Emma Stewart Writes

Category: Writing Tips and Advice

Writing tips and advice

  • Five Tips: Creature Creation

    Creating Creatures? Here’s a Few Tips

    Creating your own creatures? Flora and fauna are an essential part of worldbuilding for any writer creating their own universe. There’s a lot to consider, and of course you need that suspension of disbelief to keep your reader invested. Things that make no sense will be jarring, so you need to have an in-universe explanation for things. So, here’s five tips for creature creation. At least, it’ll give you a few things to consider.

    Creature Creation Tip One: Nighttime, Day time

    Animals can be active during the night (nocturnal), daytime (diurnal) or in early morning and evening (crepuscular). Why does it matter? Usually, it’s about food. Either their food is more readily available at that time of day, or the animals that eat them are less active. It’s a bit of evolutionary give and take.

    Ectothermic, or ‘cold-blooded’ animals may be more active in the day when it is warm, basking in the sunshine to raise their body temperature. Rabbits are crepuscular, as it is easier to feed and hide from predators during that time. A lot of herbivores are more active in the daytime, while carnivores tend to hunt at night. If your creature is based on a real-world one, it’s worth looking up details like this and apply it to the world you’re creating. If large, dangerous predators prowl at night, most prey species will probably want to be hidden away safely in a den when it gets dark.

    Creature Creation Tip Two: Water, water everywhere

    One thing that is common to almost all living things, at least, the multicellular ones, is the need for water. We all need it, but some species can survive without it much longer than others. Fish, as a rule, don’t last more than a minute or two out of the water. While desert living mammals such as camels can conserve their body fluid for weeks if necessary. Most species can’t drink sea water as the salt content is too high.

    Amphibians and aquatic animals will need to have better access to water than camels or gerbils. A water dragon (the mythical kind) would be the same. So, think about the environment your creature lives in and how important water access is, or what strategies they might employ to conserve water and stay hydrated. Same goes for you, when you’re writing! Drink your water.

    Creature Creation Tip Three: Social Life

    Animals vary massively in terms of social structure. A lot of animals are solitary, living alone and only coming together for mating season. Bears, as an example, live alone. Which is great, if you’re an introvert. Many predators will live in small family units, hunting together co-operatively or on their own.

    Other species can have large and complex social structures. A lot of prey species will live in large herds, employing the safety in numbers strategy. As well as the ‘those who fall behind, are left behind’ strategy. Yeah… it’s how it goes in nature.

    This means that animals will respond differently when encountering another of their species. It can also impact how easily an animal can be trained or domesticated. Powerful predators that live solitary lives may not be easy to tame and train, like bears or dragons. I like the way polar bears are depicted in His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman.

    In Lyra’s world, the bears can speak and reason, they’re known for their craftsmanship. But they are different from humans, and they know it. They have a king, but most of the time the bears go off and live their own lives, only coming together when needed. They don’t work for humans, but as we see with Iorek Byrnison, if you earn a bear’s respect, they will defend you.

    Creature Creation Tip Four: Food and Resources

    When inserting living things into your world, you need to think about food. What do they eat? Are they herbivores, carnivores or omnivores? Can they only eat one very specific type of fruit that only grows in one place?

    You also need to think about whether the species is hunted itself. Does it provide good meat, eggs, milk? Are the horns magical? Do the hides make good leather for protection? Is there a reason for the people of the world to hunt these animals or domesticate them? What purpose do they serve?

    Pretty much all domestic animals were kept for a purpose. Livestock for food, dogs to protect and manage herds and settlements. Cats domesticated themselves but they were good at keeping mice and rats at bay. Horses for transport. If the species is domesticated, think about why and how this benefits or harms society.

    Creature Creation Tip Five: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome

    The most important thing, that ties everything together, is the environment. What I mean by that, is that all living species have adaptations to survive their native environment. Polar animals put on thick layers of fat under the skin and have thick fur coats to cope with the cold. Desert species can cope with very limited water supplies.

    A lot of people have strong opinions on the Theory of Evolution. Remember a scientific theory has been proven by scientific evidence. It’s not a question, a theory is confirmed. The evidence for evolution is everywhere in our world. Evolution happens over millions of years, but how species evolved and changed was largely dictated by the environment.

    Availability of food and water, temperature, landscape and climate all must be accounted for when deciding what animals live in an area of your world. If winters are harsh, do a lot of species hibernate, hidden away in caves until the spring arrives? If it’s a thick rainforest, most animals will be arboreal, living in the trees. This means they’d be good at climbing and jumping, to get around.

    It’s also worth considering what happens if a species is forced to live in an environment they’re not suited to. Can they adapt and cope, or are they going to struggle? Will they survive? For example, if we look at two crab species found on the Atlantic coast of the USA. The Atlantic blue crab and the horseshoe crab. Due to increasing temperatures in the water, the horseshoe crab population is declining, while the Atlantic blue crab is thriving in the warmer ocean. For more information, check out my videos on the Mirelurks of Fallout.

    Thanks for reading!

    I hope you found these five tips for creature creation useful, if you are populating your own fictional world. I will have more soon! Just remember, that animals have adapted to their environment, the climate and the kinds of food and water available to them. It’s all about survival and having access to what they need to survive.

    Don’t forget to subscribe if you want to be updated whenever a new post goes live. I’ve also got blogs for gaming revies and book reviews, which I will link below. I talk about lore and science in games on YouTube, specifically in Fallout, so you can check that out there. Follow me on my social media channels for regular updates on my writing journey. See you next time!

    Reading Blog is here.

    Gaming Blog is here.

  • Adverbs Are They Overused or Essential?

    Adverbs are sometimes overused but are they essential? Some people say that adverbs are redundant and that they weaken the verbs impact. Some say adverbs lead to messy prose and indicate lazy and cluttered writing. Is this true? To a degree, it is, but adverbs still have their place in my opinion.

    What is an Adverb?

    Adverbs are modifiers used alongside verbs, adjectives or other adverbs. Adverbs tell the reader ‘how, when, where, why, or to what extent’ They can be used to modify other adverbs as well. This is how they can end up being overused as you might find a direct verb is more succinct and clear.

    A lot of adverbs end in -ly such as ‘quietly, quickly, loudly, slowly’. Any adjective that you can add -ly to will become an adverb. Be aware that sometimes adding an -ly isn’t correct. Avoid using it with linking verbs associated with using the senses.

    “The cake smells nice/nicely.”

    Using an adverb here suggests the cake is doing the smelling, so you need to use the adjective ‘nice’ instead of ‘nicely’. Nobody ‘feels badly’ after receiving sad news, as they’re not using their sense of touch. So they ‘feel bad’ about it instead.

    Degrees of Adverbs

    Adverbs, like adjectives, come in degrees. There is the standard form, the comparative form that compares one thing to another and the superlative form which compares three or more things. Here’s a couple of examples.

    Adjective:

    Positive: Good Comparative: Better Superlative: Best

    Adverb:

    Positive: quickly Comparative: more quickly Superlative: most quick

    In formal writing you should use these forms of adverbs. Nobody is saying you can never use adverbs at all, but you should consider carefully if there’s a better way to say something.

    How To Avoid Overusing Adverbs

    One trap a lot of writers fall into is using adverbs to add more description and qualification to things. Especially in dialogue tags where writers will add adverbs to each dialogue tag to keep them varied and ensure the reader knows how each character is speaking.

    So when you find this in your own writing, look carefully at it and ask yourself if the adverb serves an important function to convey your meaning. Or if the dialogue itself and perhaps a brief indication of body language is enough to imply tone of voice and emotions. Look at this example.

    “I’m done with you! Never contact me again. Goodbye!” he yelled loudly into the phone before slamming it down angrily.

    What do you think? I’d say that the exclamation marks indicate loudness, and the verb ‘yelled’ also implies a raised voice so we really don’t need ‘loudly’ in this sentence. Same goes for the action of slamming the phone down, nobody does that if they are happy. Let’s rewrite it.

    “I’m done with you! Never contact me again. Goodbye!” he yelled, slamming the phone down.

    See? You use less words but it’s still clear that the speaker is angry. There will be times where you need an adverb. Use them where you need to, but ensure you do need them.

    Thanks for reading! I’ve got some more Fallout content coming soon, so look out for that. Follow me on social media for more behind-the-scenes and follow my YouTube channel for gaming and story-telling content.

  • Respect the Humble Comma

    The Comma is Important

    Commas are important punctuation marks. If nothing else, they let you breathe! Commas are a short pause in a sentence, compared to a full stop or period. The comma is essential in writing but often misused. So let’s look at some of the rules about comma usage.

    Lists and the ‘Oxford Comma’

    Writing a list of more than three items in a sentence? Commas are used to separate the items. The final two items have ‘and’ or ‘or’ between them. A lot of publications will not use a comma after the ‘and’ or ‘or’. This is the “Oxford Comma”.

    The Oxford comma,or serial comma, gives clarity. It is sometimes controversial, but there are definitely cases where not using it will cause confusion for the reader. See the example below:

    “The milkshake flavours are banana, strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream and vanilla.”

    “The milkshake flavours are banana, strawberry, chocolate, cookies and cream, and vanilla.”

    See the difference? It’s subtle, and most people would figure out that it is “cookies and cream” and not two separate flavours called “cookies” and “cream”. It is confusing, especially if your writing is being read by someone whose first language isn’t English.

    Commas are used to separate two adjectives in a sentence, but only if the order of the adjectives can be switched and still make sense. The trick is if you put “and” in between the adjectives and it still makes sense, then use a comma.

    The Dreaded Comma Splice

    The comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are joined by a comma, when they really should be separate sentences using a full stop. This can lead to a run-on sentence. Here’s an example.

    “She opened the fridge, her phone started to ring.”

    The two clauses are not related to each other. So, you can rewrite it as two separate sentences.

    “She opened the fridge. Her phone started to ring.”

    Or you can use a connecting word to join the clauses together and use a comma at the end of the first clause.

    “She opened the fridge, but her phone started to ring.”

    As a rule, if the subject isn’t used in front of a second verb, you don’t need a comma. You might need it for clarity if there is ambiguity about who is performing the second verb. You may need a comma before the word “because” for the same kind of reason.

    An introductory phrase or dependent clause needs a comma after it. Such as this example:

    “If you don’t know, I can’t help you.”

    Asides and Extra Information

    Adding an aside to a sentence with extra but not essential information, requires the use of commas. A comma comes before the aside, and one after it. This is an appositive comma.

    “Elaine, my girlfriend, has been there twice.”

    It is especially important if the subject is clearly identified already, because the additional description isn’t essential. Avoid ambiguity where you can. See these two examples:

    “My girlfriend Elaine has been there.”

    “My girlfriend, Elaine, has been there.”

    The first example suggests the speaker has more than one girlfriend and is specifying which one he is talking about. The second example indicates that the speaker only has one girlfriend so her name is additional information. This rule is often misused and can lead to confusion.

    Other Comma Uses

    Commas are used around words that introduce a sentence or expressions that interrupt the flow of the sentence. Things like “Well,” or “No,” at the beginning of a sentence. Same thing if you have a phrase like “by the way” or “however”.

    Writing dialogue is a big one for comma usage. I’ll cover that in more detail in the future as I’d like to do a series on writing dialogue properly. But introducing direct quotes requires a comma before the opening speech mark. For dialogue tags after the quotation, the comma comes at the end of the last word of the quote.

    Commas need to be used to separate a statement from a contrasting statement in a sentence, or a statement combined with a question. You would also use it before and after something like ‘e.g.’ or ‘etc.’

    Don’t Underestimate the Importance

    Commas are an essential punctuation, important for preventing confusion in writing. A well-known example is this sentence: “Let’s eat grandma.” Oof, cannibalism is rather frowned upon these days. “Let’s eat, grandma.” Much better. If you want proof of how important a comma is to the meaning of a sentence, try this one on for size.

    “A woman without her man is nothing.”

    Where do you think you could put a comma and how would it affect this sentence?

    “A woman, without her man, is nothing.”

    “A woman, without her, man is nothing.”

    The first version suggests that a woman is nothing unless she has a man. The second suggests that a man is nothing without a woman. So comma placement really does matter if you want your reader to get the right meaning for a sentence. 

    Thanks for reading, I hope this has been helpful. For more details and rules about commas, check the Blue Book of Grammar section here. It even has a quiz to check your knowledge. For more writing content, subscribe to my blog. I cover writing, proofreading and editing subjects, as well as analysing stories in various media. I also have a YouTube channel where I play video games and discuss the stories, lore and world-building. For more punctuation rules in dialogue, see this post.

  • I’m Back! Emma’s Writing Again!

    I’m Back to Writing

    It’s been a while, but I’m back to writing again. I’ve been away for a while, due to a few things in my personal life. I’m a chronic illness girl, unfortunately, and my health has been pretty bad the last few months. I’ve not been able to work on things I want to. Things have improved a little and I am in the process of starting some new treatment for my autoimmune condition which will hopefully make a difference going forward.

    So, what can you expect going forward? I’m working on getting back into my writing and editing work. I have been able to write more on my novel, and I am about two thirds through the first draft which is exciting. I am hoping to have the second draft finished by summer. I’ve also got an idea for another book in the works.

    For the blog, I am going to continue covering proofreading and editing topics, and I am going to delve into storytelling and characters as well. I would like to write about how storytelling works outside the world of books, particularly in video games. I’d also like to cover some more controversial topics, such as diversity and LGBTQIA+ representation in stories.

    I am considering setting up a newsletter as well, to keep everyone updated on my progress in my writing and other things I’ve been up to. I would like to eventually start producing video content on my socials and on YouTube. I’ll be talking about my favourite characters, stories and analysis of effective techniques in different media formats. With the new Fallout TV series in April, I will start with talking about one of my favourite video game franchises a lot! Watch this space!

    Follow along for updates and subscribe to the blog to get an update whenever a new post goes up.

  • Antagonists: The Bad Guy?

    Antagonists: The Bad Guy?

    lunar eclipse

    Antagonists: Always the Villain?

    On Monday we talked about the protagonist of the story. Today we look at their opposition, the antagonist. Villains are always antagonists, but not every antagonist is a villain. Essentially the antagonist is the one who is working against your protagonist and getting in their way.

    The antagonist does not need to be a person, you can see other things creating obstacles for your protagonist, whether it is rules or a force of nature or something like that. If it is a person, then generally they’ll do something to affect your protagonist, whether on purpose or not. Essentially they are involved in the challenge your protagonist needs to overcome.

    Villain

    The classic antagonist is the villain of the piece. The tyrannical leader, the arch-enemy of your hero or a criminal who is doing something morally reprehensible. Not all villains are pure evil, though. Some are, for the sake of power, hatred, greed or pure chaos and destruction. You know the kind who tend to go: “Bwahahahaha, you’ll never beat me, hero!”

    However, some villains are not so clear cut. We can even end up feeling sympathy for them. They could have a reason for doing what they do, and their actions might well be understandable. We may not be able to justify their actions, but we can perhaps understand their reasons for making the choices they do. This is what’s known as a ‘sympathetic villain’ and a good example is Magneto from X-Men. His experiences in a concentration camp taught him how evil humans were, and convinced him that mutants were always going to be worth saving over humans.

    Non-Human Antagonists

    As mentioned, not all antagonists are people. A force of nature or even fate itself can be the antagonist. Your protagonist may need to get an artifact from a hidden cave, but when he gets there the cave has collapsed. This could be natural deterioration or an earthquake that has made the task more difficult. Then nature itself is playing the role of the antagonist.

    It could also be a creature or beast of some kind that is just trying to do what it does. Godzilla is a classic example. Society itself makes for a good antagonist, as seen in the Hunger Games trilogy. We see President Snow as the villain, but really, it’s the entire society and setting that is the real problem. We see Katniss realise this at the end, which is why she chooses to walk away from it all.

    Be Your Own Antagonist

    One of the most interesting versions is where the protagonist is their own antagonist. It’s quite common in storytelling, where the conflict is internal within the protagonist. They are holding themselves back in some way, be it due to their own grief or some flaw of theirs that they need to learn to overcome. You can see this in the narrator in the Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.

    Of course, you’ll find that usually this type of antagonist isn’t the only antagonist of the story. There may well be external forces as well, and it forces your protagonist to deal with their own internal conflict while also facing an external problem.

    Conclusion

    So that covers antagonists and the different kinds you might encounter in stories. I hope that it was helpful. On Friday we’ll take a look at secondary characters, those that support your protagonist and antagonist and give more life to your stories. I hope you’ll join me for that. Until next time!

  • Protagonist: I Need A Hero!

    Protagonist: I Need A Hero!

    woman holding black flag
    Photo by Engin Akyurt on Pexels.com

    What is a ‘protagonist’?

    The main character is called the protagonist. This is the main focus of the story, it is their journey we are reading about. We learn the most about the protagonist, and we witness their development as they navigate the plot. You can have more than one protagonist, of course, that’s perfectly okay to do. Especially if it’s a romance novel or if romance is a big part of the storyline, you will generally have two protagonists in your story.

    So, the protagonist is the hero? Not always. Every hero is a protagonist in their own story, but not every protagonist is a hero. A hero is a specific kind of protagonist. Typically their actions save the girl/town/world/galaxy or whatever setting you have going on. Some of the best stories have a clear hero, from Odysseus and Beowulf to Luke Skywalker and Katniss Everdeen.

    Of course, there has been a surge in comic book movies in the last 15 years, with Marvel and DC both bringing many of their superheroes onto the silver screen. Each of their heroes has their own stories going on, with the larger group movies intersecting these stories at different points to tie them all together.

    Anti-Hero Protagonist

    Not every protagonist has the typical qualities that make them a hero. Indeed, some of them actively don’t want to be seen as a hero (looking at you, Deadpool.) This is referred to as an ‘anti-hero’ protagonist, see the Wikipedia page here. An antihero will have qualities that are considered less than heroic, where they do the morally right thing but for reasons that are morally ambiguous. They often have traits associated with the ‘Dark Triad’ of personality traits.

    The Dark Triad is a set of personality traits that are considered non-pathological but offensive in psychology. This includes aspects of narcissism (pride, a lack of empathy), Machiavellianism (manipulation and exploitation) and psychopathy (impulsivity, selfishness.) Some psychologists even add a fourth trait, sadism, the enjoyment of cruelty and the suffering of others.

    The antihero is very popular in modern media, a lot of people will root for the antihero and it can be seen in the success of a number of movies and TV series. Modern anti-heroes include Deadpool, but characters like Tony Soprano, Dr Gregory House and Walter White are all antihero protagonists as well.

    A Step Too Far? The Villain Protagonist

    The next step up is to make the protagonist the villain. This is where the morally questionable actions are not justified in any way so it is clear that they are the ‘bad guy’. A good modern example is in the video game Undertale, which has a great meta-narrative about video game protagonists in general.

    Usually in an RPG, you assume you fight monsters to gain experience and money. Undertale rewards you for not doing this and remaining pacifist throughout the game. You can complete a ‘Genocide’ run where you kill everything you come across and eventually no monsters come near you.

    Choose to do this, and you become the villain of the story. To the point where the main antagonist supports you, and one of the major characters calls you out on it and tries to stop you. I won’t go into too much detail to spoil it, although I imagine most people know the story by now. But the game punishes you for becoming the villain, with a lot of the best content gone.

    Conclusion

    Thanks for reading about protagonists with me. On Wednesday we’ll look at antagonists and their functions in fictional narrative, and why they can be the more interesting characters at times. I hope you’ll join me for that. Subscribe below to get notified when a post goes live, and find me on my social media channels. If you want to read more on characters, take a look at this post here. Until next time!

  • Character Relationships: No Man Is An Island

    Character Relationships: No Man Is An Island

    green trees on cliff

    Character Relationships

    Let’s talk about character relationships. As the quote in the title says: ‘No man is an island.’ What does that mean? Every single person has some kind of relationship that connects them to other people. Even a hermit living in a cave in the middle of nowhere will have relatives or something somewhere in the world. It takes two people to make a baby, so everyone has biological parents.

    That’s not to say everyone has relationships with their biological parents. Adoption, being orphaned or just cutting them out of your life because they were horrible people, there’s many reasons. Outside blood relatives, we have friends, partners, people we work with, all kinds of connections with people. For many of us, the people we choose to keep around us are the most important.

    “The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”

    Remember that? Most people know the shortened version which is supposed to tell us that familial bonds are more important than those we make ourselves, but the true quote has the opposite meaning. So, when it comes to your character, relationships are important. We need to know the kind of people they associate with and why. So it’s an important aspect of character creation.

    Family

    Consider your characters family. Who are their parents? Do they have siblings? Is there another family member important to them, like a grandparent or aunt or cousin? What is the relationship like now, and is that different from when the character was younger? What kind of influence did these relatives have on the character and how has it helped shape their personality?

    It’s worth detailing this in the early history section, but I also like to add a section dedicated to important relationships in my character profiles. For example Shaine, my protagonist in my current novel, had a great relationship with her parents. Her upbringing was full of love and support and she learned a lot from both of her parents. Alonso on the other hand, never met his parents at all. His father was a ‘client’ of his mothers, and his mother died shortly after he was born. Another character introduced later on has a sibling he has lost contact with and wants to find.

    I’m not suggesting you build a huge family tree and go back ten generations (unless this is important to your plot!) but if you really want to, you can. At the very least though, you should have at least the relatives your character has met during their lifetime and a little bit about the relationship, how they got along, if there was any conflict there, that kind of thing.

    Friends

    Friends are important. They are the family we choose, in a way. Even the most introverted person will have a couple of people they consider friends. Most of us will have different kinds of friends. Close friends we can trust with anything, work friends we get on well with at our jobs, more casual friends we hang out with in groups. Your characters should have the same thing. At least a couple of people who really matter to them.

    Depending on your plot, you might not include these friends within the story but they could be there in the background. If they are involved, it’s a good way to demonstrate certain aspects of your main characters. Of course, there’s always room for your main character to make new friends along the way, and also for them to outgrow old friends as the plot changes them and makes them shift their priorities.

    It’s okay to let go of old friendships if they no longer work for you. That applies in real life as well as in your characters lives. People change, life happens and sometimes you need to move on. I have had to make this decision in the past, and it’s tough but sometimes it’s best for both of you.

    Romance and Love

    Not everyone has to have a romantic partner. The single life can work perfectly well for some people. Others will have a partner, or have had long term partners in their past. Some people may have had a number of short casual relationships. All of these are valid. Bear in mind that not every relationship is going to be what some people consider ‘conventional’. Polyamory is a thing in real life, so it can absolutely exist in fiction. Different sexualities and relationship types are always a good thing to incorporate but make sure you understand what you’re doing so that you can represent these relationships accurately. Polyamorous relationships, where there are more than two partners, are built on trust and open communication. It should not be used as an excuse to cheat without getting into trouble for it.

    It’s okay for your main character to have an established romantic relationship of some kind at the start of the book. Even if you are writing a romance. It’s also okay for them to be single and looking for a romance, or not looking. It all depends on the genre and plot. Obviously for romance stories, the development of a relationship is the whole point of the plot. In other genres, a romantic subplot of some kind adds some interest for the reader and it’s realistic. Even in a fantasy novel, a group of adventurers spending weeks together travelling for example, feelings can develop and it gives your readers something to root for.

    Back to my current novel in progress, I haven’t decided if Shaine is going to find a romance subplot or not, but Alonso’s history comes back to bite them. He is pansexual, and he was in a long term relationship with another assassin. They had quite a messy breakup, and Alonso moved on, but his ex comes back to surprise him. It’s a minor detail, but it impacts how the surprise is handled and affects the characters. He may also find himself interested in a strapping young man they stumble across. We’ll have to see!

    Conclusion

    So remember to have a think about some of the important relationships in your characters life and include it in your characters profile as well as dropping it into the story where it makes sense to do so. These character relationships are important. The key thing for your readers is relatability and realism. Characters that are like real people, respond in ways that while maybe not optimal, are understandable and are relatable are the ones your reader will get really excited about.

    That’s all for this week. Apologies that this one is a day late, but starting next week, I’d like to look in depth at some character archetypes and what they can bring to your stories, so hopefully you’ll join me for that. Subscribe below to get an email when a new post is live and follow me on social media for updates and behind the scenes. Until next time!

  • Personality Traits: Getting To Know Your Characters

    Personality Traits: Getting To Know Your Characters

    This is who I am

    Personality Traits

    Every character is a person (even if they’re not human!) and that means they have a personality that is uniquely theirs. Just like in real life, everyone has a handful of personality traits that dictate how they behave, how they speak and how they react to situations. For your main and supporting characters, you need to flesh this out quite a bit to make them real people that your readers will love, or love to hate, or feel some kind of way.

    There needs to be a balance too. Personality traits can be generally divided into positive and negative traits. Every character should have some of each kind. Yes, your good guys need to have negative traits, and yes, your villains need to have positive traits. Don’t treat this as a box-ticking exercise either, the traits need to feel realistic and make sense in the context of your character’s history.

    Where Do I Start?

    Think about the characters role in the story. Are they a protagonist, with a goal to reach by the end of the plot? What is their goal? What do they need to overcome to achieve this goal? Then you can think of what traits they should have in order to attain this goal. Are they determined, so they will stop at nothing to reach their goal? Are they analytical, meaning they will assess and calculate the best plan possible? If they need help from someone, are they friendly and charismatic enough to convince this person to help them out?

    Remember that even positive traits will have some downsides. Someone who is very determined can also be stubborn, refusing to change things based on new information or advice. Someone who is very friendly might not endear themselves to someone who is very antisocial and wary of strangers. Relate it back to the character’s history as well. Why are they so determined? Why are they so suspicious?

    Negative traits can also have upsides. A character who is very suspicious and mistrustful will be harder to take advantage of or fall into a trap by trusting someone. The downside is obviously that they are very guarded and find it hard to form relationships with other people. This kind of trait comes from a past where they have been betrayed by people they trusted or mistreated by a parent or partner.

    How To Show Personality Traits

    When you’re writing prose, you obviously don’t want to list the traits of your character when you first introduce them. Remember what I talked about before, about introducing a new character. This is where the old ‘show, don’t tell’ advice comes into play. Personality traits will come with associated behaviours and responses. A mistrustful person will ask questions and not take what people say at face value. They will keep people at arms length and avoid revealing much personal detail in conversations.

    Someone who is friendly will make small talk with people. They will speak kindly, offer up some information about them freely and make a point of remembering people’s names. They will smile a lot and have open body language, keep their promises and stop to help someone without being asked.

    Tone of voice and language choices will indicate personality traits in dialogue. People who are shy will speak quietly, hesitate and use filler words or sounds a lot more and will avoid speaking up in a group situation. A character who is surly and grouchy will snap at people, use one-word responses and commonly be sarcastic and snarky.

    Remember that your characters may change over the course of the story and this should be reflected in how they act. One of the major plot points should be your protagonist overcoming a major character flaw in order to reach their goal. It might also be a big thing for your antagonist to overcome their negative traits in some way and see the error of their ways.

    Resources and Methods

    There’s a ton of good resources out there to help with this aspect of character creation. There’s also a few ways to approach character creation, so you should find the one that works best for you. It might help to plan out the character’s background a bit first. Then you can make a list of their positive and negative traits, relating them to early experiences and even making notes on behaviours and how they speak which will show these traits. You can then refer back to these notes when you are writing to make sure you are staying in character. It’s also important to compare these lists for your characters to highlight possible sources of conflict or relationship development between them that you can include in your writing. Because it’s not fun if the characters get along perfectly well all the time!

    A few resources I have found are readily available online. There’s a series of books available as ebooks called Writers Helping Writers, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. The Negative Trait Thesaurus and the Positive Trait Thesaurus are both really useful for this. There are chapters discussing how to write and use these traits for your characters and how to build characters, as well as a huge list of traits with definitions, possible causes, behaviours, thoughts, emotions, positive and negative aspects and examples. They also cover how a character can overcome a flaw and how a trait might cause conflict with other characters. These are so useful, and they have a bunch of other books covering settings, emotions and obstacles. I highly recommend them. You can check out their site here and find links to purchase their books. (Not an affiliate ad! I just really find their books helpful.)

    Conclusion

    Thank you for reading. I hope this has been a helpful introduction into personality traits and how to choose them. A good well rounded personality makes for a great and engaging character to read about. On Friday, we’ll take a look at relationships between characters, because as the saying goes, “No man is an island.” Subscribe below to get notified when that post goes live. Until next time!

  • Character Backgrounds: Skeletons in the Closet

    Character Backgrounds: Skeletons in the Closet

    greyscale photography of skeleton

    Character Backgrounds

    This week, I would like to talk about character development. As an author, you should know your characters inside out, everything about them and all the skeletons in their closet. The best way to write genuine, believable characters is to make sure you know them inside out. For today, we’re going to look at character backgrounds and history.

    Everyone has different methods, however, a lot of people get bogged down in their name, their appearance and a list of merits and flaws. That’s all important stuff, don’t get me wrong, but it is important to know their background. Every single one of us has a unique personality and pattern of behaviour. Our experiences shape who we are. All the good and bad things that happen to us, shape us into who we are. With every new experience, we change a little bit more. We learn from what happened before and we choose our behaviour accordingly.

    What Happened To You?

    One thing I like to do with my characters is write out a full and detailed bio for them. I’ve done this for years, I spent a lot of my early adulthood writing fanfiction and written roleplay. Anyone who has been one one of these roleplay message boards will have done a character application. The longest section should be the history section. A breakdown of the important events in that characters life, and the effect that these events had.

    What this should do is explain their traits and their behaviours. Someone who has been bullied or abused early in life is not going to trust easily. Someone who grew up sheltered and hidden away from the world is likely to be gullible and easily led astray. What led them to the career choices they made? Why are they good at fighting? Were they trained, or did they learn by having no choice but to fight for survival? Do they have secrets or skeletons in their closet?

    The history should lead up to who the character is at the beginning of the story. You then continue this throughout the story, shaping the character as the experiences of the plot continue to shape them. A lot of what you will write in the history section will not be included in the book, but little mentions here and there will make your character feel real to your reader. If it helps explain why your character does something a particular way, or why they react to a situation in an unexpected way, all the better. Here is a little bit from one of my character’s background in my current WIP.

    How Alonso Became An Assassin

    The young elf had spent his whole life in this brothel. He had been born here, his mother had died a couple of days after he was born. The women raised the orphans as a group, putting them to work in some fashion as soon as they were capable. At age seven, Alonso was responsible for cleaning, basic food preparation and clearing up dishes from the bar room.

    The owner of the brothel was a horrible man, He was loud, temperamental and violent. Alonso hated him, as did the majority of the brothel’s inhabitants. One of the girls was cooking the owner’s meal in the kitchen one night. Alonso had been collecting glasses and plates from the bar room and was standing on a crate by the basin, washing them.

    The owner had been served his meal, but was not happy as the bread had been burnt a little on the edge. Alonso could never understand complaining about food, unless it was rotten. The brothel owner cared. Alonso winced as the door flew open, banging loudly against the wall.

    “How dare you burn my food, wench!” the man’s booming voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.

    The girl screamed and begged, and Alonso turned, he couldn’t help it. Big blue eyes widened in shock as he watched the man grab the girls wrist, holding her hand in the fire until her skin began to crack and blister. She squealed in pain, begging for him to stop, apologising, struggling. The man held her there for what seemed like hours, although it was really less than a minute, before letting her go and storming out again. One of the other girls ran to her side, helping her up and taking her outside to put cold water on the burn.

    Alonso’s eyes narrowed, tiny fists clenched tightly. His heart was racing, his chest felt tight. A voice came from the doorway, and it took him a second to recognise his own name.

    “Alonso, boy, fetch the master’s drink,” the barman called.

    An idea came to him, and Alonso followed outside, trying not to hear the poor girls sobs. He looked around, finally finding what he was looking for. There was a plant that grew outside, it had looked tasty enough, but Alonso had made that mistake once. It was poison, not deadly, but enough to put a child like him in bed for a week. He ripped off a few of the leaves, sneaking back into the kitchen and grinding them up, adding the sap to the pitcher of ale the master used before filling it. He took it out to the bar, and one of the others took it up to the master’s room.

    Alonso went back to work, finishing washing the dishes and taking himself to bed afterwards. The master was absent the following day and the next few days were peaceful and pleasant. All seemed well until one night. He was shaken awake in the early hours of the morning, to find the old matron kneeling over his pile of rags.

    “Come on, boy, wake up. Quickly now!”

    “What’s going on?”

    “Pack your things, boy. I saw what you did, but the master will find out when he recovers. I’ve been watching you, young one. If you come with me now, you can make something of yourself. If you don’t, he will put you out on the streets, if he doesn’t kill you first.”

    Alonso shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

    “You will. But you must leave with me now, boy.”

    “Okay, Matron,” Alonso said, gathering the handful of possessions he had, a knitted blanket his mother had made, a book of children’s stories and a handful of coins he’d managed to save, delivering letters. Little did he know, this was only the beginning of a colourful career as a deadly assassin.

    Alonso Cabiella’s history, by E stewart

    Discussion

    You don’t need to write it as prose like this, I just thought it would be fun to write it like that so you could see it. You should know these details. Even if you don’t explicitly mention them. Having a summary of important events of your characters past will help you keep them genuine and figure out how they would respond to the situations the plot is going to put them into.

    The example above; is the story of how Alonso was recruited by the Assassin’s Guild is the example. In my world, the guild like to acquire them as children, should they show good potential. They go to a boarding school for education and training until adulthood. After that, they are apprenticed to experienced assassins to begin work. The old matron works as a contact for the guild, and she had already suspected Alonso fit the bill, the incident where he poisoned the brothel owner as revenge for the girl was what confirmed it. The quick thinking, resourcefulness and using his own knowledge and experiences to decide what to do.

    Conclusion

    I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, and if there’s any particular examples of this that you really like. Look out for more on character development later this week. For more, subscribe below and follow me on my social media channels for more updates. For other posts covering characters take a look at these: here and here.

  • Punctuating and Formatting Dialogue

    Punctuating and Formatting Dialogue

    How To Format Dialogue

    You’ll remember that before we talked about breaking the rules of grammar within dialogue. That’s totally okay to do but when it comes to how we format and punctuate the dialogue itself within the text, there are important rules that must be followed. This is essential for making sure your dialogue is easy to read and follow. You don’t want your readers getting confused on who is saying what. So here’s the rules and tips for formatting and punctuating your dialogue.

    Paragraphing

    When writing dialogue, it is essential that the dialogue starts in a new paragraph. Even if it is just one or two words. After that, each new speaker gets a new paragraph. This applies whether you have two speakers or ten. So for a conversation between three characters, let’s call them Dave, Steve and Karen, you would format it like this.

    Dave

    Steve

    Karen

    Steve

    Karen

    Dave

    This way it is clear that a different person is speaking for each line of dialogue. This also means you can reduce the use of dialogue tags a bit.

    If a character is saying a lot at once, a longer monologue, you may choose to break it up into paragraphs. In this case, you should open each paragraph with quotation marks but only the end of the dialogue on the last paragraph should have closing quotation marks. This makes it clear that the preceding paragraphs are part of the same dialogue.

    Quotation Marks

    Direct dialogue must be enclosed in quotation marks. The general convention is to use double quotation marks – ” – these ones. Although in UK English it is also correct to use single quotation marks – ‘ – for direct dialogue. Either method is correct, but whichever one you use, make sure you’re consistent with it throughout the text.

    For quotes within dialogue, these should be enclosed in quotation marks that are different from the ones you use for dialogue. So if your dialogue is contained within double quotation marks, you should use single quotation marks for quotes within dialogue, and vice versa.

    “He literally said, ‘That’s not what’s going on.’ That’s what he said to me.”

    or

    ‘He literally said, “That’s not what’s going on.” That’s what he said to me.’

    Commas

    When introducing dialogue, you should use a comma before the opening quotation marks. If you are ending the sentence containing the dialogue with a dialogue tag, the comma goes at the end of the dialogue before the closing quotation marks.

    Steve said, “It wasn’t me.”

    “It wasn’t me,” Steve said.

    Remember that dialogue tags are part of the sentence. If the word after the closing quotation mark is not a proper noun, it does not need to be capitalised. Even if you end the dialogue with a question mark or exclamation mark. If you are not adding a dialogue tag at the end after the closing quotation mark, then the dialogue should end with a full stop (period) not a comma. Unless it is a question or requires an exclamation mark. You can see this in the above examples.

    Interruptions and Trailing Off

    During natural conversations, people will trail off or interrupt each other. That’s normal, especially during conversations that are emotionally charged. How can you show this in written dialogue, especially when you need a new line for a new person speaking? Two pieces of punctuation can help with this.

    For interruptions, the best thing is a dash. Not just any dash, the em-dash. The em-dash is called this because it is the longest dash, the width of a capital M. They’re not easy to find on most keyboards, because they should be used sparingly.

    They look like this: —

    The keyboard shortcut is ctrl + alt + dash key. There may be different ones on different software programs.

    “So, then I—“

    “Hey! You better come quick!”

    For trailing off, where the speaker stops speaking because they’ve realised something or lost their train of thought, you need the ellipsis. The infamous triple dots…

    Depending on the style guide you use, there may or may not be spaces between the dots. The Chicago Manual of Style uses spaces between the dots . . .

    Ellipses should be used only where necessary. It’s not uncommon for them to be overused. That gets tedious to read very quickly, and if they’re used too much, they lose their impact very quickly.

    Conclusion

    So that’s how to format and punctuate your dialogue. I hope you find it helpful. Go forth and write your dialogue effectively! Thank you for reading. Next week I’m going to start with some writing analysis posts, taking a look at some of the themes and subjects covered by pop-culture and examining how the writing explores these themes. Starting with one of my favourite TV shows of all time, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the spin-off, Angel. I’m also planning to challenge myself a bit with writing some short stories and flash fiction to get the creative juices going as I work on my novel.

    If you want to be notified when the next post goes live, subscribe below. Follow me on my social media links for updates and behind the scenes ongoings. As always, I’m available for proofreading and editing work, so if you want to chat about working with me, get in touch here.