Writing the Hero’s Journey. At a recent conference for fantasy writers, I attended a couple of panels on the subject of the quest. They reminded me that a quest is also a “hero’s journey” – a story structure used in myths and legends around the world, and explained by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
The structure is used extensively in science fiction and fantasy – Lord of the Rings and Star Wars are prime examples – but it shows up in lots of other types of stories, too. Any time a protagonist goes out to find something and comes back wiser for it (or not), you’re seeing a hero’s journey. Campbell’s original outline included 17 steps. The Ordinary World: The opening scene gives the reader a sense of where the story starts out. Vogler advises not to stick too closely to this structure. Like this: Like Loading... 5 Tools That Can Double Your Ebook Sales. Expert publishing blog opinions are solely those of the blogger and not necessarily endorsed by DBW.
Thousands of writers use our sales tool, Selz, to sell their ebooks, so we analyzed the sales of those in the top 10th percentile to find out how they are so successful. Here are the five most common tools used by our top sellers to drive sales. Tool #1: Abandoned Car Ebook buyers put things in carts—an unwieldy concept in the physical world but the norm online. If you’re running a blog and you’re using a tool like WordPress, there are abandoned cart plugins like Abandoned Cart Pro for WooThemes (about $100).
Tool #2: Writing as Marketing The relationship between writer and potential customer is intimate: it involves trust and respect, and having potential customers like you helps. Writers who actively blog sell up to 17 percent more than similar writers who do not blog. But your blog is of no use if you don’t post to it. Tool #3: Accept PayPal Yes, you need to accept all major credit cards. Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing and Daily Creative Routine. By Maria Popova “When you can’t create you can work.” After David Ogilvy’s wildly popular 10 tips on writing and a selection of advice from modernity’s greatest writers, here comes some from iconic writer and painter Henry Miller.
COMMANDMENTSWork on one thing at a time until finished.Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.Work according to Program and not according to mood. Under a part titled Daily Program, his routine also featured the following wonderful blueprint for productivity, inspiration, and mental health: MORNINGS: If groggy, type notes and allocate, as stimulus.If in fine fettle, write.AFTERNOONS:Work of section in hand, following plan of section scrupulously. For more of Miller’s obsessive recipes for creative rigor, dig into Henry Miller on Writing. HT Lists of Note Donating = Loving Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month.
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