Creating Characters: 4 Simple Exercises

Tips and techniques for creating characters with emotion and viewpoint in this excerpt from “Write Great Fiction: Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint” by Nancy Kress. 1. WRITE MINI BIOS FOR YOUR DREAM CAST Make a list of characters you either might want to...

Use Method Writing to Learn About Your Characters

Famous actors such as Robert De Niro and Al Pacino prepare for their roles through a process called method acting, originally taught by the highly respected acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Method acting is a process that requires actors to go inside themselves to recall...

10 Rules for Writing Opinion Pieces

by Susan Shapiro Opinionated editorial essays are often the most fun, fast and furious pieces to get into print — especially for nonfamous writers with strong opinions and day jobs in other fields. That’s because editors of newspapers and online magazines like Slate,...

Writing Advice from Stephen King Jerry Jenkins

HOW DID THE TWO OF YOU MEET? JENKINS: We happened to have the same audio reader, a brilliant voice actor named Frank Muller. In November 2001 Frank was in a horrible motorcycle accident that left him brain-damaged, incapacitated and barely able to speak. One of...