What if Readers Hate Your Characters?

Do readers like the characters you create? Do they have redeeming qualities even if they do terrible things? Do readers “bond” with your characters? Are they sympathetic or pathetic? What makes a “likable” character? Today, I am reposting commentary from author and writing coach Marylee MacDonald. In her always enlightening …

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Baby It’s Hypersensitive Outside

Ah, Political Correctness. Will it EVER end? Probably not. We live in an era of relentless hypersensitivity where the habitually offended reign. The latest controversy deals with the classic 1944 song entitled “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” I must have heard that song more than a thousand times growing up in …

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Europe’s Crisis of Survival

I lived in Europe for four years in the 1960s while serving with the U.S. Army Security Agency in Germany. Since then, I have returned multiple times and have watched the Europe I once knew change in ways that would have been unimaginable just a decade ago. Today, I am posting …

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