I still can’t believe it. Hopefully this year won’t go by as quickly as the last one did.
I was considering what to post, and I decided what better way to start the new year than with a writing advice post that can (hopefully) motivate my fellow writers as we set goals and make plans for our writing journey this next year. So today we’re gonna be talking about writing voice. But what is it exactly?
Your writing voice is the style in which authors write their stories— it’s essentially what sets the tone of the story. It can depend on the writer’s personality, vocabulary, and other personal factors, and each writing voice is unique to their writer. Think of authors that you know— they all have unique writing styles as shown in their stories, and you may like or dislike a story because of its writing style.
Many writers struggle with ‘finding’ their writing voice. They may not be satisfied with the way they write or not know how best to structure their thoughts on paper. So that’s what I’m here to talk about today. Here are three ways you can develop your own writing voice!
1. Read
Every author has their own unique way of writing, so a good way to help find your own is by reading books by different authors. You may find some writing styles that you love, and others that you don’t love as much. Looking at different writing styles can make it easier for you to determine the kind of writing that you like and help you be inspired by other authors. If you find an author whose writing style you really like, it can be tempting to copy their style. But in my opinion, it’s impossible to perfectly copy someone else’s writing voice (unless you’re copying what they write word for word). There can be similarities, but there will always be a part of you in your writing, even if you’re trying to write in someone else’s style. Of course that doesn’t mean you should try and plagiarize another author’s work, but trying to write in another author’s style can be a good way to practice finding your own writing style.
You can also read over your old stories. While your writing style is probably different now than it was then, you may still find similarities between then and now. My writing style has definitely changed over the years, but when I looked back I found a similar tone in my writing style, which helped me to develop my writing style even more.
2. Experiment
After you’ve read different types of writing voices, experimenting with various kinds is a good way to develop your own unique writing voice. You can try to write more description or focus more on dialogue. You can try to write in shorter, more consice sentences or you can experiment with a more flowery, expressive style. You can try for a more serious tone or a more humorous one. You can write in a formal style or a casual one. Try out different narrative point-of-views— you may find that it’s easier for you to write in first person point-of-view than in third person, or vice versa.
It may take a while before you find something you’re satisfied with— I’m honestly still developing mine. That’s where the last step comes in.
3. Write
This one seems obvious, but just keep writing. Honestly this is the most effective out of the three as I’ve found from experience. You can read other people’s styles and experiment with different kinds, but in the end whatever you write is your writing style. Your style may change and you may not be satisfied with it yet, but it’s important to remember that what you wrote is unique because you’re the one who wrote it. There’s no such thing as a perfect writing style, but you don’t have to look far to find your writing style. All you have to do is write. Just keep writing.
This post ended up being later than I intended, but I managed to post it before 2024 ends, so I’m counting it as a win.
Also.
2024 is ending.
Wasn’t 2023 three months ago? 😭
Since my next post will be posted in 2025, I decided why not dedicate a post to this year even though I haven’t even had this blog for a year yet (which is a crazy fact on its own!). So let’s review 2024!
Blogging
I started to want my own blog when I discovered writing blogs not long after I began taking writing seriously. After seeing all the amazing writers posting about their stories, one of my biggest goals in life as a young writer was becoming a part of the blogging community and being able to show my stories to the world. But I was never able to actually start until this year, and it’s still crazy that I actually have my own blog right now.
I didn’t know what to expect when I started blogging, but it was somehow easier and harder than I thought it would be. I’m really grateful for all the support I’ve gotten, especially since I received much more than I expected. I hope to do more with this blog in the future and I can’t wait to see how my blogging journey continues!
Writing
Though this year hasn’t felt like its been the biggest for me when it comes to writing progress, looking back, I’ve made more progress than I thought. I started more drafts than I can count, and though I didn’t finish any drafts this year, I added a lot to both old and new drafts. My biggest accomplishment writing-wise was most likely successfully working on two different drafts at once without being distracted by fifty other ideas. My hope for this next year is that I will be able to properly set aside time to work on my projects. And if all goes well, hopefully I’ll be able to post more about them!
Life
If I had to describe 2024 in one word, the only word I can think of would be ‘full’. So much has happened this year that it would take forever for me to explain it all. While there have been many hardships and challenges this year, God has provided countless blessings as well. I’ve been blessed with amazing new friends and opportunities that I couldn’t have even imagined happening last year.
I learned a lot of things this year, but one thing of the biggest ones I’ve learned is stepping out of my comfort zone. I used to be a huge extrovert until the covid lockdown happened, and for the next couple years during and after the lockdown my extrovertedness switched to major introvertedness to the point where I lacked the confidence to talk to other people. But at the start of this year, I decided why not try to rebuild my confidence and see what happens? And I’m absolutely glad that I tried. Almost everything that happened this year wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t tried stepping out of my comfort zone. And while I’m not the complete extrovert I used to be, I’m happy to report that I am not only able to talk to people comfortably again but I quite enjoy doing so. So if you’re wondering whether you should step out of your comfort zone this upcoming year, I highly recommend it! You never know what amazing things are gonna happen because of it.
So that’s my 2024 review post! Who knows what 2025 holds, but I’m excited to continue this blogging journey with you. Thank you to everyone who has and continues to support my blog and I hope y’all have an amazing New Years!
It’s December already, can you believe it? Christmas is right around the corner and 2025 is almost here!
Also part 3 of Know the Novel is here!
If you’re a regular visitor to this blog, you may have noticed my complete lack of posting for the past few weeks. The reason is because several Unexpected Life Things™ ended up being dumped on me all at once in the past month, resulting in me not being able to post for a while.
Pretty much my mood for the last month
But things have finally begun to die down, so hopefully I can go back to my regular posting schedule (and warn y’all next time I decide to take an impromptu break).
1. How did writing this novel go all around?
Better than I expected! I did write less than I hoped in the last month, but the month before that was pretty successful so I’m happy about that. And progress is always a win!
2. Did it turn out as you expected or completely different? How do you feel about the outcome?
Window Lake: Since this is the second draft, I expected it to be the same as it was in the first draft, only with it being actually well-written this time. And… well, the overall story has stayed the same, but the characters (or character. Definitely not looking at Julia right now) are still trying their hardest to cause as many problems as possible.
Maple Row Cafe: As someone who honestly does not put a lot of work into worldbuilding, I was surprised by how much more time I ended up spending on the setting than I usually do in my stories. I actually really like the setting in this story and it’s a lot of fun to explore, especially since it leans heavily into autumn vibes, which is by far my favourite season.
3. What aspect of the story did you love writing about the most? (Characters, plot, setting, prose, etc.)
The characters! Is anyone surprised? I still love exploring each character and watching their dynamics with each other unfold in both stories.
4. What was your least favorite part?
Kind of going against what I said in the first answer, my least favourite part isn’t exactly related to the story itself, but it’s more my inconsistent writing habits. I was pretty consistent in the beginning but after a while life happened and all consistency went out the window. Hopefully after things start to die down consistency will be less of a problem.
5. What do you feel needs the most work?
I think that pretty much sums it up.
6. How do you feel about your characters now? Who’s your favorite? Least favorite? Anyone surprise you? Give us all the details!
Window Lake: Julia’s character has honestly surprised me in this draft more than anything else. She became a much more complex character in the second draft and it’s been a lot of fun exploring her more deeply. Aza is also much more chaotic this draft and Shak has already begun to try his best to keep the chaos to a manageable level.
Maple Row Cafe: When I first had the idea for this story, I honestly didn’t have too many plans for Abigail’s character outside of her connection with Owen and Hattie’s relationship. But almost as soon as I started writing, I knew she would be a much bigger part of the story than I’d initially expected. I also didn’t expect her to become my favourite character, but I think I ended up relating to her a little too much for her not to be XD Owen is also much different than I had originally planned, so it’s been really interesting exploring his point of view.
7. What’s your next plan of action with this novel?
I hope to continue to write both of them, but if I’m being completely honest it might sit in my computer until winter break when I actually have time to work on my personal projects.
8. If you could have your greatest dream realized for this novel, what would it be?
I would love to have them published, but I also think it would be awesome if they could become movies. I’ve always wanted to direct a movie, and it would be especially cool if I could direct my own stories. If only I had the money and time…
9. Share some of your favorite snippets!
Window Lake:
“I could show you around Velamyr, if you want,” Shak offered.
Aza glanced at Estral. “Can I join them?”
Estral frowned. “You know that puts you at risk.”
Aza stared at him with wide, starry eyes and a pout that would’ve gotten any other person to cave instantly. “Please?”
Estral looked away. “Nice try.”
The look was gone in an instant. “Aww, it usually works.”
“That’s because you always use it on Shak,” Estral replied.
“Hey,” Shak protested mildly.
Maple Row Cafe:
“So did you know me? Before, I mean.”
Owen hesitated. What should he say? Yeah, I actually used to be your boyfriend for a few years, but I ruined it when I broke your heart for a stupid reason, then you ended up in a car accident and that’s why your memory’s gone. Sorry about that by the way. “I did.”
Hattie brightened. “Really?”
“Yeah, I… yeah. But it was a long time ago…”
“That’s alright,” Hattie dismissed. “I can’t blame you for having bad memory. I mean, look at me, right?” She laughed.
Owen gave her a strained smile. If only he had bad memory. He knew it wasn’t her fault— of course it wasn’t, it was his own— but sometimes he couldn’t help but feel jealous. She got to forget about everything and move on, while he was left here with no choice but to remember all his mistakes.
It’s not her fault, he thought bitterly. You can’t blame her for that. And it’s not as if forgetting everything is necessarily a good thing.
10. Did you glean any new writing and/or life lessons from writing this novel?
Something I was definitely reminded of from writing both of these novels is to push through even when you don’t feel like it or when you feel like your writing sucks. It reminded me that it’s okay for your writing to not be perfect immediately and you can always fix it later. Sometimes you just need some time away from your writing to fully appreciate it and be able to genuinely work on it. I feel like that’s something I always need to be reminded of when I write.
So there’s the final Know the Novel post! Fingers crossed that my posting schedule will go back to normal after this and in the meantime, hope y’all have an awesome Christmas ❤
You can never convince me the Muppets Christmas Carol isn’t the best Christmas movie
Since the last Know the Novel focused more on the middle of the novel, I decided why not write a post on that this week?
If you’re like me, you probably don’t have too many issues planning the beginning of your novel, and writing the end is fairly easy. But when it comes to writing the middle, that’s when the struggles really begin. Sometimes you don’t know what happens in the middle, or you do but the middle ends up being much shorter than you’d like or originally intended. So how do you fill up the middle without adding anything unnecessary to the plot? Well, there’s a few ways to do it while still making sure that what you’re adding is important to the story.
1. FOCUS ON YOUR CHARACTER’S ARCS
If you know me, you know I love character arcs. And the most important part of a character arc is when the character finally changes right? Not exactly. While the change is absolutely an important part of your character’s arc, it’s important not to forget about what led up to that change. Your character needs to work for their change, otherwise it just doesn’t work. Because who likes a character who suddenly becomes better for no apparent reason? It’s harder for the readers to relate with or root for your character if they don’t actively work on becoming better. And don’t make it easy for them either. Arcs feel much more satisfying if your character is truly challenged. Let them doubt. Let them fail. Let them struggle but push on despite it. Let them fight the change but slowly and even reluctantly begin to accept it and work towards it. So if you’re looking for something to expand on in your novel, adding to your character’s arc will add some more depth to your novel.
2. BUILD CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS
This one may tie a bit into the first point, but whether your story is about found family or romance, its rare for characters not to have relationships. Have your characters interact— show us their friendships. Let them laugh together, fight together, cry together, comfort each other. Let them push each other to grow. Let them care for each other. Or even if they have a negative relationship, let it affect your character. It’s easier for readers to care for your characters if they see their relationships and see them grow through it, and having characters interact in meaningful ways will add so much more to the story, and not just when it comes to the word count.
3. RAISE THE STAKES
Maybe your characters have it too easy. Maybe you need to throw a few extra hurdles at them. Or take the stakes that are already there and raise them higher. If your characters have a plan, let everything that could go wrong go wrong. Make it personal. Hit your character where it hurts. But it’s important to always give the characters an out. Sometimes when making things seem hopeless, you might actually end up making things hopeless and find that your characters can’t find a way out of their situation. So make sure that they do have a way to get up after you hit them down (unless you actually mean for them to end up in a situation where they can’t get out).
4. ADD ANOTHER SUBPLOT
Okay, before you start giving every character you have a full-fledged character arc and heartbreaking backstory (and yes, I’ve been guilty of doing this a lot), consider what another subplot would do to your novel. It may add more to the wordcount, but if it’s not done carefully then there’s a chance that it might end up taking away from the story. But if you find that the one side character you ended up loving more than expected could actually add more to the story if you give them their own side quest and/or character arc, go for it!
So that’s it! Hopefully this can help anyone who’s struggling with the middle of their novel.
I’m excited to finally show you guys more about my projects and the progress that, surprisingly, has actually happened. FicFrenzy, a writing event hosted by the same amazing Christine Smith who made Know the Novel, has been extremely motivating for writing. I love the FicFrenzy group a lot and it’s so encouraging seeing everyone working on their projects together.
So now that I’ve actually made some progress on both novels, let’s take a look at what exactly I’ve been working on!
1. How’s the writing going overall?
Honestly, better than I expected! It was a bit difficult to make a lot of progress in both projects, but it was also a lot easier than I expected since if I ran out of motivation for one project, I could easily switch to the other one. This week was slower writing-wise than I hoped, but I made way more progress in the first couple weeks than I expected to make during the whole of FicFrenzy so I really can’t complain.
2. What’s been the most fun aspect about writing this novel so far?
The characters! Because what else? It’s been so much fun rewriting Window Lake, especially since the characters are far more well developed in this draft and equally as chaotic (actually probably even more than they were). I got a much deeper look into one of the characters and I didn’t think I could love him anymore than I did, but here we are. And it’s been a blast writing Maple Row Cafe and really meeting the characters for the first time.
3. What do you think of your characters at this point? Who’s your favorite to write about?
Window Lake: I covered this a bit in the last question, but it’s been so much fun getting a deeper look into each character since it’s the second draft. I’ve only written from Julia’s point of view so far for this draft, but it’s been an absolute blast and I forgot just how chaotic this girl is. I finally pinned down her arcs and motivation so it’s been much smoother writing her than before, but she’s also the most intent on derailing the plot and causing far more problems than she or anyone else needs.
I think this gif sums her up best XD
But as much as I love her, I’m really excited to explore some of the others’ POVs— particularly Shak’s and Aza’s.
Maple Row Cafe: Since this is the first draft of Maple Row Cafe, I didn’t really know what to expect when it came to the characters. But the further I got into the story, the more I fell in love with them. To start, Abigail had much more depth from the start than I thought she would and I honestly love it. Her relationship with her uncle is very interesting to write and I relate to her a lot more than I anticipated. I had a lot of fun with Owen’s point of view (the first time it switched to his point of view he was having a mental breakdown, so y’know, fun times) and Hattie is chaotic already and I love it. And two characters who weren’t supposed to have too big of a role in the story originally became very important side characters and honestly, I’m not complaining.
4. Has your novel surprised you in any way?
Window Lake: I wasn’t expecting to be surprised while writing the second draft, but some characters decided to reveal things they hadn’t in the first draft so that was definitely unexpected but also helped me to nail down a lot about their characters.
Maple Row Cafe: The two not-so-important side characters becoming important side characters shouldn’t have been surprising considering how many times that happens in every single one of my stories, but it still managed to surprise me anyway. They were only really supposed to appear for a few chapters, but now they’re an extremely significant part of the story and I’m honestly here for it. They’ve only appeared in a couple chapters so far, but their dynamic as a duo is already so much fun to write and I can’t wait to explore it more!
5. Have you come across any problem areas?
Window Lake: The biggest problem is trying to write it in a way that makes sense, since I unfortunately can’t pound out a bunch of nonsense and call it a day for this draft. I like to think I’ve been successful so far, but we’ll see what future me thinks about that.
Maple Row Cafe: Abigail and Owen’s relationship was actually a lot more difficult to write than I anticipated. Seriously, you’d think it’d be easier to get two reluctant introverts to interact with each other and actually develop a close relationship. But they’ve managed to communicate thus far so hopefully that continues for the rest of the story. XD
6. What’s been your biggest victory with writing this novel at this point?
Actually writing! Seriously though, I’ve written way more than I expected and that’s definitely a reason to celebrate.
7. If you were transported into your novel and became any one of the characters, which one do you think you’d be? Would you take any different actions than they have?
Window Lake: I would definitely be Aza, since she’s a bookworm, absentminded, and has no idea what’s going on 95% of the time but is enjoying the ride anyway. She also fully supports Julia’s chaos, which would absolutely be me. I’d probably take the same actions as Aza but I’d definitely be more stressed about everything.
Maple Row Cafe: My answer when I started writing would’ve been Owen, but the more I write of Abigail the more I relate to her. She’s a lot more ambitious than I am so we’d probably take different actions, but otherwise we’re a lot more similar than I thought we’d be.
8. Give us the first sentence or paragraph then 2 (or 3!) more favorite snippets!
Window Lake: Opening
Julia Woodstorm hurtled through the front door of her house with a loud crash that could’ve been heard in every corner of Gald. She was fortunate that the door had been left partially opened, since if it had been closed properly it would’ve been knocked straight off its hinges, and her mother wasn’t willing to pay for yet another door replacement.
Snippet #1
“Aren’t you going to help me?”
Tye looked at her incredulously. “I came here to make sure you wouldn’t die, not help you with your project.”
“Well, you’re here, and I need help. So logically, you should help me.”
Tye just stared at her. Finally, he groaned. “Why do I put up with you?”
“Because I’m amazing,” Julia replied, leaning over the pile of papers on the floor and sifting through the ones nearest to her. “Now come on.”
Tye glared at the floor for a few moments. Then he sighed heavily and straightened. “Fine. What are you looking for?”
“Anything that has to do with a ‘Window Lake’.”
“Right, let me just look under the ‘w’ section. Oh wait, they didn’t alphabetize every single scrap of paper that’s lying on the floor.”
Julia rolled her eyes. “Thank you, I couldn’t tell.”
Snippet #2
“The queen requires your presence immediately.”
Estral grimaced, muttering something under his breath that Julia couldn’t quite catch. He glanced at Shak. “Make sure she stays out of trouble. I’ll be back soon.” His eyes narrowed. “I hope.” And with that he disappeared, closing the door behind him.
“Why does he assume I’m going to get in trouble?” Julia exclaimed indignantly.
Shak raised an eyebrow. “Were you going to?”
“Probably, but that’s besides the point.”
Maple Row Cafe:Opening
When Abigail Hudson first asked her uncle if she could stay for the fall, his first response had been “who is this?” After sighing heavily, she replied that the person who had just asked if she could have a place to stay was, in fact, his only niece and not some random stranger who had happened to find his contact information.
Snippet #1
“Where’s your uncle?”
Abigail grimaced. “He… left. Early.”
“Lucky,” Jay muttered, loud enough for both girls to hear him.
“Come on, Jay, it’s not that bad.” Robin gave Abigail an apologetic smile. “Sorry about him. He’s just grumpy because he can’t leave yet.”
“That’s because you said I can’t,” Jay grumbled.
Robin raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said I wasn’t the boss of you.”
“You’re not,” Jay replied. “I’m just nice enough to listen to things you say sometimes.”
Snippet #2
“Look, I’m sorry about running out like that.”
His apology was met with silence. After the pause stretched out for several seconds, Abigail spoke again. “So. Are you going to explain it, or…?”
Owen grimaced. “I don’t think tonight’s a great time to explain it.”
“Do you do that with every person you talk to or was it just Hattie?” Abigail asked. “Because if you do it with everyone, you might wanna get help for that.”
9. Share an interesting tidbit about the writing process so far! (For example: Have you made any hilarious typos? Derailed from your outline? Killed off a character? Changed projects entirely? Anything you want to share!)
No characters have died! (So far.) Writing two different projects at the same time has definitely been an interesting experience, and while I’m not sure I would recommend it for everyone, at least I know it’s not impossible. I’m not sure I’d do it next FicFrenzy, but I wasn’t originally planning on doing two projects this event either so I guess we’ll have to see!
10. Take us on a tour of what a normal writing day for this novel looks like. Where do you write? What time of day? Alone or with others? Is a lot of coffee (or some other drink) consumed? Do you light candles? Play music? Get distracted by social media (*cough, cough*)? Tell all!
So yeah, in case you can’t tell, it’s almost physically impossible for me to keep a sane routine. But if you must have an idea of what my “routine” looks like, most of my writing days will look like this:
1. Wake up
2. Procrastinate everything I should be doing by going online
3. Procrastinate writing by studying
4. Procrastinate studying by writing
5. Get a giant rush of motivation around 10PM-12AM and write
6. Go to bed at an unfortunate time
Some days I get a hundred words or so, others I pound out a couple thousand words, and sometimes I get no words at all. It varies from day to day but I’ve made progress on both of my projects, so I guess it’s working. I always listen to music when I write, usually one of my WIP or mood playlists, and there’s definitely a lot of drinks (coffee included) that are consumed while writing. And yes, I absolutely get distracted by the internet and social media whenever I write.
So there’s part 2 of Know the Novel! Good luck to everyone still making their way through their projects. You got this!
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that it’s already November. 2025 is just two months away!
I’ve been a bit busier lately so writing has been slower than I would like, but I took some time recently to read over some of my old stories. And while doing so, I realized how looking back at your old stories can actually be beneficial.
Now I know what you’re thinking. “I don’t wanna read over my old stories! They make me cringe and want to throw it all into a dumpster and burn them!” And I know exactly how you feel. But there can be good things that come from going through your old stories, no matter how much they make you want to sink into the floor.
Be proud of your progress
This is one of the biggest reasons to go back and read your old stories. You may cringe when you read them, but that just means you’ve improved massively since you started. Look at how smoothly your dialogue reads compared to before. Look at how your descriptions actually make sense now. Look at how your characters aren’t the most overpowered people in existence anymore. Obviously, there’s still things we can all learn when it comes to writing, but sometimes it’s nice to look back and see how far you’ve come since you started. It can be a good way to remember just how much you loved to write, and why exactly it is that you’ve kept on writing.
Learn from your mistakes
This is closely tied with the first point, but when you go through your old writing, you might see something that you wrote that makes you cringe, only for you to realize that you still do it now. I used to throw in an absurd amount of parenthesis when I wrote, and I only noticed that once I went back and read over some of my old stories, because my goodness. I used parenthesis almost every paragraph. And looking at the story I was writing then, I was embarrassed to realize that I was still using way too many parenthesis. So I decided to try and use less parenthesis when I wrote and my writing has definitely improved in quality since then. (It’s still not perfect, obviously, and I still use parenthesis from time to time. I just learned something from my old stories that I used to improve my writing.) So when you go back and read your old stories, find out what exactly it is that makes you cringe. You might find that it still occasionally appears in your current writing, and learning from it may save you from even more cringing later on.
Reuse ideas
On a rare occasion, you may look back on your old stories and remember a character or a particular plot line or some unique aspect of a world that you have fond memories of. Old stories are a great place to find ideas to reuse in a much less cringe, actually writable story. Maybe it’s that one character that you fell in love with that actually has potential for their own story. Maybe it’s a line that you found buried in that one old story that actually hits really hard. Maybe it’s that one cool section of your world that you loved and are still hoping to include in a story someday. Take those and rewrite them— remember why you loved them and enjoy writing them in a story that doesn’t make you want to lock it in a box and hurtle it into the deepest part of the ocean.
So there it is! Sometimes it’s good to read your old writing, no matter how much you cringe even thinking about them. Is there an old story of yours that you feel like reading over (and maybe even rewriting)? Go do it!
If you’re looking at the title of this post, yes, I know it probably sounds weird. I’m pretty sure most of us writers know how to write human characters. Unless you write non-human characters. But the kind of human I’m talking about in this post is ‘human’ characters as in relatable and realistic characters.
If you didn’t already guess, characters are my favourite part of any story. There’s something so fascinating about writing or reading about characters and learning about them and what makes them who they are.
So what exactly makes a character ‘human’? There are a few key parts that make up a ‘human’ character, so let’s take a look at them!
Goals
Giving your characters a goal is an important part of making a ‘human’ character. It’s both the driving force of the story and what makes the readers root for the character. If your character doesn’t have a goal, the story won’t move forward and the readers are left with a character that just sort of… exists. Part of what makes human characters is goals— give them motivation, fears that drive them, dreams they want to obtain. It’s a lot more likely for readers to root for your characters to achieve their goals if you actually give them goals to achieve.
Strengths and flaws
Every writer knows it’s important for your characters to have strengths. Some characters are smart, others are physically strong, and others are kind. But it’s important that your characters don’t have just one strength that becomes their entire personality. This can make them become one-dimensional and unrealistic. But even with more than one strength, characters can still feel flat if they don’t have any flaws.
Now it can be easy for writers, especially newer ones, to be worried about flaws making their characters unlikeable. But flaws are part of what make characters realistic. We can admire strength in characters, but it’s the flaws that really make us relate to them more. It also makes characters more interesting, especially if the flaws contradict their strengths. (This doesn’t always have to be the case, but it does make for some fun ideas. Maybe a kind character can struggle with anger issues. Maybe a tough character has a fear of sharp objects. The possibilities are endless!)
Don’t be afraid to give your characters flaws, and don’t be afraid to let them act on them. Let your characters be angry. Let them have fears. Let them be selfish or weak or desperate. It’s a big part of what makes them human and can often be the most interesting part of a character.
Mistakes (and growth)
This is related to the first point, but another key part of making characters human is by letting them make mistakes. This can be something else writers are worried will make their characters unlikeable. But mistakes are probably the biggest part of what make characters human. Let your characters fail— let them mess up. Characters who constantly succeed are at risk of becoming Mary Sues, and I think most of us can agree that Mary Sues are not interesting characters to read about. (Unless someone out there has made an interesting Mary Sue. Please let me know if this has ever happened.)
But where your characters fail, let them grow from those mistakes too. If your characters just mess up or are bad people most of the time and don’t learn from it and try to be better, then it can be difficult for readers to care about or root for them. When your characters learn from their mistakes and grow from them, your readers are more likely to relate to them and care about what happens to them.
Quirks and traits
A key part that makes characters human that I honestly think is overlooked is to give them different habits or quirks. Sometimes it’s the small things that truly bring a character to life. Obviously don’t try to force every single habit or unique thing of your character’s into your story, but find ways to include some of them throughout your story. Sometimes these habits might even pop up out of nowhere while writing (definitely not saying that because that’s happened a few times with a character from one of the projects I’m working on right now).
Give your characters hobbies. Give them a habit they’ve had since they were a kid that they haven’t been able to break. Give them something that they do that gives your readers a deeper glimpse into that character and how they think or act now that they’ve learned about it. Don’t overdo it, but mentioning the small things and even scattering habits throughout the story that readers can pick up on can make characters even more human.
So there it is! What have y’all found that makes a character more human? (Anyone else have characters who have habits that you have absolutely no idea where they came from?)
I just finished watching the anime Spy x Family recently, and I decided to talk about it here because I’ve been obsessed with it and also why not?
Surprisingly, I have not watched very many anime even though I live in Japan, and most people I know have watched far more than I have. I’ve known about Spy x Family for a while but I never sat down to watch it until a little over a week ago. And… yeah, I may have finished both seasons and watched the movie already. I’d heard that it was a really good series, but it was still somehow better than I expected. I’m really surprised it took me so long to watch it since it has some of my favourite tropes mixed together, and the fact that it’s executed in such a charming, entertaining way makes it even better.
So without further ado, let’s talk about the show!
Plot:
A spy, codename Twilight, is given a mission— create a fake family in order to get close to a political leader named Donovan Desmond, who is a key part in keeping peace between Westalis and Ostania. Twilight takes on the persona of Loid Forger and soon finds a wife and daughter for this pretend family— Yor Briar, who is secretly an assassin known as Thorn Princess, and Anya, a young telepath. All three play their parts in this fake family while attempting to hide their respective secrets from each other and trying to maintain world peace.
Like I said above, this show has some of my favourite tropes in it, the most significant one being found family. Loid, Yor, and Anya are all orphans who want to make sure the world is safe, and I love seeing them come together for the sake of their individual missions and their struggles with acting like a normal family. The shenanigans and chaos that ensue provide endless entertainment, especially with Anya being the only one who knows everyone’s secrets.
There are a couple questionable things in the show, because it’s an anime so of course they totally had to include it, but otherwise it’s hard to find complaints when it comes to Spy x Family. I love seeing Loid’s different missions as a spy, Yor’s incredible strength as an assassin, and Anya trying to do her best to help while having absolutely no idea how to do so. The characters have fun and hilarious dynamics, and even when the episodes aren’t extremely high stakes they still manage to find ways to keep us interested and entertained.
Characters:
Spy x Family has such a charming cast of characters, side characters included. The characters are so easy to fall in love with and you find yourself rooting for them almost as soon as you meet them. I loved the main three characters instantly, and honestly I’ve loved them even more as the series has gone on. The side characters are also really awesome, but it’s impossible not to have a soft spot for the main three especially.
Loid: it’s hard to choose a favourite character on this show, but if I had to I would probably pick Loid. He’s the best spy around and unmatched in almost everything he does, but he struggles with doing his best as a husband and father while staying on top of his missions. I love watching his relationships with Yor and Anya develop throughout the show and seeing how much he genuinely cares for them even if he claims it’s “for the mission”. Seeing someone as prepared and calculated as Loid being unable to keep up with how unpredictable Yor and Anya are is honestly one of the most entertaining parts of the show.
Yor: Yor is such an amazing character. I love how even though she’s an assassin with superhuman strength, she’s still one of the sweetest, most awkward characters on the show. Also her inability to cook— or rather her ability to create a poisonous dish out of anything she cooks— never fails to crack me up. I love how quickly and willingly she filled the role of Anya’s mother and how much she dotes on her as opposed to Loid’s stricter parenting style.
Anya: Anya is such a chaotic ball of energy and easily one of the most entertaining characters on the show with her mix of telepathy and bluntness. I love how much she wants to help Loid and how in awe (and terrified) she is of Yor and how she interacts with each character on the show. She’s just all around adorable and it’s hilarious watching Loid and Yor attempt to parent the chaos that is Anya.
Final thoughts:
Spy x Family quickly became a comfort show for me, and it also sparked my interest in anime, which is honestly something I haven’t really considered watching previously. If you’re a fan of anime or found family or just chaos and shenanigans in general and you somehow haven’t watched this yet (yeah, I seriously don’t know why it took so long for me to watch it), I would definitely recommend this. Meanwhile, I’ll be impatiently waiting for season 3 to release with the rest of the show’s fans.
I may have started writing the second draft of Window Lake’s first book already, and that got me thinking about first chapters. The first chapter is obviously very important to the story and, honestly, a pretty hard part to write. But how exactly do we write it? What do we need to include in order to have a functioning first chapter?
So in honour of the FicFrenzy (a writing event for those of you who don’t know) starting next week, I decided to talk about the five important parts of a first chapter. Let’s dive right in!
1. Hook
Ah yes, the infamous hook. The thing most writers get stuck on for five years because we can’t figure out the perfect first line. It can be easy to obsess over making the coolest line ever, but honestly I think writers tend to overcomplicate it (and yes, I am guilty of doing this too). The point of a first line— or more accurately, the first paragraph— is to pique curiosity and/or tell us something about the character or world. It doesn’t have to be the best written line in existence, as much as we would like it to be. It can start with an action, a piece of dialogue, or honestly anything that gets the reader to ask questions. If the reader starts asking questions, that means they want to know more, and if they want to know more they’ll keep reading.
2. Protagonist (+ relationships)
This is arguably the most important thing to include in your first chapter. Introduce the protagonist to your readers and show them who they are. Let the readers learn something about your character as soon as they meet them. It doesn’t have to be in the very first sentence of the book, obviously (unless you want it to be), but establishing what kind of person the character is early on can help readers connect with them more easily. Introducing your character in the first chapter is also important for their growth later on, since it gives readers an idea of what they’re like in their normal life before whatever adventure you throw at them gives them a chance to grow and change. The growth won’t hit as hard if readers don’t know what the character was like from the start.
Another point related to characters that I haven’t seen talked about often when discussing first chapters is introducing important relationships. Now this doesn’t mean introduce every single character your protagonist will ever meet within the first chapter, but if there is an already existing relationship that’s important to the story, it might be a good idea to establish it in the first chapter. If there are other characters your protagonists will meet later on who are important to the story, then you should leave those to later chapters. But introducing a pre-established relationship can help us get to know both characters better.
3. Goal
Give your character a goal— give them something to want. It might be the driving force for the story, or it might be a smaller goal that makes way for the main goal to be introduced. Either way, the goal should help move the story along. Having a goal is a great way to help us care for the characters more, and therefore be more interested in the story as a whole.
4. Conflict
Conflict is another good way to make readers care for your character. Don’t introduce too big of a conflict though— you want to save the worst (or best) of your conflict for later. But a smaller (usually internal) conflict can give readers a look into the mind of the protagonist and is also a great way to push them toward their goal. An example of this is Bilbo in the Hobbit. In the first chapter he struggles between choosing adventure or staying in the comfort of his home. It’s obviously not the largest conflict in the Hobbit, but it helps us get to know Bilbo better and therefore care for him more.
5. Setting
Another important part of the first chapter is establishing the setting. It can be easy to just dump all the information about your world into the first five pages and be done with it, but info dumping can be in the way and even be a turn off for some readers. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have some information about the setting in the beginning, especially if there’s something special or unique about it, but having too much can be distracting to the story. A good way to show setting in the first chapter is to have characters interact with it. This is a great way to introduce parts of a setting without throwing it in the readers’ faces, and it can also help them learn more about the characters and how they interact with their environment.
So there it is! Hopefully this is helpful for anyone starting a new project or draft. Anyone else starting a new project soon or just started one recently?
The fall weather is finally here! Anyone else excited? I know I am, and it’s not just because of the colder temperature. Because Christine Smith’s Know the Novel is here!!!
I’ve been following Christine’s blog for a few years (because I’m a normal person and, y’know, totally not a stalker or anything) and one of the things I always look forward to is her Know the Novel tag. I’ve always wanted to take part in it but didn’t have a blog so I never got the chance. Until now! And to celebrate, I decided to work on two novels this fall! (It’s totally not because I couldn’t decide what to work on so I just picked both.)
The first project I’m planning to work on is the second draft of my first Window Lake book. Since I already have a Meet the WIP post for it that answers basically all the questions of the first Know the Novel post (which y’all can read here!), I’m not gonna talk about here. But I will be talking about it for the next two Know the Novel posts!
The second project is one that’s been sitting in my computer for the past year (which, to be fair, is not very long compared to other ideas I’ve had), and I decided there’s no better time to work on it than now! That project is Maple Row Cafe. It’s a second chance romance story with fall vibes, amnesia, and lots of coffee, and I’m honestly super excited to finally write it.
So without further ado, here are the questions!
1. What first sparked the idea for this novel?
I actually had the idea from listening to “right where you left me” by Taylor Swift. The original concept was a lot different than what it is now, but the basic idea is the same— a girl trying to give her uncle and his high school sweetheart (who has amnesia) a second chance at romance. I really wanted to write a book that takes place in autumn, so I combined that idea with fall vibes and here we are!
2. Share a blurb (or just an overall summary)!
Yeah, I’m not any better at this than I was before. I could probably do a lot better, but this is what y’all get for now:
In order to escape the pressures that have taken over her life, Abigail Hudson decides to stay with her estranged Uncle Owen for the fall. When she arrives in her uncle’s small hometown and finds out he’s been living on his own for the past twenty years, she makes it her duty to push him out of his comfort zone and get him a social life.
When someone new moves into the neighborhood, Abigail believes she’s found the perfect friend for her uncle— their new neighbor, Hattie Lautner, who moved back into her childhood home after a high school accident left her with amnesia and caused her to move away for many years. What Abigail doesn’t realize when she introduces the two, however, is that they already have history with each other. This is a cause for two minor problems— Hattie doesn’t remember Owen, and Owen refuses to reconnect with his high school love because of the guilt he’s been trying to avoid ever since the accident. Now Abigail finds herself attempting to give the two a second chance, while trying to come to terms with her own struggles that she’s been trying to avoid.
3. Where does the story take place? What are some of your favorite aspects of the setting?
The story takes place in your typical small American town in your typical small-town-romance novel. I’m still trying to decide on a name, but the placeholder for now is Redbrook. My favourite aspect is probably the cafe where basically everything happens— Maple Row Cafe (hence the title of the book).
4. Tell us about your protagonist(s).
Abigail Hudson (INFJ/INTJ) – Abigail is the overachieving, stressed perfectionist and protagonist of Maple Row Cafe. After struggling with both college and life in general, she decided to take a break to stay with her uncle for the fall. She’s very determined, studious, and is basically trying to figure out what a break is. Even though she doesn’t have many friends, she’s intent on getting to know her uncle and, more importantly, getting him a social life.
Owen Hudson (INTP) – Owen is Abigail’s estranged uncle who, as you can probably tell, mostly keeps to himself. Despite this, he’s known by most people in his small town for a number of reasons, and he’s one of Maple Row Cafe’s most loyal customers. He can be polite but it’s hard to get to know him well.
Hattie Lautner (ESFP) – Hattie is Owen’s new neighbor and also his former girlfriend of a few years who suffers from amnesia caused by an accident. She’s outgoing, lively, and tries not to let her amnesia spoil her enjoying life. She’s returned years after her family moved because of the accident to try and reconnect with the home she doesn’t remember.
5. Who (or what) is the antagonist?
There’s no antagonist! Well, besides each character’s own inner struggles and guilt and all that fun stuff…
6. What excites you the most about this novel?
The relationships! And the characters, obviously, but since this story is focused more on the characters’ relationships than each individual character, I am slightly more excited for the relationships.
7. Is this going to be a series? standalone? something else?
I was originally planning (and am still hoping) for this to be a standalone, because I already have enough ideas to write without adding a sequel or prequel to this story. But who knows? An idea for another book probably will might pop up at some point…
8. Are you plotting? pantsing? plansting?
I’m gonna be plantsing, I think. I don’t have too much of an idea for the whole plot, at least not as much as I usually do, but I’m not walking in completely blind either. (I don’t think my brain will ever allow me to do that.)
9. Name a few unique elements in this story.
Hmm… I don’t know if the second chance romance + amnesia thing is unique or not, but I’m not aware of another story that has it, so I’m just gonna pretend it’s unique. And the main POV character has no part in the romantic relationship! (Besides, y’know, trying to play matchmaker because that’s always fun and totally a good idea.) Also the romance is not the only important relationship in this story even though it’s a romance story, because we love platonic relationships too!
10. Share some fun “extras” of the story (a song or full playlist, some aesthetics, a collage, a Pinterest board, a map you’ve made, a special theme you’re going to incorporate, ANYTHING you want to share!).
Here’s the part I definitely didn’t spend too much time on!
So there we are! I’m really excited to get started on both novels and for the next Know the Novel posts! (Totally not because I get an excuse to share snippets 👀)
Another Writer's Notebook 