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Her skin is striking compared to last week. The only thing that could make sense of it is that ointment she’s been putting on religiously every night.
Write power words to grab your reader’s attention.
They draw the eyes to our headline or sentence.
Use simple power words that are easy to understand but that pack a punch compared to other boring words.
Write power words to keep your sentences interesting to your reader.
Don’t lose them by not drawing their attention back from zoning out.
When doing freelance writing projects use power words to write better-converting headlines and subject lines.
In blogging use power words in the titles and subheadings.
Hopefully, this quick short post helps you think through some of your own writing and where you can incorporate simple power words in a meaningful, natural, and effective way.
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Marital abuse can go either way and the one being abused can either be victimized or become vengeful.
Their vengeance might not even be taken out on the other spouse. In “He’s Just Not That Into You,” the wife who is being lied to constantly takes out her frustrations on the innocent foreman doing the construction on their new place.
#3. Raiding
In a world where raiding is an any day possibility, fear is ever-present in your fictional villages.
What do they do to prepare?
In the Philippines, the farmers were constantly under attack from ships that would randomly stop and raid. They developed a martial art style of fighting so that they could use any of their farm tools as weapons to quickly disarm and mortally wound any raider. This style is called “Kali.”
It is the same style of fighting we see Jason Bourne use in the Bourne Movies.
#4. Thieving
If your world goes through an apocalyptic event there is going to be a lot of looting and thieving before it is all said and done.
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Write power words to grab your reader’s attention.
They draw the eyes to our headline or sentence.
Use simple power words that are easy to understand but that pack a punch compared to other boring words.
Write powerful words to keep your sentences interesting to your reader.
Don’t lose them by not drawing their attention back from zoning out.
When doing freelance writing projects use power words to write better-converting headlines and subject lines.
In blogging use power words in the titles and subheadings.
Hopefully, this quick short post helps you think through some of your own writing and where you can incorporate simple power words in a meaningful, natural, and effective way.
If you enjoy 5 Fast Terrific Powerful Words and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy 5 Fast Terrific Powerful Words and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy 5 Short Fantastic Power Words and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Write power words to grab your reader’s attention.
They draw the eyes to our headline or sentence.
Use simple power words that are easy to understand but that pack a punch compared to other boring words.
Write powerful words to keep your sentences interesting to your reader.
Don’t lose them by not drawing their attention back from zoning out.
When doing freelance writing projects use power words to write better-converting headlines and subject lines.
In blogging use power words in the titles and subheadings.
Hopefully, this quick short post helps you think through some of your own writing and where you can incorporate simple power words in a meaningful, natural, and effective way.
If you enjoy 5 Short Fantastic Power Words and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy 5 Short Fantastic Power Words and writing in general, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
If you enjoy 3 Pitfalls That Will Make Your Scenes Dull and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
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There’s nothing duller to a reader than a scene that presents no apparent danger or peril.
And we have to make sure that the characters and objects that are in danger of being lost are just as valuable to our reader as they are to our character.
If our reader doesn’t feel the emotional threat then the scene will fall just shy of interesting.
#3. There is no question to be answered
Sometimes the only thing that keeps the reader reading is curiosity.
If we don’t want them to lose curiosity then we need to give them something to be curious about.
Keep creating questions for them to ask and be curious about, but make sure that you give a satisfying answer to each question you create.
I hope this short post, Watch Out For These 3 Pitfalls That Will Make Your Scenes Dull, helps you think through your scenes.
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9 Writing Prompts from Coronavirus + How You Can Write the Next Big Pandemic Story
The World Health Organization (WHO) has officially called the coronavirus (COVID-19) a pandemic.
We understand that this is a scary time for all and we want to extend our prayers and thoughts to those who have already lost loved ones and those who are in the most danger due to coronavirus.
With that in mind, we want to take a moment to speak to writers of our time.
When historic events (like coronavirus) happen it is time to start observing.
Use what you have around you, as the famous writers have done for centuries, to take note of how the world reacts to a pandemic such as this.
Keep a journal or log of details and events that transpire and dates to go along with how much time it takes for events to play out.
#1 Observe what people do in major cities.
Because of coronavirus people in major cities are staying in more, going out less, and buying things to take precautions about what is to come.
People wearing masks all over the street used to be things you’d see in China, but now Americans are doing the same.
What supplies have you noticed disappear off the shelves?
Are you surprised to see a shortage of canned food these days?
When Hurricane Irma forced my wife and me to leave our resident in 2017 you would have thought the world was ending.
We were originally planning on sitting it out so we went to the store to buy water and canned food. All that was left were canned pineapples and beans.
We went to Walmart to buy extra gas cans to have in case we needed emergency gas. They were all out before we even had the idea.
We decided we were going to evacuate instead.
It felt like we were driving through an apocalyptic movie. It was chaos.
We drove over 200 miles away from our home before we found 1 single gas station that had a drop of gasoline.
For 200 miles every gas station was bone dry. People had already bought it all up.
For 200 long eerie miles, we drove passed station after station full of 30 or more cars waiting for gas to come, and we hoped and prayed we wouldn’t be one of them.
I was completely shocked to see this in real life and it made me realize what the world would REALLY look like in a severe world crisis moment.
That moment was scary for us, but I am thankful to have lived through it.
I can write about them because I have seen them firsthand. I observed what actually happened to myself and others around me and now I can bring those stories to others and fictional stories I write.
What things have you experienced that you can write the first-hand experience about?
How can you make the events your characters go through more detailed and more realistic because you have observed events in real life just like them?
What little details have already happened in your life because of this coronavirus?
What major events have already affected you and those around you because of coronavirus?
#2 Observe what people do in rural areas
We all know that “preppers” have their underground bunkers in rural areas and are probably already stocked up for needing to disappear underground, but what about people that aren’t regular preppers? What are they doing about coronavirus?
Are they buying up all the gas in their area?
Are they buying up all the masks at Walmart?
All the water?
What are your neighbors saying?
What are pastors saying at churches?
What things are being canceled near you? What events are being postponed?
We just received a letter in the mail today telling us that a conference speaker we were planning on seeing next week would no longer be coming and that the rest of the conference was canceled.
Not just that, but a 30-year anniversary celebration for our area was also postponed as well.
Keep things like this in your mental notes for stories you write around the events of a crisis.
What events get eerily canceled around your characters?
What letters do they receive in the mail?
What items do they have a hard time getting ahold of at the grocery store?
What weekly events do they normally go to that are postponed or canceled?
What emails are they receiving?
Who is calling them and worried about them from afar?
Who are they worried about and checking up on by phone, email, Facebook, and Facetime?
#3 What are colleges/schools doing about coronavirus?
At least 135 colleges have canceled in-person classes over coronavirus fears.
Right now you can google highschool closings over coronavirus and find a multitude.
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In our time many colleges have now resorted to strictly only online classes while the pandemic is ongoing.
In your story, are colleges places that characters flee from or run to for aid?
Are high schools and middle schools canceling days?
What does your character google and what articles come up on their screen?
#4 Sometimes other people are more dangerous than the actual event.
We have all heard of people getting literally trampled on Black Friday sales.
And that was just over T.V.s, computer deals, and toys.
Imagine when a person thinks their life is on the line and they believe with their entire being that they must do something or else.
We have seen this in movies and books a lot and it is important to note how real it actually is.
When individuals are in a panic sometimes they are more dangerous to themselves and others than the seeming danger that lurks nearby.
Lifeguards are taught to approach drowning victims with caution for this very reason as someone who is drowning is statistically likely to panic and drown the lifeguard too. In some training, they are taught to disorient the struggling swimmer if need be. They are taught to approach them and grab them from behind.
So then imagine mobs of panicking people and how dangerous an environment like that could be.
#5 What major events get postponed or canceled?
Due to coronavirus, the NBA has suspended all games “until further notice.”
The NCAA has also taken further action. They announced that fans won’t be allowed to attend the March Madness Tournaments next week, both women’s and men’s.
Universal Studios in Orlando has announced closing all their parks through the rest of the month of March.
What events get canceled in your character’s world?
Did they have tickets?
Do they get trapped at one of the events with a panicked crowd?
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#6 What is the stock market doing because of coronavirus?
Nothing brings the lows to a culture more than the economy seemingly crashing.
The numbers we have been seeing in the markets these days are the lowest we’ve experienced since the 2008 stock market crash. In fact, according to CNN, the US stocks recorded their worst day since 1987, and we are now in what they call a “bear market,” meaning the stocks have fallen 20% or more from recent highs.
The other day wall street actually put a 15-minute FREEZE on trading just so things wouldn’t crash even harder.
They had to give everyone a chance to breathe to figure out what to do next.
Are your characters optimistic despite a market crash?
Are they fearful and pulling out all their money?
Are they buying in the hopes that it will rise after the event is over?
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As the WHO (World Health Organization) calls coronavirus a pandemic, Italy has shut down nearly all shops and schools.
They are pretty much on a countrywide lockdown and quarantine.
More than 16 million people are on lock-down. Those who try to leave their region could face fines and jail time as a punishment for breaking the quarantine rules.
What nation is your character in?
Do they live there or are they on business or holiday?
Do they get stuck in a country that is not their home?
Do they get cut off from loved ones?
Does your character break quarantine rules and run anyway? Do they get caught? Do they get chased by the government or police officials?
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President Trump has banned all flights from the EU to the US.
He seemed to think that coronavirus would blow over and was slow to pull the trigger to react heavily to it, but now it is affecting every nation slowly but surely and leaders must take precautions.
What do world leaders do that affect your characters’ every day lives?
What do they say and do that don’t affect them at all at first?
Are there decisions the leaders in your stories should have made sooner?
If so, what are the consequences of the delay?
What are they now advising the public to do?
What news reports are eerily playing in the background foreshadowing horrible events to come?
What reports does everyone in the diner stop to watch together in a moment of tense listening, shock, and seriousness?
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Tom Hanks has just announced that both he and his wife have tested positive for the coronavirus.
What are celebrities in your character’s world doing?
Are they partying as if the world is ending or have they huddled away in their million-dollar mansions hoping no one will bother them until things settle more clearly?
Do they fly a private jet to a secluded area like their own personal island?
Is your character invited to come along?
Are they family to the celebrity?
Take this time to be helpful and caring to your friends, family, and neighbors around you. Now is an opportunity for us humans to come together and help one another as we all share a common world threat.
As writers and journalists, take this time to notice how events play out in a real-life pandemic and all the little details of things that a fictional character could go through during a pandemic like a coronavirus. Use details like these to make it more dynamic and interesting for your reader.
I hope this helps.
For those that are open to considering philosophical beliefs and religions, we believe times like these are a good time to consider what one believes and why they believe. To make the best use of the time because our days on earth are short.
We know what we believe, but if that’s something you want to consider and have never considered it before or in a while, consider looking at this helpful encouraging post: How Do We Make Sense of the Coronavirus?
Other Popular Posts you might just love to look through:
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Nothing breathes political corruption more than bribery. Whos bribing who and why?
2. Refugees
Refugees are not a flaw. The world’s flaw is what they are seeking refuge from. If they are seeking refuge that means that there is a bigger threat in the land.
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# 5 Leaving chew tobacco spit bottles laying around
# 6 Squeezing acne in public
# 7 Sneezing without covering one’s mouth
# 8 Using an uncleaned cell phone
# 9 Eating food that has fallen on the floor
# 10 Not cleaning the keyboard
Writing Prompts | 10 Distungstingly Gross Bad Habits for Fictional Characters
Write some of your fictional characters with these bad habits in order to make them appear to be a bit gross.
Why you would want to be thinking about bad habits for your fictional characters that you are writing?
Bad habits help your audience resonate with your characters.
They make our characters more believable and more human.
Adding a few bad habits to our characters will make them more enjoyable to our readers. After all, no human is perfect and that should include not all but most of our fictional characters.
How do these bad habits affect your character’s life?
Do they lose a girlfriend or boyfriend?
Do they lose a job?
Do they get sick?
Do they get a disease?
Do they get a chronic illness? Fungus or infection?
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Do you find them to be inviting? Not open enough? Not raw enough? Not real?
Hopefully, this post will give you some ideas to help you write or change your fictional characters to make them more in-depth for your reader to gobble up.
#1 Be a constant learner
This can’t be stressed enough in any genre of writing.
Learning the art of learning is a skill that every writer and author MUST add to their arsenal of tricks.
Learning is not an innate born talent.
We have to teach ourselves how to learn and how each of us learns best.
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We hear beautiful music and we know how to play it. Or we hear our teacher talking and we retain that information well.
Our friend tells us a story and we can instantly repeat it without missing any details.
#3 Visual
Some of us learn visually by seeing someone do something even if it’s just watching a video.
We see a basketball being dribbled and we know how to start dribbling or we see someone making a meal and we see the ingredients used and we remember how to cook that meal.
For visual learners, watching is a key trick for learning something new.
Visual learners may not be best at first try but by watching a professional they can increase in skill quickly compared to not watching an expert do something.
#4 Be a Characters Reader
Readers learn from reading the instruction manual.
Give me that manual and leave me alone for a couple of hours. I’ll show you how to do it once I’m done.
Read about characters and character development.
Read about not just characters you love, but also ones that you find boring and despise so that you know what kind of characters you don’t want to write about.
#5 Use Real-Life Experience
Some of us learn best from hands-on experience.
“Don’t tell me how to do it. Give me the tools and let me do it already!” we might say.
Use real-life experience to write from and if you don’t have it, interview someone that does and write from their experiences.
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Even though these are some of the major ways people learn we as humans all learn by using each tool for learning and the more you use to learn the more you’ll learn that skill or ability.
So what does this have to do with writing fictional characters?
Fictional characters are the most in-depth amazing when the writer writes from what they know and the better they know it the better the fictional character will be. They jump right off the page.
Your reader will more readily accept the writing and the reader will enjoy reading about how the characters act and think and respond to situations based on the area of expertise we give them.
So if we are writing about a carpenter and we are a visual learner we can watch movies and documentaries and TV about carpentry and carpenters.
If we are a reader we can learn from reading about carpentry.
If by experience then grab some tools and some wood and give it a go.
Anything to be able to write about the actual experiences and decisions that go into the daily life of a carpenter.
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#7 Write about what they experience with their 5 senses.
Write about what they smell as they craft the wood. Does their tool get dull and they smell wood burning?
Write about what the wood feels like. It starts off coarse but gets more smooth as they sand it to a finish.
Do they get a splinter? Do they leave it or do they walk away to get tweezers to pull it out?
Do they experience an accident and need to go to the E.R. to get stitches? Are they in the past and have to use past remedies to deal with the injury?
What sounds do they hear?
What does sawdust taste like when they accidentally get some in their mouths?
P.S.
Whatever it is that your character does, the more you have experienced it the better you will be able to write about it in a way that makes your character more in-depth for your reader.
Use the 5 senses to bring your character to life for your reader.
Try to get the hands-on experience yourself or as close to it.
Talk with people that have done it.
Learn the skill of learning and use that to write amazing in-depth characters
With this type of learning and writing, inspiration will be easy for you and writer’s block won’t be an issue.
Hope this helps!
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How can you know from step one in the writing journey which chapter should take the majority of your attention?
The long and short answer is:
Chapter one is arguably one of our most important chapters.
To go further the first several paragraphs are arguably the most important paragraphs.
Many readers will pick up a book and read the first page just to see if they are interested.
It’s like going on a potential first date.
You see a person and there is an initial attraction.
Then you decide to have a conversation.
Before even going on a first date let alone many dates this first conversation is more pivotal to the potential relationship then the 10th or 11th date.
If this first conversation isn’t pleasant, fun, entertaining, and intriguing then you most likely aren’t going to want to talk to this person again to find out more about them.
Our first chapter is our first conversation with our reader.
We have to hook them from the first pick up of the book or they will set it down and probably never think of it again.
Think about how many times you’ve been at Barnes and Noble or browsing on amazon and you downloaded a sample or picked up a book, read the first couple paragraphs to see how the book makes you feel.
You have no idea that chapters 5 or 6 could be the most entertaining chapters you’ve ever read in your life but it doesn’t matterbecause the first few paragraphs don’t “convince” you that this book is worth finding out about.
You’ll never make it past chapter one.
Some people still browse at book stores but we’re going to assume that a lot of authors will self-publish on amazon and that samples will be your first conversation with your reader.
This is actually a great free way to market your stories because lots of potential readers are downloading free samples to see if books are interesting.
Use this to your advantage knowing how much of your book they will get to sample by creating an amazing hook within your sample.
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You ever meet someone and they talk talk talk talk talk talk?
You never get to say a word and honestly, you are looking for an opportunity to end the conversation and walk away.
The reason for this is that this person isn’t being interested in you and what you like they are being interested in them and what they want to say. This makes them work for you and not much fun to be around.
We can do the same thing to our reader.
But how do we listen to a reader as writers?
Simple, when you write put yourself into your reader’s shoes.
Think about what they want and how they want it delivered to them.
Don’t just think about what you want to say and how you want to say it.
Don’t make it work for your reader.
Just like in a first conversation you don’t want to drop a ton of information on the reader in your first paragraphs without some type of fun reward.
Don’t spend your first 5 paragraphs describing the building and city your main character is in before even giving your reader some dialogue or some characters they can start to imagine and get to know.
Listen more than you talk.
Create curiosity right away by dropping them into the arena with the main characters in trouble sooner rather than later so that the reader knows they are getting something good.
Put the reader right in the middle of two characters’ dialogue about planning a murder on page one so they are curious right from the start.
Make them naturally want to know about who and why?
Write into a scene where two brothers are sword fighting to the death over a woman in medieval times.
Create a hook right away and don’t bore your reader with a bunch of facts right off at the start so they can have something to look forward to and want to go on that first date to find out more in chapter two.
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Some people are introverts and some extroverts and there are definitely some in-betweens but for the most part, humans are in general a little curious about one another.
In your first chapter give them 1-3 characters they can start to watch and get to know.
Don’t over-explain any of these characters at first.
Reveal their personality over time and give quick physical descriptions of the ones you choose to describe.
Do not spend several paragraphs describing any one character physically in your first chapter, or maybe any chapter for that matter.
Take your time revealing any character’s personality, beliefs, and choices.
Less is more when it comes to most physical descriptions. Get it in precisely and be done with it. Allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the blanks.
“He had dark skin, long brown hair and an eye patch covering an eye with a big scar around it.”
Try to be precise and don’t overdo it.
Later you can give away more things about their look or demeanor as they get to know the character.
“She hadn’t noticed it until now, but he walked with a slight limp.”
“He removed his shirt to jump into the river and for the first time she saw that his back was covered in scars. He saw her staring.
“I was a prisoner in Rome for two days. It was just enough time for them to do this to me. I’ll never set foot in Rome again till Caeser is dead.””
Keep in mind that as you do this type of revealing slowly the reader will get enjoyment out of looking forward to further revealing. This helps move along in your story and want more, rather than being bored and wanting less.
In conclusion:
Consider the first paragraphs extremely important
The first chapter of utmost importance
Give your reader a character to follow and know right away
Give your reader a major problem or question to be curious about right away
We hope this helps!
Happy writing!
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If you enjoy writing chapters and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
