When I talk to writing students they say that merging a good character with an interesting plot is one of the hardest parts of writing. I agree. A good character is only really as good as the situations he is written into, the experiences he gets to have, the conflicts he struggles with, and the interactions he has with other characters. That is why so many writers start with a plot they think is interesting and then try to build a character from that. The only problem with that is …

By Lee Masterson
How do you describe your character’s physical appearance? It’s not always easy to describe your characters without resorting to the cliched “She looked in the mirror and saw…”
Likewise, setting the scene for each part of your story is an important element of building your fictional world. In fact, some authors go to great lengths to describe the weather patterns, the scenery and the passing traffic in detail so that the reader has a sense of the world around the characters.
This kind of descriptive narrative can sometimes be long …

Many of us have read stories or books that we have thought are quite dull. They fail to capture our fancy or our imagination. Often, the writers fail because they never truly make us believe their stories are real. We believe things are real when we see them, or touch them, or taste them, or smell them. In stories, the way to do that is detail. Believable details can convince a reader to abandon reality or even better capture a reader up into a new reality.
However, the right kind of …

We begin a new series this week focused on helping out writers. For about twelve years I have been writing, teaching, and editing and over the course of those years I have picked up a few things that I know will be beneficial. What follows is not the book on writing short stories, but I do believe there are some pretty good points in here that will help out any writer who hasn’t mastered his or her craft yet.
One of the most important aspects of any short story is …

If I say the word cheerleader, you probably have an instant reaction. Maybe it is good, maybe it is bad. But that word, cheerleader, seems to bring forth a response in everyone. For me, it has always had a negative connotation.
In part, it was because I never really considered cheerleading a sport. As a boy, I loved competition. I loved it in sports, in the nature of action figures, in attempting to achieve the highest grades. I loved beating people at things, at fighting and triumphing. With cheerleading, there …