Lisa Hall-Wilson's Blog, page 6
May 14, 2019
How To Create 3-D Emotional Depth In Fiction
Adding emotional depth to a scene, often in the revision stage, can be hard because you’ve written it as you pictured it in your head, right. However, sometimes what’s in your head isn’t what comes across on the page. How frustrating! Try creating a 3-D effect for readers and using sensory details to convey motive/goals/priorities, and emotions.
Before You Turn To The Sensory Details…Yes, sensory details are going to be important, but first thing’s first. For deep point of view, you must be...
April 30, 2019
Brene Brown’s Guide To Creating An Emotional Arc Using Shame
Shame is one of the most powerful and underused emotions in a fiction-writer’s toolbox. Shame is pervasive and common, it’s ugly and hard to capture well, but deep point of view is the perfect technique to use with this complex emotion. Readers cheer for characters who are relate-able, who stand up to bullies, who stay and fight when they don’t have to. They relate to characters who have flaws!
And shame is one emotion everyone studiously avoids, denies, and conceals and because of that can...
April 10, 2019
How To Write Fear That Connects Emotionally With Readers
When writing in deep point of view, do your beta readers figuratively yawn at what are supposed to be your scariest scenes? Deep POV was supposed to create an emotional connection with readers, so why isn’t it working?
Fear is a universal emotion, so if you want fear to actually come across to readers, then you need to explore the root causes, make it individual, and keep surprising your readers.
Why Writing Fear Well Is So HardThe problem is that as writers, fear is an emotion we’ve felt...
March 6, 2019
Advice From Jack Sparrow On Building Emotional Connections With Readers
Captain Jack Sparrow, love him or hate him, most people FEEL something for the irrascible pirate. What can Jack Sparrow teach us about creating emotional connections with readers? Lots. Savvy? There are many posts out there on the interwebz for writers looking for advice on how to create emotional connections with readers, but let’s look at a character many many people love but may not be able to put a finger on why.
Jack Sparrow Is RelateableWhen creating a character you want readers to co...
February 26, 2019
5 Day Deep Point Of View Challenge 2019
Deep point of view is a writing style, a technique, that aims to put the reader IN THE STORY with your characters, experiencing everything the POV character experiences in real time. When you remove all the distance between the reade...
January 29, 2019
Deep Point of View: First Person Or Third Person POV
What Is Deep Point Of View? Deep point of view is a stylistic choice, a writing technique, (just like writing in either first person or third person) that aims to remove the distance between the reader and the point of view character (POVC) so that the reader feels an emotional connection to the character – as though they’re experiencing the story – are in the story – as the main character.
Deep POV is intimate, immediate, visceral, and can convey emotions in a very powerful way so that read...
January 25, 2019
4 Questions To Ask To Avoid Info Dumps In Deep Point Of View
No one likes reading an info dump, but we writers justify their existence because we’re sure the reader needs all this background information here, right now. Info dumps kill the pace and tension in your story and readers may just put down your book and walk away forever.
What Is An Info Dump?“An info dump is a very large amount of information, usually backstory, supplied all at once in a narrative.” Backstory is important and vital to any character and story, but the reader doesn’t necessa...
January 9, 2019
9 Tips For A Powerful Antagonist That Work For Any Genre
There’s a pretty basic storytelling flaw that trips up many writers and that’s creating villains/antagonists who aren’t successful. Let’s define what I mean by successful. A successful antagonist moves the story ahead, directly challenges the protagonist, and has a better than 50% chance of success.
3 Pillars for a Successful Antagonist Does the antagonist/villai...Without a powerful antagonist, your protagonist has nothing substantial to fight against—there’s little reason to cheer for them.
January 1, 2019
Top 10 Posts of 2018
Good-bye 2018!!
Was 2018 a year that saw your writing become a priority or was it a year where maybe some things didn’t quite go as you’d planned them to? Either way, another year another blank chapter. Let this be the year you make the most of your writing dreams, talents, and hard work!
In 2018, I published two books and got the first drafts done on two more. I was offered a regular slot on the Writers in the Storm blog (look for my first post of 2019 there next week). I relaunched my Meth...
December 7, 2018
Create Emotional Connections With Readers Using Deep Point Of View
There are still many many fans of writers like Tolkien, Austen, and Dickens, but contemporary readers (particularly genre fiction readers) are looking for more than entertainment from a book — they want an emotional experience!
“By some curious chance one morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green, and the hobbits were still numerous and prosperous, and Bilbo Baggins was standing at his door after breakfast smoking an enormous long pipe that reached...
