By Hope Ann It’s that time of year when we fasten our capes, buckle on our swords, brace our fingers, and begin to fight—ahem, write. Fifty thousand words written in one month. Are the warriors who attempt this venture insane or courageous? Perhaps they are both, but whether you defeat NaNo or merely survive it, the fight […]
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By Hope AnnIf you’ve been an author for any length of time, you’ve probably heard about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Maybe you're enthralled with it. Maybe you’ve glanced at the confusing muddle of letters and given up deciphering it. Or maybe you’ve heard others talk about it. Whatever the case, if you aren't acquainted with […]
A Seven-Step Process to Solve Moral Quandaries in Christian Storytelling
By Hope AnnThere is a theme which abounds across a number of genres. One in which young men are torn from their farms and thrust into events which will change the course of an age, young women rise up to fulfill prophecies, and youths are thrown into conflicts where they must fight for their very
As of this Saturday, I’ve been reviewing submissions at Kingdom Pen for four years. During this time, I have seen several trends in content that’s submitted for publication.Few are as prevalent as allegories.Roughly half our fiction submissions are allegories of some form. But I can count on one hand the number of allegories I’ve approved […]
By Daeus Lamb As much as I appreciate saying “you” instead of “thou,” I can't help feeling that modern English has lost some of the richness our language once possessed. The word awful is a prime example. Today we use it to mean “bad” or “disgusting,” but its original definition was more along the lines of: […]
By Gabrielle Pollack Character arcs are bothersome. Let me clarify: creating character arcs is bothersome. Character arcs in and of themselves are terrific; they aid with theme, character development, and the execution of vital plot points. Yet, they require effort to pull off correctly. Writers risk dumping all the character’s growth on readers like a pile of […]
By Josiah DeGraaf One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a writer is to allow all your protagonists to get along with each other. Many of us are inclined to do this because we love our characters. The protagonists are all working together toward the same goal, right? So why shouldn’t they have a harmonious […]
By Rachel Keller You’ve written a novel that you love (ironically) beyond words and handed it to beta readers to prepare it for the final editing stage. You’ve aced all the details (characterization, plot, theme, setting). You’re sure this is the novel that will launch you into publishing. Then you receive disturbing feedback from your beta […]
By Mark Kamibaya The character archetype system (roles that characters play in a story) is used by many authors. It was invented by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung (basically Sigmund Freud version 2.0 but without all the libido). Carl Jung broadened the field that Sigmund Freud revolutionized. He coined the labels extrovert, introvert, sensing, feeling, thinking, and […]
Readers can't relate to a story without narrative description. It happens in a vague world of shadows and smoke that readers have never visited—a world of floating voices and gunshots (splitting the silence, probably) but no real physical matter. It fails to engage the senses and ignite the imagination. If you’re like me, most of
By Rolena Hatfield As a Christian writer, my writing is a gift to be used by the Lord, so when times of writer’s block come, I feel like my stories are useless and I’ve wasted my time on the parts I’ve already completed. But in these cases, I’m learning to use certain tools in order to […]
Set Your Novel Up for Success by Sharing Your Outline
“We need more strong female characters!” I’m sure you’ve heard this battle cry before. Whether it be in books or movies, we hear the mainstream media and our peers clamoring for more “strong female characters”. And you know what? I agree with them; we do need more strong female protagonists in our stories. Of course, I disagree […]
By Brandon MillerName a Disney film. Name both of the hero’s parents.Not easy, right? Usually at least one of the parents is dead. Although Disney has other reasons for doing this, the main one is to develop sympathy in the audience for the hero. Sometimes it works. But it also comes at a price.People, especially
Do you struggle to find new readers and connect well with the ones you already have?What if you knew how readers think, what makes them act, and what they want from you?All these insights are revealed in the results of The Reader Behavior Survey. Last month, I polled 229 readers to try to learn what
By LaToya Gay As a writer, it’s possible (and maybe even likely) that you aren’t very organized when it comes to your craft. We’ve all experienced inspiration at the most inopportune moments. We can sit for hours staring at a blank screen or page with nary a clue how to proceed with our stories. Then, out […]
My favorite sci-fi stories always seem to be tight. The sci-fi elements, the characters, the world, and the theme are all closely intertwined. Whether the stories are relatively small scale (the movie Arrival) or full-blown trilogies (Jill Williamson’s The Safe Lands), they blend otherworldly characteristics with real-world issues to create a compelling narrative that not […]
By Josiah DeGraafThe climax.That point which should be the tensest, most enthralling portion of the book. Done well, a climax can be simply stupendous. However, there are also few things in writing that are as bad as a climax done poorly.As one example, there was a series that I was reading a couple years ago […]
The Challenge of Love: Writing Love
Can You Keep a Pure Mind While Reading about Darkness in Literature?
By Gabrielle Massman “Your story is a bit cliché, don’t you think?” For a long time, I dreaded I would hear those words. They seemed like the ultimate insult, meaning that anyone could have written my story. I was obsessed with avoiding clichés. I Googled “fantasy clichés,” and I even posted a list of ten common ones on […]
By Sierra RetOn the surface, sci-fi is one of the easiest genres to define: stories involving speculative science. But the word speculative has deeper connotations than you might think. When authors incorporate as-of-yet uninvented technology into their stories, they are speculating answers to different what ifs. What if people had the ability to indefinitely extend
By Hannah KrynickiHave you ever experienced the Wince Factor?It goes like this: One evening you are enjoying a new “family” movie with younger friends or siblings, chuckling at the jokes and sobbing at the tragic moments (and, as a writer, probably analyzing every element of the story). All at once, a jarring image flashes before
There are no set rules for an opening line of a novel. Nearly anything goes—be it description, dialogue, or a statement of philosophical truth. But that flexibility does not apply to the first page of your novel. All good novels contain several essential elements that immerse the reader in the story world and keep them
By Hope Ann I’d heard about NaNoWriMo for years before I finally figured out what it was…National Novel Writing Month. Except the goal of writing 50,000 words though the month of November, and the goal of writing a whole novel aren’t quite the same thing for me since my books somehow make themselves quite a bit […]
Staring at blank paper can be daunting. It’s just a piece of paper, but there’s so much it can hold! It is light now, but it has the potential to be a paperweight if the right words are written upon it. The same could be said about a poem. It could be a waste of space, […]
By Josiah DeGraafI have a love-hate relationship with Christian fiction.On the one hand, the genre has immense potential, because it transcends what it means to live as a human being to explore what it means to live as a Christian. When these stories are done well, like Dave Swavely’s Silhouette, Richard Ramsey’s The Song (yes,
True Courage
Equipping Young Adults to Write for Christ
By Sarah Spradlin In a world where gaining and maintaining writerly motivation is about as hard as putting down a good book, we need all the help we can get, and these simple time-savers are sure to appeal to the tech-savvy soul and maximize your motivation—no matter how long that motivation lasts.Before you start celebrating with
By Josiah DeGraafThe transition from childhood to adulthood is an important transition that everyone has to make. So it shouldn’t be too surprising to find that this transition is a common motif in literary works. Coming-of-age stories are staples among children and YA literature, but all of this may raise some questions. What exactly makes
Millions of ideas are floating in your brain and scattered on paper. Half-finished projects galore are on your computer, and one sole heart is overwhelmed. Does this sound like you? Creative types continually jump from one project to the next, a new idea appearing shinier and more interesting than the old one. Completing a project
Writing Christian fiction involves much more than mentioning God a few times or showing a character attending church once. Christian fiction encompasses the whole worldview behind your characters. Loyalty. Courage. Hope. Kindness. Love. No character is perfect, but the worldview presented and the conclusions reached by the main characters ought to mirror the teachings of […]
By Gabrielle PollackYou’ve just created a new character and are excited to share his point of view with readers. He’s witty, charming, flawed, and about to embark on the adventure of his life. You’re desperate to bring readers up close and personal with him. If you don’t, you're worried they won’t love him as much
A dark, brooding hero isn’t particularly nice to anyone, and he is particularly mean to a few nice people. A tragic event in his past has shaped his sour outlook on life. He might live on 221B Baker Street, or he may call up CIA agents just to tell them they look tired. He’s conflicted, […]
By Josiah DeGraafFour years ago, I was beginning a rewrite of A Darkened Light, which was my second full-length novel and my current work-in-progress at the time. It had become clear during the first draft that most of my characters were rather bland: that while a couple characters had some interesting things going on with
Stories follow a familiar pattern because it works. When it comes to character archetypes, we have the Hero, Villain, Mentor, Ally, and Love in just about every story. Usually, the weakest of these is the Love. This is because in an adventure novel, the main story goal is not to “get the girl” (or boy […]
By Gabrielle PollackThe core of story is conflict. If your story contains no struggle, it’s just a tale about nobody important who never overcame anything. Conflict takes many forms; physical, mental, and spiritual conflicts are all crucial, and even necessary. Ideological conflict, however, is invaluable to developing character arcs. Without it, your protagonist won’t grow
By Brandon Miller A few weeks ago, I picked a random book off the library shelf and started reading. The book, Flashfall, grabbed my interest immediately. The characters were relatable and the story world was fantastic. Even better, the plot seemed fresh: miners struggling to excavate radioactive caverns where mutated creatures were trying to eat them. […]
