Welcome back to the “crafting emotional resonance” series! This week’s topic is character reactions. How can the reactions of your characters to their surroundings, circumstances, and other characters really connect emotionally with your readers?
For many writers (myself included), dialogue is a character’s first response–especially Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 2 – Character Reactions”
One of the things I love most about Calligraphy Guild is the variety of character relationships, so today I thought I’d highlight some of the relationships I enjoyed most and relationships I would love to see more of in fiction—including a couple that don’t appear in Calligraphy Guild (though I have plans to use all of these at some point. ;) )
I’m the oldest of five siblings, so I love reading about Continue reading “Underrated Character Relationships”
Last week we talked about courtship and marriage customs, and this week we’re carrying on the family thread by discussing family roles as a whole. What role do families play in the culture of your world, or in the lives of your characters? And are they such that you can get away with not killing your teen protagonist’s parents? Well, let’s find out.
The first thing to ask is whether or not family is appreciated in your culture. If your culture values Continue reading “Family Roles in Fantasy Cultures”
A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post about the most important elements to develop in a fictional language to make the most impact on your readers with the least amount of effort. One of those elements was character titles, and I accidentally wrote a whole second blog post explaining those. I ended up having to backtrack and relocate half of what I’d written. XD Thus, this post was born, all about character titles.
I’ll be looking at the several types of titles that I briefly mentioned in “The Lazy Worldbuilder’s Guide to Conlang“: titles of address, titles of reference, titles of relation, and titles that substitute for a name.
Before we get into specifics, there are some principles that can be Continue reading “Creating Character Titles”
Characters are possibly the most important part of a book; the characters are who your reader will connect with. If your readers connect with your characters, they’ll willingly follow them through your story. But you have to make sure they connect, and character voice is a big part of accomplishing that. Your character’s voice involves all of their background and quirks, all of the personal behaviors and ways they speak that your readers will relate to. So let’s get into how to build a strong character voice.
It’s important to consider Continue reading “Building an Authentic Character Voice”
