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How To Write Shop

Articles on the craft and business of writing

Characters

Plotting a Book Made Easy

December 10, 2018 by Lori Devoti 1 Comment
plotting a book

Plotting a book scares a lot of authors. Developing characters and planning a book outline intimidates a lot of writers as well. But, honestly, none of these things are scary. They’re fun. Really. The key to plotting a book, or planning a book outline, if that is how you prefer to think of it, is … [Read more…]

Posted in: Characters, Plotting, Writing Craft Tagged: book outline, character development, plotting method

Hero’s Journey Archetypes

May 14, 2018 by Lori Devoti Leave a Comment
hero's journey archetypes characters trickster

The more you read on writing, the more you realize most concepts go back to a few shared sources or shared ideas. Archetypes are one of those concepts. Both Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung discuss archetypes. They are basically a part of our collective unconsciousness. The same collective unconsciousness that makes The Hero’s Journey such a … [Read more…]

Posted in: Characters, Writing Craft Tagged: archetypes, Character ideas, hero's journey

Using the Enneagram for Developing Characters

April 20, 2018 by Lori Devoti 4 Comments
enneagram for developing characters type one writing

I discovered the Enneagram for developing characters a number of years ago. I came to it in a bit of a roundabout way. Basically, I discovered a site for character development with some cute names for nine types of characters and some great information on these types. I was an instant fangirl. Then I realized … [Read more…]

Posted in: Characters, Writing Craft

Make Your Characters Roar: Character Development Using Animal Totems

April 12, 2018 by Lori Devoti Leave a Comment
character development with animal totems

Character development can be hard work. You want to create characters who ring true, but who are also interesting and unique. You also want them to be consistent. You don’t want them hopping from one feel to another and get comments from readers that your characters are unbelievable. I like to use the Enneagram for … [Read more…]

Posted in: Characters, Writing Craft Tagged: character development, Character ideas, creative writing ideas

How to Write a Book: 8 Steps

March 11, 2018 by Lori Devoti 5 Comments
How to Write a book

How to Write a Book or “How do I write a book?” is the most basic and yet the most complicated question I get from other writers. For fun, I plugged this question into Google and got some really bad advice. Like starting with the names of each chapter. Maybe that works for someone??? Okay, … [Read more…]

Posted in: Characters, Plotting, Revision, Writing Craft Tagged: how to write novels, write a book
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Featured Book

Techniques of the Selling Writer 
by Dwight V. Swain

Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain

Classic book on how to write books that readers will want to read!

This is one of the foundation books that all novelists should have on their bookshelf.

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Mastering Amazon Ads: An Author’s Guide

by Brian D. Meeks

Considering running ads at Amazon? Don’t make the mistakes so many authors do. Read this book first.

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