Becca Puglisi Knihy

Every story starts with a character who is motivated by a need and has a goal that can resolve it. Whether their objective is to find a life partner, bring a killer to justice, overthrow a cruel regime, or something else, conflict transforms a story premise into something fresh. Physical obstacles, adversaries, moral dilemmas, deep-seated doubts and personal struggles...these not only block a character's external progress, they become a gateway for internal growth. The right conflict will build tension and high stakes, challenge characters as they traverse their arcs, and most importantly, keep readers emotionally invested from beginning to end. Inside Volume 1 of The Conflict Thesaurus, you'll find: A myriad of conflict options in the form of relationship friction, failures and mistakes, moral dilemmas and temptations, pressure and ticking clocks, and no-win scenarios. An analysis of each scenario that maps out possible complications and catastrophes, internal struggles, and the stressful impacts on a character's basic human needs. Guidance on using conflict to influence your protagonist's character arc through opportunities for failure and success. Master class instruction on internal conflict: what it is, why it's important, and how to incorporate it at the scene and story levels. Information about the role conflict plays in generating high stakes that are personally significant to the character, upping the tension for readers. A breakdown of the various adversaries your character might encounter along the way. Don't give your character a break. Keep the hits coming with a variety of obstacles that will force them to work harder to get what they want. With over 100 entries arranged in a user-friendly format, The Conflict Thesaurus is the guide you need to write intense and satisfying fiction readers won't forget

"Inside The Positive Trait Thesaurus, you'll find a large selection of attributes to choose from when building a personality profile, real character examples from literature, film, or television to show how an attribute drives actions and decisions, influences goals, and steers relationships, advice on using positive traits to immediately hook readers while avoiding common personality pitfalls, insight on human needs and morality, and how each determines the strengths that emerge in heroes and villains alike, information on the key role positive attributes play within the character arc, and how they're vital to overcoming fatal flaws and achieving success, and downloadable tools for organizing a character's attributes and providing a deeper understanding of his past, his needs, and his emotional wounds."--

Highlights seventy-five emotions and identifies the body language and cues that authors can use to elicit each in their characters. -- provided by publisher.

Making readers feel connected to the story is essential for all writers, yet many overlook the powerful role of setting. A well-chosen location can evoke emotion, create conflict, define characters, reveal backstory, and engage readers through sensory details and deep point of view. This resource offers a comprehensive list of sights, smells, tastes, textures, and sounds for over 120 urban settings. It provides potential sources of conflict for each location, helping you complicate your characters' journeys naturally. You'll find guidance on making descriptions impactful to maintain pacing and keep readers engaged, as well as tips on using the five senses to enhance emotional resonance. The material also covers how to use settings to develop characters through personalization and emotional values, while employing emotional triggers to influence their choices. Additionally, it addresses specific challenges of writing urban environments and highlights common descriptive pitfalls to avoid. With downloadable tools for planning each setting, you can select the most effective backdrop for your scenes, ensuring a rich and immersive experience that will draw readers back even after they finish the book.

Within the pages of a book lives a place of a writer's imagining, one that has the ability to pull readers in on a visceral level. But the audience's emotional fascination will only last if the author is able to describe this vibrant world and its inhabitants well. The setting is the unique story element that brings together characters and events. So much more than stage dressing, the setting is able to evoke mood, provide unique challenges that force the hero to acknowledge his faults and fight for what he wants, and hold a mirror up to his emotions, peeling back the layers of his most intimate feelings, fears, and desires.