Where Normal Need Not Apply
A story’s narrative is made up of a chain of actions (motivation/cause) and reactions (response/effect). The cause-and-effect chain, whether at the scale of story acts or sentences, creates our narrative drive: Is the story leading somewhere?
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A couple of months ago, I read a blog post that forever changed how I approached drafting scenes. That probably sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. We’ve often talked about the differences between plotters and pantsers (those who write by the seat of their pants), and how as a die-hard-and-happy-about-it pantser, […]
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NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month—write a 50K word novel during November) starts today, and while I plan to continue blogging throughout NaNo, I wanted to make sure I gave you something good to keep you happy during my crazy month. *smile* Of course, whether or not you’d define today’s post […]
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Michael’s Six Stage Plot Structure describes a character’s inner journey in relation to external plot events. Over the course of six stages and five turning points, a character will stop living in fear and instead live courageously.
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I love when I make my readers think. Even better is when they turn around and make me think even deeper about an issue. *smile* Yesterday, K.J. Pugh blogged about my last post (where I talked about cliffhangers and hooks) and brought up the issue of sequels I briefly mentioned. No, […]
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Last time, we discussed Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat craft book and how we can use his writing tools to revise our work. His beat sheet points out when story events (beats) should occur in a screenplay, and most of his advice applies to all forms of fiction writing. Whether we dig into […]
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Before I start, thank you to everyone who commented, tweeted, and emailed me with support after my last post about losing my cat. You all have filled me with virtual hugs and put a smile on my face. Thank you. *hugs back* In fact, after writing that post and reading […]
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My regular readers know I typically write novel-length stories. However, during one crazy four-day stretch, I wrote a long-ish short story/short-ish novella (novelette?). For those of you following along at home, I’m referring to my story inspired by spam. I’ve blogged before about how the experience was a great way […]
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Yes, I’m still under deadline, but an interesting issue came up in the comments on my last post about perfectionism. Perfectionists tend to be nitpicky, no surprise there. But there’s a time when that trait is very helpful, and a time when we need to ignore the compulsion to tweak. […]
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