Angela Ackerman's Blog: Writers Helping Writers

When a character suffers emotional pain, the brain’s response is to stop the discomfort, and often this results in a coping mechanism being deployed. Whether it’s an automatic response or a learned go-to strategy, a mechanism helps them cope with the stress of the moment or escape the hurt of it.

But if the character develops an unhealthy reliance on that mechanism, problems will arise. Long-term, certain coping behaviors will impair their connections with others, their ability to achieve goals and dreams, and their resiliency in handling life’s pressures.

At some point, they must have an Aha! moment where they realize their coping method is holding them back and they need to seek other ways to deal with stress. Namely, they’ll have to adopt healthier mechanisms that enable them to manage difficulties and ultimately have a happier future.

To help you write your character’s growth (or regression) journey, we’ve created The Coping Mechanism Thesaurus, which contains a range of coping methods. The one we’re highlighting today can be damaging, and we hope this partial entry will help you show your character’s struggle in a way readers can relate to.

DissociationDefinition

Subconsciously detaching from reality when threatened with psychological pain or overwhelm. For example, someone undergoing an intense medical procedure may mentally separate from their body to create emotional distance; then they can observe themselves and endure the experience from an outside, safer perspective. This mechanism is typically born from trauma, especially when it occurs in childhood and adolescence.

What It May Look Like

Feeling detached from their environment, as if it isn’t real
Feeling, at times, as if they’re watching themselves from outside their body
Being unable to remember past events
Often being accused of not listening or paying attention (because they’ve mentally checked out)
Disconnecting when conflict or a confrontation arises
Losing track of time during stressful moments; struggling to recall them clearly

Basic Human Needs It Could Compromise

Esteem and Recognition: Confidence and self-respect are bolstered by successfully navigating difficult circumstances. Both are hard to find for a character who is unable to face challenges head-on and resolve them.
Safety and Security: This mechanism can make it hard for the character to think logically and escape danger; it may protect them emotionally in frightening moments but may subject them to situations that create lasting physical and emotional harm.

Fallout (and Possible Turning Points)

The dissociation leading them to accidentally hurt themselves or someone else
Loved ones losing patience with the character’s inattention

Commitment to Change

Replacing unhealthy coping mechanisms with positive ones is how your character turns the page, but it starts with internal work, new habits, and practices:
Working with a therapist to uncover the trauma at the root of this mechanism
Learning breathing techniques to calm the nervous system

For help brainstorming your character’s responses to stress, see our master list of healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed and expanded, the rest of our descriptive collection (18 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, then give our Free Trial a spin.

The post Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Dissociation appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Author, copyeditor, and writing coach C. S. Lakin shares ways to create microtension through setting descriptions.

You’re probably wondering what microtension is, and what it has to do with fiction writing. Oddly, very little has been written on the topic, yet it’s an essential element that supercharges our writing.

No, it’s not the tension created by conflict or suspense in a story. Just as its name implies: it’s tension on a micro level—the level of words and phrases, and the level of subtle, tiny bits of tension created by surprise (or, what C. S. Lewis called surprisingness).

Microtension is the subtle, moment-by-moment tension woven into the language itself. While plot delivers the big dramatic turns, microtension keeps readers engaged through every line.

Writers often overlook this level, focusing instead on structure and story beats (which are important, no denying). But memorable, impactful fiction lives in the details—in the words, the imagery, and the phrasing.

I like to call microtension “sticky bits”—the words and phrases that make you pause, the images that spark imagination, the subtle shifts that arouse curiosity. When those accumulate, readers feel anticipation, intrigue, even a touch of unease. Microtension “bits” are like the pungent spices you add to bland food to give it a kick. When you have a constant flow of “kicks” in your prose, readers keep reading.

Microtension via Setting Description

One of the most effective places to embed contradiction is in setting description. Too often, writers default to harmony: a sad character in a gloomy place, a joyful character in a sunny meadow. While this can work, it rarely surprises or piques a reader’s curiosity. Microtension sharpens when the setting either mirrors the character’s internal state too perfectly—almost mockingly—or directly contradicts it.

Microtension is created through contradictions between a character’s internal state and the setting around them. Readers naturally expect the setting to reinforce the mood. But when those expectations are disrupted, it carves a microtension pathway.

How to Create Dissonance with Setting

Instead of defaulting to harmony, it helps to pause and consider the relationship between environment and emotion. Does the setting reflect what the character feels, or can you portray it in sharp contrast to those feelings?

During revision, it’s worth looking closely at moments that feel emotionally consistent or too neatly aligned. These are often opportunities for contradiction.

Writers can create microtension by connecting small environmental details to a character’s inner conflict. A description isn’t neutral—it’s filtered through the POV character’s perception (or, at least, it should be). When a character’s emotions are unsettled, even ordinary surroundings can feel slightly off. A pleasant or neutral setting may contain small elements that disturb the mood, or the character may interpret otherwise harmless details as threatening.

Another effective technique is to give the character mixed feelings about the setting itself. She might be drawn to it and wary of it at the same time. This internal push-pull infuses otherwise quiet moments with tension.

In the novel Vita Nostra by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko, a girl named Sasha is experiencing a growing discomfort about a man in the marketplace who, she is sure, has been watching her. She and her mother pass him on their way to the beach.

Once settled on the shore, they rented a beach chair and placed it in the usual spot, but for the first time, Sasha did not feel like swimming. She wanted to return home and lock herself up in the apartment. Although, if she thought about it, the door in the apartment was flimsy, made of plywood, a mere illusion covered with ancient faux leather. It was safer here, on the beach, crowded and noisy, with inflatable mattresses floating in the water; a little boy stood knee-deep in the water, and the floatie around his belly was shaped like a swan with a long neck, and the boy was squeezing its pliant white throat.

Sasha is clearly disturbed, and the authors drop in words like flimsy and plywood, illusion and faux (fake). All words that subconsciously hint that her safety is tenuous. Her vulnerability is driven home by the surprising description of how a little boy is holding his floatie—it smacks of danger and violence, incongruous with the fragile, white (think: innocence) throat. It’s a small, brief detail, but it creates powerful microtension in that moment as Sasha’s mood and mindset are reflected in how she observes this harmless boy.

In the opening of the blockbuster psychological thriller Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, we get this strange thought in Nick’s head that seems to be interrupting the typical “wake up in the morning” ritual we tend to experience each day:

The sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the river toward our house, a long blaring finger aimed at me through our frail bedroom curtains. Accusing: You have been seen. You will be seen.

The sun is not warming, bright, and inviting; it’s angry, accusatory. We are immediately piqued with curiosity. What is Nick feeling guilty about? What has he done? That alone might get many readers turning pages. Describing the sun as angry and watching and pointing at him (personification), juxtaposed with the word frail (which perhaps hints at the condition of his marriage or his ability to keep his secrets hidden), is microtension.

Here’s a passage from Max Barry’s Lexicon. The POV character, Wil, has been kidnapped and drugged at an airport, but he manages to break away from his captors. Notice the way Wil’s mind jumps about and lands on a weird setting detail.

Run, Wil thought, and yes, that was a solid idea. He found his feet and ran for the exit. In the glass he saw a wild-eyed man and realized it was him. He heard yelps and alarmed voices, possibly the tall man getting up, who had a shotgun, Wil recalled now, a shotgun, which was not the kind of thing you would think could slip your memory.

He stumbled out into an ocean of bright frightened faces and open mouths. It was hard to remember what he was doing. His legs threatened treachery but the motion was good, helping to clear his head. He saw escalators and forged toward them. His back sang with potential shotgun impacts, but the airport people were being very good about moving out of his way, practically throwing themselves aside, for which he was grateful. He reached the escalators but his roller skate feet kept going and he fell flat on his back. The ceiling moved slowly by. The tiles up there were filthy. They were seriously disgusting.

Nearly every line of this author’s scenes has some surprising, unexpected element, whether it’s in the word choice and imagery (an ocean of frightened faces and open mouths; his back sang with potential shotgun impacts), the rapidly shifting emotions and juxtaposition of his fear with his confidence and even gratitude, or the strange shift in Wil’s attention as he muses over the filthy tiles on the ceiling as he’s lying on his back on the escalator (also a surprising and fresh action). Readers are kept glued to this story because every page is full of delightful surprises.

When we study the works of microtension masters, like Barry, we begin to see how the many pathways intersect and build a strong net that undergirds and supercharges powerful writing.

Setting is just one microtension pathway fiction writers can use to supercharge their writing. Look for key moments in your scenes when your character can interact with her setting, either reinforcing or mirroring her mood or mindset or clashing in contrast.

Remember: microtension works at that micro level of words and phrases. Brainstorm and cluster words and phrases to add microtension to your pages and see how “sticky” they become!

C. S. Lakin is a book copyeditor, writing coach, and the author of more than thirty books (fiction and nonfiction). Her Writer’s Toolbox Series and online video courses at cslakin.teachable.com have helped thousands of fiction writers pen unforgettable novels.

Check out her new release, Masterful Microtension: The Essential Element of Powerful Fiction, which provides the only extensive instruction on microtension published to date. You can find this book, and all the volumes in the Writer’s Toolbox Series, online at Amazon and all other bookselling venues.

The post Creating Microtension Through Setting Description appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Ever feel like you’re having such a hard day or week or month that you’re not sure how to write anything at all? You’re not alone.

Recently, someone in the writing community on Substack posted the following: “Don’t you love it when you don’t work on your WIP for three months and then you write 2,000 words in an hour, out of the blue, because you are stressed about life and don’t know how else to heal your soul besides write?”

First of all, 2,000 words in an hour is nothing short of amazing! Second of all—aside from being impressed by the word count, I found myself shaking my head. If we find that we are writing—or not writing—as a direct result of our emotional state, it’s going to be difficult to meet any of our long-term goals. While cathartic writing definitely has its place, it’s imperative that we learn to make the shift from writing reactively to writing intentionally. Here are four ways to help you make that shift:

1. Learn to View Your Writing as Work That You Do, Instead of as an Extension of Yourself

Shifting your mindset from “I bleed every word from the depth of my soul” to “I work hard at my writing, which exists apart from me” will free you from the paralysis that happens when angst and art collide. We all have days when we don’t feel well or our car breaks down or we read something scary in the news. Or days when we receive a rejection from our dream agent or read a line-edit that makes us feel like we’ve got the writing skills of a second-grader. In other words, life happens. But with a line firmly drawn between who you are (a capable human) and what you do (write stories), you’ll have the strength to “Keep Calm and Write.”

2. Pull Back from the Negativity of Social Media and the News

Our nervous systems were not designed to handle the inundation of bad—and sometimes horrific—news that’s available to us. By continuing to feed our minds and hearts with upsetting videos and sensationalized coverage of traumatic events, we are inadvertently keeping ourselves in fight-or-flight mode.

What does that mean for our creative process? Well, for some of us, it’s going to mean “I can’t write.” For others, it might look like, “All I can do is write all the words I can about how upset I am right now.” Which, again, is a valid thing to do. But if your angst is getting in the way of productive writing, you’ve got a problem on your hands.

Protecting yourself from the constant onslaught of negativity is protecting your craft as well. Get out in nature, read a (real, made-from-a-tree) book, spend an entire morning with your bestie in your favorite coffee shop. Don’t allow the doom-and-gloom around you to steal your peace and creativity.

3. Grow a Thick Skin That Can Handle Disappointment, Critique, and Distraction

You’ve probably heard this one before. Writing is hard on its own, and learning to continue writing through inevitable disappointments and setbacks is critical to your success as a writer.

Growing a thick skin may make sense to you in the context of disappointment and critique. After all, no one feels happy about a rejection letter or negative review, and no writer is going to feel like throwing a party after reading rough feedback.

It’s the distraction part that may need your attention. Because every social media post or news clip reminding you of the latest horror is doing just that—it’s distracting you from your work.

Am I telling you to stick your head into the proverbial sand? Of course not! But there’s a difference between keeping your fingertips lightly on the pulse of current events—and getting swallowed by them. The former is responsible; the latter, self-destructive.

4. If You Are Seriously Struggling to Overcome Emotions That Paralyze You, Consider Counseling

As someone whose life has been immeasurably improved thanks to a gifted therapist, I’m a big fan of getting help when we need it.

Writers fall under the umbrella category of “creatives”, who tend to think bigger and feel bigger and respond bigger. (Note: “bigger” doesn’t necessarily mean “louder”.) And sometimes we might need a little help learning to regulate our emotions.

Because honestly? It’s not okay to simply stop writing for six months because you’re stressed. Or abandoning your manuscript because your boyfriend broke up with you. Or feeling guilty about writing a lighthearted middle grade novel because something terrible just happened in the world.

We’ve got to feel our feelings—they’re what make us distinctly human. But if those feelings are calling the shots and either keeping us from writing or channeling our writing into an outpouring of emotional frenzy? Something needs to change.

Ultimately, our writing should be an intentional, sustainable practice that doesn’t wax and wane according to what’s going on around us. Your stories are your gift to the world–so why not do whatever it takes to make sure you can keep writing them?

Learning to write when it feels hard may just become your superpower!

Summary for busy writers: Big emotions can derail our writing. This article details 4 ways we can guard against this.

Want more from Jillian Boehme? Subscribe to Quite Write—her Substack just for writers (it’s FREE)!

The post From Cathartic to Intentional: How to Write When It Feels Hard appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

A new book is always something to celebrate, but we are extra excited about this one. Fear is more than an emotion that shows up in tense moments–it lies at the heart of every character’s journey.

Every battle your character faces, every personal struggle they endure, every doubt, insecurity, and false belief they internalize…fear is the engine driving it all.

More than an emotion, fear exists to warn against threats. It activates the body and mind, alerting people so they can protect themselves from harm. But pain–emotional or physical–can’t always be prevented. This is when fear sinks its hooks, pushing characters toward avoidance: situations that may contain risk, people who might hurt them, and choices that carry a cost.

This pattern of avoidance means lost opportunities for meaningful connection, personal growth, and fulfillment. For characters with big goals, fear will block them from achieving the very thing they seek.

If you need help with characters who…Resist changeMake the same mistakesPush people awayHide from uncomfortable truthsFeel stuckAnd struggles to change

Then this is the book for you. The Fear Thesaurus spans 80+ deep fears that might be holding your character back, so you can craft a character arc journey that forces them to confront their demons, break through emotional barriers, and find their inner strength. (Want to see inside the book? Go here: Fear Thesaurus Writing Guide Sample.)

Whether a character fears failure, change, heartbreak, or something else, The Fear Thesaurus helps you brainstorm:What situations may trigger a specific fearHow fear shows up in their behavior and decision-makingTypes of internal conflict they will likely struggle withEmotional wounds their fear may have stemmed fromHow fear might hinder and disrupt your character in the storyWays they can minimize or overcome what’s holding them backAnd more!Where to Find The Fear Thesaurus

Amazon: Not yet. Releases May 12th
Google Play: Not yet. Releases May 12th
iTunes, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Indigo, etc.: Not yet. Releases May 12th
The Writers Helping Writers Store: Yes! Find it here.

Book Bonus: The Fear Thesaurus Companion Hub

Inside this book is an access portal to The Fear Thesaurus Companion Hub, which contains exclusive free resources:

Fear Factor WorkshopGreatest Fear WorksheetFear by Genre HandoutBuy Direct Bonus: The Phobia & Triggers Mini Help Guide

Currently, The Fear Thesaurus is available only at our Writers Helping Writers store.

By buying direct, you’re not only supporting us (thank you), but you’ll also get a gift from us: The Phobia and Triggers Mini Help Guide. In it, we explore 10 iconic phobias, what might trigger them, how they shape character behavior, and more!

We hope this guide helps you write characters who are as unique and human as people in the real world. As always, thank you so much for making our thesaurus books a part of your creative journey!

If you’d rather wait to buy this guide at a different store, The Fear Thesaurus will be available at Amazon and other retailers on May 12th.

The post The Fear Thesaurus Is Here! (Early Release at Writers Helping Writers) appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

In last week’s post, we discussed fear’s role in character arc, as well as the backstory elements you should know about your character’s past. Their wounding event, the resulting fear and lie, any emotional shielding, and their unmet need will come together to determine who your character is on page one.

And then their current story kicks off—the one you’re going to tell—and a few more character arc pieces will drop into place.

Current Story Character Arc Elements

There are a few key arc elements that figure into the character’s current story, and they flow directly out of those important bits of their backstory. So once you know the latter, you can figure out the former.

Outer Motivation

Simply put, this is the character’s big goal—the objective they’ll pursue over the course of the story. Examples of outer motivations include surviving a disaster, winning a competition, catching a killer, overcoming an addiction, and finding true love.

Inner Motivation

But why has the character chosen that goal?

The beginning of their story starts one of two ways. In the most common scenario, they begin from a place of deficiency. Their fear changes them, and they’re no longer fulfilled or satisfied. Even if they can’t verbalize it, they feel stuck and unhappy because something is missing.

In other stories, everything starts off great and the character is living their best life—and then the bottom drops out. Something occurs that upsets their world and creates a void.

This void is very often the character’s unmet need. Filling it becomes their inner motivation because replacing what’s missing will return them to a state of completeness. On a subconscious level, they know they’re missing esteem or love or a sense of safety, and they can’t be complete without it, so they make a conscious choice to pursue a goal that will fill that hole.

Outer Conflict

Good fiction requires conflict—and lots of it. This means the character should experience significant adversity over the course of a story. But there will be one main external adversary blocking them from achieving their goal. This could come in the form of an enemy, an environmental factor, a supernatural force, or a prevailing cultural or social norm. This outer conflict arises repeatedly. It triggers the character’s fear and threatens their success, and they’ll have to eventually conquer it to get what they want.

Inner Conflict

Along with external forces, characters are plagued by internal conflicts that put them at odds with themselves. Opposing wants and needs, confusion, self-doubt, and insecurity keep them in turmoil, unable to approach their goals from a position of strength. Just as the outer motivation has a primary outer conflict, the character also faces a primary inner conflict—their greatest fear, the biggest thing that stands in the way of fulfilling their missing need. This fear mocks, intimidates, threatens, and terrorizes them throughout the story, and until they face it, they’re doomed to failure.

A Character Arc Character Study

To see how these current story elements fit together, let’s return to Jetta, our character arc case study. In summary, here are the key elements from her backstory (or view them in narrative form in part one of this post):

Emotional Wound: Caving to peer pressure and doing something shameful
Greatest Fear: Being influenced by others
False Belief: People just want to mold you into a version of themselves.
Emotional Shielding: hostility, belligerence, withdrawal
Unmet Needs: Self-Actualization (because she no longer knows who she is)

This is what Jetta’s backstory has done to her. This is who we meet when we turn the first page of her book. Now let’s see the rest of her story.

Jetta’s school year ends in a fiery cataclysm of F’s and summer school. To get out of sophomore purgatory, Jetta must complete a project and get a passing grade from Mr. Reed, the new English teacher. Short on time, she goes with what’s quickest, digging her sketchbook out of the closet to finish her abandoned graphic novel.

She’d forgotten how much she loves this—writing, drawing, losing herself in the story. How easy it feels. But now she has to share it with Mr. Reed, who keeps checking in with totally unwanted feedback. He makes her join a teen writer’s group, and everyone there has an opinion too. They all want to change her story, but no one knows this book like Jetta. She’ll spend the rest of her life in tenth grade before she lets anyone ruin it.

The story begins with a protagonist who has no identity of her own and is disconnected from others. This leads her to a goal of finishing her graphic novel. Why, of all the options, does Jetta decide on this as her outer motivation? Because even if she’s confused about who she is, deep down, she’s a writer and an artist. She knows this at her core, and if she can embrace that again, she’ll regain her identity (inner motivation). Pursuing the external goal will fill an internal void.

But when Jetta encounters outer conflict in the form of Mr. Reed and the other writers, her fear takes over. Terrified of being manipulated again and pushed into doing something against her will, she refuses their feedback, virtually ensuring that she’ll never finish her book and causing her to wonder if she’s meant to be an author after all.

Jetta’s fear and everything that stems from it comprise her inner conflict, keeping her from getting the very identity she so desperately seeks. Until she faces her fear and overcomes it, she’ll never embrace who she is and be true to herself.

This story shows how fear is interwoven through the entirety of a character’s arc. Rooted in the wounds of the past, it changes them, molding them into who they are in the here and now. It shapes their personality traits, goals, desires, belief system, and decision-making. As they move toward their objective, their fear and their fatal flaw (more on this later) become obstacles to their success, and they must neutralize them to find happiness and satisfaction.

This is the role a character’s greatest fear plays in their arc. Initially meant to protect them, their fear ends up binding them so completely that they’re unable to escape their circumstances. As authors, it’s our job to lead characters to a crucial choice. Will they break fear’s bonds to embrace new habits and thought patterns that bring about fulfillment? Or will they give in to their fear, allowing it to keep them from the future they’ve envisioned?

With these character arc pieces in place (leading directly out of their unique backstory), you’ll be equipped to position them to make this important choice and gain agency in their story.

Need more information about fear’s role in storytelling and character arc? Check out The Fear Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to What Holds Characters Back.

The post How Does Fear Play Into Character Arc (Part 2) appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

When a character suffers emotional pain, the brain’s response is to stop the discomfort, and often this results in a coping mechanism being deployed. Whether it’s an automatic response or a learned go-to strategy, a mechanism helps them cope with the stress of the moment or escape the hurt of it.

But if the character develops an unhealthy reliance on that mechanism, problems will arise. Long-term, certain coping behaviors will impair their connections with others, their ability to achieve goals and dreams, and their ability to handle life’s pressures.

At some point, they must have an Aha! moment where they realize their coping method is holding them back and seek other ways to deal with stress. Namely, they’ll have to adopt healthier mechanisms that enable them to manage difficulties and ultimately have a happier future.

To help you write your character’s growth (or regression) journey, we’ve created The Coping Mechanism Thesaurus, which contains a range of coping mechanisms. The one we’re highlighting today can help your character better manage painful emotions and stress. Use this partial entry to show readers the character is choosing more productive strategies that will build resilience.

Practicing Gratitude Definition

Deliberately noticing and appreciating the good in one’s life, circumstances, or relationships.

What It May Look Like

Appreciating what they’re seeing and experiencing in the moment
Reaching out with a text, call, or letter to show someone appreciation
Expressing gratitude through prayer, meditation, or another daily spiritual ritual
Sharing highlights of the day around the dinner table
Mentally listing things they’re grateful for while stuck in a frustrating situation, such as a traffic jam or waiting room

Internal Struggles

Fearing that being grateful for the present means betraying someone’s memory
Expressing gratitude (because it’s the right thing to do) but feeling inauthentic and performative
Being grateful for one thing while harboring bitterness or resentment for another
Struggling to remember to be grateful, even when things are amazing

Challenges That Will Test the Character

Facing ongoing hardship (poverty, chronic illness, displacement, etc.) where gratitude feels insulting rather than helpful
Having companions who continually dwell on the negative
Being mocked or criticized for their gratitude practice by someone close to them

Basic Human Needs It Could Fill

Self-Actualization: Gratitude shifts a character from a scarcity mindset to one of abundance. It fosters intentionality and aligns choices with what truly matters.

Physiological Needs: Gratitude practices are linked to better sleep, lower blood pressure, and improved immune function. In other words, they promote and protect health.

For help brainstorming your character’s responses to stress, see our master list of healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed and expanded, the rest of our descriptive collection (18 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, then give our Free Trial a spin.

The post Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Practicing Gratitude appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Want to win
editorial feedback
and take your story
from good to great?

Well, my writerly friend, you’re in luck!
It’s time for our monthly
Phenomenal First Pages contest.
In this draw, you can win…

Editorial feedback on the first 3 pages of your novel and book blurb.

Entering is easy. Leave your contact information on this entry form. If you win the draw, we’ll let you know how to send us your pages.

Contest DetailsThis is a 24-hour contest, so enter ASAP.Make sure your contact information on the entry form is correct. FIVE winners will be drawn. If you win, we’ll email instructions for submitting your first 3 pages plus a book blurb, query, or synopsis (less than a page).Please have your pages ready in case your name is selected. Format with 1-inch margins, double spaced, and 12pt Times New Roman font. The editor you’ll be working with: Erica Converso

I’m Erica Converso, author of the Five Stones Pentalogy (affiliate link). I love chocolate, animals, anime, musicals, and lots and lots of books – though not necessarily in that order. In addition to my work as an author, I have been an intern at Marvel Comics, a college essay tutor, and a database and emerging technologies librarian. Between helping adult patrons in the reference section and mentoring teens in the evening reading programs, I was also the resident research expert for anyone requiring more in-depth information for a project.

As an editor, I aim to improve and polish your work to a professional level, while also teaching you to hone your craft and learn from previous mistakes. With every piece I edit, I see the author as both client and student. I believe that every manuscript presents an opportunity to grow as a writer, and a good editor should teach you about your strengths and weaknesses so that you can return to your writing more confident in your skills. Visit my website astrioncreative.com for more information on my books and editing and coaching services.

How Do You Write an Amazing Book Blurb?

Writing a strong book blurb is important–whether it’s for the back of your book or to entice an agent or editor to read your query.

Here are several helpful posts:
How to Craft a Top-Notch Blurb
Back Cover Copy Formula
Blurbs that Bore, Blurbs that Blare

Did you know…

Some winners find their dream editor through this contest, and a few have shared with us that their polished pages have helped them secure representation. Talk about phenomenal reasons to enter!

Sign Up for Notifications:

Every month is a new chance to win feedback. Subscribe to our blog, and notifications about this contest and other helpful writing articles will come right to your inbox. 

Good luck, everyone. We can’t wait to see who wins!

The post Win Feedback on 3 Pages & Book Blurb appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Writing about your character’s fear can be tricky because it rarely sits out in the open where everyone can see it. Instead, fear is hidden, rationalized, or the character puts on a mask and pretends it isn’t there at all. Yet when fear is shown well, it becomes an obvious force driving a character’s decisions, behavior, and actions.

Because fear plays such a central role in a character arc, certain mistakes with it can weaken the story. If your character’s inner journey feels a bit confusing, overly complicated, or, on the flip side, too easy, it could be that how fear is being handled is tripping you up. Let’s look at some of the most common pitfalls.

Too Many Fears

Characters, like people, aren’t afraid of just one thing. Very often, their biggest fear spawns new ones, or they develop unrelated fears from other wounding events. Before you know it, you’ve got a Hydra situation, with so many tentacles that it’s hard to identify which fear is the biggest threat.

Take Sabrina, whose fear of flying causes her to turn down opportunities that require long-distance travel. She also has a fear of conditional love, which makes her a people-pleaser who continually seeks to meet the expectations of others. This has contributed to body image issues and a fear of gaining too much weight, which impacts her health.

If we included all these issues in the story, we’d have to address each one with separate turning point scenarios—basically, a separate character arc for each fear. It’s too confusing to write and too convoluted for readers to follow.

Instead, recognize that minor fears (and some phobias) should play a peripheral role. They may present quirks, create inconveniences, or even provide comic relief (looking at you, Indiana Jones), but they shouldn’t be the character’s greatest fear. Whittle down the options to the fear at the character’s core that makes their goal all but unreachable until they subdue it.

Treating Secondary Fears Like Primary Ones

Sometimes the fear you’ve chosen for your character isn’t the primary one causing their problems. Instead, you’ve focused on a secondary fear that sprouted from the first. This is a problem because even if the character addresses it, it won’t remedy the foundational fear that’s causing the issues. To identify the primary one, you’ll have to dig deeper. First, list your character’s fears and strike any that stem from a deeper one. For instance, Sabrina’s fear of weight gain realistically grows out of her fear of conditional love. In this case, we can disregard the former and focus on the deeper fear.

Once you’ve drilled down to what you think is the core fear, make sure it ties into the character’s backstory. Fears are born from certain distressing factors in life: emotional wounds, unmet human needs, negative experiences, and major mistakes or failures. Does the fear tie into any of these for your character? It should. They don’t appear randomly, so if you don’t know what caused a fear to form, you have more backstory research to do.

The Fear Isn’t Connected to the Goal

A character’s greatest fear is part of their inner conflict. They’ve invested a lot of effort learning new ways of thinking and acting that keep fear at bay, but this blocks them from achieving their outer goal, which they desperately need to be whole and fulfilled. In this way, a character’s greatest fear is connected to their story goal. If they’re pursuing an objective that doesn’t somehow touch their fear, there’s a mistake somewhere in their character arc.

To fix the problem, review the main components of their arc (emotional wound, greatest fear, fatal flaw, unmet need, etc.). Spend some time filling in the blanks until the elements connect. When you find which pieces don’t quite fit the rest of the puzzle, adjust as needed.

Overstated Fear

Not every aspect of a character’s fear must be prominently displayed on the page. It’s a lot like backstory. As the author, you should know a lot about your character’s past. But if you write it all into the manuscript, it will become bloated, overloading readers with things they don’t need to know.

The same is true with fears. The story’s turning points can be opportunities for the hero to respond to their fear, but readers don’t need an in-depth narration of their self-awareness and decision-making process every time. Often the most poignant moments are understated. A choice arises, and after a brief internal battle, the character makes a decision. Consequences result. Readers know exactly what transpired, all with a much-appreciated economy of words.

It can be hard to find the balance between sharing too much and not enough. Begin by determining not to spell everything out at every pivotal moment. This is an area where critique partners can earn their dues. Ask them if the fear journey is too spare or heavy at those key points, then flesh out or prune them as needed.

A Herky-Jerky Resolution

We’ve all read stories with meandering, inconsistent subplots, where something’s referenced at the beginning but then peters out, never to be seen again. Or it pops up sporadically, as if the author has just realized it hasn’t made an appearance in a while and needs to be revived.

The same issue can happen when a character’s fear shows up intermittently—often when a crucial conflict appears, because that’s when they’re most likely to be afraid. It’s established in the beginning and overcome at the end, but we don’t see the growth and setbacks along the way. Other times, the journey is too easy, and the character always makes the right choice or overcomes the fear too quickly.

If you struggle to maintain a gradual, realistic progression in your character’s fear journey, use the story’s turning points to map it out (a tool like Story Maps or Beat Sheets can help). This ensures a good number of opportunities for the fear to escalate, ties it into the plotline, and spaces it out in a way that’s satisfying for readers.

Writing fear well means understanding how much it shapes a character’s behavior, choices, and level of growth.

Armed with this knowledge, we can ensure their core fear is connected to the story goal and is playing its role in the character’s transformation.

Looking for more ideas on how fear shapes character behavior and choices (and more help on avoiding story mistakes)? The Fear Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to What Holds Characters Back explores 80+ human fears, from betrayal and heartbreak to powerlessness and death, and shows how each one can create meaningful inner struggles in a story. It releases on April 15th…not long now!

PSST. Our free Fear Factor workshop on How Fear Rewires a Character’s Behavior & Perceptions is on April 11th, at 11 AM EST/9 AM Mountain. Registration is closing soon, so hurry and sign up if you’d like to attend.

The post Is Fear Weakening Your Story? 5 Mistakes to Check appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

When a character suffers emotional pain, the brain’s response is to stop the discomfort, and often this results in a coping mechanism being deployed. Whether it’s an automatic response or a learned go-to strategy, a mechanism helps them cope with the stress of the moment or escape the hurt of it.

But if the character develops an unhealthy reliance on that mechanism, problems will arise. Long-term, certain coping behaviors will impair their connections with others, their ability to achieve goals and dreams, and their resiliency in handling life’s pressures.

At some point, they must have an Aha! moment where they realize their coping method is holding them back and they need to seek other ways to deal with stress. Namely, they’ll have to adopt healthier mechanisms that enable them to manage difficulties and ultimately have a happier future.

To help you write your character’s growth (or regression) journey, we’ve created The Coping Mechanism Thesaurus, which contains a range of coping methods. The one we’re highlighting today can be damaging, and we hope this partial entry will help you show your character’s struggle in a way readers can relate to.

SuppressionDefinition

Intentionally dismissing distressing thoughts or feelings to avoid emotional discomfort and the situations that produce it. This mechanism differs from repression, which occurs when the character buries things so completely that they’re unable to remember or acknowledge them.

What It May Look Like

Being intensely uncomfortable with certain emotions
Changing the subject or getting upset when certain topics come up
Avoiding the news and what’s happening in current events
Exhibiting subdued emotional responses
Masking their true feelings through humor
Struggling with vulnerability and authenticity

Basic Human Needs It Could Compromise

Self-Actualization: To be fully actualized, a character must be able to acknowledge (and change, when necessary) all of themselves—even the uncomfortable bits.

Safety and Security: By ignoring emotions like fear, anger, or anxiety, the character may stay in unsafe situations, fail to address escalating conflicts, or overlook warning signs that their stability is at risk.

Fallout (and Possible Turning Points)

Becoming a victim of violence because they ignored their instincts and the emotions that signaled a potential problem
Seeing a doctor about a serious health issue and being told it’s likely due to stress and suppressed emotional responses
Discovering that others view them as weak or emotionally frail, and not wanting to be that way

Commitment to Change

Replacing unhealthy coping mechanisms with positive ones is how your character turns the page, but it starts with internal work, new habits, and practices:
Recognizing all emotions as necessary and important
Safely expressing their feelings through creative methods (fiction, art, dance, etc.)

For help brainstorming your character’s responses to stress, see our master list of healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Need More Descriptive Help?

While this thesaurus is still being developed and expanded, the rest of our descriptive collection (18 unique thesauri and growing) is accessible through the One Stop for Writers THESAURUS database.

If you like, swing by and check out the video walkthrough for this site, then give our Free Trial a spin.

The post Coping Mechanism Thesaurus Entry: Suppression appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Much as we may have things in common as writers, our brains are wired differently. How one writer creates a story is likely to be quite different from how another one does it. That doesn’t mean that one is wrong—it just means our processes differ.

Figuring out how your writing brain operates and how to work with it instead of against it is often the key to breaking through and writing the kind of story you want to write.

Below are seven common story problems I’ve identified that often have a deeper connection to the unique writing brain behind the page. Which one sounds most like you?

When the Story Keeps Expanding Every Time You Touch It

Some writers have no trouble generating ideas. In fact, they have too many. A side character suddenly becomes fascinating. A subplot appears out of nowhere. A new twist arrives and feels too good to ignore. Before long, the story that started as a clear idea has grown branches in every direction.

This can make a manuscript feel imaginative, but it can also weaken the core of the story. The plot loses focus, the middle starts to sprawl, and new material keeps arriving faster than the writer can shape it.

If this is your pattern, what you need is a stronger filter.

A simple fix is to identify the central thread of the story.

What is this book really about?What question is it trying to answer?What emotional journey sits at the center?

Once you know these things, each new idea has something to measure itself against. Some ideas belong in this book, but some don’t, and you can park those in another file for future use. Knowing the difference can save your draft.

When the Plot Works but the Story Feels Too Careful

Some writers are naturally strong in structure. They love planning the story out. They can see turning points, map cause and effect, add in a plot twist, and sketch out the movement from one scene to the next.

That’s a real advantage.

The trouble comes when the story becomes so well-managed that it starts to feel stale or dead inside.

For this writer, everything seems to be placed where it should be, yet something feels a little flat. The characters hit the right beats, but they don’t always feel alive inside them, which means the reader may not feel anything either. The emotional texture gets thinned out because the writer is so busy keeping the machine running smoothly that they’ve forgotten the heart of the matter.

This kind of writer often needs to relax the structure and focus more on stepping into their hero’s shoes.

What does this person feel at these various plot points?What sort of emotional pressure occurs, and how do they respond to it?Are there real bonding moments between main characters?

One helpful move is to pause during outlining or revision and ask where the story has become too tidy. Where would a real person hesitate, react badly, make a mess, or surprise everyone?

A story can be well built, but it helps to remember that these are real humans (or creatures!) on the page with real emotions that need to be allowed to come through.

When You Start Strong and Then Lose Steam

This one is painfully common. The opening chapters have life, and the concept is exciting. The writer is moving fast and feeling good. But then the energy dips, the middle gets foggy, and the writer loses their motivation to keep going.

This is one of those places where writers can be unfair to themselves. They may assume the loss of momentum means the idea was bad. Often the real issue is that they rely heavily on inspiration, and the middle of a book asks for a different kind of energy.

The solution is to stop treating the middle as one long, shapeless stretch. Break it into smaller turns.

Give yourself something to build toward in each section:

a reveala confrontationa reversala decisiona discovery

How can you see this part of the story as fresh and exciting again? Figure that out and you’re more likely to stay connected to it.

Here’s a hint: the answer often lies with your antagonist. Focus on that person more and the fire will return to your prose.

When the Draft Is Solid but Never Quite Catches Fire

Some writers are wonderfully steady. They show up, building the story scene by scene, and tend to make real progress while more erratic writers are still talking about their books.

But steady writers can sometimes underplay tension in the story without realizing it. They may make choices that are sensible, believable, and carefully developed, but lack pizzazz on the page.

The conflict stays too nice and easy, for example, or the pressure on the hero doesn’t build hard enough. The characters may be moving forward, but because the stakes are low or even mid-tier, readers get bored.

This kind of draft often feels “pretty good” in a way that is frustrating, because the writer has done so much right. The missing piece is usually escalation.

During revision, it helps to ask harder questions.

Where is the pressure on my hero increasing?Where does this choice cost the character something that really matters to them?Where could the emotional stakes become sharper?Where is the story being a little too polite?

A manuscript does not need chaos to feel alive, but it does need rising tension.

When You Resist Shape So Much the Reader Gets Lost

Some writers are deeply original. They don’t want to write by formula. They want to surprise the reader.

All of that can be a strength.

But sometimes the push against predictability becomes a push against clarity. The story becomes harder to follow. The emotional arc becomes muddy. The reader starts drifting because they’re confused and can’t tell what the book is building toward.

The solution is to think about structure in a way that doesn’t feel restrictive.  

Instead of asking, “What formula should I follow?” it may help to ask, “What is changing in this story, and what force is driving that change?”

Creating just a few key anchor points can go a long way toward making the story easier to follow:

What does the character want?What stands in the way?What surprise is coming?

Once those are clear, the path between them can still be fresh and surprising.

When Outside Feedback Pulls the Story Off Center

Some writers come alive when sharing ideas, getting feedback, and hearing how others respond to their work. This can be a huge asset because it can keep the work moving forward and make revision more fun too.

But there’s a trap here. When a writer is highly responsive to outside input, the story can start bending in too many directions.

One critique partner says the pacing is slow. Another wants more backstory. A third questions the ending. Soon the writer is revising from ten different angles and losing touch with their own original vision.

If this sounds familiar, the fix is to sort feedback more carefully. Some comments point to real craft issues, but some are simply coming from personal preference. Learning to tell those apart helps protect the core of the story.

It also helps to write down your intention before revising:

What kind of reading experience are you trying to create?What matters most in this book?

That clarity can help you make distinctions between the feedback you want to accept and what to discard.

When the Emotion Is Powerful but the Story Starts to Drift

Some writers are deeply connected to feeling on the page. They write moving scenes, rich inner lives, and emotionally honest moments that readers remember.

The challenge comes when emotional depth begins to slow or muddy the story rather than enhancing it. Scenes may linger too long, for instance, to the point of losing emotional impact. Characters may fail to act, and the manuscript can become about feelings with no forward motion.

This can also make revision harder. The writer may know a scene needs to be cut or compressed, but the scene matters to them on an emotional level, so letting go feels like betrayal.

In this case, the answer is not to strip out the feeling. It’s to give the feeling better form, and that means finding a story structure that works for you.

Even a bare-bones three-act structure that maps out where the hero is going can make all the difference:

What choice must the hero make?What truth becomes harder to avoid?What does the main character DO to push the action forward?

Readers want to feel something, yes, but they also want the story to keep unfolding.

Your Process Is Shaping More Than You Think

The patterns showing up in your manuscripts may be closely tied to the way your brain naturally works. That’s good news, because it means your struggles are often more specific than they seem. And when a problem becomes more specific, it also becomes easier to solve!

Want to know which writing type is most shaping your process?

Take my free quiz to discover your unique creative writing mindset and get insight into the strengths and weaknesses that may be affecting your story structure.

And if you want to go deeper, join me in Writer’s Brain Studio, where I share resources on story structure by mindset type so you can better understand how your brain approaches plotting, pacing, and revision—and build a structure that works with the way you naturally write.

The post What Your Story Problems Reveal About Your Writing Brain appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.