Character Motivation and Beyond Motivation drives the decisions both of the characters and the writer throughout a plot. Books on literary analysis, such as the Norton Anthologies, often lump motivation with character and identity, whereas mystery readers have long regarded motive as a full and separate category in its own right. Carolyn Wells devoted a […]
Category Archives: Writing Tips
Lots of writing tips for the fledgling writer from accredited, award-winning sources!
See What I Say? The Power of Descriptive Writing
See What I Say? The Power of Descriptive Writing Once, describing the silly little Argentinian films starring Eva Duarte years before she became Evita Perón, Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes wrote that those movies were so bad; they seemed to have been filmed before the invention of cinema. Oddly enough, though, at some point, the film […]
Story Trumps Structure
Story Trumps Structure Twelve years ago, I had an idea for a series of mysteries featuring a one-armed detective. At that time, I attended a seminar by a well-known novelist who taught us to outline our fiction carefully and meticulously and then stick to the outline as we crafted our stories. In some cases, he […]