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Plotting: The Messy Doorway to Story
I’m plotting a new trilogy of novels, and as usual, it’s hard. I keep thinking that someday I’ll figure out THE way to plot “correctly.” So far, that hasn’t happened. Every time I start again, the process is unclear, messy, frustrating, and likely to fail at any moment. Yet, somehow, I muddle through to a […]
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Plot
Plotting Your Novel Plotting is the arrangement of events that occur in your story. Start with our most popular post about plotting: 29 Plot Templates Or find what you need in the article list. [catlist name=”plot” numberposts=”350″]
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Series Tips: Characters, Timeline & Plot
Are you interested in writing a series of novels, picture books or stories? Here are some series tips. My first general tip is to use Scrivener. It’s the software designed for authors and writers. It allows you to arrange (and rearrange) chunks of story, much like an outline. There’s a visual aspect when you use […]
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Subplots: Keeping Other Story Lines in Check
I’m working on a science fiction novel right now, the second book of a trilogy, the Blue Planet Series. Book 1 is done, and Book 2 has a full draft that I’m revising. Book 3 is in outline form. The premise of the series is this: “Earth finally hears from space. “You only live on […]
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Beta Readers: Facts, Grammar, Plot, Character and More
Thanks to the computer industry, we no longer have first readers, we have beta readers. Early versions of software that engineers expect to be riddled with problems were called beta versions. Beta is the second letter in the Greek alphabet, so presumably, the alpha versions were kept all in-house. Betas were the first public versions […]
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6 Questions to Sharpen Your Story Beats and Make Your Plot Sing
When you’re writing or plotting a story, one way to approach it is to write out the story beats. A beat is a small action; a collection of beats makes up a scene. It’s sort of like choreographing a dance; you must make character move around, interact and do things. You can write story beats […]