Does Your Character Have Agency?

In her poetry collection Call Us What We Carry, poet Amanda Gorman writes, “Change is made of choices, and choices are made of character.” Gorman is a writer and is the youngest inaugural poet in US history. But she wasn’t referring to the craft of writing when she wrote this. She was writing about the … Read More

My Literary Bones

Image: The Cynthia Ann Parker House in Fort Worth, Texas. Image credit: University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections. My family on my mother’s side is Irish, English, Scottish, French, and Native American (Comanche). I don’t know much about how my European ancestors came to the United States. I know a little more about … Read More

Characterization: More Than a Pretty Face

Last week, I discussed character descriptions that are almost entirely physical–they are focused on the character’s appearance. While they are good descriptions, they can be a missed opportunity. I’m a big fan of using character descriptions strategically, not only to describe the way a character looks, but to give us some insight into the character. … Read More

Characterization: Lessons from Twilight

I recently binged all the Twilight movies–I’d never watched them before, but I was intrigued/tricked into watching them by my friend Ashley Corinne–she recently wrote a Twilight re-read series for GXRL magazine. Ashley compared her experience reading the books now, as an adult, to reading them then, as a teenager. It felt like a crash I … Read More