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Story Climax: Forcing Characters to Move Forward

One arrow pointed in an opposite direction with text: How to Make Our Characters Move Forward

Whatever happens in the Climax is often the reason we decided to write the story back when it was just a twinkle in our muse’s eye. But just before the beat of the Climax, our character experienced the Black Moment/Crisis, where they gave up. How do we get them to recommit to the story goals?

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April 30, 2015

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Ask Jami: Can We Use Beat Sheets with Multiple POVs?

Shelves of plaster heads with text: Using One Beat Sheet for Multiple Characters

Stories with multiple major characters—with their own point-of-view (POV) scenes—can make story structure complicated. Do we have to make beat sheets for each character? As a romance author, I write with multiple POVs all the time, so let’s see if we can figure out how to make beat sheets work in those situations.

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April 7, 2015

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How to Be a Better Hooker (in Writing!) — Guest: Mary Buckham

Fishing hook with text: Improve Our Writing with Hooks

One of the ways we create compelling writing is by creating a need within our readers to keep turning pages. So a common piece of advice is to create hooks—phrases, sentences, ideas, questions, etc.—to fuel that need within readers. Today, Mary Buckham’s here to touch on the 9 types of hooks and to answer frequent questions about hooks.

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March 31, 2015

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Using Examples to Learn Beat Sheets

Chalkboard with text: Learning Beat Sheets by Example

One technique for drafting or editing our stories into shape is using beat sheets, but it can be tricky to understand how to use them. Here’s a round-up beat sheet and story structure resources that might help us understand beat sheets.

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March 17, 2015

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Should Our Protagonist Be in the First Scene?

A face hidden by a hoodie with text: When Should Readers Meet the Protagonist?

Most stories open with the protagonist on page one, but every once in a while, our story seems to work best if we start with another character. If we understand why the protagonist usually works best as the point-of-view character for the first page, we might be able to remake those exceptions into stronger openings.

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February 17, 2015

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How to Get Our Thoughts onto the Page

Illustration of a brain with text: Sharing Our Ideas with Readers

Probably no one can claim to be an expert at making sure the cool character in our head makes it onto the page. We can only guess at how readers will interpret what we tell them. Advice can help us share our brain with our readers as much as possible, but the process will never—ever—be completely clean.

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January 29, 2015

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How to Create Characters Worth Reading

Close of an eye with an intense stare with text: How to Make a Character Compelling

There’s no shortage of blog posts about what makes characters likable to readers. Yet readers still read and enjoy stories with unlikable characters. Why? Let’s take a look at what options we have for creating characters that compel readers to keep turning pages.

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January 27, 2015

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How Do You Stay Organized?

Crumpled sticky note with text: How Do You Stay Organized?

With a new year, we often want to start on the right foot. We don’t want to repeat last year’s mistakes. (Let’s make new ones instead, right? *smile*) So to get and stay organized, I’d love to find a time management approach that helped me track everything.

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January 6, 2015

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What Makes a Story’s Black Moment a Black Moment?

Black-and-white image of cemetery cross with text: What Creates a Black Moment?

The Black Moment is usually one of the most emotional sections of the story, so it can be difficult to pull together. If we read stories (or watch movies), we’ve seen this beat play out endless times, so we probably understand the plot point more than we may think. But let’s take a closer look and see if we can learn something new.

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December 16, 2014

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