In literature, an antagonist is a character or a group of characters which stand in opposition to the protagonist or the main character. The term antagonist comes from Greek word “ antagonistēs ” that means opponent, competitor or rival. We commonly think of antagonists as villains, the evil people (bad guys) who try to thwart our heroes at every turn. But that’s not necessarily the case. Sometimes the hero is his own worst enemy. Maybe he or she has an addiction or a dark phobia or some character flaw that keeps tripping him/her up and prevents success in reaching the goal. A pilot with a drinking problem might create a whole lot of problems for himself and his passengers. A young woman with self-esteem issues and no father-figure might look for love in all the wrong places. An antagonist doesn’t even need to be a person. It can be an animal, a la Moby Dick . Or it can be the weather. In Ray Bradbury’s story “The Long Rain”, the four characters are driven insane by the inc...

“What is your genre?” they ask. Well, it’s a story of a dream, of heart and courage. It takes place in the West and it’s about old-time rodeo cowgirls, so it's also historical. It has a sweet romance and it’s suitable for Young Adult as well as grownup readers. So it could be “Women’s Fiction”, “Young Adult”, “Western” or "Historical". How do you decide? When I first started writing, I attended conferences and workshops and I kept hearing, “Write something different and new. I don’t want to see the same old thing.” So I did. I wrote what I called “Christian Fairytales.” But when I pitched it to agents or publishers, they would sigh and scrunch up their faces, and after a long pause, they’d say, “Well I really like the stories and your writing is very compelling. But…it doesn’t fit our niche.” Huh? But you said… I do understand that publishers need to know your audience so they’ll know to whom to market. I understand that bookstores need to know where to ...

“Cowgirl up” is an expression that means to rise to the occasion, not to give up, and to do it all without making excuses. This phrase resonates with me since the inspiration for my first novel was my cowgirl grandmother. To me, it means having the courage to do the hard thing, to follow your dream. You don’t have to have a horse, live on a ranch or in the West to “cowgirl up.” When I started writing this series, I thought there would be a finite number of columns I could come up with and that I would be done after Number Three. But recently I heard another definition of courage that inspired at least one more post on the subject. “Courage is the opposite of the instinct to keep everything under control. It is against inertia and death, toward intensity and life. The little courages of life add up to big courage over time. Resist the offers of  small safe quarters in your mind." ~ Karen Lee, ARNP,OB/GYN Nurse Practitioner When we are writing, we start out with the illusion...

Last month I talked about what dialogue is . This time I’ll share what dialogue should not be. Common mistakes : Unnatural dialogue . Using characters’ names repeatedly. Laughing words. “You’re crazy,” laughed Justin. (Correct: said Justin with a laugh or Justin laughed. “You’re crazy.”) Over-descriptive dialogue . Too many adjectives and adverbs. We don’t speak like this: “When I looked at the blood red velvet petals of the roses, I knew this wasn’t just a Valentine’s gift.” Lecture dialogue . Long speeches. Too much information. A “teaching” moment or a device to show off all the research you did for this story. Exposition . “As you know, Ted, my daughter was an A student in college and a sprinter, but she lost a leg in a car accident, and is staying home now.” Do the characters’ have the information already? Are you just trying to provide info for the reader? Talking heads . No action or setting in between to remind us where they are, what they’re doing, besides tal...

Dialogue is two or more characters talking to each other. We can all talk. Writing dialogue should be easy, right? Well, yes and no. Here’s what dialogue is : Talk is an ACTION . An ideal, compact way to advance your story by having one character tell the other what’s happening—to reveal, admit, incite, accuse, lie, etc. It can speed up a scene. A way to define a character . The way someone speaks—accent, vocabulary, idiom, inflection—tells as much about what he is like as his actions do. And let’s us see him better than just using description. It can also reveal motive. One way to show emotion and set a mood . Characters reveal themselves when under stress or angry. Dialogue is used to create an emotional effect in the reader. Another way to show POV . Often used to get across what is NOT said . Example, if you want to show that someone wants to avoid an unpleasant encounter, you can show this by having them talk around the subject uppermost in their mind, but never quite touch ...

“Cowgirl up” is an expression that means to rise to the occasion, not to give up, and to do it all without making excuses. This phrase resonates with me since the inspiration for my first novel was my cowgirl grandmother. To me, it means having the courage to do the hard thing, to follow your dream. You don’t have to have a horse, live on a ranch or in the West to “cowgirl up.” It takes courage to write. We are all born with a certain measure of creativity, but as we grow up, learn “responsibility” and “decorum” or have our creative efforts shot down, we stifle that urge. After all, very few make a living at writing—you’d better have a plan to fall back on, like teaching or nursing or business. We’ve probably all heard someone tell about an early writing effort that was shot down by a teacher or family member. “You can’t write.” “You don’t have any talent for that.” That, to me, is criminal! It takes courage to overcome that squashing. I’d been writing in various forms since I lear...