The purpose of the rising action is to put your protagonist into an impossible choice, a dilemma where they have two equally difficult choices.

I find this moment in Frozen to be a useful example for this (spoiler alert if you somehow haven’t seen Frozen!):

Princess Anna is moments away from freezing solid. The only thing that can save her, she thinks, is true love’s kiss from Kristoff, who is racing toward her. However, at the same moment, she sees Prince Hans about to kill her sister. What does she do?

• Option A: Save herself, continuing toward Kristoff but allowing Elsa to die
• Option B: Save her sister, choosing to stop Hans but sacrificing herself in the process

An impossible choice. But it’s dilemmas like this that are the engines of great stories and great characters.

5. Climax. The protagonist makes their choice and high conflict and action follows.

The protagonist chooses, and the result of their choice leads to the moment of highest action and conflict in the story. Remember, conflict in fiction directly impacts your character development.

This choice is so essential because it truly tests and reveals their character. Don’t skip it!

6. Denouement. The protagonist’s new normal is established.

What does the character’s new normal look like after going through the conflict and drama of the story?

This is a moment, usually just one scene, where we get to enjoy and bond with the character for a final time before the story ends.

Character Development Test: What Makes a Good Character?

On my podcast, Character Test, my cohost and I have found that there are four criteria that you can use to evaluate a character, to test and see whether a character is good or not.

Here, I’m not talking about whether they are morally good, but whether they are interesting, relatable, entertaining, and worth following. In other words, this is about figuring out whether readers will love them.

Also, this is what makes a good character. If you want to know how to make a good character, scroll down to the Character Development Steps section.

1. Good Characters Have Goals

Good stories are about characters who want something, and they experience challenges to get what they want.

Desire is central to good stories, good characters, and to the human condition itself. Good characters have deeply held desires and are willing to make sacrifices to achieve those desires.

That being said, those desires don’t have to start out as anything big.

As Kurt Vonnegut said, “Make your characters want something right away even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.”

2. Good Characters Face Challenges to Their Goals

As nice as it would be for your character to get everything they wanted without having to do any work, it would make for a very boring story! This is part of the conflict we discussed above.

I like what best-selling author Kristina McMorris told me: “I only give my characters a happy ending if they’ve worked really hard for it.” Kristina’s novel, Sold on a Monday, was on the New York Times Best Sellers list for twenty straight weeks, so she knows what she’s talking about!

3. Good Characters Make Decisions

Good characters take control of their own fate. They take action. They make choices, and they suffer the good or bad consequences of those choices.

Bad characters let life happen to them. Bad characters allow others to make choices for them. They never take action in their own lives, and it’s their lack of decision-making ability that makes them boring.

4. Good Characters Are Empathizable

I made this word up, but I think it’s going to stick!

Editorial note from Alice: Stop trying to make “empathizable” happen, Joe. It’s not going to happen.

You can empathize with good characters. Even if they are villains (especially if they’re villains), you can understand where they’re coming from, and maybe even relate.

Good characters, in other words, are human.

Bad characters are so foreign or perfect or evil that you can’t relate to where they’re coming from.

Bonus: Good Characters Change . . . Sometimes

Many will argue with this, but not all good characters change. In fact, you can tell a great story where the protagonist doesn’t change.

Take James Bond. In a few novels and films he changes (e.g. Casino Royale) but in most, James stays the same stoic, cocky person he started out as. And the novels are still great!

Or Inspector Gamache, my favorite detective from the series by Louise Penny. Inspector Gamache starts out as the perfect gentleman, a thoughtful leader, and an unerring investigator, and ends each novel the same way. There are a few individual books where he goes through deep inner turmoil, but even then he re-emerges the same amazing person, just a little bit stronger and surer in his ways.

There are many great stories where the character changes. In particular, it’s a hallmark of the hero’s journey (which is itself a form of character development). But it’s not always a requirement of a good character.

Character Development Writing Exercise

Now that you know everything about developing characters, let’s put your new knowledge into practice! Use the creative writing exercise below to practice bringing your characters to life!

And if you’re to create a character sketch for your novel, check out our guide on how to create a character sketch with Scrivener.

Good luck and happy writing!

What is your favorite characterization tip above? Are there any I missed? Let me know in the comments.

The article Character Development: Create Characters That Readers Love appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

You work hard to write your best story—and if you’re honest, you’re pretty sure it’s amazing. You share it with other writers to get their feedback, and they agree. You work up your courage and hit the “Submit” button, sending it off to a mysterious panel of writing contest judges.

And then . . . you wait. What will the judges think? Will they agree your story deserves to win it all? Did you write the kind of story that will catch the judges’ eye? What kind of story is that, anyway?

I’m going to take you behind the scenes and reveal exactly what judges are looking for when they choose the winners of writing contests.

The Bewildering Challenge of Judging a Writing Contest

In the final round of our writing contests, the judges are tasked with an almost impossible challenge: how will they decide which of a small group of excellent stories will win a prize?

For a story to have made it this far, it’s already undergone careful scrutiny by the entire panel. Every single judge has read and considered it, and enough have advocated for it so strongly that it’s moved forward to join an elite selection of stories.

We all know it has fans among the judges. We all know it has great merit. The problem is . . . so do the other ten, or fifteen, or twenty stories that were selected for the ultimate consideration.

How do the judges choose? What sets the winning story apart? And if a story that made it this far doesn’t win (and mathematically, that’s always the case), what’s the fatal flaw that knocks it out?

10 Storytelling Essentials That Wow Judges and Win Writing Contests

I’ve judged nine writing contests with The Write Practice, and I’m gearing up for my tenth. (Want in on the fun? Join our next writing contest here!) My favorite part of every contest is the discussion amongst the judges. I love hearing what they see in their top picks, what stands out about the strongest contenders.

Throughout these contests, I’ve picked up on some patterns. A handful of critical mistakes appear again and again—and in the final round, it’s these writing mistakes the judges consider as they make the toughest decisions.

I’ve distilled long hours of judges’ discussion into ten elements the winning stories must include. I’ve seen every single one of these essentials become the deciding factor about whether a story will take home a prize or not.

Want your story not just to make the final round, but to win the whole contest? Take a careful look at these ten elements and make sure your story includes each one.

1. Get inspired by the theme.

If the contest has a theme, make sure you adhere to it. You might write a brilliant story—but if you ignore the theme, skip part of it, or in any way disobey the contest guidelines, that’s a quick way to get your story disqualified.

2. Focus on a bite-sized story.

Here’s the thing: a short story is not a novel. You can’t tell an epic fantasy tale in under 1,500 words.

Choose a story idea whose scope fits within the word limit. The life story of a 103-year-old might be too long, but an unexpected detour on the way home from the grocery store might be just the right length.

3. Structure your story with clarity in mind.

This goes along with step #2. Yes, you can write a short story set across two time periods with five scene changes and three point-of-view characters, and fit it all in just 1,500 words. But should you? Maybe, maybe not.

When you’re working within a tiny word count, overcomplicating your story can quickly confuse your readers. Make sure that transitions are clear, and that each new element you introduce—a new scene, a new character, a new plot twist—moves the story forward rather than cluttering it up.

It can be hard to judge what’s confusing in your own writing, so have someone read your story before you submit.

4. Hook your readers (and the judges!) with a brilliant first line.

The first sentence of your story is your chance to make an amazing first impression. A powerful, surprising, and intriguing first line will capture the judges’ interest at the start and make them look forward to reading the rest.

Writing contest judges read hundreds of stories in a short amount of time. Make sure your first line gets them excited to stumble across yours.

5. Get straight to the action.

In a 1,500-word story, you don’t have space to write long passages of world-building or pages of backstory. And the truth is, that’s not the interesting part, anyway.

Don’t open the story with three paragraphs setting the scene. Instead, start your story at the moment when “normal” ends.

What’s the first sign of trouble? The first indication that something will be different about today? The inciting incident that kicks off the action? Skip the descriptive introduction and start your story there.

6. Give your character a goal.

“Make your characters want something right away even if it’s only a glass of water. Characters paralyzed by the meaninglessness of modern life still have to drink water from time to time.” —Kurt Vonnegut

Everyone wants something. It might be as small as another hour of sleep or as profound as one more day with their terminally ill grandfather.

Whatever it is, their want—and the things they do to get it—drive the story.

Make sure your character has a goal they’re pursuing. Stories about characters without goals ramble on, leaving readers confused about why they’re reading at all. Stories about characters who have clear goals and make decisions to pursue them keep us hooked, turning the pages to see what happens next.

Pro tip: Everyone needs something, too. Sometimes what they want and what they need aren’t the same thing. If your character achieves their goal, will that actually make them happy? Or will they have to deal with some unwanted consequences?

7. Cut excess words so you can focus on the story.

Are you 500 words over the limit and stumped about what to cut? Look for:

Backstory. Yes, you need to know everything about your character—but your readers don’t. It’s tempting to include every detail of their history that led them to this moment, but that will actually slow down your story and burden readers with unnecessary information. Get it all out on the page in the first draft. Then, as you edit, challenge yourself to cut as much backstory as possible. Pro tip: If there’s an important piece of information readers (and characters) need to know, use it as a surprising revelation to fuel the plot.

Florid description. Does a detail move the story forward? Does it show us something about the character or the plot that we need to know? If so, great! If not, cut it. Unless your story is about rogue painters vandalizing the neighborhood waste collection route, we don’t need to know what color your character’s trash cans are.

Adverbs. Cut them ruthlessly. “The road to hell is paved with adverbs,” writes Stephen King, and that’s especially true when you’re limited to just 1,500 words. While you’re at it, cut these seven words, too. Save your space for words that will move the plot forward, not weigh the reader down with clunky prose.

(Did you catch all the adverbs I used in that paragraph? Ouch. We all fall short of editorial perfection.)

8. Make your characters choose.

This is the crux of the story, the crucial moment to focus on. At some point in the story, your character must make a decision.

Throughout the story, the tension is building. The plot is thickening, the stakes are rising, and the risks are becoming greater and greater.

As the story approaches the climax, bring your character to a critical dilemma where they must choose how they’re going to respond.

If your character limps along without making a choice, or if they let the people around them choose for them, the story will feel dissatisfying and incomplete.

But as they choose something and then face the consequences of their decision, we’ll be riveted, wondering, how will they handle what happens next?

9. Make sure something changes.

That moment of crisis, the decision your character makes, has consequences. Maybe they took a risk and it paid off—or maybe they crash and burn. Whatever the case, something must be different as a result of their choice.

Remember, stories are about change. If your character finishes the story in the same place they began, you’ll leave readers wondering why they bothered to read it in the first place.

Make sure the trials your character experiences and the decisions they make leave someone or something irreversibly changed by the end of the story.

On that note, beware of writing a story where the main plot is a dream sequence. Unless the waking world is somehow different as a result of the dream, it feels disingenuous. Any change in the dream world is erased when the character wakes up. Why read a story where nothing changes?

And yes, this applies to daydreams, too. Make sure the story isn’t all in the character’s head.

10. Nail the ending.

The first 1,450 words of your 1,500-word story are riveting. You don’t have a ton of space to wrap it up, but surely if you just tack on some kind of closing, it’ll be fine, right?

Wrong.

It’s very, very hard to write the perfect ending to a short story, the conclusion that will tie up the loose ends neatly but not too neatly, leaving the story feeling resolved and also a bit mysterious. The judges know this.

They’re still looking for the perfect ending.

What does this story need in order to reach closure? What will resolve the conflict? What will allow us to walk away satisfied that we’ve truly reached “The End”?

Remember, a short story is complete in and of itself. It’s not the first chapter of a novel, or a teaser into something larger. Make sure your story stands alone, and that when it ends, this tiny glimpse into your character’s life is truly done.

An otherwise excellent story that fails to nail the ending won’t take the top spot. But a surprising yet inevitable climax that leads to a satisfying resolution will amaze the judges and make your story a strong contender to win it all.

Take the time to get your ending right.

Two More Notes About These “Essentials”

I’ve looked at all these elements from the perspective of a competition judge—what does our panel look for when we’re challenged to select a handful of winners from an abundance of engaging stories?

But there are two more ways you can read this list.

1. Feedback from the judges. One of the things that makes our writing contests special is the opportunity to get feedback directly from the judges on why your story did or didn’t win. I’ll let you in on a secret: 85 percent of the feedback judges write relates back to these ten elements. If you can master this list, they’ll find it a real challenge to give you any critical feedback.

(Want specific feedback on how your story did or didn’t fulfill these ten essentials? Join one of our writing contests and sign up for feedback from the judges!)

2. The secrets of great storytelling. A list like this can feel contrived: “Oh, you mean if I just sprinkle these ten arbitrary things into my story, it’ll be twisted so the judges like it?” But here’s the thing: the judges want to see these elements because they are fundamental skills of great storytelling. You don’t need a writing contest to apply them—master these skills, and you’ll become a better storyteller for any story.

Which of these essentials do you find the most challenging? Let us know in the comments!

The article 10 Critical Mistakes Writers Make in Writing Contests appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

Fall is a transitional season with lots of opportunities to delve into memories, activities, or seasonal fun with fall writing prompts. Try one of these creative writing exercises to get you writing during this beautiful season!

Writing prompts are one of the best ways to get in your daily writing practice and hone your writing skills. Whether you’re a parent or teacher trying to help reluctant writers get started or a seasoned pro looking for new ideas, today we have a series of fun fall writing prompts to help you transition from the summer season into the fall season, writing all the way.

Fun Fall Writing Activities

Write a scene about a character who is participating in their favorite fall activity. Bonus: add a secondary character who hates doing that activity.

Choose a genre (mystery, horror, romance, sci-fi, fantasy, thriller). Write a scene in that genre that begins in a pumpkin patch where something has gone horribly wrong. 

Create a unique fall festival competition that turns traditional fall activities on their head. (Largest pumpkin rolling contest, apple pie competition with odd ingredients, corn maze with some unique element that makes it extra fun or terrifying). Then, write about the winners and losers of the event you created. 

Write a story about a haunted (or otherwise magical) apple orchard. 

Create a scene where characters are surprised by a friendly scarecrow. (Or, alternatively, a less than friendly scarecrow!)

Story Starters for Cooler Weather

He dreaded the colder weather. It always…

The pile of colorful leaves began to shake until suddenly…  

Hot apple cider used to be her favorite fall drink until…

Football season was probably going to be canceled…

They’d been hiding for hours, but then the crunching leaves broke the silence…

Fall-themed Writing Prompts

Write about your favorite fall activities, including the first time you participated and any specific favorite memory associated with them. 

Create an epistolary story that could only happen during the fall. (Epistolary= told through personal letters)

 Write about the changing of seasons, how it feels to transition between the two. 

 Tell a creative story about how fall began (or, alternatively, about the adventure of a single autumn leaf). 

Create a cute fall book or short story for children about autumn animals, decorative scarecrows, or your favorite fall holiday. 

Now You Try 

The change of seasons brings with it a wealth of new opportunities. From hot chocolate and warm sweaters to the crinkle of leaves beneath your feet, there’s plenty to look forward to in autumn. Hopefully, one of these creative writing prompts sparked some new ideas or got your creative juices flowing as you write this fall. 

Looking for additional prompts? Try our most popular article of short story ideas! 

What is your favorite thing about fall? Share in the comments.

The article 15 Fun Fall Writing Prompts appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors

You can’t write a great story if you don’t master plot and structure. But what is the best structure for a novel? How do you plot a novel? Today, we’re going to look at these storytelling techniques and learn how you can build an effective plan for your entire plot.

Working on structuring a nonfiction book? Check out our nonfiction book structure guide here.

Figuring out your plot structure is essential for your story’s success. Even if you have an exciting idea for a story, great characters, and a memorable setting, you still need to put your protagonist through events that have high and escalating stakes, and structure them for maximum effect.

If you want to write a great story, you need to include the elements of suspense. You can do this by using writing techniques and devices like:

• engaging your reader on a deep level
• making your reader care about your characters
• pacing
• sequence of events
• cliffhangers
• planting clues
• foreshadowing

But without a sound plot and structure, you still risk failing to thrill your readers. By planning for success, you can create a story packed with suspense, with all the right twists in all the right places.

Definition of Plot and Structure

What is story plot? What is the best structure for a novel?

Plot is the series of events that make up your story, including the order in which they occur and how they relate to each other.

Structure (or narrative structure), is the overall design or layout of your story.

While the plot events are specific to your story, dramatic structure is more universal and deals with the mechanics of the story—how the chapters or scenes are broken up, how conflict is introduced and amplified, where the climax takes place, how the resolution plays out, and so on.

You can think of plot and structure like the DNA of your story. Every story takes on a plot, and every piece of writing has a structure. While plot is unique to your story, an understanding of effective structures and devices can help you develop better stories and hone your craft.

Searching for Structure

From the beginning of my writer’s journey, I knew story structure had to be a vital part of creating successful stories. But I wasn’t sure how to best construct a story, or which of the many models would produce the best results for me.

I started writing short stories using a nine-point, three-act structure consisting of hook, backstory, and trigger in act one. Crisis, struggle, and epiphany in act two. And plan, climax, and resolution in the final act.

This worked fine. At first. But as I expanded into longer writing forms like novellas and novels, I realized I needed something more. And something better-suited to the types of suspense fiction I like to write.

I explored several models of story structure, including the Algis Budrys seven-point story structure of simply putting a character in a setting with a problem and then employing try/fail cycles until the climax where he succeeds or ultimately fails before ending with a validation.

I also found a lot to like about Syd Field’s model for storytelling. Finally, I tried the Lester Dent Master Plot Formula for dramatic writing and found it works quite well for writing an exciting short story. But again, these models weren’t a perfect fit for me. My search continued.

Hitting Paydirt

Just as I began writing my first novel, I stumbled upon Shawn Coyne’s Story Grid and knew at once that it would be a game-changer for me. I wrote Nocturne In Ashes and Steadman’s Blind using Shawn’s Five Commandments of story to structure each scene and the overall shape of the books.

Following this pattern, I learned an incredible amount about how to hit all the right points in a three-act structure and make sure each scene is vital and has a turning point. But my writing process is still evolving. Though I would never trade my experience with the Story Grid structure, which really helped me get a handle on the micro view of storytelling, I was still looking for something ideally suited for writing mysteries and thrillers.

Let me tell you about what I’ve been using lately!

Six Elements of Plot That Strengthen Story Structure

When Joe Bunting published The Write Structure, I purchased it right away. However, it sat on my virtual reading shelf for a couple of months before I cracked it open and began reading.

Once I finally got started, I was delighted to find that The Write Structure resonated with me in so many ways. I knew I could use this pattern to write anything from a short story to a full-length novel and make it shine.

The book is filled with great tips, techniques, and advice for writers, backed up by examples and Joe’s own experience as a best-selling author. He takes you step-by-step through the six elements of a plot that will guide you in writing a stellar story and shows you how to develop each element effectively.

These are the six plot elements in The Write Structure:

Exposition

The Exposition is where you introduce your hero and establish the story setting, your hero’s world. By focusing on the core value at stake from the very beginning, you confirm the genre for your readers and introduce dramatic tension by setting up conflict and forcing your character to act on a choice.

In most types of suspense fiction, the story will turn on a core value of Life vs. Death or perhaps a Fate Worse than Death. Often, the internal value at stake is Good vs. Evil. Crime stories, on some level, usually deal with issues of justice and good guys vanquishing bad guys while lives are in danger.

During this exposition phase, use specific details and descriptive elements to sink your reader deep into the story and make them care about your hero and worry about what will happen next.

Inciting Incident

Once your reader is grounded in the story world and emotionally invested in your character, something needs to happen to interrupt the established pattern and rock your character’s world. An Inciting Incident begins the story arc that will eventually culminate in the climactic moment and resolution of your story.

The inciting incident should be inspired by, and reinforce, the core value at stake in the story. In a crime story, this event—whether coincidental or triggered by a story character—works best when it reflects a conflict between life and death or something worse.

The way you pace your story and deliver information to your reader is paramount to your story’s success, right from the very beginning.

Rising Action

Rising Action is where you raise the stakes and ratchet up the tension in a buildup toward the dilemma. These are the try/fail cycles, the struggle to understand the antagonistic force and find a way to defeat it through trial and error.

When thriller writer Lee Child was asked to divulge his recipe for creating suspense, he said it’s not so much about the ingredients as it is about making your family hungry, making them wait. This is where you spin out uncertainty and worry, making your reader hungry for the payoff.

I’ve written several articles about how to increase tension in a story’s plot by focusing on the elements of suspense. The writing techniques I’ve taught in these articles, such as how to create cliffhangers, write an action scene, and plant clues and red herrings, will help you develop rising action in your story. Learn more about how to use these powerful techniques in your stories by reading each article (linked in the previous sentence).

All of these writing skills will help you keep the story’s pace moving along through the middle, where many writers flounder.

Dilemma

Now we get to the crux of the story, where the rubber meets the road. The Dilemma boils down to a choice your protagonist must make—a difficult and crucial choice.

There are two types of choices that create the most conflict and drama. The first is often called the Best Bad Choice, where there is no happy alternative and your character is forced to choose from a menu of unsavory options.

For instance: Does Katniss cut down a tracker jacker nest and kill some of the tributes, or does she wait for the tributes to kill her?

The other variety of tough choices involves having to decide between conflicting goods, otherwise called an Irreconcilable Goods Decision. In this scenario, someone benefits while someone else is harmed. There is no win/win.

For example: Does Kramer hire someone to take care of his son in order to work a prestigious job, or does he step down from his career to be a reliable parent?

The dilemma is the heart of your story. It’s where your hero demonstrates his true character development. If you’ve created a sympathetic protagonist readers care about, they will be desperate to learn how he chooses and what happens as a result of that choice.

Climax

Your hero faces a difficult choice in the dilemma, but the Climax is where she acts on that choice and reaps the consequences of that action. This is the payoff you’ve been building toward since the beginning—the summit readers want to reach when they open a book.

It’s also where your hero gains or ultimately loses what she seeks. In suspense fiction, that sought-after objective is usually solving a crime and bringing the perpetrator to justice. Or it might be revenge, rescue, or the acquisition of wealth or power.

Whatever it is, it centers on the conflict between the core values at stake—life or death. The events in your story have transformed and prepared your protagonist for this final confrontation.

Now it’s showtime.

Knowing your story’s climax also helps to hone your skills of foreshadowing. You’ll be able to properly place your setups and readers won’t feel cheated.

It’s also a good idea to make sure you’ve honored reader expectations and delivered a story suited to what suspense fans crave.

Denouement

Writers are sometimes tempted to skip writing the Denouement of the plot or give it short shrift.

Don’t. If you want readers to look back fondly on your story and pick up your next book, give them the closure they desire.

Readers need a moment to savor the climax and feel the release of tension. If you’ve done a good job creating compelling characters, readers won’t want to say goodbye right away. Let them spend a little more time together.

This is where you validate your protagonist’s arc and reflect on how she’s changed. Even if the world around her is back to normal, she’s not the same person who started the story.

This is also where you wrap up any loose ends, and it’s the perfect place to bring secondary plotlines to a close. Read below to learn more about subplots.

A Sound Structure for Suspense

The Write Structure addresses the complexities involved in putting together a story that works on multiple levels to engage an audience, and it does so in a user-friendly way. Instead of overwhelming, it simplifies the process so that you can actually create a plan for your own full-length book in just eighteen sentences.

In The Write Structure, you’ll learn the nitty-gritty details about how to craft these six elements in your story to develop your idea into a full-blown, living, breathing creation that readers will love. The process gives you the tools to create the right structure for your book while still leaving plenty of room for flexibility and creativity.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the process is how it can be geared toward a particular genre—in our case, that means mysteries, thrillers, and adventure stories. In my opinion, that makes The Write Structure an excellent model for writing suspense fiction.

Plot AND Structure: Don’t Forget Subplots

If you use the six elements of plot, you’ll develop a sound structure for your suspense story—or any story. However, these vital scenes in the structure won’t uphold a story that can stretch the length of the novel. In order to develop the plot, you need secondary storylines, or subplots, too.

How do you use subplots?

What Are Subplots?

A plot is a series of linked moments, a chain of events with one leading into the next. In a short story, you’re better off sticking with a single plotline in most cases. Anything longer than a short story, however, is enriched by weaving in one or more secondary plotlines, or subplots.

You can see this clearly in just about any television episode. There’s an A plot and a B plot. The A plot is the main story. The B plot forms a supporting storyline that plays off the A plot and may highlight the theme or act as a foil or contrast to the A plot.

Sometimes the plotlines tie together at the end. Other times, they simply run parallel, and the secondary plotline has its own conclusion, usually in one of the last scenes in the book.

Here’s an example of how a subplot may operate to support the main plot.

Mr. Monk Goes to The Circus

In the television show, Monk, there’s an episode where Monk solves the murder of a circus ringmaster. That’s the A plot.

The B plot is introduced when Monk and his nurse, Sharona, go to the circus to investigate.

Here’s a clip from the episode:

The B Plot

The B plot comes into play when Sharona encounters the elephant and freaks out. We learn she’s terrified of elephants due to a traumatic scene she once witnessed at a zoo.

• Monk is oblivious to her distress—his only concern is that she isn’t responding to his needs. Sharona gets upset because she has to deal constantly with his phobias and idiosyncrasies, yet he has zero compassion for her over her fear of elephants. He enrages her by telling her to “suck it up.”
• Sharona starts a campaign to teach Monk a lesson. This campaign manifests at various points throughout the A plot when she refuses to hand him a wipe, drinks from his water bottle, coughs in his face, and messes up his orderly magazines. When he protests, she tells him to “suck it up.”
• Monk sends her flowers. He calls her to talk about the issue, and when she finally opens up and begins sharing her feelings, Monk gets distracted and hangs up on her to follow a lead from the A plot.
• Monk discusses the problem with his therapist, Dr. Kroger. Of course, Kroger understands why Sharona’s angry, but he refuses to explain it to Monk, insisting that Monk has to figure it out for himself—the answer is inside him.
• Monk and Sharona continue arguing. Just as she’s telling Monk he’ll never get it, Monk tells Sharona’s son to put his bicycle away, saying, “Let’s give your mother a break.” She points out that he was showing empathy at that point. It’s a start.
• Monk arranges for Sharona to confront her fear by meeting with the elephant and his master, unaware that the killer plans to use the elephant as a murder weapon to eliminate a witness. Sharona watches as this event in the A plot plays out and the elephant crushes his master’s skull, killing him.
• This makes things worse, and now Monk feels really bad. He pampers Sharona, tucking a blanket around her and trying to make her cocoa, but she ends up doing all the work, as usual.
• In the story’s climax—the A plot—the culprit tries to escape and is stopped by the elephant. Sharona comes face to face with the creature and Monk soothes and empathizes with her. Then over-empathizes and won’t shut up with the empathizing. Sharona remarks that she’s created a monster.
• Sharona feeds carrots to the elephant and tells Monk she’s over it—maybe there’s hope for him. But Monk is still Monk, and we know he’ll be back next week, still victim to a thousand debilitating foibles, to solve another baffling crime. (This is the Denouement.)

Do you see how the secondary plotline plays off the main plotline, intersecting it in some spots, adding dimension to the story’s climax, and providing the perfect ending? This is what subplots do.

Including subplots will elevate the tension and create depth to your main plotline.

Do You Really Need Subplots?

You don’t need to include a secondary plotline in your novel. But if you don’t, you’re passing up a great vehicle for adding depth, interest, emotion, tension, and excitement to your story. That said, it’s essential that readers understand who the book is about.

There should be one main character—your hero—whose story carries the most weight and whose arc comprises the main plotline. Readers should not be confused about who this is, so take care not to overwhelm that main arc when developing your secondary plots.

A secondary plotline can center on just about anything, including a character, setting, theme, motif, or problem. It can enter the story at any point and leave at any point—no need for it to run through the entire story unless that’s what serves the story best.

Every subplot, however, should be tied up by story’s end. The only reason you might consider leaving a secondary plotline open at the end of the story is so that it can function as a lead-in to the sequel.

For example, in my thriller novel, Nocturne In Ashes, the main story arc about stopping a serial killer is wrapped up in the end. But one of my subplots involved a police detective’s efforts to gain entry into an elite private security organization. That storyline left a dangling thread to be picked up in the sequel.

One more thing—secondary plotlines must relate somehow to the main plotline and not exist just to take up space or add complexity. They must have a valid story reason to be there.

Joe Bunting’s book, The Write Structure, also addresses how to handle subplots in structuring your story.

A Plan for Your Book Sets You Up for Success

Ultimately, the best way to structure your book is to find a process that works for you and the types of fiction you want to write. That may entail exploring and adapting, learning and growing as you move through your own writer’s journey and learn the craft of writing.

You may not want to use the same plan for every story. I still structure my short fiction differently than my full-length books, and I decide project by project how I’m going to do it.

I do think it’s important to make some kind of plan before you begin writing. When all is said and done, if you produce a story with all the right elements to attract and hold readers all the way to the end, you’ll have a well-structured story.

You can get there by making a plan to guide you—like signposts along your journey. Or you can stumble around through rewrite after rewrite until you finally arrive. Either way, structure is what you need to make it work.

Why not embrace plot and structure and make it your traveling companion on the road to success?

Want to learn more about plot? Check out The Write Structure, which helps writers make their plot better and write books readers love. It’s only $5.99 for a limited time. Check out The Write Structure here.

How about you? Do you use the six elements of plot and subplots in your stories? Tell us about it in the comments.

The article Plot and Structure: How to Use Structure and Subplot to Add Suspense appeared first on The Write Practice. The Write Practice - Transforming Aspiring Writers into Published Authors