“Ogres have layers.” ~ Shrek Story characters should have layers. Some details are revealed only in gut-wrenching moments with another character as they let their walls down, and others are never revealed to other characters, but drive motivation throughout the story. You will probably not get all layers into your first/zero draft. Here’s how toContinueContinue reading “Adding Layers”
Tag Archives: characterization
Irreplaceable Characters
What made me think about this column is the surfeit of remakes that regularly roll through movies and TV executive offices. And are occasionally exercised in fandoms. I had to put my foot down in a recent discussion that there was no way to remake one particular 1980s TV show because it was so utterlyContinueContinue reading “Irreplaceable Characters”
Plotting New Character Goals
Welcome back to my newsletter. As I mentioned in my last newsletter, my goal in 2025 is to post bi-monthly. No better time to start a new habit than right away. As in life, you do not have to set an arbitrary future date to make changes in your life. Small, incremental shifts “one stepContinueContinue reading “Plotting New Character Goals”
November 2024
Here’s November’s actual newsletter. Thank you for your indulgence with my special notice last week. ~ LZ Writing Advice Photo by Dom J on Pexels.com If you are Nano-ing, happy writing! This month’s advice is about what to consider when you’re writing. This may help you get more words down in your writing sprints. ForContinueContinue reading “November 2024”
Individualizing characters
This is the last one where I’ll suggest you bookmark and come back if you’re NaNo-ing. Good luck as you finish! This is my last post on broadly editing the story you’ve written. This is not the end of such self-editing, but I feel like it’s important to thoroughly check your story’s structural pieces -ContinueContinue reading “Individualizing characters”
Growth
Again, consider bookmarking this post until after NaNoWriMo if you’re taking this month to write your book. In this second post for broad evaluation and fixing of your story, let’s talk about growth and change. What happens to us affects us. What we experience changes our perspective, our behavior, and our relationships. We understand thisContinueContinue reading “Growth”
Preptober Week 2
You should be coming to the end of the first book you’ve read this month and writing a review of it. You can publish that review, or keep it for yourself. That’s entirely up to you. For week 2 we’re going to focus the second half hour of your set-aside time on BRAINSTORMING. To writeContinueContinue reading “Preptober Week 2”
Recommended Reads: Characters
Character development, or characterization, involves a lot of psychology, IMHO. Filling out character sheets lends itself to very stereotypical presentations. Joe Friday’s “just the facts, ma’am” comes to mind when I see them. They even look like rap sheets, IMHO – very off-putting. If you want full-bodied characters, you can’t boil them down to wordsContinueContinue reading “Recommended Reads: Characters”
To POV or not POV
Today I’m going to talk about ways to figure out if a character in your story needs to have a scene written from their point of view. First, POV is more than just using third person (he/she/they) or first person (I/we us/them). It is about choosing a PERSPECTIVE — a lens through which readers willContinueContinue reading “To POV or not POV”
Setting as Character
Here’s more advice about developing your story’s setting. I’ve discussed setting in several previous blogs: That Can’t Happen Here, Plan your setting, and Creating setting. So you’d think, what else can possibly be said about setting? How about making your setting a character? Making it so full and richly detailed, and integral to the wayContinueContinue reading “Setting as Character”
LZ Edits | Editing Services 