G’day, Guidesters. Hope you guys had a great time with that guest Takeover by SEA (who did a brilliant job, by the way! cue the applause). 

Over the past months, we’ve looked at showing instead of telling and ways of using the five senses in writing. Those were both under the prose theme (my definition of prose being all the words that fill up your story). But with our last post, we took a brief break from prose to jump into characters. This month, we were supposed to delve deeper into the character theme, with an investigation into how to write characters’ voices . . . but, unfortunately, between school work and planning the Multi-Author Project, I haven’t gotten to write that post yet. Sorry guys! 😅

So . . . how about this? This month’s post will:

• Spotlight some Guidesters who’ve been outstanding at encouraging other writers
• Link a Christian writing blog that I liked
• And feature some writing games we’ve been playing in the Discussion Forum

I hope that works, everyone! And next month, Godwilling, I hope we can dive into everything cool about character voice. (Also, if you have any topic requests that you want me to write about in these Writing Tips Posts, lemme know in the comments below!)

Without further ado, let’s get into it!

For the months of February and March, I noticed that the following Guidesters were leading in the comment section with lots of constructive notes to others. These Guidesters of the Month for February-March were . . . drumroll please . . . Guidegirl (with 7 comments), Anaelle (with 7 comments) and thecatlover (with over 8 comments). Congratulations you guys, and keep up the awesome commenting!

For the months of March and April . . . these Guidesters are new on the commenting scene, but already are racking up an insane number of encouraging posts. Congratulations . . . .  MaizeyRae, SelahRose and lickington! You guys have a combined total of so many comments this month, I’m not even going to try to add them all up 😅😆Well done!

And if I haven’t mentioned your name this month, no worries! I’ll keep my eyes peeled over April-May for more outstanding Guidesters. 

Okay, on to the Christian writing blog.  By Kayleigh Idea, this writing blog shares tips for teen writers, book reviews, and relatable captures of the author’s writing routine. I found it while searching for Christian blogs to reference in these posts, and I liked that it was written by a young author and used easy-to-read but engaging language. Additionally, here are two posts from another Christian blog that relate to characters:

How to Introduce a Large Cast of Characters without Confusing Readers – Story Embers

Is Your Protagonist Succeeding Too Easily? – Story Embers

These ones use a bit more complex vocabulary, but still share interesting ideas. And if you guys have any recommendations for other Christian blogs about writing, I’d love to hear them. I often learn a lot from reading blogs.

And the news on the Discussion Forum:  

The Guide House is a light, casual storyline where you get to be the character, choose your room, and imagine fun events that would happen if all the Guidesters lived in the same house. Kinda like a choose-your-own adventure story. Many Guidestera have joined, and it can be a very active and exciting topic. Feel free to check it out if you haven’t already.

Add On To The Story is a neat idea by SelahGirl where each person writes about a paragraph in a story, and leaves off with a suspenseful line for the next person to pick up on. Currently, the story is in an action-packed cliffhanger about a young girl who lives in a treehouse being chased by a wolf. Join this story to save Oaklyn!

The Character Auction is a spot where writers put their created characters up for grabs. Other writers can bid on that character, and if they win the bid, they get to play the character in an upcoming talkshow. Read the first page of The Talkshow and The Character Auction threads to learn more.

And finally, a thrilling sci-fi writing challenge by INC here: Writing Challenge! (Re-Post) – Totally Random Topics – Guide Magazine Forum

And . . . I think that’s all for this post. Have a blessed month Guidesters! Happy writing! And sorry again! Next month: character voice!