A quirky trait or two help characters stand out from the crowd. Perhaps an expression he or she always uses might do the trick, n’est pas?
15 Delightful Foreign Terms of Endearment English Should Adopt | Mental Floss
Brand U
Writing can be solitary work and some of us like the time alone. But when the last draft is done, we need to be able to promote it. Clark and Molinsky offer some suggestions to help reticent people move from “brand x” to “Brand U.”
Self-Promotion for Professionals from Countries Where Bragging Is Bad – Dorie Clark , and Andy Molinsky – Harvard Business Review
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/03/self-promotion-for-professionals-from-countries-where-bragging-is-bad/
Getting it right
I have loved Info Please since I discovered it in high school. Here are links to it and six other online sources for fast facts.
And this isn’t on the list, but it’s been my go-to grammar site for years: the Purdue Online Writing Lab — https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/.
7 Great Online Research Resources for Writers
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/7-great-online-research-resources-for-writers/
Keep it simple and truthful and …
We sat, legs crossed, around a campfire on a summer night. Surrounded by woods and miles from home, we listened to a story of teens in a car on a country road. We could hear the gravel crunching under the tires as the couple sped away from the terrifying vagabond. We screamed when we heard about the hook in the door handle.
Here are a few reminders about how to get your hook into your readers. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
The Common Elements of Good Storytelling
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2014/03/19/common-elements-good-storytelling/
Character building, part 2
I was still musing about character traits when I found this and I was taken by the potential conflicts between someone who keeps a bug out bag and someone who practices yoga.
Prompt: Write about the meeting of the yoga character with a bug-out-bag character.
The Bug Out Bag
sharon p. lynn 