Greer Rivers > Greer's Quotes

“Conflict must be personalized to the character. If you don’t know your story people and motivate them, you won’t have a strong conflict. A vague or general motivating force produces a vague and general plot. Being specific will increase the emotional intensity of your story.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“The antagonists who evoke the most emotion are the ones who could have been heroes if they’d made better choices.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“Plot is the series of events that keep your characters together until issues are resolved at the end of the book.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“real life can be fascinating, it isn’t as marketable as a tale with a plot.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“Goals, conflict, and motivation should be so specific that you can write them down in a few words.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“The most efficient way to write a walk-on character is to use stereotypes, because the reader already has an impression. This, of course, depends on the length of your story and the importance of the character.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“Include just enough detail for flavor and interest but not enough to emphasize or single out a particular item above the importance it deserves. In other words, don’t describe the shovel hanging on the garage wall unless someone is going to dig a grave with it later. An exception would be if your character is a neat freak and the garden tools on the garage wall are alphabetized—this would characterize.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel