I am a serious nerd. I grew up on J.R.R. Tolkein and played Dungeons and Dragons all through high school. Trekkie conventions, RPGs, Renaissance festivals, you name it. I had the punch mark on my Geek Card. I still remember being 3 years old standing in line with my father and uncle for hours as we …
Tag: conflict
May 30 2011
Scene Antagonists–The Making of a Hero
Last week we talked about the antagonists that drive the action thread of the story. This week, we are going to talk about a different type of scene antagonist…the antagonist that drives the inner change of a character. This will conclude this series on antagonists. To write truly great stories that will resonate long after …
May 16 2011
Anatomy of Conflict
Okay, last week I promised that we would resume talking about antagonists today. Well, I lied. My blog, my rules :P. Actually, I want to teach you guys more about scene antagonists and how they ratchet up the tension and drive the story’s momentum. The thing is, however, a lot of new writers don’t understand the …
May 13 2011
Little Darlings & Why They Must Die..for Real
Almost any of us who decided one day to get serious about our writing, read Stephen King’s On Writing. Great book, if you haven’t read it. But one thing King tells us we writers must be willing to do, is that we must be willing to, “Kill the little darlings.” Now, King was not the …
May 02 2011
Black Swan–Inner & Outer Demons
For the past several weeks, we have been talking about the antagonist. Whenever I blog about the antagonist, I always get, “Well, my character is the antagonist. She is her own worst enemy.” We have discussed this somewhat in an earlier blog. Virtually all protagonists, at the beginning of the story are their own worst …






