fiction
-
Transcript: As we’ve learned during this series about character development, what keeps readers invested in your story isn’t just the plot — it’s the people. Strong relationships drive emotion, tension, and meaning throughout the story and give your readers more to care about and root for. Whether it’s two allies learning to trust each other,
-
Transcript: Nothing slows a story faster than an info dump. You know the kind — pages of history, family trees, or magical laws before we’ve even met the main character. Writers include them because we care about our worlds and our characters. We’ve built these intricate systems, designed every corner of a kingdom, traced every
-
Transcript: You can tell so much about a character by what they say — and how they say it. Dialogue isn’t just about passing information between characters. It’s how we hear their personality, feel their emotions, and sense the tension simmering beneath the surface. Think about how instantly recognizable some character voices are. Elizabeth Bennet.
-
Transcript: It’s Novel November, which means writers all over the world — myself included — are knee-deep in new stories, messy drafts, and caffeine-fueled plotting sessions. And as we build those stories, one of the most common challenges I see is this: Your plot is moving, your world is rich, but your characters? They feel…
-
Transcript: So, you’ve got a character. You know their name, maybe their job, maybe even what they order at their favorite coffee shop. But do you know what they want, what’s stopping them, and why it matters? Because these three pieces — Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, or GMC from here on out — are the
-
Transcript: It’s Halloween — that magical time of year when villains, monsters, and mischief-makers get to take center stage. And honestly? They deserve it because a story is only as good as the force standing in its hero’s way. Without Darth Vader, there’s no Luke Skywalker. Without Maleficent, there’s no Sleeping Beauty. Without Regina George,
-
Transcript: Why do some heroes instantly grab us while others leave us bored, just waiting for something to happen? Think about Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, Katniss in The Hunger Games, or even Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. Instead of just following their stories, we feel like we’re living them. Today,
-
After having participated in the event since 2011, it was heartbreaking to learn earlier this year that National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) went under. A lot of reasons led to the collapse of this organization, so I won’t get into it here, but it was still a sad moment. NaNoWriMo had been the experience that
-
Transcript: Today, I want to talk about gatekeeping, something all of us have experienced and many of us have inflicted upon one another. Because honestly, the level of toxicity oozing into creative spaces because of gatekeeping has gotten out of hand. So today, we’re going to explore what gatekeeping is, what it looks like at
-
Transcript: Too slow, and you lose your reader. Too fast, and they’re left confused, flipping back pages like, Wait—how did we get here? Let’s fix your pacing. Pacing is one of the most under-discussed, but absolutely vital, parts of story craft. You can have gorgeous prose, complex characters, and high stakes, but if the story
C. Sloan Lewis | Your Virtual Writing Coach 