Plot Consultant

Reconnect to Your Creativity through the Universal Story

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None of us were born yesterday. If you believe the past shapes the future, then the life we live right now was decided a long time ago. We make up stories in our imaginations about each other to explain what causes people to act and say what they do. We make up stories about our own lives and behavior, too, stories that motivate us to do what we do. Reconnect to your creativity through the Universal Story. The Stories We Tell Ourselves Memories of the past, whether five minutes ago or fifty …

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Refilling the Well of Creativity

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Yesterday, final day of our incredible retreat with my incredible partner-in-teaching Jordan Rosenfeld and 18 incredibly intrepid writers, I found myself rushing faster and faster to the finish-line, my vision narrowing to one thing and one thing only -- escape!! Well, not really escape. The weekend was filled with heart-felt memories and deep learning. Rather… solitude… space… freedom…Finding more and more of a struggle to reconcile the outer me as teacher and presenter to who I am finally able …

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The Importance of Your Character’s Emotional State Changing within Each Scene

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Change is essential for keeping your reader’s interest locked on your story. A character and her emotional state should be constantly changing. If you write a scene where this is missing, chances are the scene will fall flat and turn your story stagnant. The emotional change the character experiences within each scene does not have to be monumental, but she does have to feel and experience some sort of emotional reaction to the dramatic action in the scene. If not, you’ve done nothing to develop …

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How Do I Revise My Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? A Simple 30-Step Revision Process

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In every story's life, there comes a time when an assessment of what you're doing with all those words is needed. What is the whole of your creation? Rather push words around on the page, spend time revising instead. Identify, cut, add, organize, deepen, refine the concept, characters, action and meaning of the scenes of your story at the design level before you actually undertake a major rewrite.Learn your story's strengths and weaknesses in the revision process. No writing required. Instead, …

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The Universal Story and the Sea

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Where I live, the tide determines whether I walk on the beach with sand between my toes or high atop cliffs following the shoreline. At high water, the tide builds to 6 feet with waves crashing against the cliffs and the beach under water. At low water or low tide, waves ebb all the way back to zero feet, exposing the sand and revealing tide pools in a rock plate that juts out into the bay.The waves ebb and flow in much the same way every day. Two low tides in a 24 hour period. Two high tides. …

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