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What is an Unreliable Narrator?: Penning the Prevaricating Protagonist

By Sean Glatch | June 10, 2024 | 10
nick carraway unreliable narrator

When you can’t trust the person who’s telling you a story, we typically refer to them as an unreliable narrator. An unreliable narrator is someone whose account of the story…

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Flat Character vs. Round Character: Definitions and Examples

By Sean Glatch | July 16, 2023 | 7
flat vs rounded character

Every fictional person that populates books, movies, and plays falls into one of two categories: flat characters and round characters. Flat and round characters each fill important roles in works…

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Character Development Definition: A Look at 40 Character Traits

By Sean Glatch and Jack Smith | November 7, 2022 | 10
questions for character development

For any work of fiction to resemble real life, it has to portray real character development with a convincing character arc. Additionally, those characters need to have believable character traits,…

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Anti-Hero Characters: Writing the Unheroic Protagonist

By Sean Glatch | August 30, 2022 | 1
anti hero characters

Want to learn more about how to write an anti-hero? Consider taking our private class with Gloria Kempton. The anti-hero (or antihero) archetype is a popular feature of modern books…

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What is a Foil Character? Exploring Contrast in Character Development

By Sean Glatch | August 2, 2022 | 0
creating contrasting characters

A foil character, or character foil, is a character whose actions and traits contrast those of another character—often the protagonist. The foil character is like a white background against a…

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Protagonist Definition: How to Create the Perfect Protagonist

By Jack Smith and Sean Glatch | April 5, 2022 | 2
protagonist definition: what is a protagonist?

If you’re writing any kind of fiction, from a short story to a screenplay, your story has a protagonist. This is the character or characters around whom the story centers.…

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How to Write Dialogue in a Story

By Sean Glatch | December 21, 2021 | 10
how to write dialogue in a story

Writing dialogue in a story requires us to step into the minds of our characters. When our characters speak, they should speak as fully developed human beings, complete with their…

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Static Characters vs. Dynamic Characters: Definitions and Examples

By Sean Glatch | November 30, 2021 | 2
writing character development tips

You can categorize the people that populate your stories as static and dynamic characters. These categories correspond to character development: if they’re a changed person by the end of the…

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What is an Antagonist? Definition & Examples

By Sean Glatch | September 28, 2021 | 1
what is an antagonist

Because most stories involve conflict, most stories also involve an antagonist. Your protagonist—the main character—will struggle to achieve something important to them, and the antagonist will further complicate this struggle.…

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Story Writing Exercise: What Does Your Character Want?

By Sandra Novack | June 2, 2020 | 1
writing exercise character desire

Desire—what a character wants or needs—forms the backbone of any fictional plot and the basis of conflict. Often, when writers have problems generating a story, it’s because they’re not thinking in…

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Character Development Advice: 5 Tips for Creating Characters that Breathe and Move and Can’t Stop Talking

By Gloria Kempton | February 19, 2020 | 2
writing character development tips

Editor’s note: This is the second of two articles (first here) on the fundamentals of character development written for Writers.com by our instructor Gloria Kempton, in support of a full…

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Essential Character Development Questions: 3 Questions to Ask Every Character You Write

By Gloria Kempton | February 11, 2020 | 5
questions for character development

Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles (second here) on the fundamentals of character development written for Writers.com by our instructor Gloria Kempton, in support of a full…

Read More

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