Emotional Arc | A. W. Downer

Characters: Suffering and Anxiety

Posted on September 16, 2020 Leave a Comment

Writers are supposed to make our characters suffer. But there is one kind of suffering that I hate to give my characters: anxiety.

Fine-tuning Revision

Posted on August 22, 2020 Leave a Comment

I’ve been working on revisions for my contemporary middle grade novel. I’ve never gotten into quite so much fine-tuning before. It’s a whole different thing. I had the scenes in order and the character arc pretty well figured out. But now, I had to go through and make sure all the emotions remained consistent. I […]

The Most Perfect Story–because of characters!

Posted on July 14, 2018 1 Comment

(I tried to avoid spoilers, but be forewarned!) Voltron might be the most perfect story I’ve ever experienced (personal taste, of course). I love fantasy and sci-fi, especially when they blend. I love deep emotion and meaningful tears–not just wrench-your-heart-out junk but when characters have meaningful relationships that are sweet and sometimes bitter. But I […]

When Characters Grow and Change in Surprising Ways

Posted on July 9, 2018 Leave a Comment

I love learning about characters and seeing them grow. One of my favorite things is when characters surprise me in ways that make sense. Like when I expect a character to act one way, but their character arc leads them to act differently. This usually happens when I have a rough outline of a story […]

Writing the Synopsis to Find the Heart of Your Story

Posted on February 20, 2015 Leave a Comment

I did what I imagine most people do, and I waited to write the synopsis until I was almost done with the book. After all, until I was ready to market, I didn’t need a synopsis, right? Well, I discovered that in honing my synopsis I actually learned more about my story and what the […]