Character

Novelist Wendy Holden explains how you can best tackle characterizing the British Royal Family.

Dr. Craig Wynne shares strategies for writing single characters in fiction who are strong, healthy, and fulfilled. He includes 4 clichés and tropes to avoid when writing single characters, 4 alternative strategies, and why writers should even care.

In this article, author and trained fighter Carla Hoch answers a writer's question about how to handle writing a female serial killer in their work-in-progress.

Evoking emotion on the page begins with the man or woman at the keyboard. Dustin Grinnell serves up seven straightforward tactics for writing tear-jerking stories that make your readers empathize with your characters.

WD editor and fantasy writer Moriah Richard shares five unique ways in which writers can use World of Warcraft to better build their worlds—without playing the game.

Romance author Michelle Major explains her three go-to tips for ensuring your characters have believable chemistry.

Bestselling author Clare Mackintosh shares the 10 things she learned when writing a family drama and reveals what will be key when writing your own.

Using fictional and human examples, Dustin Grinnell takes a deep dive into how and why evil develops in story and in real life and how you can apply these concepts when writing villains.

This WD article from 1993 offers an in-depth look at how a writer's voice makes or breaks their work and provides some tips that will help writers of all genres.

Heather Griffin shares her tips on how to create supporting roles in fiction that come off as more than just a flavorless side dish. Rather, supporting roles can sometimes steal the show.

According to literary agent Donald Maass, a protagonist is defined as the subject of a story, whereas a hero is someone with extraordinary qualities. Here, Dustin Grinnell offers examples of such extraordinary heroes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and dissects what it takes to write them.

Bestselling author and creative writing instructor Chris Mooney shares his five rules for writing successful stories that they don't often teach in MFA programs.

This August 1989 Writer's Digest articles encourages writers to say no to their characters—in other words, create compelling conflicts in their stories.

Here is the post you've been looking for: A complete guide of ways how to write characters better, whether you're looking to create protagonists, antagonists, or minor characters from a range of award-winning and bestselling authors.

Wendy Heard, author of The Kill Club, offers 5 tips for making writing in multiple points of view easier for you and more satisfying for your readers.

Choosing which POV (point of view) to write in can be challenging. Writing instructor Pooja Mittal Biswas shares her suggestions for choosing the best POV for your story and genre.

Writing villains can be a challenge but one approach is having them use gaslighting techniques on their victims. Learn more from this excerpt from Fight Write by Carla Hoch.

The villains we remember most aren't just bad, they have layers of goodness weaved in. Jeanne Veillette Bowerman explains how every character can have their own antagonist within your story.