1 :: 4 What’s Horrifying for Writers?

5 Major Horrors Every Writer Will Face, from Writer’s Block to Crash and Burn.

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June Writing Challenge ~ Check-in #1 ~ 4:24 June 7, 2023
It’s the Writing Challenge, this June on The Write Focus. In addition, we give the #1 indicator of writing success and introduce the 7 writing stages for building any content type, fiction and nonfiction. The Writing Challenge started on June 1 (we promoted it in our May 31 episode). We’re attempting 1,500 words per day […]
M.A. Lee
4:23 Ornaments (Significant Lists) / Discovering Characters May 31, 2023
In this episode, we finish the series Discovering Characters. Tomorrow starts June, and The Write Focus will have a June Writing Challenge. We hope to write the equivalent of 1,000 words per day, giving us 30,000 words by the end of the month. That’s a great start on a novel or nearly a complete novella, […]
M.A. Lee
4:22 / Transitions / Discovering Characters May 24, 2023
We have two more episodes in the Discovering Characters series. Today’s episode is the 3rd of the Sliding Scales, the first being Progressions and the 2nd Transgressions. This 3rd Sliding Scale is Transitions. Circumstances can cause growth and change even when our hearts and minds may have intended to avoid any transformation. We often are […]
M.A. Lee
4:21 / Transgressions / Discovering Characters May 17, 2023
We’ve almost finished our Discovering Characters series. In the last episode, we presented how characters can be developed to reveal their growth or decline or their alterations. In this episode, we present the dark side of characters: the Transgressions. Only a couple of episodes remain in this series then we’re off on a Summer Challenge. […]
M.A. Lee
4:20 / Progressions / Discovering Characters May 10, 2023
From the beginning of this Discovering Characters series, we’ve built our primaries from the ground up with templates and interviews We’ve looked at our individual primaries, the protagonists and antagonists, as well as our secondary characters and their relationships with our primaries. The best characters are not static but change, whether they grow or decline. […]
M.A. Lee
4:19 / Character Lessons from Myths / Discovering Characters May 3, 2023
We’ve reached the last major section of Discovering Characters, which is Décor or Special Touches for Characters and the Sliding Scales. We begin with Lessons from Myths, primarily Greek mythology, that huge melting pot of myths. Here in modern times we can barely see the distinctions in cultures that compose the myths. Time has blurred […]
M.A. Lee
4:18 / Mentors / Discovering Characters April 26, 2023
Yoda. Q. Nanny McPhee. Spock. Gandalf. JARVIS. Dumbledore. Mary Poppins. Merlins. All mentors. A mentor is a wise elder who teaches, provide gifts, motivates and plants seeds. They are wise, mysterious, a little deranged, and incredibly awe-inspiring. They can be much-loved … or dark and dangerous. They can provides gifts willingly … or present challenges […]
M.A. Lee
4:19 / Tests from Enemies / Discovering Characters April 19, 2023
Conflict moves stories. The protagonist faces the conflict, battling with it and dealing with it. Whether our focus is Jane Austen or Charles Dickens, George R.R. Martin or Dean Koontz, the swiftest action-adventure or the highest literary fiction, the protagonist battles a conflict-creator. The antagonist creates the deepest and longest conflict, yet other characters can […]
M.A. Lee
4:16 / Allies and More / Discovering Characters April 12, 2023
While Teams actively engage with the primary characters and the story’s conflict, many other characters will populate stories. Whether in a short story, a simple anecdote in nonfiction, or in novels and epics, these other characters flesh out the skeleton of our writing. Allies, Foils, Love Interests, Blocking Figures, and more all participate in the […]
M.A. Lee
4:15 /Team Roles / Discovering Characters April 5, 2023
For writers, teams offer greater opportunities than a single protagonist or antagonist. We are not limited to character’s perspective throughout the writing. We can have two who alternate or a group of characters whose diverse perspectives open a wider opportunity for conflict and tension. Writers can have a lot of fun with teams. We can […]
M.A. Lee

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