Begin pre-plotting your story for NaNoWriMo with the 1st exercise in The Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories.By creating a character transformation and evolving all three major plotlines over the beginning, middle and end of the story, you're left with a bird's eye view of your story. Turns out this exercise is intense to some writers and daunting to others, so much so that a writer friend declared the workbook the Ph.D. program for writers. …
Plot Question & Answer (Halfway Point)
Question:I've read three of your works: The Plot Whisperer and Workbookand Blockbuster Plots: Pure and Simple and have enjoyed your approach.In a recent post, you write about the difference between Crisis and Climaxand give ample illustrations in your books.However, many writers on the craft refer to "the mid-point reversal", an event that sends the hero toward the crisis. Something has to happen at the mid point that changes the plot or the character and a new goal comes out of that.In your …
Theme as a Touchstone for Writers
A definition of touchstone on thefreedictionary.com says: an excellent quality or example that is used to test the excellence or genuineness of others. A thematic significance statement becomes a sort of touchstone for writers. A statement that best represents your entire story shines as an excellent example to test the excellence of each scene in relationship to the whole. Theme Exercise:1) Write a thematic significance statement you believe best represents the deeper meaning of your …
Plot-lines All in A Knot
The story you're writing and the audience you're writing it for help determine the exact right number of plots and subplots the story requires.The complexity and number of plots differ for a storybook as compared to a middle-grade novel versus an epic historical or character-driven women's fiction that feature relationship plot-lines between several main characters.No matter how many or how few plots your genre demands, every great tale separates out at least three major plot-lines:A character …
Crisis versus Climax
The latest video up on the Plot Tips Youtube channel is all about the difference between a crisis in a story and the climax of a story.I write up a summary here for those of you who have not yet discovered the wonder of youtube.Crisis and Climax are often confused.Basically:1) CrisisAt the Crisis (around the 3/4 mark of a novel, memoir, screenplay), the energy of the story is at its highest so far and the protagonist is at her very worst, both internally and externally.The crisis forces the …
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