How to use the Mentor Archetype

notebooks and candle background

Who hasn’t had a mentor in their life? Perhaps it was a parent, teacher or friend. Writers often have special writing mentors. This could be a creative writing tutor, or authors who’re generous with their advice to newbies. As in life, fiction is awash with mentor figures. But what is their dramatic function in a story? And how can you use the mentor archetype to strengthen your novel? Continue reading

10 tips for naming your characters

memorial with names

Naming characters is one of the most fun things to do when writing a novel, but there are a few pitfalls and I’ve fallen into most of them. So I thought I’d share a few tips I’ve picked along during my writing journey.

1 Keep a list of your characters

If you don’t, you might accidentally use the same name twice, as I did, or use a similar name, which could be confusing (see tip 2). A list is also useful to generate a dramatis personae: common in historical and fantasy novels. But what about short stories, where there are only a few characters? A list is a good idea here too. When I collected my short stories together for publication, I discovered I had 5 Julias and 2 Julians as main characters. If only I’d kept a list … Continue reading