Writers in the Storm

by Jenny Hansen

When you’re learning something new—whether it’s baking bread, fixing a leaky sink, or crafting a story that keeps a reader up all night—you bump into two types of difficulty: the stuff you can figure out on your own, and the stuff that makes you want to throw your laptop into the nearest body of water.

The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) lives in between those extremes. This magical zone is where the most effective (and usually the fastest) learning takes place.

What is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)?

Lev Vygotsky, the psychologist who coined the term, defined the ZPD as the sweet spot where a learner can’t quite do something alone but CAN do it with guidance, modeling, or collaboration. This zone is the difference between “Easy Peasy” and “I have no idea where to start.”

In that in-between zone, you’re stretching your skills without snapping them. You’re building competence while getting support, until you can learn to handle the [Fill in the Blank] challenge on your own.

How does the ZPD apply to writing?

To think about this from a writing perspective...there is only so far you can take a story without help.

That help might come in the form of blogs, classes, podcasts, writing mentors, or books, but no writer develops their talent in a bubble. For every creative, there is something that sparks your need to create, or shows you more productive ways to go about that creativity. There is someone or something that makes you attempt to reach higher or further.

For writers, the ZPD is EVERYWHERE. We are in a profession of constant learning.

We find it hidden in the learning curves we barely noticed, and in the hurdles that stop us cold. The trick is recognizing when you’re in that I don't know how to do this place, and then being willing to seek help.

Seeking the right kind of help allows you to move forward more quickly in mastering Craft skills.Think of a teacher like Margie Lawson or Becca Syme as the "scaffolding" that allows you to bridge the gap between what you can't do yet and what you can do with their assistance. 

Some examples…

Below are examples of how I've seen the ZPD show up on the road to learning writing craft, and ideas for how you can use it to your advantage.

1. Moving from Grammar Rules to Style

A beginner writer might know basic sentence structure but often gets stuck when trying to vary sentence rhythms for effect.

On their own, many newbies produce choppy or predictable prose. In their ZPD, a mentor, teacher, or writing group member might give them a critique and point out where varying length or structure could create impact. Through guided rewrites, the writer learns how to balance clarity with cadence, eventually hearing and applying those patterns instinctively.

Without support: “I write how I talk, and my sentences all sound the same.”

With support in the ZPD: “Here’s how to play with sentence length so your reader feels the tension you’re building.”

2. Developing a Compelling Scene Arc

When I was a newer fiction writer, I understood the components of a scene: characters, conflict, dialogue. But I didn't understand how to use them in a way that moved the story along. I'd flesh out the scene, and the pacing would drag. I knew I was dragging, and that I was taking too long to get to the good stuff, but I couldn't pinpoint why.

3 Pivotal Tools (for me)

Reading Debra Dixon's book (Goal, Motivation & Conflict) pointed me down the path toward mastery. Blake Snyder helped too, by explaining Story Beats in Save the Cat. Finally, Margie Lawson's EDITS system showed me how to visually see what was missing from any scene or chapter.

Writing teachers like the above, a great editor, or a really good critique partner can walk a writer through a scene, so they understand when and how to apply a concept like micro-tension, or recognize when an emotional beat is missing.

Best of all, they can do it quickly. Two perspectives are way better than one when you're learning writing craft.

That new-ish writer who asked for help can rework their scene so the tension rises and falls in a compelling way. Almost overnight, a writer can go from “my scenes all lack energy” to understanding how to build or release tension in a scene. Eventually, they can extrapolate the knowledge to all their scenes. Their readers begin to lean in instead of tuning out.

Now they can move on to work on the next layer of learning.

3. Understanding Point of View Nuances

The leap from knowing what point of view is to mastering it is a classic ZPD moment. A writer might be able to keep first-person narration consistent but still “head-hop” in third-person without realizing it. A line editor, workshop leader, or (in my case) a blogger, can point out where the voice slips, then guide them through exercises to keep the reader anchored in a single perspective.

My amazing helper was Lisa Hall-Wilson. Her Deep POV posts here at WITS have had a massive impact on how I approach point of view. Here's one of my favorites: The 4 Important Layers of Deep POV.

The before-and-after difference in a nutshell:

• Before: “I’m writing in third person, but my beta readers sometimes get confused about who's talking.”
• After: “I know how to ground the reader in the sensory world of one character at a time and keep them in Deep POV.”

4. Learning to Cut (Without Bleeding Out the Story)

Self-editing is a survival skill, but during most writers' early stages, it’s hard to tell what’s fat and what’s bone.

In the ZPD, a mentor models how to identify redundancies, over-explaining, or tangents, while preserving your voice and teasing out the most effective emotional beats. After a few times through this process, the writer starts applying that same lens to their own drafts.

Without support: “I know it’s too long, but I’m afraid to cut anything in case it messes up my story.”

With support in the ZPD: “Let’s cut this paragraph. Perfect. See how the pace improves without losing meaning?”

5. Building Subtext in Dialogue

Speaking of meaning... Many beginning writers write dialogue that says EXACTLY what those literal-minded characters mean. *raises hand* There are no hidden meanings, no misunderstandings, no sarcasm. . .and no tension.

In the ZPD, a writing coach might break down a scene from a well-known novel, showing how characters often talk around the truth. Guided practice helps the writer layer in body language, pauses, or misdirection, until they can craft conversations that hum with what’s unsaid.

Without support: “My dialogue sounds like a script reading.”

With support in the ZPD: “What if the character says the opposite of what they feel—what clues could you drop for the reader?”

Working Inside Your ZPD

The big secret, in my humble opinion, is not waiting too long to find help. You see, the Zone of Proximal Development is less about magic and more about strategy. It’s about identifying that edge where you can almost—but not quite—do the thing, then finding the right scaffold to bridge the gap.

In writing, that scaffold could be:

• A mentor’s real-time feedback
• A workshop’s targeted exercises
• A craft book that speaks your language
• A peer who’s one step ahead of you and willing to share their knowledge

The goal is to internalize the skill so it moves from “I need help” territory into “I’ve got this.” Once it does, your ZPD shifts, and you can move forward. There’s always a new edge, a new skill you can almost—but not quite—do on your own.

And that’s the best part of writing. There’s no finish line, only the next sweet spot where growth lives: just far enough to stretch you, but close enough to reach. . .with a little help.

When have you experienced that lightning-flash of knowledge that kicks your skills up several levels? Please share your effective writing teachers and mentors with us down in the comments!

About Jenny

By day, Jenny Hansen provides brand storytelling, LinkedIn coaching, and copywriting for accountants and financial services firms. By night, she writes humor, memoir, women’s fiction, and short stories. After 20+ years as a corporate trainer, she’s delighted to sit down while she works.

Find Jenny here at Writers In the Storm, or online on Facebook or Instagram.

Featured photo purchased from Depositphotos. Branded in Canva.

By Jenn Windrow

There’s something deeply satisfying about writing the end of a chapter. You’ve hit your word count, the scene wrapped up neatly, and you’re ready to toss your laptop across the room and eat carbs. I get it.

But if you’re ending chapters with quiet exits, vague inner monologues, or sighs into the distance then your readers are skimming. Worse, they might be stopping. And you need them to keep going.

After all, you want your chapters endings to be so well written, so hooky, that your reader goes to work exhausted the next day because they couldn’t out the book down.

Why Chapter Endings Matter More Than You Think

Chapter endings aren’t just stopping points. They’re launch pads. They create momentum. They sell the next page. They’re the cliffhanger in your Netflix binge, the “oh no she didn’t,” the sharp inhale before the plunge.

When a chapter ends with a punch, your reader isn’t just intrigued — they’re compelled.

So how do you deliver that punch? Here’s how:

1. End on a Question (Not an Answer)

Wrap up the scene, sure — but leave the situation unresolved. Your character learns something, but what does it mean? Someone enters the room, but we don’t yet know what they’ll say. A letter arrives. A door creaks. A lie is told.

Endings with open loops force the reader to turn the page.

❝She opened the email, read the subject line, and stopped breathing.❞

Don’t explain it yet. Make them chase the next chapter.

2. Let Someone Twist the Knife

An emotional gut-punch works just as well as an action one. End a chapter on betrayal, confession, dread, shame, or anything that yanks your character’s emotional foundation out from under them.

Your readers don’t need time to process. They need to feel.

❝He smiled at her like nothing had happened. Like the blood on his hands didn’t belong to someone she loved.❞

3. Use the Door Slam Rule

Metaphorical or literal — something ends with a bang. A secret revealed. A character walks out. A spell is cast. A gun is drawn. Someone makes a decision they can’t undo. Endings with finality drive story momentum.

❝She hit send. There was no taking it back now.❞

4. Let the Last Line Echo

Sometimes it’s not about the action but the phrasing. A sharp, poetic, or haunting final line can create the perfect emotional or thematic reverberation. It sticks in the reader’s brain and makes them crave more.

❝It was the first time he’d ever lied to her. It wouldn’t be the last.❞

Avoid These Wet-Noodle Endings:

• “And then she went to bed.”
• “He wasn’t sure what he felt, but it was complicated.”
• “They would figure it out in the morning.”
•  Any variation of “They didn’t see what was coming next” (lazy foreshadowing is not the same as suspense)

Pro Tip: Write the Ending First

If you know how your chapter ends, you’ll shape everything else to build toward that punch. It keeps your pacing tight and your scene direction clear. Even if you revise it later, writing with a goal makes a better chapter every time.

Final Thought: End with Purpose, Not Exhaustion

Don’t treat the end of a chapter like the end of a shift. This isn’t the clock-out point — it’s the hand-off to your next scene. Respect your story’s rhythm and trust your reader’s hunger.

When in doubt, ask: what would make me need to turn the page?

Then write that. Because your readers deserve more than a quiet fade to black.

Have you written a chapter ending that you love? Share it with me in the comments.

About Jenn Windrow

Jenn Windrow once attempted to write a “normal” book—and promptly bored herself into a coma. So now she sticks to what she does best: writing snarky, kickass heroines, broody supernatural men, and more sexual tension than a vampire in a blood bank.

She’s the award-winning author of the Alexis Black novels and the Redeeming Cupid series, where the undead never sparkle and the drama is always delicious. Jenn moonlights as a developmental editor, helping other writers wrangle their wild plots and tangle-free prose.

When not arguing with her characters or muttering about Oxford commas, she can be found binge-watching trash TV, wrangling the slew of animals that live in her house (husband and teenagers included), or telling herself she’ll only have one more cookie.

You can find her at jennwindrow.com or lurking on social media where she pretends to be an extrovert.

Header picture - Crawford Jolly - Unsplash

by Selene Grace Silver

Few things infuriate a reader more than a beloved character acting out of character for no logical reason because the writer needs the protagonist or antagonist to do something unexpected in service to a plot twist or development.

Today, readers crave character-driven stories, even in their high-action adventures featuring static heroes experiencing modest character arcs. Therefore, writers producing new stories need to create characters with well-developed personalities that feel authentic and real.

That requires writers to spend important time and research developing their main characters, especially their protagonists and antagonists.

Short of earning a double degree in psychology and literature, writers need to lean on what the writing and psychology experts tell us about human traits and psychological experiences. A new aspect of personality theory, called personality identity makes this task even easier to do well.

The Importance of Emotional Wounds and Their Misbeliefs

Resources like the Writers Helping Writers’ thesauri series and website, along with Lisa Cron’s book, Story Genius, offer writers effective strategies for developing great characters by addressing the connections between emotional wounds, misbeliefs, character arcs, and plot.

To identify a character’s goal and needs, we have to know what misbelief holds her back from just going out and getting what she wants.

To understand why a character developed a misbelief in the first place, we need to identify the origin wound that caused it to spring to life, and what additional experiences in her past reinforced it.

To determine whether an experience actually wounded a character emotionally, we need to know how her personality would respond to the event.

Finally, to craft an exciting, conflict-rich plot in which a reader stays up all night to find out what happens, we need to set in place the most difficult scenario and obstacles to challenge the character’s misbelief.

The Importance of Character Traits and Personalities

A writer can’t understand why a specific character feels, thinks, acts, or reacts in specific ways until they know the character intimately, including their psychological history and how it shapes them into the person they are at the start of a story.

It’s not enough to pick a random emotional wound out of an encyclopedia and assign a misbelief that might develop from it, then start plotting. That approach completely ignores personality theory.

Personality theory argues that people are born with distinct—often genetically inherited—ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving, and that those traits influence how an individual gets affected by life experiences. For example, researchers have linked the trait of introversion to the genetic evidence and persistence of shyness.

Placing an over-achieving intellectual Commander type (Extroverted-Intuitive-Thinking-Judger) on stage in front of a crowd when she is seven at the school Spelling B might spark excitement and a renewed sense of self-confidence in the child even if she loses. While placing another analytical personality, the serious Architect type (Introverted-Intuitive-Thinking-Judger) up for potential failure in front of his peers might damage his self-confidence for life, especially if he loses. Public embarrassment can easily become a motivating or debilitating experience, depending completely on the individual child’s personality.

One person’s wounding experience is another person’s motivating drive to be better. We can only know how or to what degree most damaging events affect a person if we know their personality type.

Using Assertive vs. Turbulent Identities with Personality Traits

The 16 Personalities website is a fantastic resource for researching and developing a protagonist or other character’s wound and consequential misbelief using its added data on type identities.

Besides the classic personality traits: extroversion vs. introversion, intuitive vs. sensing, thinking vs. feeling, and judging vs. perceiving, the site’s researchers have further explored how these traditional traits get expressed differently in individuals with identities that tend towards optimism (Assertive identity) or pessimism (Turbulent identity). 

Basically, the identities Assertive and Turbulent research delves into the different ways individual personalities view themselves and the world depending on whether they see the glass half full or half empty.

The really interesting aspect of this additional data is that writers can determine how a wounding experience early in life might damage a character’s personality development and subsequent approach to the world.

Using Traits + Identities to Create Backstory Wounds and Misbeliefs

A character’s self-confidence can be impacted negatively or positively by a specific experience.

If we look at the Commander (ENTJ)’s personality profile again, we can see how this bold and strong-willed character type might be damaged by an early experience of losing a Spelling B in front of their peers and parents if they lean toward having a Turbulent identity. Or, losing the Spelling B might push them from being an Assertive over to a Turbulent identity.

Ninety-two percent of Assertive Commanders report having high self-confidence, while only 51% of Turbulent Commanders report the same. Also, 87% of Assertive Commanders experience increased motivation when a task is more difficult than expected, while a much lower 56% of Turbulent Commanders respond the same way.

With this added identity data, it’s easy to see how a specific personality type might lose some of their innate confidence and react differently to subsequent stress and challenges based on a wounding experience of losing the Spelling B.

Scenario: Matthew, His Origin Wound, Misbelief, Character Arc, and a Perfect Plot

To illustrate, let’s create a character named Matthew who has developed a Commander personality by age five, due to genetics and life experiences. He’s a little energetic machine of nonstop ambition who likes to win, be in charge, and boss his younger siblings around.

In first grade, he eagerly signs himself up for the school Spelling B. He studies and prepares, and then competes with complete confidence, winning first place. Or he loses first place to Ernie because he didn’t study much, but decides he’ll just work harder and beat Ernie next year.

The event reinforces his Assertive identity (ENTJ-A). Lesson learned with a positive, optimistic outcome.

But let’s say Matthew eagerly signs up for the Spelling B, but due to his personality’s tendency to be arrogant, doesn’t study much, and he loses after only one round. Shocked by the early loss and humiliation, his self-image and self-confidence take a hit, setting up a turn towards a Turbulent identity (ENTJ-T), in which he decides never to compete in a Spelling B ever again.

Lesson learned with a negative, pessimistic outcome.

Or, his ensuing misbelief, following other losses, could be that the only way to succeed is to over-prepare and work tirelessly in order to be good enough to win against the competition. Lesson learned, also with a potentially negative, pessimistic outcome.

In fact, his confidence has taken such a hit that at the start of your story, as an adult, Matthew only ever takes on jobs or challenges he knows he can win, and despite his competence and love of managing other people, he never applies for a management position at work. He never feels truly successful or wins the esteem of his loved ones because he never takes genuine risks, meaning his satisfaction in life is stifled.

What kind of plot and conflicts will the writer need to build into the story to force Matthew to learn to take risks in his work and life again?

Obviously, the plot must force Matthew into a scenario where he faces a task or challenge he’s never done before, then places a more skilled, experienced antagonist against him, then setup increasingly difficult hurdles and humiliating moments on the journey to the finish line, until poor Matthew finally decides he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks (regaining his Assertive identity), uses his natural intelligence and imagination to strategize a way to achieve his goal, and wins!

Not all character-wounding events need to turn characters into victims. They do need to damage the character’s personality in a way that prevents them from leading a satisfying, happy life.

One of the best approaches to creating the wound, misbelief, character arc, and a corresponding plot is to incorporate established expert knowledge from psychology into your character and plot development.

The added 16 Personality Traits Identity component is a wonderful resource for writing your character’s journey and story.

What emotional wound or misbelief have you explored in one of your characters, and how did it shape their journey?

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Selene Grace Silver resides near the beach in Southern California with her romantic Scottish husband. Trained to read and write literary fiction, she never quite abandoned her early love of the romance genre.

After 20 + years teaching English, writing, and literature at the high school and college levels, she’s retired to write fiction full-time. She’s had to adjust her writing style and craft to suit genre fiction, which includes learning to plot and write complex characters. For Selene, an INFJ, writing is a journey of constant self-improvement.

To read a short prequel to the small-town beach romance series she’s developing, sign up for her newsletter. She’s also on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.