names Archives - David Michael Williams

9 06, 2020

Make sure your main characters cast a shadow

2020-07-13T21:18:37-05:00June 9, 2020|Categories: Work in Progress, Writing Tips|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

For reasons beyond my understanding, my brain likes inventing personas—everything from wacky facades to keep small children entertained to personalities projected onto passersby. Everyone has a story, after all.

30 12, 2014

Should you care if readers care about your characters?

2019-10-02T17:49:03-05:00December 30, 2014|Categories: Writing Tips|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

The more I think about it, the more a term like “character-oriented” seems superfluous. Characters are but one element of a story. Like setting and plot, they are essential ingredients of a story. But are they any more important than the rest?

22 08, 2013

Building a better book title

2019-10-02T15:05:19-05:00August 22, 2013|Categories: Writing Tips|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

Titles represent anywhere from a few hundred to hundreds of thousands of words. They have to be worthy of all that hard work you put into your short story, novella or novel. And they must be marketable.

25 09, 2012

Don’t let minor characters usurp your MS

2019-09-30T18:19:52-05:00September 25, 2012|Categories: Writing Tips|Tags: , , , , , , , |

At a recent Allied Authors of Wisconsin meeting, I was thrilled to receive unanimously positive feedback on a particular character in the chapter I read. The only problem is all that praise went to a pretty minor character who appears in just one scene in the entire novel and doesn’t even have a name.

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