Before we figure out how to tie our character’s occupation to the story, we might need to understand more about the job and what it means for them.

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What’s Our Character’s Job? Here’s Help (& a Giveaway)!

Many are struggling with anxiety, but stories have power in a crisis. Beyond the stories we write, there’s also the story we tell ourselves about our life.

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What’s Your Personal Story?

I’ve partnered up with Writers Helping Writers to bring you a PRIZE-PACKED Advent Calendar for Writers—and you could win one of my workshops!

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Holiday Giveaways and Workshop News!

Out in the world, conflict is usually considered a bad thing, but our stories need it. How much conflict does our story need and how can we add more?

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Do Our Stories Need More Conflict?

As writers, we have to make our characters seem real to readers, but it’s often not easy. So here’s two resources that can help us create characters that seem real.

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Struggle to Write Characters? Here’s Help!

Writers need readers to grasp emotional information from non-POV characters, which can be a struggle. Becca Puglisi, co-author of the Emotion Thesaurus shares 6 techniques to avoid the problem.

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6 Ways to Show Emotions for Non-POV Characters — Guest: Becca Puglisi

We all love a “good” villain, but sometimes we want our bad guy to see the light and find redemption (or at least start on that path). Becca Puglisi is here to show us how with four paths to redemption for our villain.

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How to Create a Redeemable Villain — Guest: Becca Puglisi

The Thesaurus books by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi are a must-have for every fiction author, and they now have two new Thesauri books: Urban Setting and Rural Setting. Becca’s here today to talk about how setting is important for more than just describing the time and place of our scene.

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4 Tips for “Setting” a Mood — Guest: Becca Puglisi

I have a special treat for everyone today! I’ve mentioned many times that I love The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi (of The Bookshelf Muse/Writers Helping Writers fame) for expanding my “showing vocabulary” when it comes to character emotions. A few weeks ago, I shared how their new books, The Positive Trait Thesaurus and The Negative Trait

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7 Tips for Using the Trait Thesauri — Guest: Becca Puglisi