LIZORAE

Hey authors! It's another Fifth Week Update . Enough with the introduction, let's get straight into what's up the past three months. Milestones Finally, finally, finally. I think I've hit my stride with the posts. It's easier to just start writing and to keep writing. I've become one with the flow, my dudes.  Source: Giphy Blogging hasn't been a major challenge, but it was hard to start. Now, 27 posts later, my writing quantity has increased, I've become better at explaining and I write faster. (I hope.) Once again, I've changed my pin design. I'm still trying to find one that fits but I'm getting there. I've changed my formatting for the LFTM posts starting from  11 Lessons From John Flanagan's Writing . It's more book reviewy than before. Way easier to write too. :p New Posts Missed any posts from the last FWU ? Here's a list. Writing Is A Real Job! An Author's Purpose Lost Your Writing Voice? How To Get It Back Disney...

Last month, I shared  11 Lessons From John Flanagan's Writing . It's a massive series so there's a lot I still haven't covered. Here's three more lessons relating to character and the series in general.    1. Important character need to have purpose.  This one is mostly for  Brotherband . You have the Flanagan's standard cast: the main character (Hal), his best friend (Stig), the mentor (Thorn) and the girl (Lydia). But apart from them, you also get the other six members of the Heron crew. That doesn't include the relevant family members, the bad guys, the other crews from Book 1 , the side characters and a whole bunch of random dudes (with a few dudettes).  Out of all these characters, the only ones who are truly important are Hal, Stig, Thorn and the bad guy, whoever it happens to be in that book. Sometimes Lydia, but that's because she's the only female. The other characters aren't really important besides their one defining trait. Ingvar is...

So I had this random thought a while ago.  What would happen if a police was looking at the search history of an author? This post is a prelude to a future post I have in mind. See if you can guess! Disclaimer: I have no idea how the police works, so accuracy is probably nil. Any pointers would be appreciated.  [POLICE is looking at an author's history, frowning.] POLICE 1: [Scrolling] Breaking out of prison, how to stab people, Medieval torture... [Shouts] Hey, mate, I think we need to flag this person for dodgy search history.  POLICE 2: [Comes over and looks over Police 1's shoulder] Oh man, that's bad. Wait, is that baby names meaning hope? Baby names meaning fire? These are a whole lotta name sites.  POLICE 1: Paranoid parent? POLICE 2: [Takes over scrolling] How to use poisons...in writing?  POLICE 1: [Nods] Author. POLICE 2: [Sighs] Yep.

One of the greatest things in stories is change. Readers like change. Something in your story must irreversibly happen. The question is, what should change? Characters. We want to see how people move past their flaws and become better versions of themselves. Or maybe they don't move past their flaws, tragedy inspiring change in ourselves. Or even when our hero doesn't change themselves, but helps others to change. How the character changes is what we call character arc. Even though I'm no cook, I like to think of character arcs as recipes. Like any recipe, let's start at the beginning: the ingredients list. The Five Ingredients The five basic ingredients of character arcs are: the Lie, the Truth, the Wound, the Need and the Goal. All arcs have these ingredients no matter which type of arc your character undergoes. The specifics of the ingredients change depending on the type.  In this post, I'm mostly talking about the ingredients from a Positive Arc perspective. I...

Even though I'm not 7-13, I still love MG fiction. It's something that's stayed with me since I was 7-13ish. And even *cough* years later, the things that irked me back then still irks me now.  For some reason, I never thought to make a post about this until I came across this quote by Madeleine L'Engle .  “You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.” ― Madeleine L'Engle  Because of this, I'm counting this as a  TQM post , even if it's not how I usually run with the quote picking.  If you're writing fiction for kids, specifically MG fiction, this post is for you. Don't do these six things or you're sure to annoy your young readers.  1. Spelling everything out.  Source: Giphy If you're not sure someone will understand you, you'd want to make it as clear as P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E. Right? Don't get me wrong, it's a perfectly logical way to go. But...