Characters & Target Audiences

“Writing is a little bit like prostitution. First you do it for love. Then you do it for a few friends. Then you do it for money.”

Molière 

All those pure souls who insist they exclusively write for self-expression and art’s sake, please leave this post now. It isn’t going to get any prettier. I started with a quote comparing writers to whores, so don’t act so surprised.

Those who have stayed aren’t expecting writing fiction to make them overnight millionaires. Instead, they yearn for the day readers pay a fair price to receive a piece of fiction the reader already wants to read. Charging for your product and your service doesn’t cheapen it. 

Continue reading “Characters & Target Audiences”

Creating Character Voice with AI

Creating a believable and distinct character voice is one of the most critical elements of writing. It helps to give readers an insight into the character’s personalities and emotions and provides a unique perspective on their story. AI can help with that.

Read more: Creating Character Voice with AI

AI in Writing

Hear me out. As much as AI has quickly become portrayed as an enemy to writing, AI can be helpful when used in specific and exact tasks like fleshing out a character.

Characters are the building blocks of any story, and creating them can be challenging for writers. Writing believable, engaging characters and having depth is essential for a good story. With the help of AI tools, writers can create characters more quickly and accurately. Such devices can suggest how to develop characters based on their traits, goals, and motivations. They can also help writers generate character descriptions that are detailed and interesting.

Everyone we engage with IRL has their own uniqueness, shown in their expressions and actions as much as their speaking voice.

Creating a character voice requires skill and creativity but can be done quickly with good techniques. By understanding how to craft dialogue, build a backstory, and use descriptive language, writers can create realistic and engaging characters. Anyone can create compelling characters that draw readers in and leave them wanting more.

Tips for Development

One thing that has proven helpful for me is reading the piece aloud or having text-to-voice read it. Hearing your work spoken eliminates all the tunnel vision we writers have when it comes to loving the sound of our inner voice a little too much.

Weak writing is often saturated with more words than necessary for compelling storytelling. We learn so much more about our characters by their actions and reactions — how they handle certain situations.

It is easy to fall into the trap of using dialogue to have your character tell the audience who they are. When a character tells the audience what is happening, who is where, why things are happening, and what could happen if those things keep happening, the reader can get bored quickly.

Show me, don’t tell me, and let me, the reader, expand the story with my own imagination.

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