Developing Strong Protagonists.

The Key to Character Development in Narrative Structure.

As your story moves along, your protagonist will choose to do what she or he would never have done earlier in the book. And, you’ll need to make these choices believable.

Supporting characters and antagonists go through this process, too, but their real job is to force the protagonist to make tough, even impossible, choices.

Hard Choices Drive Your Story

1. Consider a number of things that are wrong in a protagonist’s inner and outer life at the start of the story
2. List them, and you’ll find you have a sort of template for character development

Robert McKee writes in Story that many writers confuse character building (creating an interesting character, including reveals) with character development (characters making tough choices they would not earlier have made.) 

“True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure – the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.”

― Robert McKee, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting

Here’s to another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Coming Soon from Pulp Literature Press Mel Anastastiou’s The Extra, A Monument Studios Mystery. Silver screen Hollywood is packed with hopeful stars like runaway schoolmarm Frankie Ray, but the plot twists when murder steals the scene.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Your Writing Productivity.

How strange, that when you finally get several hours a week to draft, after never having enough, you emerge with less pages than you’d expected. After all, in an hour, a writer with a good plan or an energetic muse can draft a thousand words. 

We all wonder where the time goes. 

Of course, sometimes laundry or some other suddenly attractive chore sings its siren song. But more often still, drafting time is eaten up while you think about what to write. Which you need to do, as yours is a reflective profession. 

But, if you do some thinking ahead of time, in 5 to 10 minute slots over the course of your week, you can, for example… 

• Outline the next scene, or character arcs
• Write taglines and elevator pitches for the book as a whole
• List 10 ways the next turning point might occur
• Create in imagination a central image for the next scene

When your writing mind has a bit of scaffolding to start with, that peaceful drafting hour can really get you somewhere fantastic.

And if it doesn’t, be kind to yourself, as you would be to any writing colleague. Your time will come. 

Here’s to another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Coming Soon from Pulp Literature Press Mel Anastastiou’s The Extra, A Monument Studios Mystery. Silver screen Hollywood is packed with hopeful stars like runaway schoolmarm Frankie Ray, but the plot twists when murder steals the scene.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Your Writing Talent.

You come to the writing table equipped with certain skills that come naturally to you. There may be some skills that you’ll need to sweat to develop. But that doesn’t matter, because all craft may be learned if the interest is there.

Interest – a love of the work and the learning that goes with it – is one of the most reliable indicators of a writer’s talent.

Determination and a deep interest in the work are talent indicators for every profession. We’ve all met great teachers, superb doctors, top notch lawyers, and successful authors. The best keep their perspective and their humour. They tend to love their work and take pleasure in learning more about it as a lifelong process.

 I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Developing Writing Poise

When somebody asks, What do you do, remember that self-deprecation is not your best professional colleague.

“I’m a writer.” 

Certainly, if you were a doctor or interior designer, you’d say so.

But, follow-up questions like, “Would I have read anything of yours?” and “How are sales?”  can take you down expository slippery slopes that find you talking about yourself and your burgeoning writing career at length. Of course, if you’re happy in the spotlight, great. But if the conversation feels uncomfortably engorging, negative, or one-sided, there is a way to step gracefully off the slippery slope.

The magic words are, “Do you write?“

Either they do, and you can share a balanced conversation about writing, or they don’t, and you can ask them about their own careers and pastimes.

I deeply admire those whose poise never wavers. Still, for many of us it’s a work in progress. 

The truth is that feeling poised has an energising effect on writers.

In fact, the more you present yourself with confidence as a thriving writer, the more you’ll feel it, and the greater the time and energy you’ll give to your work.

 I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Making Time for Writing – A Writer’s Promise.

You have distinctive dreams, talents and abilities. These propel you ever more resolutely towards the writer’s life you desire. 

In fact, everybody who is doing anything with passion, knows that joy in work comes with taking the time to forever improve your craft.

Like most writers, you want more time to work. You challenge your scheduling in order to carve out more writing, planning, and outlining time. 

You may find that your best source of time is cutting activities you don’t love and that don’t serve you and yours.

However, if you discover that you’re truly at capacity, and you can’t cut a single thing from your week to create more time, don’t despair. You can still —  and without apology — make yourself a writer’s promise. “There is a time for everything, and when you can write, you will. Your writer’s life will still be there when you’re ready.“

 I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Create Great Turning Points for Your Act 2

One of the reasons your story succeeds so well is that you dig deep for ideas, rather than sailing into the first or second thought that comes to mind. Your Act 2 or, as Campbell and Vogler* call it, the “Belly of the Beast” section, is packed with energy. 

Your Act 2 is filled with trials and learning for your protagonist.

Take a few minutes to brainstorm lists of ten to twenty possible turning points. It’s not easy, thinking up that many ideas, but you didn’t get into this writing game because it’s easy. Digging deep to think up tough decisions, false victories, and sacrifices for your characters moves your plot past obvious, into intriguing. 

Create an idea bank of gripping turning points for your hero, antagonist, and allies. 

Fifteen minutes of dedicated brainstorming time is worth hours or days of revision. Here’s why: every choice you write for your characters causes them to grow as they attempt feats and make connections they never would have attempted in Act 1. In this way you’ve built in strong character development as you draft, and your story grows in power.

I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

* Christopher Vogler. The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers. Third Edition. Michael Weise Productions, Studio City Ca, 2007.

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Walking Helps Writing

Your career depends upon your writing mind, your interest in the work, and your determination to keep learning. 

Small steps towards your great dreams energise your writing career.

The New Yorker’s article Why Walking Helps Us Think  demonstrates how walking helps your brain. (Walking without earbuds, because it turns out that quiet revives a working mind.)

A while back, inspired by the New Yorker article, and by Devon Boorman’s excellent article on posture, I experimented with walking a solid hour a day for 100 days, 6-7 days a week. Throughout that time I recorded my experiences and my Writer’s Rewards here. I wanted to see what sort of rewards I’d receive, and I wasn’t disappointed.

I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Create Suspense – 3 Ways to Do It.

You create suspense when readers trust your ability to surprise them.  

One way to surprise readers is to set up a third option. Will this happen, or will that? Neither. It’s the third option.

It’s difficult to create suspense when you start in the middle of the action. 

Not impossible, but difficult, and here’s one reason why. If we are not invested in the POV character, then even the best-written action scene may make readers want out of an ugly situation, and they won’t read on. If you must start mid-crisis, then an act of kindness, a small sacrifice, right off the bat is a screenwriting trick (see Blake Snyder’s brilliant Save the Cat) that sets your readers up to care about your protagonist, and we must care if there’s to be suspense.

Don’t let your POV character hog all the emotional responses. 

Leave some emotional participation for your readers to feel for themselves. For example, if the stakes have just risen for the protagonist, you don’t write the protagonist’s reaction to it (unless that reaction is unexpected and surprising), so that readers may bring their own worry, fear, joy, sorrow to the story.

If you can create suspense and sustain tension as you plot and draft, then you’ll save time on revisions, as well. 

I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Your Novel’s Ending, Closer in the Rearview Mirror.

Sometimes the end of the book seems so far off that you start to feel that fashions will have changed and technology moved on to a still more distant generation before you’re likely to finish it.

Start With the End in Mind.

When you’re starting a story, it may be worth your time take a few minutes to write the end. This could be

• the last word
• the last sentence
• the last paragraph
• the final scene

Set a timer and write for no more than 10 minutes. 

It’s Worth 10 Minutes to Hammer Out An Ending.

If you can’t picture the final scene, your creative mind may wander among its many interests, tracking a long and winding road through the story map… and then you’re stuck with more rewriting than you’d like.

With your ending in mind, you’ll find a clearer path to a standout finish.

I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.

Create More Time for Writing

One way to increase your writing time is to love the career dream as well as the actual planning and drafting.

That’s because the more you love anything, the easier it is to find time for it. 

One trick is to take time from unloved distractions, not relationships or your good health. Another is to do your best to banish writing worries and love your author dreams.  As part of your writing practice, you might take a few minutes in the course of your busy day to dream. Think of 

• writing in peace
• writing to deadlines
• setting your published books onto shelves
• signing your title page
• chatting writing with other writers
• signing a contract 
• declining to sign a contract
• reading reviews
• measuring profits

and anything else about writing that warms your heart.

What are the many aspects of writing that drew you it when you began? What do you like best now? 

Obviously you need to write the stories themselves, but after all you’re determined to do this work.

The truth is, the more you love your career, the easier it is to give even more time to it. 

I hope you’ll have another brilliant week in your writing career.

Cheers, Mel

Mel Anastasiou is a founding editor with Pulp Literature Press.

Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries was long listed for the 2018 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour. Thanks for that, so lovely to hear.

Mel Anastasiou writes The Fairmount Manor Mysteries series, starring Mrs Stella Ryman, The Hertfordshire Pub Mysteries series, starring Spencer Stevens, and The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery, coming Autumn of 2020.

If you enjoy reading Mel Anastasiou’s writing tips, get her pocket-sized writing guide, The Writer’s Boon Companion: Thirty Days Towards an Extraordinary Volume, here. Motivates, entertains, organizes, encourages, inspires.