Tag: advanced writing tips

Flawed Characters vs. “Too Dumb to Live”: What Makes the Difference?

Which is more important? Plot or character? To write great fiction, we need both. Plot and characters work together. One arc drives the other much like one cog serves to turn another, thus generating momentum in the overall engine we call “STORY.” Writers have a unique challenge. On one hand we need a rock solid …

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How to Exorcise Inner Demons

We’ve been talking about the most critical flaw in most new manuscripts, and that is the lack of the CORE STORY PROBLEM. In order to make things simpler, I came up with the concept of the BBT (Big Boss Troublemaker) because the core antagonist is not always a villain. He/She/It merely has a goal that …

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Are Flashbacks Fizzling Your Fiction? Time as a Literary Device

We need to be careful how much we bend time and why we are bending time. Remember that every time we shift time, we can lose members of our audience.