Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

Kids can be lovely but do you know what isn’t lovely? When we see children in books or movies and they’re just… eh. Writing children in fiction is a tricky thing to do well. And when it’s not done well it can be distracting to the reader and ultimately hurt the story. Thankfully, we’re brave and bold writers who are always up for a challenge! Writing child characters is totally doable. Today we’re going to look at 3 aspects of writing child characters in our fiction as well as some common pitfalls to look out for. Writing Children In Fiction 1. Know Our Audience Are we writing a book for children, teens, or adults? This will shape how we portray the children in our stories. While a book for teens or adults may strive to portray child characters in a fairly realistic light, a story for children will often portray child characters as the main character and will likely include more wish fulfillment aspects, such as the child being royalty, a spy who can travel independently through the to...

The start of the school year is here and with it we have a few crisp fall-weather weeks just bristling with potential. Which means it’s time to pull out all our notebooks and evaluate where we want that potential to take us! I’ve talked about setting goals a decent amount before because it’s one of the simplest ways to increase our ability to make our dreams a reality. Goals can be as basic or as complex as we want them to be and we can adjust them as needed which is pretty convenient! There have been numerous studies showing the effectiveness of goal setting even when used casually. Even something as simple as saying a goal out loud, writing it down, or telling a friend can help increase self-confidence and motivation. There’s no right or wrong way to set goals, really- we each have to find out what works best for us in the season of life we find ourselves in. But here are a few strategies to get us started! Setting Great Goals Brainstorming and Dreaming One of the most ...