Wordorigins.org Create A Plot Outline In 8 Easy Steps By Glen C. Strathy How would you like to create a plot outline for your novel in less than an hour that is emotionally compelling and dramatically sound? It's easier than you think. The secret is to incorporate the 8 Basic Plot Elements. Starting with your story idea, you only need to make eight choices to ensure the plot of your future novel hangs together in a meaningful way. Sound intriguing? I'll describe each of the eight elements in turn. On the other hand, if you already have a draft for a novel, that you're looking to revise, then ask yourself, as we go through these elements, whether you have included them in your story. 1. 15K+Save The first element to include in your plot outline is the Story Goal, which we covered in detail in the previous article, The Key to a Solid Plot: Choosing a Story Goal. There are many ways we could involve other characters in this goal. ... a mother who wants her to be happier. ... a jealous ex-boyfriend who tries to sabotage her love life. 2. 3. 4. 6.
creative writing prompts . com ideas for writers Storybook - Download 6 Ways to Hook Your Readers Although I consider myself an avid reader, I must admit I have a short attention span when it comes to getting into books. If you fail to grab my attention in the first few lines, I start spacing out. Most readers are like me. Most people don’t want to spend the first 50 pages trying to get into a book. Here are a few things I find annoying in the first lines of a story: Dialogue. The last thing you want to do as a writer is annoy or bore people. (N.B. 1. Put a question in your readers’ minds. “Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.” 2. By starting at an important moment in the story, your reader is more likely to want to continue so he or she can discover what will happen next. “It was dark where she was crouched but the little girl did as she’d been told.” 3. Description is good when it encourages people to paint a picture in their minds. “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” 4. 5. “They had flown from England to Minneapolis to look at a toilet.” 6.
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Better Than You Normally Do. Writing is a muscle. Smaller than a hamstring and slightly bigger than a bicep, and it needs to be exercised to get stronger. Think of your words as reps, your paragraphs as sets, your pages as daily workouts. Procrastination is an alluring siren taunting you to google the country where Balki from Perfect Strangers was from, and to arrange sticky notes on your dog in the shape of hilarious dog shorts. The blank white page. Mark Twain once said, “Show, don’t tell.” Finding a really good muse these days isn’t easy, so plan on going through quite a few before landing on a winner. There are two things more difficult than writing. It’s so easy to hide in your little bubble, typing your little words with your little fingers on your little laptop from the comfort of your tiny chair in your miniature little house. It’s no secret that great writers are great readers, and that if you can’t read, your writing will often suffer. Available in print withThe Best of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
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Writing Fiction: How to Structure a Killer Novel Ending There are more than a few writers and teachers out there, many of them orders of magnitude more famous than I am (not hard to do), who don’t like to compartmentalize or even attempt to define the sequential parts and essential milestones of a story’s plot structure. Too formulaic, they say. Takes the fun and creativity out of it, they claim. A write-by-the-numbers strategy for hacks, a vocal few plead. When they do talk about how to write a book and, more specifically, story structure, they tend to dress it up with descriptions that are less engineering-speak in nature—“the hero’s journey” … “the inciting incident” … “the turn”—and are more appropriate to a lit class at Oxford. What’s interesting is that the stories these writers create, especially if they’re published, and especially the stories they use as examples in their teaching, follow pretty much the same structural paradigm. Thank God for screenwriters. The Four Parts of Effective Storytelling Not remotely easy.
7 Major Players In Free Online Education By Jennifer Berry Imagine a world where free, college-level education was available to almost everyone. Believe it or not, you're living in that world right now. Online education has been around for decades, but in the past couple of years, interest has spiked for massive open online courses, otherwise known as MOOCs, according to Brian Whitmer, co-founder of Instructure, an education technology company that created the Canvas Network, a platform for open online courses. "Since 2012, MOOCs have caught the attention of the educational world due to their potential to disrupt how education is delivered and open up access to anyone with an Internet connection," Whitmer explains. Related: 7 Degrees You Can Earn While Keeping Your Job If this seems too good to be true, you should know that, like many endeavors, students will largely get out of these classes what they put into them. Read on to learn more about seven of the most popular MOOCs and some of the great free classes they offer. Coursera