Recent plot consultation:Literary FictionMany POVsQuestion:Does my story have too many scenes?Answer:(We did not get to the end of his story during our session so I cannot answer the question.)My comment however is to do what you can to make the scenes feel linked.The tighter the story, the easier for the reader to follow. Every element of every scene contributes to the scene that follows and to the overall story itself.Link scenes through the use of:Cause and effectThe transitions you create …
Humor Writing / Character Consistency
Humor writing continues to be in great demand = as always, comic relief keeps the darkness at bay. Writers with the gift or innate talent to write funny lines make it look easy. It's not. As with most aspects of writing, humor writing can be taught: timing, subject matter, and how to keep from crossing over to satire. With humor writing, the reader laughs along with the characters. Satire holds human folly and vice up to scorn, derision, or ridicule and causes the reader to laugh at the …
Especially for Memoir Writers
Anxious to leave a legacy, more and more baby boomers are turning to writing their memoirs or the next Great American Novel. For some, the story reveals itself effortlessly. Others have difficulty raising the veil for clarity. In the second case, I often find the problem lies in having lived a vast and rich life. What to put in and what to leave out becomes the dilemma.In order to bring a story to fullness, a writer searches for the underlying sttucture that will best demonstrate some sort of …
One Plot Strand Stronger than Another
As an addendum to Plot or No Plot, I'd like to clarify the Plotless...When I say literary novels are plotless, what I mean is that the Character Emotional Development plot-line is at the fore and drives the story. Dramatic Action is present, though generally as a prop more than a plot. Thematic Significance makes the entire story worth reading. And... the Universal Story Form is always flawlessly present. …
Plot or No Plot
I recently perused the stacks for reading material with several writer friends. One of them picked up a book and exclaimed, "Does it have a plot? I'm not reading one more book without a plot!"When I first started teaching plot to writers more than six years ago and then writing about plot extensively, plot was little talked about. I remember searching for plot in the index of several of the most popular writing books at the time and only one had even a page dedicated to the subject. Now, the …
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