Author: Mara Scudder

It’s hard to share things that are close to your heart. It can be even harder to write them. It’s difficult to write scenes when your characters cry or share their deepest fears, because it’s the most vulnerable moment in your entire book. If your readers relate to their most passionate thoughts and secrets, your…

At this point, enough fantasy characters have traveled through magical portals to reach far-away worlds. That trope — a magic circle with teleportation properties — a has become cliched and predictable, with many readers asking for more creative devices to transport  protagonists between two worlds.  But coming up with a brand-new method of transportation can…

There is so much good that could be said about Honor Among Thieves. It might be the best movie that came out of 2023. I’ve known I want to write a blog post about it for months, but most of what makes the story so good is just its strength in the foundational aspects storytelling…

The middle of our stories can often be the hardest to master. Even plotters like myself, with extensive planning done beforehand and a crystal-clear vision of the scenes just a few steps ahead, can get stuck in the middle. Sometimes the plot seems predictable or the characters are repeating themselves or you need to add…

The premise of most stories includes some type of a fish-out-of-water situation. If it didn’t, and the characters stayed safely tucked away in their comfort zones, it wouldn’t make for an interesting story. Although sometimes other elements, events, or even characters intrude into their world and make it uncomfortable, very often a character is forced…

Tone can be one of the hardest things to master, especially in the first draft of a novel. There’s a fine line between oppressing your reader with needless darkness and adding so much humor that the story seems irreverent. But between those two extremes is the perfect tone, offering enough meaning and impact to create…

Literature is full of characters with traumatic pasts. Whether a family member is dead, they grew up in an abusive environment, or they’ve been exiled from their home, every character seems to have some variety of trauma. Avatar: The Last Airbender is no exception. Katara’s mom was murdered in front of her, Zuko’s father maimed…

There are two important dimensions to character relationships. We already looked at one in an article on Age of Ultron, and how you create a group of characters that feels like family by allowing the entire group to interact and play off each other. It’s important to have scenes with your group of characters when…