Overview:
One Stop for Writers is a website to help writers create characters and worlds and plot their novels. It’s powered by thesauruses, like the Emotion Thesaurus that I already decided is worth the price. Overall, the website offers fifteen thesauruses—all of the published ones and several others.

At One Stop, you can create many different things to help you plan your novel. The Character Builder develops a personality, emotional wound, inner and outer motivations, fear, quirks, life, and physical traits.  Character’s Fear is a similar page focused only on one character’s fear and what personality traits stem from that. Character Arc Progression asks for information from the Character Builder, but also has you consider a resolution. Emotional Progression has you lists events that occur and the emotions of the character, and how you plan to show (not tell) the emotions. Setting-at-a-Glance has you describe your setting with the five senses, as well as lighting/time of day. Emotional Value of a Setting adds symbolism and forces you to consider deeper aspects of scene that will theoretically reinforce the emotions of the characters. Scene Map (informal and formal) asks you for information about what is happening in the scene. The formal version asks more questions. The Story Map is a very general plot outline with major elements listed, generates an interactive imaged with acts 1-3 or stages 1-6 indicated. The timeline is great because you can write events as they come to mind, and then drag them around in whatever order you need. Last is the Worldbuilding Survey, which can be used to create planets down to a single household and everything in between.
 
All of those have the thesauruses built in to offer suggestions that go together. For example, you select an emotional wound, and the website suggests fears that may stem from it. There are also worksheets and templates you can download to work offline, however these lack the connection to the thesauruses. The site also offers 47 checklists and tip sheets. Checklists can help you do things like add conflict or create a good flashback. Some of the lists include positive traits or when to show not tell. Many are also tutorials for how to use the various thesauruses, although that’s not very difficult.

The website has excellent how-tos, including videos and screenshots. Most of it is very user friendly.

There are cost tiers to consider. There’s a 2-week free trial, which you should absolutely use if you’re thinking of paying to play. Of note, with the free trial you cannot download pdfs of what you make and can only make one item in each category. It’s easy enough to get around those issues though, since you can copy/paste from the website into word and can delete info and remake subsequent items. I’m not being sketchy by telling you this, the website creators tell you that in the how-to-use section. Otherwise the pricing is: $9 for one month, $50 for 6 months, and $90 for one year.
 
 
My Experience:
I used my two-week free trial to work on the concept I had for a potential NaNoWriMo project. I’ve never done heavy outlining like this site offered, and thought the structure could be useful.

Of the 15 electronic thesauruses, my favorite is symbolism thesaurus, because that’s my weakest skill. A few of them, like the texture thesaurus, were not very full, and I probably could have listed all of those entries myself.

I enjoyed the character builder. It worked from the emotional wound outward, so that the character’s personality came together in an organic way. The suggests from the thesauruses were great and helped to easily build a round main character. However, if you have the print thesauruses, I think they’d cover the same information, though would be slower to navigate.
Some of what you can make feels redundant, for example the Character’s Fear page is already something you fill out in the Character Builder. Perhaps it’s a short version meant for side characters.

I decided to test if using this website helped me write a stronger first draft of a scene. I wrote the opening scene of my NaNoWriMo project after creating two characters, completing one Worldbuilding Survey, one Emotional Value of a Scene sheet, and a Story Map. Then I took this scene to my critique group. My critique group didn’t notice a drastic change in first draft quality from my previous WIP to this scene. They also didn’t pick up on any of the additions I made using the Emotional Value of a Setting sheet. I’ll admit that may be because I was not heavy handed with those suggestions. I did six hours of prep work on One Stop for Writers, but then I wrote 1000 words in a little over 30 minutes.
 
 
Is It Worth It?
If you are new to plotting, want to try plotting, or want to beef up your plotting, it’s a great resource. If you already have a plotting method that you love or if you are a panster for life, this won’t be terribly beneficial for you. I love that the site offers a free trial before getting pricey, because then you know what you’re paying for. If you’re willing to copy/paste and delete/redo then you can probably do all the planning you need during your free trial. It requires a lot of time to make what you need, but if you’ve got the time to use it, it’s fun.

Overall, the free trial is for sure worth it. I don’t think the one-year trial is worth the price, unless you are an insanely prolific writer and constantly planning your next novel. The one-month trial may be helpful, but six months I can’t imagine being that useful. At least you can try it for free before beginning your next project. With one week left before NaNoWriMo begins, anyone needing help plotting may want to check this out now!

Have you tried One Stop for Writers? Have you used a subscription? Did you think it was worth it? Let's discuss in the comments!

One of the things agents always talk about on twitter or their websites is voice. They want it! Please send it! And you may be left thinking what is voice? How do you develop that in your writing? I have an explanation and tips for how to develop it yourself.
 
What is Voice?

Voice is, at its core, unique and specific word choice, punctuation, and sentence structure. These elements play together to create a narrative style that is unlike what’s been done before, or is at least interesting to read.

For example, pick up a random textbook. The goal of that book is not to entertain, it’s to clearly convey information. Therefore, the word choice is going to be generic, the sentence structures are likely going to be similar, and anyone in the entire world could have written it. Which is the point. A kid is reading that textbook and you don’t want them distracted by the writer’s interesting turn of phrase.

Now look at, for example, The Lightning Thief, the first Percy Jackson novel by Rick Riordan. It’s written from the point of view of a twelve-year-old boy. That book oozes Percy’s voice. Interesting word choices, variable sentence structures, unique similes. That writing style won’t be found just anywhere, and that’s the point.

Voice can be the voice of a character, the voice through the book as a whole (if there's more than one point of view), or the voice of an author across their works. I believe developing your voice as an author starts with the voices of your characters, which together will be the voice through the book. Below, I focus on tips for how to develop the voice of a character.
 

Develop Your Voice
 
Tip #1: Monologue as Your Character
The best way I’ve found to fall into my character’s voices is to talk aloud as if I was them. If you’re feeling shy about your at-home audience, you can do this in the shower or write it down as it flows out of you. Whatever you do, don’t over think it. This monologue is not going in your project. It’s an exercise to help you explore. Take what you know about the character’s personality and extrapolate. The words they use will match their mood and education level, the sentence length will match their energy level, the punctuation will match their breath. Imagine how they’d discuss what they love, what they hate, where they live, and the people around them.

Do this exercise as long as you’d like until you get a sense for how this character speaks. Then try writing narration and dialogue from them. Does that voice sound unique? It doesn’t need to be other-worldly or wild, it just needs to sound like it’s coming from an interesting person. Model it after an interesting person’s speech pattern, if that helps you. If you think any random character in your book would sound like the voice you just played with, try again.
 

Tip #2: Decide which rules to break
Voice often manifests best when the speaker breaks a few classic writing rules. The basic rules will get you to textbook or essay level writing, but to be more than a bone-dry info-dump, you need to play a little. One of my favorite rules to break is to use fragments. Sparingly in narration and frequently in dialogue. That was a fragment, by the way. Did you notice it had a little more humanity in it than a full sentence? Sounded more natural, more conversational. Hence why I use them more in dialogue than narration.

Some characters will use a little more purple-prose in their word choice than others. For example, a professional artist will probably have more flowery word choice than a lawyer, who might be more direct. Some characters may even use more adverbs, run on sentences, or make grammatical mistakes (that last one is for dialogue only and should really be used sparingly, unless you want your readers to think you are the one making the mistakes.) It’s important to know the rules before you play fast and loose with them, and be sure you’re doing so on purpose.
 

Tip #3: Once You Have It, Write It Down
After discovering how your character monologues and which rules they tend to break, write down their specific quirks. This will help you remain consistent through your project. I have character consistency sheets that can help point you in the general direction of helpful things to write down. This can be before you’ve written your project or after you’ve finished your first draft, whichever you find most useful.

Compare voices you’ve developed for each of your narrators, or for the speaking voices of various characters. If they were all in a scene together and all speaking, could you differentiate their dialogue through their voices alone? Ideally, yes!
 

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Did any of these tips help you develop the voice of your narrator or other characters? Do you have a favorite method for finding the voice of a novel? Let’s discuss in the comments!

Overview
The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi is a resource book which lists entries for one hundred thirty emotions (in the second edition.) You choose an emotion, go to the entry, and read the definition and lists of physical signs and behaviors, internal sensations, mental responses, acute or long-term responses, signs the emotion is being suppressed, which emotions it can escalate or deescalate to, and associated power verbs. There is an introduction section explaining how to use it and some character development items to keep in mind. It’s part of a larger series of thesauruses by these authors, which includes the emotional wound thesaurus, the positive trait thesaurus, and more.
 
My Experience
I heard about this book from several sources, and debated buying it, since an emotion thesaurus sounded like a thesaurus with fewer words. I bought a physical copy from my local indie for $17.99 (plus tax and shipping because of COVID.) I was pleasantly surprised that it’s more of an encyclopedia than a traditional thesaurus. I’ve been using it mainly for its intended purpose: to better show, rather than tell, characters' emotions. Especially for characters who do not have a point of view. The list of physical signs and behaviors is my favorite and I’ve used something from it every time I’ve opened the book. I also used it to deepen my point of view characters by thinking about which emotions they have chronically through the plot. That’s when I love the long-term response section. I’ll definitely keep using this as I edit and for the next books I write.
 
Is it Worth It?
Yes! I was skeptical at first, but I highly recommend this for anyone who struggles to have their characters emote. If you’re in the planning stages, it’s also great for character development. It’s $17.98 on Bookshop (the multi-indie-bookstore website, check it out.) There’s a digital version too, though perhaps it's harder to navigate since it's not a traditional cover-to-cover read. I’m probably going to check out the other books in their series because I’ve loved this so much.
 
Have you used The Emotion Thesaurus, or the other books in Ackerman and Puglisi’s series? Did you find it worth it? Have you found other similar books? Let’s discuss in the comments!

I recently began editing my latest WIP and have been reading editing books and consuming as much how-to-edit media as possible. I decided a fun blog series may be posting methods I've found that have made my editing process easier. First up: editing for character consistency.

An online workshop hosted by the Mystery Writers of America- Pacific Northwest offered a character consistency sheet to use while editing. The example given in this (amazing!) workshop was nice, but didn’t cover most of what I need while editing. A few weeks ago, I mentioned working on character consistency using style sheets in Four Tips for Helping Your Writing Without Writing. So on a day I didn't feel like writing, and with inspiration from that workshop and some editing books, I made my own character consistency sheet. Feel free to use mine or make it your own too!

Please note: this is NOT a character background sheet. I specifically left off things like their family, their hobbies, or their favorite anything. However, this can supplement or draw from a background sheet you’ve already made. The character consistency sheet is about what comes up frequently on the page—their dialogue quirks, what they look like, how emotional they are, and their narrative voice.

Also keep in mind that different circumstances will make your character do or say different things. This is why the lines beside dialogue options are long. Maybe they greet friends with “Hey,” their boss with, “Hello”, and their grandmother with, “Good afternoon.” 

Sorry these aren't downloadable, I don't have the website capabilities for that just yet. 

Did you like my character consistency sheet? What are you adding to your own? Let's discuss in the comments!

To expand on my last post, I wrote a fictional autopsy for a famously murdered character in the public domain, Mercutio of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I took a lot of creative liberties here because we don't get a ton of Mercutio description. I learned that writing a character's autopsy is a great way to get to know them, maybe try it as a character building exercise! The annotations on the side are meant to be helpful and clarify anything I felt wasn't common knowledge.
​The following autopsy is completely fictional and any commonalities with real people is pure coincidence. 

There you have it, folks! Was this example helpful? Want more examples? Want to make fun of my goofy body diagram? Let's discuss in the comments!

Readers often love pets included in books, like Harry Potter’s Hedwig or Magnus Bane’s Chairman Meow. But when a pet isn’t written well, it can distract readers—or worse, distress them! Here are my top tips for writing pets into your stories.
 
1. Don’t forget you included a pet
Famously, Hedwig isn’t in the seventh Harry Potter book beyond the first few chapters. In the final draft, it’s because Hedwig is killed during Harry’s escape from Privet Drive. But Rowling admitted that when drafting, she simply forgot to include Hedwig. Now it’s an anecdote, and a world famous writer like Rowling doesn’t really need to worry about that kind of mistake. But you, dear reader, are less likely to have a team of editors behind you at the moment. So, if you give your MC a pet, make sure it’s established early on and continues through the story.
 
2. Keep a pet’s schedule in mind
If your main character gets kidnapped and doesn’t go home for several days, your readers will worry about the pet. Lots of people are dog and/or cat lovers, and thinking about a cat not fed or a dog not let out for days will depress the reader. So before inserting a pet into the story, make sure the fictional creature will not be neglected. Not familiar with pet schedules? Research the breed of cat/dog or the species of other small animal to understand their needs including feeding, toilet, grooming, sleeping/hibernating, and exercise needs.
 
3. Use the pet to show character
The choice of pet says a lot about a person. Runners may choose an athletic dog. Introverts may adopt an elderly cat. Maybe someone in a dangerous land would have a large, protective dog, while someone in a tiny apartment may select a hamster. You should consider what this pet brings to the story and what it can demonstrate about your character’s life. This also applies to the pet’s name, which often stays with a reader more than breed. A goofy pun, a pop culture reference, a quirky word, or a serious human name—they all say different things about the character who chose the name.
 
4. Use the pet as a sounding board
Some characters spend a lot of time alone. Maybe they’re shy, new to town, or maybe it’s a function of their job. But you want scenes that aren’t all internal narration, for the sake of the reader. One method is to have the character think aloud and speak to their pet. It makes more sense that just speaking aloud alone. And it can be revealing, as the pet not responding can draw more out of the character.
 
5. If it’s a service animal, do your research
Some characters will have service animals, whether a traditional guide dog for the blind or a more specialized animal, like a dog that can sense seizures approaching. If you include one of these very awesome animals, be sure to research the rules. Does it need a special harness to let others know what it’s doing? What is it trained to do exactly? What are the rules of caring for a service animal? It’s going to vary by its training, so take the time to research it.  
 
Those are my top tips for writing a pet into your story. Do you have any more ideas? Did you find these helpful? Let’s discuss in the comments!

​Some caveats to this post: I lived in Colorado for nineteen years and moved away for college in 2011. I’ve been back, but places change. I lived in Fort Collins, which is north of Denver (45 minutes to an hour depending on traffic) and in a region known as the Front Range. Other regions may vary.
 
So, you want to write a book set in Colorado. Or maybe just a few key scenes. Perhaps one character grew up there and the book is set somewhere else entirely. But you’ve never been. This post is for you!

1. Pot was legalized in 2012 in Colorado. Before that pot existed, obviously, but it was still “hippy culture” and mostly associated with Boulder.
2. The mountains run down the approximate center of the state. The Eastern Plains are to the east, and plateaus are to the west. The Front Range (Fort Collins, Loveland, Greeley, anything north of Denver and close to the main highway I-25) are considered the foothills.
3. If a Coloradoan says “the highway”, they mean I-25. Yes, other highways are present, notably I-70. But I-25 is THE highway.
4. The airport in Denver is referred to as DIA (pronounced D-I-A) or the airport. Never DEN, even though that’s the airline code.
5. We have the neutral American accent. Colorado has a school where newscasters come and learn our accent so they have maximum national appeal and minimum regional accent.
6. Coloradoans navigate using the mountains. In Fort Collins, the mountains are west. Most of the time, if someone gave me directions, they would include how I’d be oriented to the mountains. This is more difficult in cities within valleys, like Boulder, so keep that in mind.
7. Sixth graders go up to the mountains for Eco Week (technically 3 days, but whatever). This, I’m pretty sure, is universal for the whole state. We learned about mountain flora and fauna and especially mountain safety. Every native Coloradoan knows what to do when confronted with bears, mountain lions, or snakes. We also know how to survive if we get lost in the woods.
8. The air is dry. Which means you won’t feel hot until it’s 95+ and won’t feel cold until it’s below 40. Even then, the cold rarely cuts through clothing like humid-cold does. Dry also means that food doesn’t get stale. I could have a box of goldfish open in the pantry for a year those suckers would still taste fresh. For contrast, in Virginia my goldfish get stale after about three weeks. Dry also means nosebleeds.
9. Altitude sickness is real and feels like a hangover. Headache, even nausea if you change altitude too fast. Drink water, breathe deep, and you’re fine. 
10. We master snow driving at a young age. They don’t cancel school for anything less than an actual emergency. If the school bus can get out of whatever parking lot they stay in, you can get your ten-year-old used Corolla out of your sloped driveway. God bless antilock breaks.
11. Fifth graders in Colorado (at least as of 2002) get free state-wide ski passes. This doesn’t include equipment rental, but it’s still a great deal. It maximizes how many people can ski. Lift passes are very expensive, but smaller local places are more affordable. For example, I never went to Vail or Aspen because YIKES. But we could go to Loveland Ski Area or El Dora multiple weekends in the winter.
12. A few more quick items for YA or MG writers: the state-wide testing is called the CSAPs. Colorado Student Assessment Program, done in March for grades 3-10. Prom is usually April, there’s a 50% chance of snow on prom night. Public school goes mid-August to late May, never beyond Memorial Day. Too many snow days can add days to the end of the school year or eliminate teacher work days. Halloween costumes are ALWAYS chosen/made with snow in mind. It always snowed before Halloween. Some kids had an indoor costume for parties and an outdoor costume for trick-or-treating. Every school has done school shooter drills since 2000.

 
Are you a writer who found this helpful? Maybe you were hoping for some specific information not listed here. Are you a Coloradoan who agrees? Or maybe a Coloradoan who disagrees? We can discuss in the comments!