Thanksgiving Poem: Autumn’s Melody

Come on, come on, leave your constant worries for a time. Hear the cars in the driveway as family arrives. They come inside, their voices sound in the living room, chasing away a rainy day’s darkness and foul gloom. Come on, come on, loved ones are here, with arms open wide. ~ Come look, come …

The Importance and Power of the Climax

Ah, the climax. The part that everyone always gets to when reading a book. Unless they set the book down. Or the book doesn't have a climax. Whiiich would be weird. Almost every book has a climax, the part of the book that reveals much of the secrets that come up throughout the story, brings …

5 Ways to Craft Your Characters With Your Themes

Sometimes when we write the themes to our stories, we don’t consider the vast subject of crafting our characters to fit our theme. Many times we craft them separately, first creating the theme, and then creating the characters (or vice-versa). That is a big mistake. Whenever you’re crafting your characters, you should always have the …

How to Craft a Good Flaw for Your Character

Your character is almost done! You’ve figured out their looks, what they like and dislike, their friends, their enemies, how they talk, their sense of humor, but something...feels flat. Well, they might not have a flaw yet. “What?” you might say, “But I don’t want my awesome character to have a flaw!” Well, if you …

Four Part Blog Series: Beginning a Novel: Part 2: Fleshing out the Theme

So now you've written down the main ideas of your story, you have the basic blocks of your novel outline complete. Now you want to begin fleshing out your theme some more. 1: Brainstorm Even though you have what the idea of the theme is, think about this: how do the different characters respond to …