Tag: Writing Tips

Scribes & Archers > Writing Tips
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” →

Worldbuilding for a First Draft

Worldbuilding for a First Draft

Posted on by R.M. Archer

Worldbuilding can present a number of challenges—often different for each author—but one that seems to be a universal struggle is the challenge of knowing how much worldbuilding to do before you start a writing project. Whether you’re an author who gets sucked into the worldbuilding and has trouble getting into the actual writing process, or an author who leans into the writing process and finds later that their worlds don’t have as much depth as intended, hopefully this post will be a help and encouragement on the subject of worldbuilding for the sake of drafting.

Enough is Enough

You don’t need to know everything before you start writing.

Those of you who prefer to dive into Continue reading “Worldbuilding for a First Draft” →

How Should Christians Write About… False Gods?

How Should Christians Write About… False Gods?

Posted on by R.M. Archer

This is the first of a couple posts I have planned on controversial topics among Christian authors of fantasy. Beyond this post, I want to write one about writing magic and I might add one about writing God’s speech (or the speech of an allegorical God figure). They won’t be consecutive, but they will all crop up eventually.

Do note that while these are titled “How should Christians write about xyz,” these are all topics I think are dependent on personal conviction and spiritual maturity and my goal is more to present my thoughts and provide food for thought and biblical insight than to say “This is the one right way to do things.”

With all that out of the way… How “should” Christians write about false gods?

Perspective One: Just Don’t Do It

Some Christian authors will say it’s never a good idea to write about false gods, whether because it’s idolatry, it detracts glory from God, it could mislead readers, or for some other reason. And some of these are valid concerns (certainly any of them can be depending on Continue reading “How Should Christians Write About… False Gods?” →