Fi Phillips

Wow, July is almost over and the school summer holidays are in full swing. There's so much going on but I've still managed to find some choice writing advice for you. The first is an article by Rae of Barely Hare Books - What is a Character Arc? And why does your character need one? The 'character arc' topic crops up time and time again in writing advice but Rae's article really breaks the notion down into an easy to follow read. Have a look. Following (a lot of) changes to my novel, I'm struggling to come up with a new book title so I found How to title a book: What do good book titles have in common? by the folks at Reedsy really useful. As you know, I'm taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo this month and as part of their Camp Care Package, they provide some brilliant writing advice videos. Here's one on interviewing your character. And here's another on World Building.

I know, I know. I'm late in getting this post on here this week, but the joys of the Easter school holiday and the challenge of the April Camp NaNoWriMo writathon have kept me busy. One of the hardest concepts that I've had to face as a writer (and I still find it difficult) is that of the character arc. The two point of  view characters in my novel both change but it's subtle and I'm unsure whether it's enough for the reader, or authentic. On the Helping Writers Become Authors site, K M Weiland discusses just this topic in her post The Hardest Part of Writing Good Character Arcs - and How You Can Make It Look Easy! . It's well worth a read. How do you approach character arcs?

After yesterday's blog post about whether we should have an understanding of why a villain is bad (their background), I'm still in a quandary over my own 'monster'. In the novel I'm working on, Jared is what they call 'damaged goods'. His mother was a drug addict and he spent a lot of time living on the streets. My quandary is that I can't decide whether it would add anything to the novel for the reader to know his back story, or if I do reveal his upbringing, how much of it to include. Will it move the story along? The Other Side of the Story offers up many fascinating and incredibly useful articles on a regular basis and this one - 5 Steps to Better Characters Arcs - is no exception. It may well come in useful in making my decision about Jared.