What’s the (plot) point?
When we write a story, we are interested in the things that change in a person’s life. So any time that something significant changes, then we have a new “plot point” that we need to put on our plotting chart.
Writing Your Series, Part 5
As authors we have to figure out ways to keep the reader interested, keep them eager to come back to our world and visit our characters once again.
Writing Your Series, Part 2
When you write a series, under ideal conditions you can get some traction with your books and build toward hitting the New York Times Bestseller’s list. In order to hit #1 on the list, you need to do a few things:
Writing Your Series Part 1
Every week or two, someone asks me whether their first novel should be a standalone or if they should begin a series. The answer to this question can be rather complex. So I’d like to write a few articles that deal with the hows and whys of writing a series. First, if you’re writing […]
How to Start Off a Story
The first scene can be anything—a funny incident that introduces one of your protagonists, or perhaps an argument that leaves your reader shocked. Maybe you’ll write a scene that will leave your reader admiring your protagonist and cheering for her, or perhaps you’ll introduce your tale with a gruesome murder that will leave the reader horrified but burning with intrigue.
How to Start a Novel
When starting to write a novel, you should keep in mind:
A good opening should promise the reader a powerful emotional impact if he or she reads on.
How to Write a Book
If you aren’t excited about a novel, chances are excellent that you’ll lack the energy to finish it. Your subconscious will rebel at the idea, and you’ll just go through the motions, wishing that you were working on another project. So you have to find story ideas that thrill you. You have to write from the heart.
How to End a Story Well
When you boil a story down to its fundamentals, an ending is nothing more than a series of conflict resolutions. You might have some interesting plot twists, discoveries, and reversals, and you can affect any kind of tone you want, from light hearted banter to high seriousness, but the truth is that as an audience we are very curious to see how your story turns out.
Ending Your Novel
How To Write book series
Micro-plotting
Most of you are familiar with plot charts. You’ve heard of terms like inciting incident, try/fail cycles, climax, and denouement. (If you aren’t familiar with those terms, you might want to look at my book Million Dollar Outlines.) Since the days of Aristotle, folks have been trying to understand how plots work, and depending upon […]