Writing With Emotion, Tension, and Conflict Quotes

“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

“Avoid ending a scene with your character going to bed. Your reader will shut off the light and go to sleep, too.”
― Cheryl St.John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel

“Descriptive writing is more than visual; it employs all the senses.”
― 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

“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

“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

“Readers often feel they know an author because they’ve read their books. To a degree, this is often true. We write from our individual worldviews, using the beliefs and understanding we have of the world and others.”
― 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

“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

“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

“Misunderstandings are fine and many of the novels we read start out that way, but misinterpretations between adults are easily discussed and cleared up.”
― Cheryl St. John, Writing with Emotion, Tension, and Conflict: Techniques for Crafting an Expressive and Compelling Novel