Category: Novel Structure

Structure Part 5–Keeping Focused & Nailing the Pitch–Understand Your "Seed Idea"

Welcome to the 5th installation on the topic of structure. As an editor for years, I consider myself somewhat of an expert in spotting and fixing structural problems. Sadly, over the course of doing this many years, I have run into far too many novels that had plot problems that ran so deeply there was no …

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Structure Part 4–Testing Your Idea–Is it Strong Enough to Make an Interesting Novel?

I’ve been battling a cold this week, so I am just going to go ahead an post the next lesson on structure and will announce September’s winner on Monday. Trust me, you don’t want me tallying with a NyQuil hangover. Anyway, for the past couple weeks, we have been discussing story structure. I like to …

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Structure Part 3—Introducing the Opposition

Welcome to Part III of my Structure Series. If you want to self-publish or indie publish, I would assume most of you want to be successfully published, regardless the format or distributor. To be considered “successfully published” we have to sell a lot of books. To sell a lot of books, we must connect with …

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Structure Part 2–Plot Problems–Falcor the Luck Dragon & the Purple Tornado

Okay, since I get to drive to San Antonio today, I figured we’d just plow ahead and take on Lesson Two in my structure series. I strongly recommend checking out Monday’s lesson if you haven’t yet. Each of these blogs will build upon the previous lesson. By the end of this series, I hope you …

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Anatomy of a Best-Selling Novel—Structure Part One

The normal world’s connect to the…inciting incident. Inciting incident’s connected to the…turning point. The turning point’s connected to the…next act….and here’s the bones of your boooooook. Okay, I promise to stop singing…for now :D. Want a way to stand out from all the other writers clamoring to get an agent’s attention? Want to be a …

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