Privacy Policy
Touchstones: a reader’s way into your story In this guest post by Martha Brockenbrough, grammarian, freelance writer, columnist, and author discusses how to pluck the heartstrings of your reader. When I worked as a freelancer for a company that created really special games—games designed to draw out the best talents of each player—I learned about [...]
I’m near the end of this draft of my novel and I’m reluctant to face the last few chapters. Why? Too much emotion! You must write the emotional ending It’s not fair to the reader to have his/her turn the page and read. “I woke up the next morning and thought about what happened last [...]
Sports books are action-oriented, fast-paced and full of memorable characters; but the core of a sports book–fiction or non-fiction–is people. Characters make sports interesting. Granted, these characters are constantly on the move and not inclined to deep musings about life. Yet, it is the character interacting with the unique aspects of a sports novel that [...]
Connecting Emotional and Narrative Arcs The emotional arc is the inner conflict; the narrative arc is the outer conflict. How do you get these two arcs to mesh? Peter Dunne, in his book Emotional Structure: Creating the Story Beneath the Plot has a simple suggestion. Dunne says to write the headline of a scene on [...]
Match Emotional Structure to the Novel’s Settings Always try to matching the setting to the emotional layers of your story. For example, the setting of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy is a New England coastal village, appropriate for several reasons. It’s built on a solid cliff, like Turner’s life is built on the solid [...]
Privacy Policy