Conflict arises from a character seeking to achieve a goal and encountering an obstacle along the way. Another way of looking at this is CHARACTER + GOAL = CONFLICT. It is most helpful, when writing a story, if you can define the character’s goal in physical terms. But what if your protagonist desires love?
Conflict and Desire Read More »
A writer has three questions she or he must answer before or when beginning a story. Who is my protagonist? What does she or he want? And what is getting in her or his way? Each of these aspects delivers an important component of story. Together they create a force that propels plot. A story
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The face is an organic mask. It can’t hold falsehood forever. Eventually there is an unguarded moment when the muscles relax. And you see the true face of the person.” –Lisa Book, sister of Isabel Raine in Die for Me, by Lisa Unger Isabel Raine, the protagonist in Unger’s latest suspense thriller, Die for You,
“I didn’t pick my area of writing anymore than I chose to become a writer. …I love classic literature. And I’ve always had this dark imagination. I was the weird kid who was interested in that form in the window, or what lay under the stairs. I also have this ferocious curiosity about the human
On Writing, and Exploring the Human Heart Read More »
Author of literary thrillers,” Lisa Unger, was my guest on Saturday’s broadcast (September 26, 2009) of Book Talk, Creativity and Family Matters. “Die for You,” her latest release, and the other books she has penned (8 total), were among the many things we discussed, along with working to find balance between her work as a
Every novel seeks to answer a question. The question could arise from the premise, What if______meets_____, to which the plot of your story delivers the answer in showing what ensues when X meets Y. On another level your novel could raise a question that plumbs the depths of human personality and consciousness. Why is it
I have the idea for a story. It may turn into a novel. For now it opens with, “…The great god Maui, it is said, created the island Maui, by tricking his brothers into thinking he had caught a huge fish. He told them to paddle faster so that he could pull the fish to
An Idea for a Story… Read More »