Plot Consultant

101 Best Websites for Writers — as Awarded from Writers Digest

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"Congratulations! Your website, Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers, has been selected as a 101 Best Website for Writers as honored by Writer’s Digest. Your site has been listed in our May/June 2013 issue, which is linked in our SHOP"Thank you, Writers Digest! (Yes, I know, my show of gratitude is months overdue -- goes to show you what sort of year I've been having...)Being honored in this way is almost sweeter now than the thrill I felt upon receiving the news the first time in 2009 and …

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Internal Goals versus External Goals

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Every character wants something. You (and your character) must decide what she is willing to give up to achieve her goal. This begins the character’s emotional development plot.The specific actions the character takes to realize her goal comprise the dramatic action plot. Tie the character’s private passion to a bigger, more transformative universal subject, and a thematic plot is launched.When the dramatic action changes the character over time, the story becomes thematically significant. …

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Pre-Plot or Write?

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She has several successful YA novels, a memoir, and an adult novel published by major publishing houses and a contract for the novel she's working on now. Having never considered theme in her writing and wanting to use theme to deepen her new story, she bought The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories. After filling out the exercises, she asked for a plot consultation to work further on theme and, for the first time, to pre-plot the character …

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What Happens After the Climax of Your Novel, Memoir, Screenplay

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The resolution comes immediately after the climax of your novel, memoir, screenplay.The true ending of the story is the climax.The resolution actually is the beginning of a new story, one that starts with the protagonist having succeeded in what felt like at the climax a life-or-death struggle. With the end of that struggle, something else begins.There is never an ending without a beginning.Just as the resolution is the beginning of a new story, in the same way, when the inciting incident …

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How Much Backstory in the Beginning is Too Much and How Little is Too Little?

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Question from a writer on Facebook:You and most writing gurus suggest not weighing down the beginning with Backstory. I agree. I usually start in action/dialogue in the present, but lately I have a friend who thinks I don't explain enough about my characters to get the reader interested.She said to look up successful romance writers and how they present characters. I went on Amazon and read several previews. For example, Bella Andre From This Moment On is entirely backstory in Chapter 1. She …

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