I was fortunate to be chosen for Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi’s street team as one of their Advance Copy Reviewers.

A great addition to my writing arsenal! They turned me into a true believer and an evangelist for ‘Writers Helping Writers’. I started with their earlier books: The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer’s Guide to Character Expression, and Emotional Amplifiers, to help me ‘show’ instead of ‘tell’ in my fiction writing. I wish I’d had this collection when writing my first novel series. All the books and tools from Writers Helping Writers are amazing.

There needs to be conflict in every scene and character of a (good/successful) novel. These two Conflict Thesauruses will help tune up your storytelling game considerably. Even non-fiction writers need conflict to show the need for their product, advice, or opinion. Combine these with the Emotion Thesaurus and you no longer have any excuses for flat, lame writing.

 The first thirty-six pages layout the reason, definition, ways and means of and how to add conflict, the results and the way to resolution. This section is written in easy-to-understand language with examples and a good sense of humor. I suggest you do not skip this section, even if you think you know it already.

 The next 250 pages are the meat of the book, laid out under logical and easy to follow categories with enough ideas and examples to make your head spin. These authors have done the heavy lifting to make your writing life easier, more efficient, and more effective.

They conclude this tome with a nice template for ‘Goal, Motivation, Conflict and Stakes’ tracker for your characters, and a Climax Troubleshooting list of problems and solutions.

 As much as I enjoy holding a physical copy in my hands or laying it out on my desk, I find it more practical to use the ebook/pdf copy. I keep it open when writing and it’s easy to scroll through the index, or use the search/find feature to quickly get to the entries I need. Hyperlinks to related entries are frosting on the cake.

 I highly recommend this book and all the resources from Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. If you have writer friends–give them these gifts.

Check out all their offerings to help elevate your storytelling at:

https://writershelpingwriters.net/