Category: Articles and Essays
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Of Idiosyncracies, Formidable Personalities and Specifics
Describing an experience or person as bad or terrible will not suffice in fiction writing. Writing that the foster parents in a novel are mean or horrible does not flesh out the unique idiosyncrasies of their formidable personalities. Let us turn to the context of the orphan in a less than ideal foster home.
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Of Crevices, Cracks and Teflon…
Symbols deepen what we, as readers, come to know and experience with a character. But what makes us feel with and for her, or him [the protagonist]–cry with them, scream for them, die with them? What ultimately moves and transforms us, the reader, along with the central character of a story, or novel? Certainly obstacles…
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Of Talismans, Symbols and Goals
Every good story possesses not only a character, who through the author’s lucid and vibrant descriptions, draws us to root for her or him, but who also reflects aspect of ourselves with whom we have yet to make peace, or accept. The protagonists of these stories also face a formidable opponent, a living, and breathing…
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The Journey and Its Calling…
Each story or novel presents the main character with not only an upset in daily activities, but also a quest. That quest presents itself not unlike a summons to court. The protagonist, in arriving at court, must plead her or his case. And yet the judge, the bailiff, the jurors, even the attorneys for both…
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Of Avataric Moments, Desire, and Change
Symbols link yearning and desire with the change and transformation required for the central character to achieve her or his goal. To the extent that you can attach a physical object to the goal your central character fights to attain, the more you solidify, in the mind of the reader, the experience of your protagonist…
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Symbols: Talismans of Endeavors, Memory and Emotion
Large amounts of exposition leave readers weary and if not carefully positioned breaks the dream spell ideally evoked at the outset of a novel. Mining your fiction enriches your protagonist’s journey for the reader. They also serve as markers serving as point of identification that allow readers to touch upon the protagonist’s struggle.
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Setting the Stage
What is your protagonist doing, and or saying when the curtain lifts on the set of that first page of your story, or novel? Their actions and dialogue relay not only much about who they are while interacting in the world with others, but also their identity within the universe of their own personalities. They…