Category Archives: Practical Tips

Drop Exposition through Arguments

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Here’s a short one… A person talking is often boring. People arguing are often compelling. If you have to drop exposition, try to do it in the back and forth barbs of an argument. Let the characters use the information … Continue reading →

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Using Index Cards for Your Story

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Excerpted from: 50 Sure-Fire Storytelling Tricks! By Melanie Anne Phillips Available in Paperback and for Kindle Index cards (3×5 or 5×7 in size) are often used by screenwriters to plan out the sequence of events in their stories. Usually, a script … Continue reading →

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Writing Tip: Keep a Creative Log

Posted on July 20, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

One of the biggest differences between a pedestrian novel and a riveting one are the clever little quips, concepts, snippets of dialog, and fresh metaphors. But coming up with this material on the fly is a difficult chore, and sometimes … Continue reading →

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Give each character a personal goal

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Personal Goals are the motivating reasons your characters care about and/or participate in the effort to achieve or prevent the overall goal. In other words, they see the main story goal as a means to an end, not as an … Continue reading →

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How to Reveal Your Goal

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Melanie Anne Phillips

While the structural nature of a story’s goal is crucial to developing a plot that makes sense, the storytelling manner in which the goal is revealed can determine whether a plot seems clever or pedestrian. In this tip, we’ll explore … Continue reading →

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Storytelling Trick 2 – Red Herrings (Changing Importance)

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Melanie Anne Phillips

Red herrings are designed to make something appear more or less important than it really is. Several good examples of this technique can be found in the motion picture The Fugitive. In one scene a police car flashes its lights and … Continue reading →

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Writing from a Character’s Point of View

Posted on August 13, 2012 by Sheldon

Perhaps the best way to instill real feelings in a character is to stand in his or her shoes and write from the character’s point of view. Unfortunately, this method also holds the greatest danger of undermining the meaning of … Continue reading →

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Love Interests and the Dramatic Triangle

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Sheldon

A lot of books about writing describe the importance of a “Love Interest.” Other books see a Love Interest as unnecessary and cliché. What does Dramatica Say? As with most dramatic concepts, Dramatica pulls away the storytelling to take a … Continue reading →

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Writing Characters of the Opposite Sex

Posted on August 6, 2012 by Sheldon

Perhaps the most fundamental error made by authors, whether novice or experienced, is that all their characters, male and female, tend to reflect the gender of the author. This is hardly surprising, since recent research finally proves that men and … Continue reading →

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Character Development Tricks!

Posted on July 9, 2012 by Sheldon

As trite as it might seem, ask yourself “What would a story be without characters?” The answer can help you get a grip on exactly what characters really do in a story, and therefore how to build them effectively. Although … Continue reading →

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