character building

Editor Gabriela Lessa explains how to use outlining to generate a strong voice for your characters.

When we talk about plot as separate from the characters, the symbols, the locales, the dialogue, and the philosophical introspection, what we are doing is privileging events over everything else. But nothing exists in a vacuum.

If you can't portray someone you know personally in a positive fashion, you will probably lose this friend and/or be sued for libel.

What's wrong with overly nice characters? To begin with, they're boring. This is because they can't abide conflict, and smooth it over every chance they get.

As writers, we can spend so much time "fleshing out" our characters as individuals that we forget about the connections