no whitespace - writers' cheatsheet Plunge Right In... Into Your Story, That Is! by Rekha Ambardar One of the things you're required to do when taking swimming lessons is to jump in at the deep end of the pool, dive under water smoothly, and rise up to the surface. For most swimmers, diving under the water and then swimming to the surface poses hardly any problem; it's the jump at the deep end that unnerves one. Most of us prefer to ease in unobtrusively from any other area of the pool and loiter at the deep end, pretending that we did jump in. Somehow, this tendency of easing into the pool is the analogy that compares with the fictional technique of beginning storytellers -- an absolute no-no in fiction writing. Stories that grab the attention of editors are the ones that start in the middle of a critical scene, especially important in mystery fiction. Begin with Action A few years back, I might have been tempted to go into a lengthy description of why Myrna happened to be looking at travel brochures by herself. Begin in the Middle Dole out the Backstory
How to write a novel* Ever wanted to write a novel but had no clue how? Having just finished my fifth novel, I am now ready to pass on my accummulated novel-writing wisdom to those what have never writ one but wants to. Here is the complete, full and unexpurgated guide: First of all you need a computer. (Yeah, yeah, I know in the olden days they made do with quill, ink and paper, and typewriters—aargh! On that computer you need a word processing program. If you want to write your novel relatively quickly and productively, it should have no access to the interweb thingy, also no games, or anything other than the two aforementioned programs. Once you have your equipment set up in a suitably ergonomic way (that’s right, I’m with Scalzi on the efficacy of coffee shops—that way lies bad backs, soul-destroying one-night stands, and caffeine-stained teeth) open up your wp program and type in the title of your novel. Do not spend a lot of time on this. Do you just start the novel or do you outline? To sum up:
Odyssey Writing Tips Page #2 The plot forms the underlying structure of your story, and if that structure is weak, the story will be weak as well. Many times it's hard for the writer to see the underlying structure of his own story, and this makes it impossible for the writer to judge whether this structure is effective and whether it is the best possible structure for the story. One powerful method of revealing the structure of a story is to outline it. The outline reveals the bones of the story like an X-ray. You may outline a story before you write it, creating the framework of bones and then building on it, or you may write a rough draft of the story first and then outline it, revealing the underlying framework and making necessary adjustments. Here's how to outline. Number each scene in the story. Have any conflicts been introduced? These questions all help to define the structure and nature of your plot and to reveal any weaknesses. Now go to the next scene and do the same thing. Now go try your hand at it!
Story Structure & Plot - Novel Writing Tips Conflict and Character within Story Structure The Basic Three Act Structure The simplest building blocks of a good story are found in the Three Act Structure. Separated by Plot Points, its Act 1 (Beginning), Act 2 (Middle), and Act 3 (End) refer not to where in time in the story they lie but instead fundamental stages along the way. In the Beginning you introduce the reader to the setting, the characters and the situation (conflict) they find themselves in and their goal. Writing Tips for Fiction Writers Effectively Outlining Your Plot by Lee Masterson Have you ever had an idea for a novel, and then just sat down and began writing without knowing exactly where the story was going? It happens to everyone at some point, but most people begin to realize that the events in your plotline get confused, or forgotten in the the thrill of writing an exciting scene. There are those who continue to write on, regardless, fixing any discrepancies as they work, or (worse!) those who do not check that events are properly tied in place to bring their stories to a satisfying conclusion. And then there are those writers who believe that creating a plot-outline is tantamount to "destroying the natural creative process". Whichever type of writer you are, creating a simple, inelegant outline to follow s not the same thing as already writing the story, and it could save you an enormous amount of time and rewriting later. Of course, this brings us to the problem to what was discussed above. Synopsis First
How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method Writing a novel is easy. Writing a good novel is hard. That’s just life. If it were easy, we’d all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction. Frankly, there are a thousand different people out there who can tell you how to write a novel. In this article, I’d like to share with you what works for me. This page is the most popular one on my web site, and gets over a thousand page views per day, so you can guess that a lot of people find it useful. Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed. For a number of years, I was a software architect designing large software projects. I claim that that’s how you design a novel — you start small, then build stuff up until it looks like a story. If you’re like most people, you spend a long time thinking about your novel before you ever start writing. But before you start writing, you need to get organized. Step 1) Take an hour and write a one-sentence summary of your novel. Some hints on what makes a good sentence: Shorter is better.
CALLIHOO Writing Idea Generators: The 37 Dramatic Situations The Thirty-six (plus one) Dramatic Situations Georges Polti says that all stories boil down to just 36 dramatic situations and takeoffs of those situations. Somebody else out there added #37. (Note: In several cases, specific gender in the original descriptions has been replaced with non-specific gender. Your situation: 27. Still stuck for plot ideas? Cosmic Thoughts | Oblique Strategies | Random Science Fiction Story Ideas Stupid Plot Tricks Excerpted from my lecture on Stupid Plotting Tricks By Teresa Nielsen Hayden Start with some principles: A plot doesn't have to be new. Looked at from this angle, the Internet's various lovingly-compiled cliche lists are a treasury of useful plot devices. 1. 2. Alternately, you can go here and have them generated for you. You're going to make a plot out of them. 3. 4. 5. 6. Did I hear someone murmur that this is overkill? Overkill is good for you! Flee, puny humans! ©2000 by Teresa Nielsen Hayden, TNH@panix.com
Conflict Test 1. Does one of the characters have to change in order for the conflict to be resolved? _____ Yes, Score 1 _____ No, Score 0 _____ Both characters change, Score 2 2. _____ Yes, Score 0 _____ No, Score 1 3. _____ Yes, Score 1 _____ No, Score 0 _____ Ask this question to someone else who’s read your story. 4. 5. _____ Yes, Score 1_____ No, Score 0 6. _____ Yes, Score 0 _____ No, Score 1 Score 9: Perfect SCORE!!!!