Tag: plotting

Is Your Story PRIMAL?—Anatomy of a Best-Selling Story Part 6

The plot is the foundation. Now what you construct on top of that foundation can be super-complex. Note I wrote complex NOT complicated.

Is Your Idea Strong Enough? Story Structure Part 4

Think of your core idea as the ground where you will eventually build your structure. Novels, being very large structures, require firm ground. So how do you know if the idea you have is strong enough?

Generate Nerve-Shredding Story Tension—Power of the Secret-Keeper

We all have faces we show to certain people, roles we play. We are one person in the workplace, another with family, another with friends and another with strangers. This isn’t us being deceptive in a bad way, it’s self-protection and it’s us upholding societal norms.

The Bookpocalypse–What to Do When You Realize Your Story Might Be DEAD

Characters were talking to each other with no conflict, no scene goal. Melodrama filled in the gaps. Characters were psychologically inconsistent and half I would have recommended seek therapy and get medication. Their emotions were all over, namely to manufacture tension that couldn’t be created any other way (because no core story problem/antagonist).

The Single Largest Cause of Writer's Block–Might Not Be What You Believe

When I initially began writing fiction, I was shocked how terrible I was at it. Oh, page to page, the writing was lovely. But as a whole? I kept creating mess after mess, a blob with no internal structure that made sense. To make matters worse, I would hit about 30-40, 000 words an hit a WALL. I was paralyzed with no idea how the story should progress.

This, then led to editing and reediting the beginning until I was just ready to throw myself in traffic.