So you've written an awesome dramatic scene. It practically jumps off the page. You've rewritten it a dozen times to get it just right. You've shared it with your BFF. You've shared it with your mom. They tell you what you already know - that it's the best thing you've ever written. You're trying to be humble, but there's no denying. You. Are. Awesome.

You've taken mere ideas and created living, breathing human beings who have real thoughts and emotions and put them on the page for all to read. These fictitious people and everything they say came from your imagination. And thanks to your amazing writing skills, readers can now share in your creation.

If you've been a writer for any length of time, hopefully, you've seen your skills develop. You're a much better writer now than you were when you first started. In fact, when you read some of your earliest works, you're a little embarrassed. Maybe a LOT embarrassed. You've worked hard to make yourself a better writer and you've succeeded. Your sentence structure is pretty good. Your word choices are soooooo much better now that you're getting into the flow of writing. But good storytelling is more than the simple act of typing. It's also about thinking.

If you'd like to open a door to an entirely new way of thinking about writing, get an actor or two to read your work. Not just your family and friends, unless they happen to be Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling.

An actor's job is to take the written word and to perform the work in a way that draws the viewers into the story. Actors accomplish this by creating characters who are so real that you feel like you know them. An actor's job is all about the behavior of the character he or she plays. People reveal themselves through what they do more often than through what they say. A person may say "You're my best friend" while stealing your wallet. Do we believe that this guy really is your best friend, or has he revealed himself to be a thief?

An actor will question your writing to understand the behavior of a character. What does she mean when she says this? What is her goal? What does she want? These are questions that force you to think about your story in a way that you probably hadn't considered.

You find out that some of your dialogue needs work. Real people don't talk that way. Is your character saying things only to provide information that readers need to know? (the dreaded exposition). Are they saying or doing things only to move the story from point A to point B? When that happens the characters become less real because their behavior is false. When they move the story from point A to point B because they are in pursuit of a goal that is consistent with their character, the story AND the character become more believable.

Because actors process the written word differently from writers, it's interesting and enlightening to get their feedback on your work. You probably won't agree with everything they suggest. After all, most of them are not writers. But their perspective can be valuable to you when you create characters and especially when you're writing dialogue.

So how do you get actors to read your work? You can start with your school's drama department. If your school doesn't have a drama or theater department or club, are there other schools in your area that have theater groups? You can start your own groups. You'd be surprised at how eager some actors are to read something new and fresh.

Reading other writers' work is a great way to educate yourself. And so is being part of the Wattpad writers' community. But it's also valuable to look at your writing from a fresh perspective, and an actor can give you that input.

A special shoutout to DoNutTouchMyHair and her Wattpad Block Party post "How To Create Realistic Characters." It gave me the idea for this post. I hope you find it interesting and valuable.