Charles Wiegand - Author

Writing Prompt 3: The Reversal Test - Break the Expected

April 2, 2026

Once you've uncovered your character's wounds, it's time to add tension by breaking their pattern. We all have habits, defenses, and predictable reactions, but the most memorable moments come when a character goes against their own nature.

This exercise is about taking what's familiar and flipping it. Why? Because when a character finally acts differently, it tells the reader, "This matters."

Writing Prompt 2: The Hidden Wound Exercise - Writing What Hurts

March 26, 2026

In the Sympathy Rewrite, last week, we learned how to replace judgment with understanding. Now we take it one step deeper: uncovering the hidden wounds that shape your characters. Hemingway's wisdom, "As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand," isn't just about softening your view; it's about digging until you find the pain that makes people who they are.

Every strong character, from the most heroic to the most villainous, carries an invisible wound. It might be heartbreak, rejection, fear of failure, or something they can't even name. Discover that wound, and suddenly every choice they make starts to make sense.

Writing Prompt 1: The Sympathy Rewrite - Turning Labels into Lives

March 19, 2026

Writers often fall into the trap of quick judgment. We write things like “Tom was lazy,” or “Maria was cold-hearted,” because it’s fast and clear. But when we do this, we hand readers a flat label instead of a living, breathing person. Hemingway is reported to have given this advice: “As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand,” which gives us a better path.

The Sympathy Rewrite is a simple but powerful exercise. Its goal is to take judgmental descriptions and rewrite them with empathy, not to excuse the character but to explain them. It’s not about making “bad” characters good, it’s about making them human.

The Power of Seeing Over Looking

April 4, 2026

Henry David Thoreau’s insight—from an August 5, 1851 journal entry—resonates louder than ever in our daily lives:

“It is not what you look at, but what you see.”

The Infinite Magic of 26 Letters

March 24, 2026

"Literature is idiosyncratic arrangements in horizontal lines in only twenty-six symbols, ten Arabic numbers, and about eight punctuation marks."
— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., from a public conversation with Lee Stringer, "Like Shaking Hands With God" (1999)

Kurt Vonnegut had a knack for distilling grand ideas into deceptively simple truths. This quote is no exception. In one sentence, he strips writing to its physical elements, nothing more than a limited set of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks. And yet, out of that minimalist toolkit, we produce poetry, prose, memoirs, philosophy, and entire fictional universes.