by Tiffany Yates Martin

There's a common fallacy of human thinking that you may be as guilty of as I sometimes am.

“He's a jackass….” “That woman is nothing but a gossip.” “I'm such a scatterbrain!”

In cognitive behavioral therapy this is called labeling and mislabeling, reducing a person to a single behavior, and it can become an automatic thought pattern.… Read the post

By Ellen Buikema

Animal characters are created in all genres, either in cartoon-like or realistic forms. They may be walking, talking substitutes for human characters, or reality-based beings that may or may not be augmented with special abilities. No matter how you incorporate an animal into your story, they should be a memorable character.… Read the post

Shannon Donnelly

I’ve been reading some manuscripts lately that have trouble sorting out the protagonist, so this seems worthy of a blog. The protagonist—your central character—needs to be worthy of a story. The protagonist also needs enough going on to carry the story.… Read the post

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

In real life, being judgmental might cause a few problems, but in fiction, it's something every character should aspire to. How characters--especially the point of view characters--judge the world around them shows readers what that world is like and how it works (and even non-genre writers need to world build, it's just a little different in the details).… Read the post