Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 3 – Repressed Emotion

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 3 – Repressed Emotion

Posted on by R.M. Archer

Last week I talked about the importance of your characters’ reactions to the people and situations around them as a tool to connect their emotions with your readers. I talked about how to write those reactions in general, from the character’s perspective. But your characters won’t always be aware of what they’re feeling—or how they’re expressing it. Writing about those surprise emotions and responses is the topic of today’s post!

Outside Responses

Expressions and emotions that your character isn’t aware of—or simply isn’t acknowledging—require Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 3 – Repressed Emotion” →

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 2 – Character Reactions

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 2 – Character Reactions

Posted on by R.M. Archer

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?

Dialogue

For many writers (myself included), dialogue is a character’s first response–especially Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 2 – Character Reactions” →

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 1 – Character-Driven Description

Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 1 – Character-Driven Description

Posted on by R.M. Archer

Over the next few weeks, I want to focus on the craft of writing emotionally resonant scenes and stories. What does that mean? I want to give you the tools you need to not only convey the actions of a story, but connect those actions to the emotions of your characters and, by extension, the emotions of the reader. (Thanks to Courtney L for the topic of this blog post series.)

To kick off this week, we’re going to look at the details of prose. The biggest issue I see as an editor reading books and helping authors to build more emotion into their scenes is a lack of description that connects to the character. This leads to flat description that readers don’t really care about—and characters whose emotions are a mystery.

There are two potential issues at play here.

#1: You may be lacking description altogether.

#2: The description is there, it’s just not working.

Fortunately, both of these problems can be fixed.

When Description is Missing

If this is the case, my starting advice Continue reading “Crafting Emotional Resonance: Part 1 – Character-Driven Description” →

The Problem with Arranged Marriages in YA Fiction

The Problem with Arranged Marriages in YA Fiction

Posted on by R.M. Archer

This post is part of a collaboration with several bloggers to discuss romance tropes and the philosophy behind them. Stay to the end to check out the other participating authors’ posts!

I have a problem with the arranged marriage trope in YA and NA fiction, and it’s not the issue you might think. I have no objection to portraying arranged marriages in fiction, even to portraying them to a (reasonably) young audience. In fact, my problem with arranged marriage in YA fiction is that it is almost always portrayed in a negative light.

Before you get too worked up, allow me to say that I don’t think arranged marriage is necessarily the ideal these days, and it can be problematic. I don’t believe Continue reading “The Problem with Arranged Marriages in YA Fiction” →

2022 Wrap-Up and Goals for 2023

Posted on by R.M. Archer

Another year has come and gone, and boy… what a year it has been. Parts of this year feel like they belonged to last year, and in many ways this year has felt very long. How could so much have happened all in one year?? But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a look at how this year stacked up against my expectations.

2022: An Overview

I split last year into three parts relative to my camp job, and I’m tempted to Continue reading “2022 Wrap-Up and Goals for 2023” →