One of the best ways we get to know characters in a novel is through their reactions to story events. Think of any fork in the road of your own life: you could take any number of paths. Will you face the conflict? Deny it? Work around it? Retreat and regroup? Which your character chooses to do speaks much of him. Note the word “do.” Perhaps representing this concept as “re-actions” will get my point across better: action takes place, and the character acts in response. I’m not talking about body-level reactions in which toes curl and stomachs churn and throats constrict and that vein in the temple throbs. Such clichéd biology eats away at the literary quality of your manuscript and can give the reader acid reflux after a while. But even these reactions are better than no reaction. The most common rookie storytelling error, I think, is to not let your character react. It usually goes something like this: “I stood there with my mouth hanging open.” “She froze to the spot, unable...