Helping Writers Become Authors

A series looking at the archetypal antagonists inherent within each of the six main archetypal "life arcs."

How can you tell what your story's premise is telling readers? Here are four questions you can ask about your story's premise.

The tremendous (but sometimes misunderstood) significance of the Climactic Moment in the ending of a story.

The role of the antagonist varies depending on the nature of the protagonist's character arc.

Should you edit as you go? The best choice has much to do with a writer's personality, strengths, weaknesses, and even lifestyle demands.

The world needs us all to be writers and creators. It needs the next Pulitzer winner, and it needs the scribbled poem forgotten on a napkin in a cafe.

How can you apply archetypal character arcs in a practical way to your own stories? Here are five considerations for choosing archetypes.

The final Flat archetype of the Mentor is one of the most significant within human storytelling.

The Flat archetype of the Elder provides crucial guidance for enacting important change in surrounding characters.

The Flat archetype of the Ruler represents the potential period in a person's life in which he or she is in a position of leadership.

We don't often think of the Flat archetype of the Parent with the same enthusiasm as we do the Hero. And yet they are intrinsically linked.

A deeply nuanced archetype that evolves with us for most of our lives, the Flat archetype of the Lover is inherent and integral.

Flat archetypes are often seen teaching other characters some of the same lessons they just learned in their own previously completed arcs.

Whether this powerful character brings life to the Kingdom depends on if he is in the grip of the King's shadow archetypes of Puppet and Tyrant.

The Queen's shadows have the potential to block her possibility for a positively transformative archetypal character arc.

The Hero's shadow archetypes of Coward and Bully are especially important (and cautionary) due to the pervasiveness of the Hero's Journey.

Learn to identify and leverage several important story structure similarities between your story's Pinch Points.

You can think of the link between your story's Hook and Resolution in four different ways. Ask these questions to help in brainstorming.

Structurally speaking, the Inciting Event initiates the story's conflict, while the Climactic Moment fully resolves it.

Once you've decided in favor of the indie route, what are the actual steps to self-publish your book? Use this actionable list.

Your antagonist's motivations can make or break your story. If they are weak, unconvincing, or complicated, your story suffers in key areas.

Once you understand why you are afraid to let anyone read your writing, you can come up with a successful plan to mitigate the fears.

Your story instincts and your ability to tap into them clearly will define how much "talent" you may have as a writer.

Learning how to write sequel scenes is a specialized technique that will allow you to grip readers' attention on every page.

Want to help writers during the pandemic? Here are five ideas--along with giveaways to help you get started in bolstering the writing community.

The more lightly we grab hold of certain misconceptions about being a writer, the more easily we can discard them when they're no longer of use to us.

Whether you're outlining or editing, here are four questions you can ask to help identify, rectify, or prevent plot holes.

Sooner or later, procrastination is stumbling block for most of us. As an INTJ, here are my top four tips for how to get stuff done as a writer.

Writing looks a little different in every stage of a writer's life. Here's a look at the way your age affects your writing in the Three Acts of your life.

How to better understand the four cognitive functions as a writer by consciously developing them--Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, and Feeling.

To help you improve your writing and storytelling, here are eleven exercises you can use to consciously access your visual thinking and creativity.

Have questions about editing your novel? The best way to find good answers is to ask good questions. Here are eight excellent questions about editing.

Controlling and cutting down on distraction is the first step in reclaiming our full creative capacity. Here are 13 tips to get started!

In order to grab readers, you'll need to consider several specific types of hooks for your opening chapter. You may want to use one--or all of them.

If you find you don't feel like writing right now, here's a list of 15 important writing tasks you may be more in the mood for.

The more you learn to listen to the self that appears on the page, the more writing improves your relationship with yourself in an ever-deepening journey.

Sometimes the hardest part of getting some writing done is just... doing it. Here are 10 tips for cultivating discipline and renewing enthusiasm.

Writing and stories have the power to help all of us--but especially writers. Here are seven ways writing can help us keep going in times of uncertainty.

If you're writing from home (or honestly, trying to accomplish just about anything from home), here are eight tips for maximizing your daily routine.

Want to put something good into the world right now? Here are five ways the power of hopeful stories can create change in a positive way.

Knowing your story's ending will help you know the right answer to almost any POV question. Let's look at 5 questions about using multiple POVs.

Your goal in introducing characters should be to do so with the least amount of info possible while still making the characters memorable. Here's how!

When creativity becomes a servant of the ego, rather than the other way around--we can get confused about what we're doing and why.

Here are fourteen professional writing resources to help with all parts of authorpreneurship: writing, editing, blogging/podcasting, book formatting, marketing.

Learn how to be critical of stories in a way that turns the potential for negativity into a positive force that drives your own creativity.

Of all the many aspects of scene structure, scene dilemmas are among the most powerful but also the most overlooked. Here are six steps to acing yours.