by Ayesha Ali | Jun 24, 2025 | Character, The Writing Life
Every writer has defaults when it comes to storytelling. Mine include writing in third person, outlining my novel ahead of time, and setting my story in a fantasy world. However, when I came up with the idea for my current work-in-progress, it demanded that I forego...
by Ayesha Ali | May 20, 2025 | Worldbuilding, Writing Craft
Setting is an important part of storytelling. The environment a story takes place in changes how it’s told, what the characters are able to do, and a whole host of other small decision a writer makes. For example, a story set at a fantasy academy will have very...
by Ayesha Ali | Feb 18, 2025 | Character, Writing Craft
Hey friends. We have come to the last part of the series on writing immigrant characters. In part 1, we explored research as a decision-making tool and honed in on some vital details about our immigrant characters. In part 2, we explored the “heavier”...
by Ayesha Ali | Jan 21, 2025 | Character, Writing Craft
In last month’s post, we began our exploration of writing immigrant characters. We talked about how research can be used as a decision-making tool, and some of the choices to make for your characters. Today, we’re going to get into some of the heavier, yet...
by Ayesha Ali | Dec 10, 2024 | Character, Writing Craft
In Western countries, December is the month of holidays. When I think about winter holidays, I think about movement—people driving across county lines to visit family, religious historical figures migrating to make change, new holidays moving into public...
