Wednesday links: High stakes and reading about writing

I love regularly reading tips and advice articles in certain subjects — particularly writing and publishing. I don’t always need the information right then, but I know that it’ll eventually come in handy. Or at least, I hope it will.

I know there are a lot of other people out there who feel the same way I do, but sometimes it can be difficult to find every useful advice article that’s out there. So I thought I’d bring you a few.

Here are the tips and advice articles that jumped out at me the most over the past week.

1. Creating Believable High Stakes for Your Characters, from Live Write Thrive: We all have our reasons for acting the way we do, and so should your characters. And those reasons need to be believable, or you’re likely to annoy your readers. Excerpt: “And it’s a bad thing—because it threatens believability. If you want your readers to believe in your characters, they have to behave believably. Right?”

2. Should You Read About Writing?, from Writer Unboxed: Writers are often told that one of the best ways to improve your writing skills is to read – and that includes works in your genre and works that are meant to teach you how to write. But, is it really necessary for a writer to read multiple books on writing? Excerpt: “Whether or not writing can be taught at all is an ongoing debate; whether or not one can learn it from books is too. I know many writers who absolutely swear by books on the topic that they feel helped them make a major leap forward in their writing, and just as many who’ve never read a single writing book and do amazing, wonderful work.”