A joy working with a writer who looks to the end of her story for clues as to what belongs in the beginning. Do you know the ending for your story?How many books have you written from the beginning all the way to the end? How many times have you written the beginning quarter of the book you are writing now versus how many times have you written the final quarter?Would you call yourself someone who finishes what she begins? Someone who achieves her goals? If not, what or whom is stopping you?When …
Thematic Significance for Writers
As corny as it sounds, I'm wild about thematic significance. I mean if the Universal Story longs to manifest, what better way than through a story's deeper themes?There are writers who excel at writing character-driven stories and those who prefer action-driven stories. Also, though I've found rarer, are writers who lean toward theme-driven stories. Jodi Picoult in Change of Heart, shows the affects the dramatic action has on the characters' emotional development in order to bring to the fore …
Plot Your Writer’s Life
A client and friend is near completing the rough draft of her project. Rather than jump in and write the end, she moans about all the work still left to be done to finish and then in the rewriting (I'll include another one or two or three or more of those -- and rewriting), and then all that comes after that.Early-on she decided when the book is finished, she wants to self-publish. Now that I am going the traditional route after having self-published my first book, she asked me my opinion.I …
Transformation and the Universal Story
From the hundreds of novels, memoirs and screenplays I have analyzed for plot workshops and plot retreats for more than twenty years and as I complete the final, final edit -- well, there is still the galleys to come, but still..., on the Plot Whisperer book (the cover is up on Amazon and the book available for pre-order!), I have come to appreciate that beneath every great story beats the Universal Story.Creative writers hate to be reined in and limited by an imposed set of generally accepted …
What’s Stopping You?
I am always fascinated when one writer curls up in a ball and gives up and, when faced with the exact same problem, another writer is empowered to persevere. Discovery that everything you've written sounds trite and infantile, frustration over how to get across what you are truly trying to say, a negative critique, a rejection from a query, poor reviews... we all experience a crisis, a dark night of the soul . Yet for some writers, these beliefs, limitations, judgments strip her of all her power …
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