Hello, Readers!

I apologize to all my readers for being away so long. I was buried in finishing the second book in what I'm calling The Dragon Stone Trilogy. The first book is called Call of the Dragon, and I've finally name the second book The Puzzle Box. Right now, I'm still without a title for the third book. It is the final installment in a story where the dragon stone is passed back to the dragons and life in the Valley of the Dragons becomes settled once and for all. The evil sorcerer is finally put to rest and the boy of the third book finds out he is a dragon rider and a prince in the Kingdom of Mar.

So much for what my last few weeks have been like. One thing I've learned about during this writing bonanza is the use of description. Especially how we need to pay attention to forward motion in our stories. When we are creating physical description for a character, for example, there is no greater motion-stopper than immobile chunks of physical description. A head to toe assessment of a character that we hardly know is at best ineffective and at worst counterproductive. We need to get to know the characters as we read, so chunks of description don't stop the flow of the story.

I went back through the last two books (the Dragon Stone Trilogy books) and checked for heavy chunks of description. Correcting that flaw helped my stories flow and seem better paced as we got to know the protagonists and antagonist in the stories.

How do you introduce your characters? Do you have a special idea for each character and then show your character a little at a time?