Writing YA Romance: Crushes and Chemistry

On Monday, I talked about passion vs commercial fiction, and we’re going to continue the “love” theme today with a discussion about writing YA romance. There’s one crush/love/relationship-related pet peeve I have, and I think I share it with everyone that’s read contemporary YA romance or characters like Bella Swan (or the related Anastasia Steele from 50 Shades of Grey). It’s this: a total lack of chemistry and genuine attraction.

YA romance is ridiculously popular. If you’ve ever heard me speak or listened to a webinar of mine, you know it’s because I think that teens lack the real life experience of true romance (the daring, self-sacrificing, all-consuming kind) and so they strive to live vicariously. Fiction and movies often provide teens with much bigger love fantasies than their daily prospects do–that guy asking you over to play Xbox, that girl texting all through dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. So good news if you’re writing YA romance: a big, romantic read is incredibly attractive.

Writing YA Romance: Find the Chemistry

Speaking of which, most YA romance books are all about attraction. In other words, completely superficial. I can’t tell you the number of manuscripts (and, to a lesser extent, published books) that put two characters together whose only real reason for being in a “relationship” is that they find one another extremely hot. Hot is fine for an instant connection. Physical attraction makes us notice other people. But then the relationship has to evolve into something with a bit more substance. To make a believable love story, you need the initial spark, but also the moment when it turns into real emotions. You need those scenes where characters make true connections, where they dream up a future, where they live in the present (check out advice on romance tropes). And those become part of a relationship’s shared history as the story progresses.

Many people who are writing young adult romance stop at the initial attraction. Every time a girl looks at her newly minted boyfriend, she thinks about how utterly hot he is. Not about an inside joke. Not about the way his feet smell kinda funny but she manages to find it charming. Not about how he always picks out the green M&Ms and gives them to her because he knows she likes it. She instead goes on and on about his sculpted cheekbones and soulful eyes and all manner of other such drivel.

Relationships are Like Characters

Writing YA romance that’s complex and conveys chemistry that’s NOT about physical characteristics is extremely difficult. But if you do it well, you have a vast and hungry audience waiting for you, as demonstrated by the Twilight success and now the more mainstream adult presence of 50 Shades of Grey. (Which, yes, I did hear a lot about at Bologna and finally managed to read…I won’t write anything more about it than that because my grandmother once told me, “If you don’t have anything nice to say…”)

Go back to every scene where your romantic leads interact. For every physical description, insert a thought about the present or future or a characterizing detail for the other character. Give us a bit of playful dialogue that shows us, rather than tells us, how the characters get along as people who are creating a bond. Don’t settle for attraction in the physical sense. Give us the moment when they fall in love–truly in love–on the page. We all know this instant, when our entire thinking shifts and things become magic. The impossible seems possible. Those stinky feet suddenly don’t matter.

Include Actions and Reactions

Love and attraction are also about action (er, not that kind quite yet). We behave differently toward our beloveds than we do toward anyone else. Love makes us selfless, crazy, impulsive, brave, vulnerable. How do your character’s actions toward their crushes change as the relationship progresses? How do those actions change the characters? The relationship? Make sure that every plot point and action between your lovers resonates emotionally to either build or break down (the course of true love never did run smooth) your Romeo and Juliet as people. This is all part of building that common relationship history.

When you’re writing relationships between characters, especially in YA romance, here are some points to keep in mind: What plot point touches off the chemical reaction of love in your novel? What happens during? After? What does your character think about when they’re anywhere near their beloved? What do they do? This is the stuff you should be thinking about…not his sculpted cheekbones*.

* Though I just saw the Hunger Games movie** and…yeehaw! Check out the jawline on that Josh Hutcherson! (I feel a little old and cougar-y saying that about a 19-year-old.)

** With my mom, whose birthday is today. Happy Birthday, Mom!

Working on a young adult novel? YA is my favorite category and I’d love to be your young adult editor.

How to End a Chapter

Approaching how to end a chapter is tricky territory. It’s very easy to lose your reader in the white space and page break there, unless you give them a reason to stay and turn the page. Distractions are always beckoning, and nowhere is your grasp on your audience more tenuous.

When you’re strategizing how to end a chapter, you never want to make your reader feel at peace. Unless it’s the last chapter. (More on chapter structure here.) But if your reader thinks, at any other point in the book, “Wow, glad everything worked out,” they will put your book down.

How To End A Chapter In a Compelling Way

Cliffhanger: stop in a place that pretty much guarantees a page-turn
Introduce a new character, plot point, or idea
Tie into theme: harken back to the Big Idea of your story with a thematic image
When all else fails, angst: if you do give your character a quieter moment, make sure to dip into Interiority (thoughts, feelings, reactions) and show the reader how unsettled things are under the surface with some worry or anxiety.

Balance High and Low-Grade Tension

That said, not every chapter ending can be a heart-stopping cliffhanger (unless you are writing a thriller or action-packed novel, like The Hunger Games). That would get exhausting unless, again, it fits with the overall tone and genre of your story. (It could also get predictable and, as a result, have the opposite effect and disengage your audience. You don’t want your reader feeling content, but you also don’t want them thinking, “Oh, gee, I wonder what random bad news will drop out of the sky in this chapter.”) It’s okay to go for low-grade story tension with some chapter endings (the theme and Interiority suggestions, above), as long as you have enough that truly grab your reader in a big way.

For more on how to end a chapter, read up on Prime Real Estate in my post on how to start a book.

When you invest in my book editing services, I do a close evaluation of all aspects of your story — including your chapter endings.

How to Write an Interruption in Dialogue

This post is about three things: how to show an interruption in dialogue, how to write an interruption, and narrative interruption in general.

How to Write an Interruption

(This is an experiential piece, go with it…)

I sat down at the computer to write a blog post when I started thinking… Gosh, it’s really weird how I’m writing this blog post on March 8th, but it won’t be posted until March 14th, because I’m loading my blog up ahead of my trip to Paaaaaaaaaaaaaris! Wow. I can’t believe I go to France tomorrow. An eleven-hour direct flight from San Francisco. I’m going to go stircrazy on that plane, and then I’ll have to navigate the Métro. Can’t complain, though! It’s Paris, after all. Hmm. I wonder if my readers know that I’m writing from the past. What will it be like on March 14th? That day, I’ll be in Beaune, the heart of Burgundy wine country. Mmm…wine country…

A noise from the hall sneaked into my thoughts, pulling me out of my reverie about pinot noir. “That’s right!” I muttered to myself. “I’m supposed to be writing a blog post!” Which is where this ‘How to Write an Interruption’ idea came from.

***

It’s difficult to describe disconnecting a character from his thoughts. This action is usually laden with cliché after cliché after cliché. Voices sneaking into thought. Dialogue snapping a character out of their thinking. Noises startling. Talk of reveries (as you can see above). Fog and/or haze lifting. Being lost in thought. And on and on.

I’m sick of all of them, basically. I would recommend that you avoid clichés altogether. If a noise is going to come from the hall mid-thought, describe it, then jump back into narrative. If dialogue intrudes as the narrative interruption, show us the dialogue, and then get into the swing of things, maybe with one descriptive phrase so the transition isn’t so jarring.

Examples of How to Write an Interruption in Thoughts

Just like you should eliminate the frame, you don’t need to tell us that thoughts have been interrupted. Give us the thoughts. Give us the interruption. Then give us the results. It’s that simple. The narrative interruption of the thought actually stopping is fluff that should be easy to trim.

An example:

Blah blah blah. Wine country. France. Thinking thinking thinking.

“Mary, write your blog post already!” Mary said, rolling her eyes.

“Oh!” Mary wondered how long she’d been spacing. “Duh. Thanks, Mary!”

There’s that one descriptive phrase in there, to get the reader back into the action, but you could even do without it because the “Oh!” conveys surprise or a startled feeling. This issue is a very small nitpick, but, as I said, every word and every phrase counts in your writing.

How to Show an Interruption In Dialogue

With narration, interruptions can be a little bit loosey goosey. On the other hand, how to show an interruption in dialogue is very clear-cut. It goes like this:

“I’m just trying to talk here and–”

“Don’t you say another word!”

Two dashes make what’s called an em-dash, and your word processing program will likely transform this into an em-dash on your behalf when you type it to interrupt dialogue. This is really the only way to format an interruption in dialogue, and you should let the formatting work for you. There’s no need for things like:

“I’m just trying to talk here and…” But then Mary was rudely interrupted.

“Don’t you say another word!”

You shouldn’t narrate the interruption. Don’t describe it. Don’t use an ellipse… Those are for when characters drift off when they’re talking, and interruptions are more sudden (don’t miss checking out this article on punctuation rules in dialogue). Use an em-dash. That’s it. That’s all. Easy.

How to write an interruption can be tricky. Hire me as your fiction editor and we can smooth them out together, and work on the overall flow of your voice.

Achieving Good Writing: Omit Needless Words

Strunk & White of the legendary guide to good writing, The Elements of Style, were on to something when they advised writers, simply, to “omit needless words.” This is valuable advice as you work towards becoming a writer.

This is something I’ve been struggling with myself lately. As you may have guessed, I have just finished writing a book of writing advice. We don’t have a final title yet, but it will be out in November from Writer’s Digest Books. Huzzah! Fiction and nonfiction are two completely different beasts, but economy and good writing are still virtues in both.

Simple Writing: Not so Simple

As I was working, I found myself obsessing with simple writing. Sometimes I get an idea in my head and I really want to make it come across clearly but it’s such a tangle in my mind that it can just become much more difficult to see all the garbage that surrounds what I’m really even trying to say and separate out the good stuff.

Sentences like the above ran positively amok in the first few drafts of my manuscript. Then I started to think simply. Read that run-on again. It’s a nightmare. As I got more and more comfortable with writing the book, I took a torch to sentences like it and focused on producing good writing (more on revising here).

Good Writing is Simple Writing

I’d rewrite it as, perhaps:

Sometimes I get so tangled up with expressing a core idea I can’t see the wheat for the chaff.

If I wanted to say it without the cliché, I might write:

Sometimes I overthink a core idea and let my explanation overshadow what I mean to say.

This is the same idea, the same information, but a lot more streamlined. All those extra words do not equal extra knowledge or good writing. In crafting my own manuscript, I developed eagle eyes for excessive language. Now all the notes I give on manuscripts are, “Simplify!” and “You’re saying something simple in a convoluted or roundabout way.” Keep this in mind as you’re working on becoming a writer.

Unpacking the Nightmare Sentence

Sometimes I get an idea in my head (I should hope so…where else do you get ideas?! This is implied.) and I really want to make it come across clearly (“Make it come across clearly” is flabby, “express” is a stronger verb that’s less colloquial and cuts to the point.) but it’s such a tangle in my mind (I like the “tangle” image but I’ve already mentioned “in my head,” so “in my mind” is not only redundant syntactically (“in my noun”), but in terms of content.) that it can just become much more difficult (“much more adjective” is a writing tic of mine that I notice everywhere, so is “just,” “even,” and “really,” which all feature in this sentence. I swear, if I was left to my own devices, I would just make sentences out of those filler words and nothing else.) to see all the garbage that surrounds what I’m even trying to say and separate out the good stuff (Here I’m restating my point for the billionth time. If I am talking about separating garbage from something, it’s implied that I’m probably trying to get it away from “good stuff,” so I don’t know if that bears repeating.).

Look for Your Own “Sentence Pretzels”

God. I exhaust myself. This is obviously a glaringly bad example, choked with needless words–circuitous, and redundant. But I’ve seen many similar “sentence pretzels” in critique, so I know I’m not the only writer who struggles with simplicity and good writing, whether in fiction or non.

I’m very grateful for the chance to write a book (and the pressure of a deadline). It has taught me a lot about good writing…the hard way. While I wish I could save you the trouble and divulge all of my recent insights, I know that a lot of these lessons are things you need to learn for yourself when you’re becoming a writer.

Want to produce good writing? Invest in my fiction editing services and I’ll help you trim the purple prose from your manuscript so your story shines through.

Characterization Through Meaningful Details

Writers, when you’re creating characters, try to avoid writing descriptions that don’t do anything to enhance my understanding of said characters. Let’s define details that enhance characterization, shall we?

creating characters, characterization — I really don’t give a hoot about Jenny’s curly brown hair unless it plays into some larger plot point.

What Are Characterization Details?

When an author is creating characters, these are the details that work on multiple levels to give me a deeper understanding of a character’s core identity, worldview, relationships to others, and relationship to self.

Let’s do a quick quiz on details that enhance characterization. I’m not going to write full-blown examples of each event for you. These are the simple facts. In fully realized prose, they would ideally be shown, not told to you. But for the sake of this exercise, imagine that this is what you learn from a given piece of information, regardless of how that information is delivered.

Which Of The Following Are Details That Enhance Characterization?

Jenny has brown hair.
Michael bends down to pick up someone’s dropped penny.
Ian likes ice cream.
Laura tugs at her sweater whenever she sees Greg.
Holly has freckles.
Debra skips church to go to the go-kart races every Sunday.
Beau’s walls are painted a pale yellow.
Kyle bought an urn at a thrift store and keeps it on his bookshelf.
Amanda takes guitar lessons.
Rufus is first kazoo in his neighborhood band.

The last two examples are a bit conflated, perhaps, because musical ability does inform character, no matter what the instrument, but I think you get the point I’m making with this very leading quiz.

Points To Keep In Mind When You’re Creating Characters

I don’t care, at the end of the day, what your character looks like–unless something about their physicality is important to plot or story, it’s likely arbitrary
Details that enhance characterization are revealed through action–show, don’t tell
Details that enhance characterization have emotional resonance–when we see Laura tug at her sweater, we get a sense of something else that might be going on beneath the surface
This information broadcasts into the future–we get the sense that what we learn here will come back at some point in the story and be relevant
Details that enhance characterization tend to be specific

Details And Actions Should Do Double Duty

When you’re creating characters, and especially at the beginning of your book–whether novel or picture book!–make sure you are choosing details and actions that do double duty and flesh out character on a more emotional level for your reader (Find more tips about how to write emotions in a story.) You can talk about their favorite fast food and music all day long, but that has a very limited reach. It’s when we know them in action and in relationship to other characters that they truly come alive.

When you hire my manuscript critique services, I’ll help you create complex characters that readers connect with.

Picture Book Alliteration

Picture book alliteration always annoys. Just kidding! Well, not always, but it’s getting there. Why? Because this is such a common technique that amateur writers use, so the overall quality is lacking. I’ve been thinking a lot about alliteration picture books recently, after working with a lot of picture book clients. Here are some more nuanced thoughts on the topic.

alliteration in picture books, alliteration writing, alliterative writing, alliteration, alliteration children's books, alliteration kid's books — The best picture books are fresh and vibrant, and alliteration dates a manuscript.

Picture Book Alliteration Is Overdone

This post isn’t inspired by any one picture book manuscript from that batch (so don’t worry, students, I’m not talking about one of you in particular)…and that’s the problem. One of my growing pet peeves about picture book writers (and their imaginations) is alliteration. You’ll often find alliteration in rhyming picture books.

Gosh, I have a lot of pet peeves, I know. But I sit here and read manuscripts all day. That’s what I do. Tens of thousands of them. And so I see a lot of common trends and writer mistakes that I know you don’t because you don’t read nearly as many different potential books as I do. It’s an issue of context.

A lot of people seem to think that the bulk of their characterizing work or word choice craft in picture books comes down to alliterating. And that’s it. Just name him Sammy Skunk and kick up your feet because your work here is done! Right? Not quite. And “Sammy Skunk skips smilingly down the springtime sage-speckled slope” is all you have to do in order to nail that pesky concept of voice! Right? Again…not really.

Alliteration Doesn’t Add As Much As You Think to a Picture Book Manuscript

But more and more, I get alliteration picture book submissions that lean way too heavily on alliteration in order to “accomplish” (so thinks their author) both character and voice. It’s a lot like rhyme. A lot of writers remember rhyme in picture books, so they think they have to write in rhyme. A lot of writers see picture book alliteration on the shelves, so they alliterate. Both cause scribes to contort themselves into a type of sentence pretzel of unnatural language.

In rhyme, writers adopt an almost Victorian syntax in order to make sure they end on the right word. In alliteration picture books, word order also tends to sound unnatural because you’re letting the first letter dictate your word choice. This blog post has a terrible opening line. “Alliteration always annoys.” Nobody talks like that! It doesn’t sound organic! But I had to in order to shoehorn some alliteration in there, and the writers in my slush perpetrate a lot worse in order to stay consistent at the expense of meaning.

So instead of lending you a coveted voice, picture book alliteration makes you sound contrived in most cases. And if I see another cutesy alliterative character name, I will scream. Aim for more sophistication in your writing, especially for the picture book audience. That will set you way, way, way above and beyond the rest of the slush.

Picture books are some of my favorite manuscripts to work on. If you’re using alliteration (or other cliché techniques) but suspect you could do better, hire me as your picture book editor. We’ll figure out your unique writing voice.

How to Tell if You’re a Good Writer

At every writer’s conference we attend, with every interview we do, and for every bio we fill out, there’s one question that always makes its way into the mix: “What do literary agents look for?” It came up on a panel this weekend at the excellent San Francisco Writers Conference, as usual. It’s what writers are very curious about, naturally, right up there with the perennial “How to tell if you’re a good writer.” Because, if they know what agents and editors want, they can supply…right?

How To Tell If You’re a Good Writer

I hate the “What do literary agents look for?” question. And I said so. And the smartass answer–“I know it when I see it”–isn’t helpful. My actual answers on the panel were “Good stuff done well” and “Literary spark and commercial appeal.”

I’m not trying to be coy here. But I think that fellow agent Taylor Martindale‘s answer to a different question illustrates my point perfectly. When talking about books we were excited about, she said she recently sold a YA novel about a girl whose mother has a nervous breakdown and thinks she has become Amelia Earhart. Taylor had just sold the book and, to be honest, it sounds really interesting.

Specific Answers Are Hard to Come By

It’s a rare agent or editor who knows exactly, in very specific detail, what they’re looking for. Sure, some editors will say, for example, “I am looking for Dexter for teens.” They tell everyone they know. This actually happened in 2010 with one editor, and they got their wish. Their very specific request inspired author Barry Lyga to write the forthcoming I HUNT KILLERS, which comes out in April and, if you don’t mind me saying, is mind-blowingly great.

It’s much more common to get a vague answer. I bet Taylor Martindale never went on a panel at a conference and said “I’m looking for a YA about a girl whose mother has a nervous breakdown and thinks she’s Amelia Earhart.” I never went on a panel and said “I’m looking for a picture book about a bird who befriends a snowball” (WHEN BLUE MET EGG by Lindsay Ward, which was written up in last week’s New York Times), or “I really want to read about a boy who stumbles into a parallel universe to try and reclaim the love of his life” (THROUGH TO YOU by Emily Hainsworth) or “I really want a story about a Polynesian volcano goddess with a bad tempter” (WILDEFIRE by Karsten Knight).

Aim for a General Picture of Their Sensibilities

In fact, when we meet with editors, they very rarely get super specific about what they’re looking for. We’ve all been shocked and delighted about what has grabbed us in the past. So I, personally, never say never and leave the possibilities wide open. Most of my colleagues in agenting and publishing do the same. When I meet with editors, it’s less about what they say they want and more about learning the flavor of their imprint and hearing them talk about books that have excited them. Writers ask, “how to tell if you’re a good writer,” well here are some of the things agents look for: Are they focusing on the characters? The plot? The writing? Do they like to laugh? Cry? Fall in love? Basically, I’m trying to get a more general picture of their sensibilities, then match projects to them on that level. Of course, if they have specific requests, I keep those in mind, too, just in case I ever have a perfect match.

How To Tell If You’re a Good Writer: It’s the Writer’s Job to Come Up With Amazing Ideas

In all honesty, you shouldn’t be fishing for the answer to “What do literary agents look for?” You are the writer. It is your job to come up not only with a really well-written story, but with an idea that’s going to resonate in the marketplace and grab attention. That’s becoming more and more important, and I’m sure I’ll blog about this a lot later. (Not being vague…it just has a lot to do with the Big News I keep talking about.)

A lot of writers say in their queries: “I am happy to write whatever you need.” No. Want to know how to tell if you’re a good writer? You put the work into developing a bang-up idea and then building your writer’s toolbox so you can execute it with aplomb. That’s what will sell. And if you’ve put the work into writing a great novel, many different agents and editors will be a fit for it, because we’re all looking for, basically “Good stuff done well.”

So I hope you can understand why “I’ll know it when I see it” isn’t a copout answer.

Want to know how to tell if you’re a good writer? When you invest in my book editing services, I’ll evaluate your current skill level and then help you build your writing and revision toolbox so you can do you story idea justice.

Editing Your Writing: Eliminate the Frame

I want to share a tip for editing your writing. There’s a little thing that writers do that bugs me: It’s called a frame. Basically, it’s everything around the necessary information that doesn’t really help your reader understand anything, it’s just superfluous. Here’s an exaggerated example to prove my point:

She saw with her eyes that there was an elephant standing impossibly in the castle’s ballroom.

Or you could simply say:

An elephant stood, proud, tall, and incongruous, in the middle of the castle’s ballroom.

editing your writing, prose writing — Frames are everywhere. And they are all fat, so trim them. Tips for editing your writing.

Editing Your Writing: Trim the Frames

Frames are everywhere. And they are all fat, so they’re an easy thing to trim when editing your writing. Every time you describe that your character saw, heard, felt, smelled, or tasted something, see if you can’t drill into the more essential information of the sentence and cut out the unnecessary words. Instead of, “He smelled the cakes fresh out of the oven and they filled the room with warm cinnamon,” focus on the latter half of the sentence to set the mood. (And kudos to you if you’re using all five senses in your prose writing, including taste, smell, and touch, which often take a backseat to sight and hearing!)

Frames are a Form of Telling

No matter if you’re telling your story in first person point of view or third person narrative, you are basically saying, “This is what my character experienced” when you write a picture book or novel. There’s no reason to keep saying, “She experienced such and such,” which is basically what you’re reminding your reader of each time you use a frame. Simply get straight to the such and such (remember: show, don’t tell). It’s a small trick for editing your writing (and therefore a short post) but it will make your prose that much leaner and cleaner.

I love helping writers of all skill levels improve their prose writing. Each manuscript critique comes with proofreading and line editing services, which will help polish your work for agent eyes.

For Crying Out Loud: Writing Emotion Effectively

It’s my belief that the chief goal of writing fiction is to make a reader care — and writing emotion effectively is key to achieving that goal. Without that emotional investment, you’d be wasting even the most kick-butt plot and the most ingenious characters. Without an emotional connection, the rest of your hard work will never take off.

writing emotion, writing drama — If you want me to rise to serious emotions with your characters, I need a good reason to go there with them.

Give Me A Reason

That’s why I get frustrated with writers who expect me to rise to serious emotions without giving me a reason. A great example is writing emotion — intense emotion — in the first chapter, before I’ve had a chance to bond with the character. Let’s say the book opens with a funeral for the character’s father. They are a wreck, weeping all over the place, inconsolable. You’d think that a funeral scene would automatically elicit strong emotions in the reader, but you’d be wrong.

Simply writing drama doesn’t make a reader care. If I’m just meeting your character, I don’t know anything about them. And while funerals are sad, yes, and crying is sad, sure, I will not automatically match emotions just because they are presented on the page. (Looking for tips on beginning a novel?)

Writing Emotion Effectively Requires Interiority

Similarly, I don’t much like to see crying for crying’s sake (more on interiority meaning). There are manuscripts I’ve read where the author seems to have lost all restraint when it comes to writing drama. Characters are screaming, raging, crying, laughing, and every other powerful emotion in between. But they fail to strike a chord. Why? Because rather than seeing those external displays of emotion, I’d rather know the exact thoughts that bring those tears about. Instead of saying, “She wept bitterly as they lowered the casket into the ground,” I’d prefer to read something like, “Of all things to think in this moment, she remembered the stupid joke birthday card she was planning on giving him next week, and how she’d never hear him laugh about it.” The thought that triggers the tears, whether it’s rational or completely random, like the above, is always much more powerful when you’re writing emotion. I know more about the character and her relationship to her now-dead father from the specific second example, and that makes me more invested. It helps me to form that emotional bond.

The Law of Diminishing Returns

Another thing to think about, and this I borrow from Robert McKee and his scriptwriting Bible, STORY: The Law of Diminishing Returns. The first time you see something, it’s powerful and it gets your attention. Like a rip-roaring action sequence in a summer blockbuster. “Awesome,” you think, “that semi just totally just clipped that low-flying police helicopter,” or whatever. But if the movie keeps throwing insane chase sequences at you, they’re going to have less and less of an effect. This principle makes many things in life possible. Think about doctors. They may feel queasy digging into their first cadaver, but by the end of medical school, they’re mucking around in bodies like champs.

When you’re writing emotion, don’t hit your reader with intense feelings over and over again because you mistake this for making your audience care. If people aren’t attaching to your characters or their struggles, the answer isn’t to make them cry or rage more or more often, it’s to carefully choose your moments of high emotion, motivate them well, and really let us into the character’s experience. (Even more tips for how to write emotions in a story.)

Be Thoughtful And Intentional When Writing Emotion

Again, I’ve read many manuscripts (especially YA), where a vexed and emotional teen cries all the time, constantly flying off the handle. Instead of bringing me into that character’s world, the author’s attempt at writing drama turns me off, and keeps pushing me away the longer the tantrums continue.

We all are hard-wired to respond to emotions, but it’s the way in which you present those moments in your fiction that will make all the difference.

My manuscript critique services will help you write authentic emotion that prioritizes quality over quantity.

Immortality in Fiction and Writing Immortal Characters

“The Problem With Immortality in Fiction” doesn’t seem like a very real headline. The problem with immortality? What problem with immortality? I know that I, for one, would love to be immortal. *bares neck for any vampires that might happen by* But writing immortal characters has a few pitfalls. Read on.

immortality in fiction, writing immortal characters — Calling all vampires: This neck is available. Kthnx.

But immortality in fiction is a huge problem for stakes. If your characters are immortal, they can’t die, and therefore one of the worst things that could befall someone is out of the question. When your characters are immortal, stakes plummet.

High Stakes Situations are Difficult to Write

The same goes for scenarios that are larger than life. It’s very hard to wrap one’s mind around a global apocalypse, when you really think about it. Think about those charity ads for starving children. If we hear the same mind-numbing statistic of “XX million children are starving in the world,” it’s almost too much to process. And it doesn’t stir our hearts for long. But those ad campaigns that highlight a particular child in a particular place and tell us their story, those are the ones that engage us into putting a specific face on world poverty and hunger.

So if you have an immortal character running around screaming, “The world’s going to end! Gaaah!”…I don’t know if you’re going to get the kind of reader-hooking reaction you want. The stakes you say are present (death/end of the world) are too big, and therefore they start to mean nothing, after all.

How to Make High Stakes Believable, Even With Immortality in Fiction

Let’s say you are writing a story about an immortal character or the end of the world. Should you put down the quill and sulk because it’s hopeless? No. The trick is to build in a framework of things (probably people) that your character cares about more than life itself, and put them in very real and immediate danger that is much smaller, more menacing, and more specific than some malformed looming apocalypse (Advice on raising the stakes).

Through your character’s relationships to these people and their willingness to risk all for what they really care about, we will start to get invested in their story. After all, immortality is one thing, and it’s pretty boring, turns out. But the event that threatens to make immortality shallow and meaningless for your character? That’s what I’m interested in. And an apocalypse isn’t scary to me because it’s too huge. But the thing your character can’t bear to leave undone before the world grinds to a halt? That’s what I want to see.

Writers keep hearing advice to up the stakes, but it is possible to make your stakes too high and impossible to care about. If that’s the problem you’re battling, give your characters other more immediate things to despair over.

Struggling with building believable stakes and tension. Hire me as your fiction editor and we can make sure your novel hits the right emotional notes to pull readers in.