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Planning Your Story

Story planning tips and advice. Sample topics: using beat sheets, developing arcs, techniques for those who write by the seat of their pants, deciding on story ideas, etc.

Story Tropes: How Do We Twist a Cliché?

Lonely tree on a rock outcropping in the ocean with text: Adding Surprises to Our Story's Tropes

Sometimes we’ll hear writing advice like “avoid clichés,” but what does that mean when it comes to story tropes? After all, can’t tropes be helpful? And if so, how do we make them less cliché?

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February 7, 2019

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How Do Pantsers Develop Characters?

Lens refracting a face in multiple images with text: Discovering Our Characters

Plotters might find any kind of pantsing hard to understand, but even pantsers can struggle with pantsing our characters’ development, as that process comes with a different set of problems from developing our plots.

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January 29, 2019

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Writer Flexibility: Trying New Things

Live! The Writer's Journey: Educate. Motivate. Entertain. with Jami Gold

The processes and techniques that worked on our last story might not work on our next one. So the more tools at our fingertips, the better our chances of finding something that will work.

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January 3, 2019

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Storytelling: Taking Readers on a Journey

Designer dress like a giant butterfly with text: Are You Taking Readers on a Journey?

When faced with the many decisions of writing our story, the best choice is whatever tells the story we want to tell, but what does that mean? Let’s take a look at what storytelling really is and how we can improve our skills.

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October 23, 2018

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