Tag: character development

Fight, Flight, or Freeze? Psyche 101 for Writers

Writing Tips

by Becca Puglisi, @beccapuglisi

Fight or flight.

I think we’ve all heard this phrase. It refers to the way each person is hard-wired to respond to real or perceived danger. Psychologists have recently added another option, giving us three ways we might respond to threats: we fight back, we flee, or we freeze up. This happens in life-or-death situations, but it also occurs on a smaller scale whenever we feel endangered:

  • At the mall, when you see someone who mistreated you in the past
  • At work, when the boss criticizes your work
  • At a party, when a friendly conversation takes an uncomfortable turn
  • At school, when you hear an ugly rumor someone has started about you

So whether the situation is potentially fatal or just a little threatening, you’re going to respond in one of those three ways. What does that look like? Here are few possibilities that cover a range of intensity:Continue reading

Empathizing With Your Character

Uncategorized, Writing Tips

Two senior men talking at an outdoor table at a restaurant.

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

Every once in a while, I’ll grind to a halt with my story.  I’ll either want to flesh out a subplot or develop the main plot a bit more, but I won’t be sure which direction to go in.

I always manage to muddle my way through and solve my problem, but I’d never sent a lot of time thinking about how I solve it.

I read a post by Steven-John Tait recently and one of his tips really resonated with me. Tait said, “Find empathy. If you can empathize with a character, you can get into their head. Once you’re in their head, you can fill in the blanks.”

Tait’s tip was intended to help with developing a protagonist, but it works well with all of the characters in the story.  This is one of the main methods that I use when I’m ‘muddling’ through the book to find my way.Continue reading

How Morals and Basic Needs Influence a Character’s Positive Traits

Writing Tips

by Becca Puglisi, @BeccaPuglisiBecca Puglisi 2

 Since Angela Ackerman and I wrote our last book, The Positive Trait Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Attributes, I’ve been thinking a lot about personality traits and how they’re formed. Flaws are incredibly important for a character to have—and, let’s be honest: they’re really interesting to read about. But one of the main reasons we fall in love with characters is because we want them to succeed, to achieve their goals and overcome their flaws; this is where the positive attributes come in. The fact is, every character needs both positive and negative traits, and these traits need to be chosen thoughtfully.

When it’s time to create your character and figure out what his traits will be, you should take into account many factors that influence their development: genetics, upbringing and caregivers, past wounds, environment, peers—all of these things absolutely cause certain traits to organically emerge for a character. (For more information on how these factors influence trait development, please see this post on the topic.) Today, I’d like to zero in on what I believe are the two biggest influencers on trait formation: morality and basic needs.Continue reading

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