How character motivations create meaning

In my teaching, I focus a lot on helping editors understand how character, plot, and setting work together. These are the tools with which authors build stories. But there’s another we shouldn’t overlook: theme. Readers read stories not merely to find out what happens but to understand what it means. Causes Create Meaning I often…

Helping Authors Understand Character Development

Authors often use character sketches to understand their characters better. They’ll haul out a template and fill in the blanks with descriptions of the character’s appearance, when they were born, where they went to school, who gave them their first kiss, and more. Character Description Is Not Character Development While some of these details can…