: Re: Thinking as a character Months after starting my first novel (which hasn't made any progress and is still in its first draft) I feel I can only react to a given situation rather than create

If the characters are only reacting, give each character something to want. A desire strong enough that the character will struggle to achieve it. Then make the character struggle.

For dialogue, give each character an agenda. Things they want from the conversation. Things they do not want to happen. Things they do not want to reveal. And make sure their agendas conflict.

The agendas may show up directly in the dialogue. Or they may show up indirectly, in the way the characters say things, or in what they don't say, or in what they pay attention to, or in the way they react to each other.

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: Re: Thinking as a character Months after starting my first novel (which hasn't made any progress and is still in its first draft) I feel I can only react to a given situation rather than create

More posts by @Kevin153

: Is there a problem in switching from present to past for a backstory sequence? My understanding was that it's fairly normal for a present-tense novel to switch into past tense in a backstory

: The fine line between accurate science, and confusing my reader I recently wrote a blog post (original here) about a scientific study. At the end, I included some "fine print" which states,

: How To Write Concisely I am a high school student, and am concerned with my recent compositional tendencies. This past year, I took AP English Language and Composition. It was a rather difficult

: Should an author seek copyright clearance before finding a publisher? I would like to include some material which will need clearance. Is this something that needs doing before finding a publisher?

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