The main character in any story needs to transform in some way or the story doesn’t go anywhere. If the main character remains the same throughout, there isn’t any story.

The narrative tells the story of how the main character grows or changes. But the character may not develop or change but remain even more intensely the same, that is, recommitted to the way he or she is at the beginning of the story. This is harder to write than a story in which there is clear character growth or change.

In a clear character arc, the narrative is the story of the change to the main character. Ths may happen through experience, the learning of new skills or simply through the passage of time. The character starts out in one way, and throughout the story, he grows and changes. The narrative arc of the story is that of the main character’s growth, however it is accomplished.]

But in some stories, there seems to be no change in the character, no character arc. The main character remains who he or she was at the beginning throughout the story. But, when you read the story carefully, you see that there is character movement. The character does not perceptibly change, but becomes even more steadfastly what he was at the outset.

A class I was in read a novella by Cynthia Ozick called THE SHAWL It’s the heartbreaking story of a woman in a concentration camp who has only the shawl which held her now-dead baby and its smell as a memory. The class members, as I remember, argued with the teacher that there was no discernable character arc in the novella, that she had not changed from beginning to end, and that this was a flaw, but as we talked, we saw that the essence of the story was the protagonist’s steadfast memory of her child and her commitment to that memory.

My novel PSYCHIC DAMAGE is a story of growth and change. In that story, Eva Stuart, addicted to allowing advice from psychics to guide her life and unable or unwilling to make decisions on her own, learns to be strong and independent, to make decisions and even to rescue her partner when he is kidnapped. Her character arc is clear.

This is more difficult to do in a series because the changes are often incremental and not as striking as they would be in a standalone novel. Still, within each story in a series, the protagonist, who doesn’t start out being perfect, gains new knowledge and becomes more adept at what he or she does.

For example, in the first book in my Florida series, A REASON TO KILL, the protagonist, Andi Battaglia, new on her job as a detective, learns through her work on the case to question suspects, evaluate informations for its truth or falsity and determine the solution to the murder. In the second book in the series, SO MANY REASONS TO DIE, Andi defies her supervisior in the hunt for the murderer, ending up suspended from duty but solving the murder.

How do those of you who write series create the incremental changes that contribute to the growth of your character? Do you find it difficult to do and do you plan those changes ahead or do they occur as the novel progresses?

by Janis Patterson

How would you act if you read in a story how a character discovered a grizzly site? Well… how you feel might depend on the situation in the book – and the writer’s command of the English language. A grizzly site is a location where there are large and usually cranky bears. A grisly sight means you are seeing something that is horrible or disgusting. These are called homophones – words that are spelled differently and have different meanings but sound the same.

A few more are brooch/broach, new/knew, great/grate, heir/hair, steak/stake, cash/cache, packed/pact, hear/here, and the two great triads cent/scent/sent and there/their/they’re. These sound-alikes are all over the place; there are lists of such linguistic traps on the internet, many with over 500 entries.

So why the differences? Who knows? English is a powerful but mysterious language with many oddities, and I personally believe these oddities are what makes English great – and when improperly used most definitely grate on one’s sensibilities.

And if one does know English well, grate they do. A misused homophone can yank an intelligent reader right out of the story, which is a horror for good writers. Say you’re reading a romance and the two lovers have a joyous role in the hay. Are they acting? (No, I’m not going down the rabbit-hole of are they faking it…) Is it some form of summer put-on-a-play-in-the-barn theatre? Worse, if the characters are back in the house eating a role it gives me visions of two sitting people at a kitchen table gnawing on play scripts, which as we all know have very little nutritional value.

Another example: in a dark and tortured tale of mean streets and meaner crimes the burnt-out alcoholic police detective stumbles into an alley and finds a grizzly murder. What? Immediately my first thought is how in the world did a large Northern bear find his way into such an urban setting? Sometime it takes a full page before I can become immersed in the story again. And sometimes that never happens, because from then on I have difficulty trusting the writer.

Good writing is easy to read and gently leads the reader into a world that is not their own. Good writing keeps them there for the duration of the story. Good writing is a window into a story, and anything that yanks a reader out of that story is bad. Misuse of homophones is more than bad – it is insulting and a sign of sloppy craftsmanship. Yes, this is one of my pet peeves. Why write a story and expect people to read it if you aren’t going to do it well? Should anyone even try to write a story if they disrespect their readers so much that they don’t care if they are jerked out of it by such egregious misuse of common words?

You would think that learning to use the English language properly is one of the first steps to becoming a writer. I really don’t understand how anyone dares call themselves a writer if they don’t bother to do so.