The bestselling Emotion Thesaurus, often hailed as “the gold standard for writers” and credited with transforming how writers craft emotion, has now been expanded to include 55 new entries!

One of the biggest struggles for writers is how to convey emotion to readers in a unique and compelling way. When showing our characters’ feelings, we often use the first idea that comes to mind, and they end up smiling, nodding, and frowning too much.

If you need inspiration for creating characters’ emotional responses that are personalized and evocative, this ultimate show-don’t-tell guide for emotion can help. It includes:

• Body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for 130 emotions that cover a range of intensity from mild to severe, providing innumerable options for individualizing a character’s reactions
• A breakdown of the biggest emotion-related writing problems and how to overcome them
• Advice on what should be done beforedrafting to make sure your characters’ emotions will be realistic and consistent
• Instruction for how to show hidden feelings and emotional subtext through dialogue and nonverbal cues
• And much more!

The Emotion Thesaurus, in its easy-to-navigate list format, will inspire you to create stronger, fresher character expressions and engage readers from your first page to your last.

Crafting likable, interesting characters is a balancing act, and finding that perfect mix of strengths and weaknesses can be difficult. But the task has become easier thanks to The Negative Trait Thesaurus. Through its flaw-centric exploration of character arc, motivation, emotional wounds, and basic needs, writers will learn which flaws make the most sense for their heroes, villains, and other members of the story’s cast. This book’s vast collection of flaws will help writers to explore the possible causes, attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and related emotions behind their characters’ weaknesses so they can be written effectively and realistically. Common characterization pitfalls and methods to avoid them are also included, along with invaluable downloadable tools to aid in character creation. Written in list format and fully indexed, this brainstorming resource is perfect for creating deep, flawed characters that readers will relate to.

It’s a writer’s job to create compelling characters who can withstand life’s fallout without giving up. But building authentic, memorable heroes is no easy task. To forge realistic characters, we must hobble them with flaws that set them back while giving them positive attributes to help them achieve their goals. So how do writers choose the right blend of strengths for their characters—attributes that will render them admirable and worth rooting for—without making it too easy for them to succeed?

Character creation can be hard, but it’s about to get a lot easier. Inside The Positive Trait Thesaurus, you’ll find:

• A large selection of attributes to choose from when building a personality profile. Each entry lists possible causes for why a trait might emerge, along with associated attitudes, behaviors, thoughts, and emotions.

• Real character examples from literature, film, or television to show how an attribute drives actions and decisions, influences goals, and steers relationships

• Advice on using positive traits to immediately hook readers while avoiding common personality pitfalls

• Insight on human needs and morality, and how each determines the strengths that emerge in heroes and villains alike

• Information on the key role positive attributes play within the character arc, and how they’re vital to overcoming fatal flaws and achieving success

• Downloadable tools for organizing a character’s attributes and providing a deeper understanding of his past, his needs, and the emotional wounds he must overcome

If you find character creation difficult or worry that your cast members all seem the same, The Positive Trait Thesaurus is brimming with ideas to help you develop one-of-a-kind, dynamic characters that readers will love. Extensively indexed, with entries written in a user-friendly list format, this brainstorming resource is perfect for any character creation project.

Within the pages of a book exists a world drawn from a writer’s deepest imaginings, one that has the ability to pull readers in on a visceral level. But the audience’s fascination will only last if the writer can describe this vibrant realm and its inhabitants well. The setting achieves this by offering readers a unique sensory experience. So much more than stage dressing, the setting can build mood, convey meaning through symbolism, drive the plot by creating challenges that force the hero to fight for what he wants, and trigger his emotions to reveal his most intimate feelings, fears, and desires.

Inside The Rural Setting Thesaurus, you’ll find:

• A list of the sights, smells, tastes, textures, and sounds for over 100 settings revolving around school, home, and nature
• Possible sources of conflict for each location to help you brainstorm ways to naturally complicate matters for your characters
• Advice on the many effective ways to build mood, helping you steer both the character’s and readers’ emotions in every scene
• Information on how the setting directly influences the plot by acting as a tuning fork for what a character needs most and by testing his dedication to his goals
• A tutorial on figurative language and how different descriptive techniques can bring settings alive for readers while conveying a symbolic message or deeper meaning
• A review of the challenges that arise when writing description, as well as special considerations that apply specifically to rural and personal settings

The Rural Setting Thesaurus takes “show-don’t-tell” to new heights. It offers writers a roadmap to creating fresh setting imagery that impacts the story on multiple levels while keeping readers engaged from the first page to the last.

Making readers care and feel like they’re part of the story should be the number one goal for all writers. Ironically, many storytellers fail to maximize one of fiction’s most powerful elements to achieve this: the setting. Not only can the right location become a conduit for emotion, it can also provide conflict, characterize the story’s cast, reveal significant backstory, and trigger the reader’s own emotional memories through sensory details and deep point of view.

Inside The Urban Thesaurus, you’ll find:

• A list of the sights, smells, tastes, textures, and sounds for over 120 urban settings
• Possible sources of conflict for each location to help you brainstorm ways to naturally complicate matters for your characters
• Advice on how to make every piece of description count so you can maintain the right pace and keep readers engaged
• Tips on utilizing the five senses to encourage readers to more fully experience each moment by triggering their own emotional memories
• Information on how to use the setting to characterize a story’s cast through personalization and emotional values while using emotional triggers to steer their decisions
• A review of specific challenges that arise when writing urban locations, along with common descriptive pitfalls that should be avoided
• Downloadable tools to help you plan each setting so you can choose the right one for a scene, providing the biggest storytelling punch

The Urban Setting Thesaurus helps you tailor each setting to your characters while creating a realistic, textured world readers will long to return to, even after the book closes.

Readers connect to characters with depth, ones who have experienced life's ups and downs. To deliver key players that are both realistic and compelling, writers must know them intimately-not only who they are in the present story, but also what made them that way. Of all the formative experiences in a character's past, none are more destructive than emotional wounds. The aftershocks of trauma can change who they are, alter what they believe, and sabotage their ability to achieve meaningful goals, all of which will affect the trajectory of your story.

Identifying the backstory wound is crucial to understanding how it will shape your character's behavior, and The Emotional Wound Thesaurus can help. Inside, you'll find:

• A database of traumatic situations common to the human experience

• An in-depth study on a wound's impact, including the fears, lies, personality shifts, and dysfunctional behaviors that can arise from different painful events

• An extensive analysis of character arc and how the wound and any resulting unmet needs fit into it

• Techniques on how to show the past experience to readers in a way that is both engaging and revelatory while avoiding the pitfalls of info dumps and telling

• A showcase of popular characters and how their traumatic experiences reshaped them, leading to very specific story goals

• A Backstory Wound Profile tool that will enable you to document your characters' negative past experiences and the aftereffects

Root your characters in reality by giving them an authentic wound that causes difficulties and prompts them to strive for inner growth to overcome it. With its easy-to-read format and over 100 entries packed with information, The Emotional Wound Thesaurus is a crash course in psychology for creating characters that feel incredibly real to readers.

What if there was a shortcut for helping readers get to know your characters? Would you take it?

Characters are as complex as people and revealing their inner layers without chunky blocks of pace-stopping description is a challenge. The Occupation Thesaurus can help you unlock one of the best tools in your show-don’t-tell writing kit: a character’s job.

Occupations are part of our everyday world, meaning they can be used to encourage readers to make associations between a type of work and the person doing it, shortening the “get to know the character” curve. Whether a person loves or hates what they do, a job can reveal many things, including their priorities, beliefs, desires, and needs. The Occupation Thesaurus will show you how a career choice can characterize, drive the plot, infuse scenes with conflict, and get readers on the character’s side through the relatable pressures, responsibilities, and stakes inherent with work.

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX REGARDING CAREER OPTIONS

Select a job that packs a powerful punch. Inside The Occupation Thesaurus, you’ll find:

• Informative profiles on popular and unusual jobs to help you write them with authority
• Believable conflict scenarios for each occupation, giving you unlimited possibilities for adding tension at the story and scene level
• Advice for twisting the stereotypes often associated with these professions
• Instruction on how to use jobs to characterize, support story structure, reinforce theme, and more
• An in-depth study on how emotional wounds and basic human needs may influence a character’s choice of occupation
• A brainstorming tool to organize the various aspects of your character’s personality so you can come up with the best careers for them

Do more with your description and choose a profession for your character that showcases who they are, what they want, and what they believe in. With over 120 entries in a user-friendly format, The Occupation Thesaurus is an entire job fair for writers.

Every story starts with a character who is motivated by a need and has a goal that can resolve it. Whether their objective is to find a life partner, bring a killer to justice, overthrow a cruel regime, or something else, conflict transforms a story premise into something fresh. Physical obstacles, adversaries, moral dilemmas, deep-seated doubts and personal struggles…these not only block a character’s external progress, they become a gateway for internal growth. The right conflict will build tension and high stakes, challenge characters as they traverse their arcs, and most importantly, keep readers emotionally invested from beginning to end.

Inside Volume 1 of The Conflict Thesaurus, you’ll find:

• A myriad of conflict options in the form of relationship friction, failures and mistakes, moral dilemmas and temptations, pressure and ticking clocks, and no-win scenarios
• An analysis of each scenario that maps out possible complications and catastrophes, internal struggles, and the stressful impacts on a character’s basic human needs
• Guidance on using conflict to influence your protagonist's character arc through opportunities for failure and success
• Master class instruction on internal conflict: what it is, why it's important, and how to incorporate it at the scene and story levels
• Information about the role conflict plays in generating high stakes that are personally significant to the character, upping the tension for readers
• A breakdown of the various adversaries your character might encounter along the way

Don't give your character a break. Keep the hits coming with a variety of obstacles that will force them to work harder to get what they want. With over 100 entries arranged in a user-friendly format, The Conflict Thesaurus is the guide you need to write intense and satisfying fiction readers won’t forget.

• A myriad of conflict options in the form of power struggles, ego-related stressors, dangers and threats, advantage and control losses, and other miscellaneous challenges
• Information on how each scenario should hinder the character on the path to their goal so they'll learn valuable life lessons and gain insight into what's holding them back internally
• Instruction about using the multiple levels of conflict to add pressure through immediate, scene-level challenges and looming problems that take time to solve
• Guidance on keeping a story’s central conflict in the spotlight and utilizing subplots effectively so they work with—not against—the main plotline
• An exploration of the climax and how to make this pinnacle event highly satisfying for readers
• Ways to use conflict to deepen your story, facilitate epic adversarial showdowns, give your characters agency, and infuse every scene with tension

• A deep dive into cognitive and emotional dissonance and how psychological discomfort steers a character’s reasoning and impacts their ability to make decisions
• Information on emotional stress as a trigger for self-awareness and personal growth, which makes amplifiers powerful levers to help steer story structure and character arc
• Lists of body language cues, internal sensations, thoughts, and other descriptives to show the effects of more than 50 amplifiers
• Brainstorming help on how to use each amplifier to generate tension and complication, apply everyday pressure, and make a character emotionally volatile
• Fifty-two bonus writing tips to help you wield amplifiers with skill and precision, taking your scenes from good to great