Conflict is the core ingredient to fiction, even literary fiction. Conflict in any novel can have many faces and often you will hear this referred to as the antagonist. The antagonist is absolutely essential for fiction. He/she/it is the engine of your story. No engine, and no forward momentum. Like cars, plots need momentum or they …
Tag: character
Mar 07 2011
Dare to Be Excellent (This Might Hurt a Little)
Years ago, when I first started writing, fiction was my passion. The problem, however, is that passion devoid of training is a formula to end up with 174,000 word tome that is the stuff of agent nightmares. I wish I was one of those talented people who “got it” from the start. I didn’t. I …
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Feb 21 2011
Hooking the Reader and Never Letting Go
What is the one ingredient we MUST include to have great fiction? CONFLICT. No conflict, no story. One of the biggest stumbling blocks I see in new writers is that they fail to understand the difference between authentic conflict versus a bad situation. Bad situations do not make good fiction. Bad situations are boring …
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Jan 14 2011
The Character of the Successful Writer–A New Level or a New Devil?
It’s Friday! *insert Happy Dance here* What a week! Today I have an amazing opportunity to pass on some wisdom that I hope will change your life as much as it has mine. This blog is dedicated to helping the human writer. Why do I say human? Because we are more than robots sitting in …
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Dec 20 2010
Structure Part 8–Balancing the Scenes that Make Up Your Novel
Welcome to Structure Part 8. We have spent the past couple of months studying the fundamentals of what makes up a novel, and today we are going to discuss the actual scenes that make up a novel and how to keep track of them. It is easy to get lost when dealing with a structure …
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International Association of Professional Writers & Editors
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