How to Write Characters With Romantic Chemistry

Writing great chemistry can be challenging. If you’re not super inspired, sometimes the connection between your characters feels like it’s missing something.

Here are a few steps you can consider when you want to write some steamy romantic chemistry and can’t figure out what’s blocking your creativity.

1. Give the Love a Name

Tropes have a bad reputation, but they can be excellent tools when you’re planning or daydreaming about a story. Giving the romance a name also assigns a purpose, which takes care of half the hard plotting work.

You can always read about love tropes to get inspired and think about which might apply to the characters or plot points you have in mind, like:

There are tooooons of other tropes in the link above, but you get the idea. Name the love you’re writing about and it will feel more concrete in your brain.

2. Develop Your Characters

You should always spend time developing your characters individually, but it’s easy to skip this part. You might jump into writing the story because you have a scene idea. Then the romance feels flat.

The good news is you can always go back and make your characters more real. Give them each their own Word or Google doc and use character templates or questions to develop them. 

You should remember to do this for every character involved in the relationship as well. Sometimes love happens between two people who live nearby and other times it happens by:

There are so many other ways to experience love too. Don’t leave out anyone involved in the developing relationship or writing your story will feel like driving a car with only three inflated tires.

3. Give the Conversations Stakes

Whenever your characters get to talk, what’s at risk? This doesn’t have to always be something life changing or scary. Sometimes it might be one character risking how the other perceives them by revealing an interest or new fact about themselves.

What’s developing in each conversation? What’s being said through their body language? Are they learning if they share the same sense of humor or value the same foundational beliefs? Real-life conversations don’t always have a point, but they do in romantic stories. 

4. Remember Body Language

Body language begins long before things get sexy between your characers (if they ever do). It’s their fingertips touching under the table, the missed glance at the bus stop, the casual shoulder bump while walking down the street.

It’s flushed cheeks, a jealous heart skipping a beat, being tongue tied because one character can’t admit their feelings yet.

If a scene or conversation feels lacking, analyze what your characters are saying through their body language. It could be the thing your scene is missing.

5. Add a Few Flaws

No love story is perfect, but that doesn’t mean your characters have to experience earth shattering pain either.

Make one laugh so hard that they snort and feel embarrassed so the other can say how much they love that person’s laugh. Make miscommunication happen so they can make up or take a break. 

People grow through their flaws and mistakes. Relationships get stronger or weaker when they learn things that are different about them or that they don’t like about each other. 

6. Create Intellectual Moments

When you’re getting to know someone, you bond over the things you’re both interested in. That’s also a key part of falling in love. Have your characters fall in intellectual love by sharing those activities, talking about their favorite subjects, or raving over their passions. They could even teach each other through this moment, which could make them fall harder in love.

7. Put Them in Public Moments

You learn a lot about someone when they’re around friends, acquaintances, and strangers. The chemistry between your characters may fall flat if they’re only ever around each other.

Write scenes so they’re around more people and get to learn who they are in public. They’ll learn crucial factors like the other person’s ambition, shyness, humor, confidence, and if they’re a social butterfly or wallflower.

Will those moments make your characters be proud to stand next to each other or will it reveal something that makes them second guess everything?

8. Use Your Senses

And of course, you can never forget to use sensory details when describing the physical reaction of chemistry. Whether they’re sharing a glance or jumping into bed, the reader feels the intensity of the moment through their five senses—taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. 

Characters also don’t have to have all five senses to be the protagonist or love interest in a romantic story. The number isn’t important—it’s how you use the ways your character interacts with the world. 

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Anyone can write great romantic chemistry by structuring their love story with essential elements like these. Read more romance books or short stories too! You’ll learn as you read and write future relationships more effortlessly.

Me waking up: I want to write

Me eating breakfast: I want to write

Me getting ready for work: I want to write

Me at work: I want to write

Me eating lunch: I want to write

Me driving home: I want to write

Me at home, sitting in front of my laptop:

Tips for Writing Interrupted Scenes

Scenes don’t always happen from start to finish. When you need to write interruptions, use these tips to get more confident about breaking up plot points and stitching them back together.

Pick an Emotional Cliffhanger

When your character gets the phone call about the job that could change their life, they hesitate to answer it. 

A new chapter begins on the next page from another point of view. 

But what happened with the phone call??

Your readers will keep going through the next chapter because they were left on an emotional cliffhanger with a character they love. The break won’t seem as natural as others, like ending a chapter when your character goes to bed or leaves a venue.

Plot Your Scene Breaks

Write a rough plot line, even if you don’t normally plan any outlines. It helps to know where your story is going so you can insert the rest of the scene more effectively.

Picture your character—they’re running a marathon and they’re starting the final mile. Their focus gets interrupted by something in the treeline to their left. It’s the childhood version of themselves, hanging upside down from a branch and waving. They have to go find out what that is, so the protagonist interrupts their race by sprinting into the woods.

Although the rest of the story may involve spooky moments and weeks or months of drama, the race never gets finished. Maybe the protagonist runs the same last mile after the event is over, when it’s back to being a regular street. They conquer the mile after completing the lesson or purpose of the plot.

That’s much easier to keep track of if there's a rough plotline to follow. Using bullet points can help or try writing a one-sentence description of each big plot moment on a sticky note.

Add More While Editing

If you have multiple moments that get interrupted, like broken dialogue or plot points, you may not remember to tie them together or make the break essential to the plot. That’s okay!

That’s what editing is for.

While you’re re-reading, make a list of every moment when something gets interrupted and another of when those moments get completed or resolved. You’ll easily tell what’s left unsaid that would otherwise feel like a plot hole.

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You may not always have interrupted scenes in every story. When you feel like they’re necessary, I hope these tips help you feel more confident about writing and editing them. 💛

Hitting a wall with your WIP? Try writing about it.

Hot tip: Keep a journal about your writing. When you're feeling stuck, writing down your feelings and thoughts about your WIP can help you find creative solutions. You can use this journal for anything—waxing poetic about how much you love your characters, ranting about how frustrated you feel, exploring new plot ideas or problem areas. It can help if you do this longhand, with a pen, but anything works.

Some ideas of what to write in your writing journal:

If writing about writing isn't for you, try drawing or singing about it. Anything that switches up your brain and gives you a new perspective will be helpful. I had a writing teacher once who would have us pace around the room and monologue to ourselves. And I know of several musicians who draw their songs as a way to help them compose.

If you go the journaling route, consider buying a cheap journal. Sometimes buying a nice journal can fill a person with anxiety about what to write in it, because the journal is so… special. Go to the dollar store and buy a spiral bound notebook, or take some paper out of the recycling and staple it together. It might make you feel less intimidated about using it.

Hope this helps!

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@theliteraryarchitect is a writing advice blog run by me, Bucket Siler, a writer and developmental editor. For more writing help, download my Free Resource Library for Fiction Writers, join my email list, or check out my book The Complete Guide to Self-Editing for Fiction Writers.

This is a friendly reminder to never, ever publish your book with a publishing company that charges you to publish with them. That is a vanity press, which makes money by preying on authors. They charge you for editing, formatting, cover art, and more. With most of these companies, you will never seen a cent of any royalties made from sale of your book. A legitimate publishing company only makes money when you make money, they will never charge you to publish with them. If a company approaches you and says "Hey, we'll publish your book, just pay us X amount of money," tell them to go fuck themself and block them.

Tips for Writing a Scene

Whether you’ve been writing for a long time or want to start, everyone begins in the same place—with a scene.

Not an entire chapter.

A scene.

Here’s how you can make it happen on the page.

Step 1: Have Characters In Mind

Scenes can’t happen without characters. Sometimes you might have a place in mind for a scene, but no characters. Sometimes, it’s the opposite. 

Pick at least two characters if you’ll have external conflict (more on that in step 4). One character can carry a scene with internal conflict, but things still have to happen around them to influence their thoughts/emotions.

Step 2: Give Them Goals

Short stories combine mini scenes into one plot with a beginning/middle/end. Longform manuscripts combine chapters to do the same thing, but with more detail and subplots.

You don’t need to know which form you’re writing to get started.

All you need are goals.

What should your scene do? What does your character(s) want? It will either use the moment to advance the plot or present a problem that the character solves in the same scene/short story.

Step 3: Include the Senses

If you’re recounting an experience to someone, you don’t say, “I had the worst day. My shoes got wet and I couldn’t get home for 10 hours.”

You’d probably say, “I had the worst day. I stepped in a puddle so my shoes got soaked, which made my socks and feet wet all day. Then I had to wait 10 hours to get home. It was miserable! And now my feet smell terrible.”

Okay, you might not use all of those descriptors, but you get the picture. The story is much more engaging if you’re talking about the feeling of wet socks, soaked shoes, and the smell of stinky feet. The other person in your conversation would probably go ugh, that’s horrible!

Your scene should accomplish the same thing. Use the five senses to make the moment real for the reader.

As a reminder, those senses are: touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing.

You don’t need to use all of them at once, but include at least two of them to make your stories shine. You also don’t have to constantly use environmental or sensory descriptors. Once you establish the scene for your reader, they’ll place your characters and want to keep the plot moving.

Step 4: Identify the Conflict

Speaking of plot, scenes and stories can’t move forward without conflict. There are two types:

A scene could touch on either of these types of conflict or both! It depends on your story/plot/what you want your scene to accomplish.

Step 5: Pick a Point of View (POV)

Sometimes you’ll know you want to write a specific POV because you’ll have a character/plot in mind that requires it. Other times, you might not know.

It’s often easier to pick a POV after thinking through the previous steps. You’ll better understand how much time you want to spend in a character’s head (1st Person) or if you want to touch on multiple characters’ minds through 3rd Person.

Example of Setting a Scene

Step 1, Have Characters in Mind: Two sisters arrive back home from their first fall semester in different colleges.

Step 2, Give Them Goals: Sister A wants to ask for dating advice, but the sisters have never been that close. Sister B knows that Sister A wants a deeper conversation, but is doing anything to avoid it.

Step 3, Include the Senses: They’re in a living room with shag navy carpet and the worn leather couches have butt-shaped shadows on the cushions. The house smells of vanilla bean, the only scent their dads can agree on. Christmas lights hang on a fake tree that sheds plastic fir leaves on the floor. Their family cat purrs from within the metal branches.

Step 4, Identify the Conflict: Sister B will do anything to avoid talking about feelings. That includes trying to get the cat out of the tree (shaking the branches and reaching into them doesn’t work), checking to make sure the windows are closed against the winter air, and faking an obviously unreal phone call. This makes Sister A go from passively hoping for advice to chasing her through the house. 

Step 5, Pick a POV: 3rd Person, so internal thoughts and feelings from both sisters are obvious to the reader and emphasize the scene’s comedy.

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These are also useful ways to rethink a scene you’ve already written. If something about it doesn’t seem to be working, consider if it’s missing one or more of these points. You don’t need to include all of them all the time, but weaving more sensory details or conflict into a short story/chapter could solve your problem.

Best of luck with your writing, as always 💛

20 Emotional Wounds in Fiction That Make Readers Root for the Character

Connecting With Your Reader's Emotions

We’ve all read a book or story that captured our hearts and made us feel things very deeply. It’s a superpower writers have, but it isn’t something we’re born with.

Connecting with your reader’s emotion happens when you’ve practiced writing. It becomes easier after each rough draft, each great draft, and each terrible draft.

But—if you want to save yourself some time, these are a few perspectives you can use to sharpen your writing tools.

1. Display Your Protagonist’s Inner Emotions

Your readers want to experience a character’s journey by connecting with them emotionally. We pick up books to feel things while learning something or just taking a break from life.

Displaying your protagonist’s inner conflict could look something like: She saw the ghost in the hallway, which scared her.

Your reader will feel more engaged if you describe how fear makes your protagonist feel instead of them feeling fear generally: She saw the ghost in the hallway and fear shot through her body like lightning.

You don’t need tons of flowery language to make your reader feel the same things as your character. Sometimes a minor descriptor or simile can do the job.

2. Show Your Protagonist’s Feelings Through External Reactions

Emotions don’t solely exist inside our hearts and minds. We also have external reactions to them. That could be nodding in confusion, shifting uncomfortably in a chair, or bending over laughing.

Consider this example:

You don’t need to mention how it feels to receive a compliment from a crush or why flattery is nice to hear. The physical reaction of blushing is something the reader can relate to and understand.

3. Make Your Reader Feel Something Your Character Doesn’t

This is a fun one. Sometimes characters have to figure something out, but the reader already knows what’s going on.

This could happen when you’re writing a horror story that is supposed to teach the reader about the joy of recognizing your own strength. The protagonist has the skills in the beginning to defeat the evil antagonist, but must reach rock bottom before cheering himself on. The whole time, the reader knows they can beat the antagonist and survive because they have the brains/strength/creativity, etc.

You could also write an enemies-to-lovers arc where it’s obvious to the reader that both characters are in love with each other long before they realize it. The reader should want them to embrace the scary feeling of falling in love, because that’s what you’re trying to teach through your story.

Consider Your Story’s Purpose

Writers have a purpose behind every story. What do you want readers to learn, consider, or experience through your own? You can use these methods of connecting with your reader’s emotions to make your plot’s purpose that much more powerful and engaging.

the good thing about being told that writing about a certain cliché or concept should be avoided “because it’s overdone” is that you can simply. ignore that and write about it anyway if you so desire. like it is that easy

"oh, i liked this but this part is really cliche" yeah, it is :) glad you noticed, you must be a connoisseur of this kind of story :) :) :)

Are Prologues Worth Your Time?

It felt like every book I picked up when I was a kid and a teenager had a prologue. I thought they were super deep and essential foreshadowing, but then I went to college for creative writing.

You know what every professor taught?

Prologues are outdated and unnecessary.

I was shocked. Not that I’d ever say that I had only read the greatest books (many were trash—and some, beloved trash), but how could so many published books have outdated and unnecessary prologues where they’re supposed to hook a reader?

Here are a few thoughts you can consider when unwrapping this problem for yourself.

Give Your Prologue a Purpose

There are two primary purposes for prologues:

You don’t necessarily need to put a prologue in your manuscript. Your reader will likely get hooked from the first chapter you’ve worked so hard on. However, if your character/world/conflict will drastically change later, you can make the reader wonder, “How does it get from here to there?” after the first chapter with a prologue.

Flashback prologues are also helpful. A handful of pages could introduce the reader to a conflict (a deity getting betrayed by other gods and cursing all humans to forget they exist) that sets the tone/explains why your universe exists the way it does (every single character and person in the novel doesn’t know about gods because their history has been wiped from their minds, but the protagonist meets one of the gods who betrayed the antagonist deity and wants others to see/hear them too).

How to End a Prologue

Your prologue should end with the reader fully engaged, but wondering—WHAT?!

This might mean that you write your prologue (after deciding on one of the purposes mentioned above) when you’ve finished your manuscript. You’ll know exactly which historical or future point in your world will be most relative to your plot and the most captivating for your reader.

If George R.R. Martin had become inspired to write Game of Thrones based on an idea like this—historically powerful households go to war with each other to regain the most powerful throne in the realm, based on their various birthrights—and written the prologue immediately, we never would have been introduced to the potential-dead-brought-back-to-life in the actual prologue. 

You gotta admit, zombies are a much more gripping hook than political rivalries. Especially when there are so many rivalries and so much history to learn before the tension builds!

When a Prologue May Be Necessary

Sometimes writers feel that their first few chapters are basically info dumps. You may have created a complex world with lots of history, lore, and ongoing conflict. The reader has to understand it all in the first five chapters, but it makes your story read like a textbook.

Prologues can help by summarizing the most important information the reader has to grasp to enjoy your manuscript. Challenge yourself to write some flash fiction (in this case, ~1-3 pages) about your novel’s world to see if you can create a prologue that condenses the most essential info for the reader. You can edit the next few chapters to see if they have better flow/pacing.

Reasons to Avoid Writing a Prologue

You may need to remove your prologue or pass on writing one if you agree with any of these factors:

Make Your Decision After Getting to Know Your WIP

I tend to think of prologues as something you consider and potentially write well after developing your WIP. Get to know your characters, your plot, the stakes, and the world’s history/conflict before deciding if a prologue would hook your readers. You can always write it in a separate document/page and play around with removing/adding it with beta readers.

a list of 100+ buildings to put in your fantasy town

Ways Emotions Impact Your Stories

Let’s talk about the weight and purpose of emotions in fiction.

Stories can feel poorly written and even shallow if the reader can’t emotionally connect with what the characters are experiencing. It’s the emotional equivalent of hearing someone talk in a conversation and then hearing them read out loud from a sheet of paper. 

Those two types of vocal inflections and emotional engagement are very different. The same thing happens when a writer creates a story without effectively utilizing emotions to engage their reader and drive the plot.

While I was reflecting on the power of emotions in fiction, I thought about how they impact stories. You might find some writing/editing/plotting inspiration in these reminders:

Emotional payoff sometimes requires hints, foreshadowing and visible effects to build to the payoff.

Immediate repercussions happen due to emotions. Sometimes that’s physical (smiling when happy, crying when sad) and sometimes it’s between characters (falling in love after displays of kindness, a change in plans after something makes your protagonist panic about what they want for their future).

Like character foils, emotions can have contrasting feelings.

Emotions have implications. People don’t feel things for no reason. The motives or reasons for emotions help your plot move forward.

Characters have certain emotional reactions based on their differing morals, which adds depth to your story (or potentially conflict).

Emotions are the hook of every story (and you may need to pick a specific one if you feel like your story doesn’t have a good hook).

Revising or writing your work with one, two, or more of these ideas in mind could make your WIP the quality you’re trying to reach. A lack of emotional depth and purpose keeps your readers at arm’s length. Invite them in for an incredible read by writing emotions on purpose.

Writing Tip - Drafting Stories

I have a long history of writing fanfiction (about a decade’s worth) and while I’d like to consider this a pretty chill hobby where I can pants myself through each fic, with each story unfurling into Xk words of awesomeness, unfortunately I’m a perfectionist about everything I do, so I’m a chronic plotter for every little story. It slows down my writing process a lot since I want to make sure I have all my details in line before I start writing the first draft (which I admittedly shouldn’t worry about but again, perfectionist), but this process has allowed me to figure out what I absolutely need before I can start writing.

If you have the above information sorted out, you have the necessary building blocks to start writing your first draft. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but don’t sweat the other details for now; everything else can be figured out while you’re writing or in later drafts. Now go forth and write that story!

How Traditional Publishing Works for Short Stories

You’ve written a short story and want it to reach readers, but you’re tired of combing through contests. Don’t worry—there’s a path to traditional publishing for short stories and you can follow it to build your writing resume with these steps.

1. Polish Your Work

Reviewing your story before submitting it is crucial. One or two typos may not disqualify you from getting accepted for publishing, but it could make the publisher pause.

Read through your work out loud to catch the tiny line edits that our eyes often skip over.

Ask a friend or family member to read it. A fresh pair of eyes on your work is priceless!

Use a text-to-speech reader to catch typos. You may hear the spelling errors more clearly, so try a site like this one: https://www.naturalreaders.com/online/

You can also use the spell check within your preferred writing software. It may not catch every spelling or tense-usage error, but it’s still helpful.

2. Research Publications

Longer manuscripts would normally look for publishing houses or imprints, but short stories just need publications.

Imagine the publishing world as an umbrella. Publishing houses are the fabric of the umbrella and imprints are the metal arms making the fabric extend. Imprints are subsections of publishing houses. Publications are like the stem and handle of an umbrella. They’re mostly independently owned, so that’s where you’ll find things like:

Some are run by small groups of people who love making things like short-story anthologies and others will be professionally run magazines or journals with wide distribution. Your work may qualify for all of these publications depending on the length, topic, and what each publication is looking for.

3. Submit Your Work

Personally, I think finding the right places to submit your work is the most challenging part of publishing any story. There are an overwhelming number of places to consider. You might never learn about all of them!

Luckily, I’ve found a few tools to streamline the process.

Chill Subs is my current favorite site to find publications seeking short stories. You can find their site here: https://chillsubs.com/

This is what their homepage looks like—I’m breathing a sigh of relief just seeing it that encouraging welcome!

Once you make your free account (which is what allows you to track your submissions, results, etc.), you’ll find this page when you’re ready to start browsing:

It may seem like a lot, but selecting publication types and finding places that specifically want things like a spooky vibe or a quick response time makes submitting your work so much faster.

Just below this browsing section, you’ll find a list of publications if you just want to select a few without the filters. Here’s a screenshot of the first one I found:

There’s a great summary of the magazine and everything you need to know, like the facts that they have a super fast response time, don’t require a submission fee, and even their acceptance rate!

If you scroll further down under a publisher, you’ll find other invaluable information like:

Normally, you’d have to find all of these things by searching a publication’s website and recent published work. It would take much more time and you might not find what you’re looking for (I struggle when I’m too tired or distracted). Chill Subs will connect you to publications super quickly and easily, without charging a dime!

Next, I also like The Grinder, which you can find here: https://thegrinder.diabolicalplots.com/

Here’s what their homepage looks like:

This site is better for people who are more data driven! Right beneath the top of their homepage, you can automatically see the stats for The Grinder users who recently got accepted or rejected. At the time that I wrote this post, the people in the screenshot below had numerous rejections. I find it encouraging to see stuff like this because it’s a reminder that rejections happen to everyone. It’s just a matter of finding the right place for your work!

If you select “Search” on the top of the homepage, you’ll get a dropdown menu for things like searching for fiction or poetry submissions, plus publishers listed in alphabetical order.

For the purpose of this post, I’ve selected “Historical” as my imaginary story I’d like to submit. There are many other genres in the box if you keep scrolling. Here’s what the start of this process looks like:

Hit “Search” and this comes up:

Right away you’ll see what each place pays, which genres and lengths they accept and their response time. I’ve clicked on the first publisher and found this data:

Enjoy using the charts and data to gauge where your stories should go! There are many publications working with The Grinder, so there’s tons to search through as you get a feel for what’s out there.

Other potential places to submit your work: 

4. Keep Track of Your Submissions

If you’re submitting more than one or two stories at a time, it’s best to keep a spreadsheet that tracks your submissions. As your writing career continues, you’ll always be able to reflect on which stories you submitted and where they went. It’s a great way to see how your writing has grown and note which publications you liked the most/had the most success with.

My submissions spreadsheet contains labeled columns for things like:

Some places only want unpublished writers, but most only want stories that haven't been previously published or placed in contest results. Keeping track of which stories receive prizes/publications makes it much easier to submit qualifying works in the future.

5. Evaluate Your Publishing Contract

Many publishers require writers to sign a contract so the legal reality of the transaction is clear to both parties. This happens for both short stories and long form work. You’ll have to review things like:

A big thing to note—if a publisher doesn’t include a reversion of rights clause, they essentially want to lock your story within their publishing company permanently. You’ll never get the rights back for submitting or publishing it elsewhere. That includes if you write a collection of short stories and want to publish an anthology—you wouldn’t get to include the story taken by the original publisher.

It’s very important to know your rights as a writer before submitting.

You can read more about contract details over at Writing Cooperative.

And you can always look through Writer Beware, which tracks scams and legitimate publication opportunities.

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Hopefully this helps you get started with your next venture in getting published! The process doesn’t have to feel as confusing as it often does. Best of luck! 💛

Tips for writing dream sequences (from someone who has really vivid, weird dreams on a frequent basis)

My biggest pet peeve with fictional dream sequences is that they make too much sense!! They're too relevant! There's not enough random crazy stuff! That's not always unrealistic per se, but you are missing out on some of the fun ways you can reveal information about your character's mindset, fears, struggles, and future.

That's it for now, but I might make a part two if I think of more things to add. Feel free to reblog with your own personal dream expertise!

How to Write a Character’s Death Effectively

It’s a strange thing to think about—writing a death effectively. You could come up with endless ways for a character to die and they’d all accomplish the same goal of removing them from the story.

However, deaths always have meaning in fiction. The ones that make it to print are the deaths that are written well.

Here are a few things to avoid and a few others to strive for when writing a death scene.

Things You Consider When a Character Dies

1. Who Is Essential to Your Story?

Think about which characters are essential to completing your plot/theme. If someone isn’t essential, their death won’t be as meaningful to the reader or as purposeful to your plot.

This isn’t to say you can only kill protagonists and your most important secondary characters. But if you only have one death in your book or short story and it has little to no effect on the plot, that character might better serve the purpose of your story by living.

You should also consider who is integral to a character’s future development if you’re writing an ongoing series. The protagonist may have a best friend in Book 1, but by the end of the book, they go their own ways. Books 2 and 3 don’t feature the best friend, so if they die in Book 1 and your projected plot developments don’t change, their death isn’t essential

2. What Is the Reason for the Death?

Real life deaths don’t always have a reason, but the vast majority of fictional deaths do. Unless you’re writing about a theme specifically involving a purposeless death (maybe to write about grief or another way a character handles what happens afterward), each death should have a meaning.

Reasons for Deaths in Fiction

Good and Bad Deaths: Examples

Good: Beth March in Little Women

Bad: Fred Weasley in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

3. Are You Unknowingly Writing Death Tropes?

Here are the most common death tropes to avoid in your writing. They ultimately are hurtful cliches that serve no purpose. Your writing will be much stronger and more meaningful to readers if it doesn’t include these types of deaths:

If you want to really do a deep dive into death tropes, this website has an excellent list of tropes that work for both fiction and movies/TV shows.

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Writing and workshopping a death to make it as meaningful and plot-essential as possible might take some time. You might even discover that the death shouldn’t happen at all.

Either way, learning about death tropes and effective techniques is a great way to improve your writing skills and your future stories.

10 Ways to Add Sizzle to Your Boring Writing

Writing that sizzles captures the reader's attention and keeps them engaged from start to finish. Whether you're an experienced writer or just starting out, there are several techniques you can use to make your writing more exciting and dynamic. Here are ten detailed ways to add sizzle to your boring writing:

1. Use Vivid Descriptions

Vivid descriptions bring your writing to life by creating a rich, immersive experience for the reader. Instead of relying on generic or bland language, use specific details that appeal to the senses. Describe how things look, sound, smell, taste, and feel to paint a vivid picture.

In Detail:

2. Show, Don't Tell

"Show, don't tell" is a fundamental writing principle that means revealing information through actions, thoughts, dialogue, and sensory details rather than straightforward exposition. This approach makes your writing more engaging and allows readers to experience the story.

In Detail:

3. Create Relatable Characters

Relatable characters are crucial for keeping readers invested in your story. Characters should have depth, including strengths, weaknesses, desires, and fears. When readers see aspects of themselves in your characters, they're more likely to care about their journeys.

In Detail:

4. Add Dialogue

Dialogue can break up large blocks of text and make your writing more dynamic. It reveals character, advances the plot, and provides opportunities for conflict and resolution. Ensure your dialogue sounds natural and serves a purpose.

In Detail:

5. Use Strong Verbs

Strong verbs make your writing more vivid and energetic. They convey action and emotion effectively, making your sentences more powerful and engaging.

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6. Vary Sentence Structure

Varying sentence structure keeps your writing interesting and prevents it from becoming monotonous. Mix short, punchy sentences with longer, more complex ones to create a rhythm that engages readers.

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7. Introduce Conflict

Conflict is the driving force of any story. It creates tension and keeps readers invested in the outcome. Without conflict, your story can become stagnant and uninteresting.

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8. Use Metaphors and Similes

Metaphors and similes add creativity and depth to your writing. They help readers understand complex ideas and emotions by comparing them to familiar experiences.

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9. Create Suspense

Suspense keeps readers on the edge of their seats, eager to find out what happens next. Use foreshadowing, cliffhangers, and unanswered questions to build tension and anticipation.

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10. Edit Ruthlessly

Great writing often emerges during the editing process. Be willing to cut unnecessary words, tighten your prose, and refine your sentences. Editing improves clarity, pace, and overall readability.

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