Contributed by children’s author Linda Wilson A flashback is a literary device that momentarily departs from a story to a scene in the past. A flashback can be as brief as a sudden thought, a dream, or a memory. Flashback can help give your story depth, and make your main character more interesting. As Diane…
Tag: Linda Wilson
Creating Story Characters? Avoid These Common Mistakes
Guest Post by Linda Wilson Many characters inhabited the early drafts of my WIP: a MG mystery. Like many of my characters’ counterparts—kids—I assigned each character a “friend,” following the example I’d seen so often of kids going around in “packs.” What fun I had! The snappy dialogue! The endless opportunities to showcase what was…
Series Writing – Is It For You?
Contributed by Linda Wilson How big is your children’s book idea? In fiction, it might cover generations as in Philippa Gregory’s Cousins’ War and Plantagenet and Tudor Series, or growth of the main character which occurs in Nancy Drew mysteries. Have your pick of nonfiction topics that can blossom into a series from a single…
Villain or Antagonist – Is There a Difference?
Guest Post by Linda Wilson Is a villain and an antagonist one and the same? Sometimes, and sometimes not. First stop, the dictionary definitions: Mwa Ha Ha A villain is: 1. a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel; 2. A character in a play, novel, or the…
Save Writing Time – Try an Outline-Sketch
Guest post by Linda Wilson I wrote my next book, Book two in a mystery series for 8-12 year-olds, while making dinner last night. To be more precise, every time my hands were free I jotted down plans for the book in a sketchy outline. Don’t let this boast fool you, though. The one-page outline-sketch…