In the past, I’ve talked in depth about what villains need to bring your story to life. Today we’re gonna talk about the heroes, or protagonists, of your story. The people your reader should identify the most with. The people the story is really about. (Now before we begin, let me say I am not…
Tag: protagonist
Writing Great Villains
Let’s talk about villains for a moment, shall we? I LOVE a good villain. Someone who makes your skin crawl. Someone whose presence in the lives of the protagonist and her friends alternately infuriates and scares you. Someone who is a legitimate threat to your protagonist. But how do you create this? How do you…
Max Headroom
Did you know the average person has 50,000 thoughts per day? Some researchers put that number as high as 70,000. That’s thoughts. Not words. Say, four or five or six words per thought. 250,000 words? Per day? String ‘em all together and you’d have a couple of books’ worth. Per day. Good book? Probably not….
THE CURSE OF THE WANDERING PROTAGONIST
Originally published in Nelson Literary Agency’s monthly newsletter Here are three examples of a formula I’ve seen many times in our query inbox. See if you can figure out why the formula doesn’t work…and why we’re probably going to pass on reading the sample pages: Example #1: Middle Grade “Protagonist and his friends go on many exciting adventures….