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New DIY MFA Post: How Your Protagonist’s Motivations Influence Your Story’s Themes

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What does your protagonist want? That’s a loaded question, right? But it’s the central idea of my latest Theme: A Story’s Soul at DIY MFA, and it’s one of the questions that you, as a writer, should consider for your story. As the article’s title reveals, your protagonist’s goals, desires, and other motivations don’t just influence the story’s plot. They also nurture some of the story’s literary themes! And in this article, you’ll learn how to do this with your writing with the help of examples from three books and four brainstorming exercises.

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A Blogoversary Character Interview with Eva of “The Keeper’s Curse”

/ saraletourneau / 59 Comments

Happy Blogoversary

I still can’t believe that this site has been around in some form since 2009. I may have ideas churning constantly in my brain and the motivation to put them out there for others to read – but YOU are the reason I’ve kept doing this for so long. Your support, honest and constructive feedback, and friendship mean the world to me, and not enough “thank you’s” would do it all justice. So, in my opinion, this celebration is for YOU. 🙂

As promised a few weeks ago, we’re celebrating the site’s 6th birthday with a very special post: a character interview with Eva, the protagonist for my YA fantasy WIP The Keeper’s Curse. You readers asked fantastic questions; a wonderful mix of the fun, the thoughtful, and the challenging. So, again, thank you for submitting them, and I hope you enjoy the interview!

If you’d like to read other articles about Eva, check out this past edition of Chronicling The Craft, her solo Beautiful People post, and two other BP posts and her relationship with Aurek and the parental figures in her life.

And finally, stay tuned for a special (belated) blogoversary giveaway coming in August! 😉 Continue reading →

Submit Your Questions for Eva’s Character Interview!

/ saraletourneau / 24 Comments

Recently I asked for suggestions about how to celebrate the site’s upcoming 6th blogoversary. Since then, I’ve come up with not one, but TWO ideas that I’m going ahead with. One will wait until after the Writer’s Digest Conference in July / August. But we can get started on the other today!

Why “we”? Well, the “day-of” blogoversary post will be a character interview with Eva, the protagonist for my YA fantasy novel The Keeper’s Curse. This means you get to ask the questions, and Eva will answer them! (Or, rather, I’ll answer for her. *lol*)

Instructions will follow after the jump. First, for your convenience, here’s a summary about Eva from her updated character profile: Continue reading →

Chronicling The Craft: 50,000 Words

/ saraletourneau / 27 Comments

Meet The Protagonist – A Character Profile

Chapters Completed: 12

Chapters In Progress: 8

Chapters Left to Start: 14

“Chronicling The Craft” is an article series where I share my experience with writing my current work-in-progress (WIP), which is a fantasy novel. Every 5,000 words, I let readers know what I’ve accomplished since the previous article and share advice, discoveries, techniques, etc. Besides the word count in each article title, a “chapter ticker” at the top also tracks my progress as I use the skip-around / “writercopter” method to write the novel. Today’s installment celebrates the book reaching 50,000 words in length.

First of all, YAY! I’ve been looking forward to reaching the 50,000-word milestone for some time – not only because of the purpose I’d planned for this particular article, but because this milestone means I’m roughly halfway finished with my WIP.  😀  So, this Chronicle feels like a true celebration.

Let’s get right to the progress points since my previous Chronicle: Continue reading →