Your story is a precision machine. If you were to take the shiny cover off this machine, what you would find inside would be an intricate mass of nuts, bolts, gears—and an engineer only knows what else. At the heart of it all, you’d find two huge pistons running the show. One of those pistons […]
October 9, 2011 by 13 Comments Structuring Your NovelReading With Attention
Reading for Plot Structure Whatever book you’re reading right this very minute, take a quick second to look in the back and see how many pages it has. Rounded, I mean. Find a scrap of paper or a used envelope and jot this down at the bottom: total number of pages. Now divide that […]
March 22, 2010 by 47 Comments Structuring Your Novel21 Must-Haves for Your Story Structure (in 90 Seconds)
A writer’s life is busy. Sometimes we need shortcuts. And while there really aren’t any shortcuts, sometimes there are, at least, cheat sheets. Today, I’m going to give you a Mouse-ter Class in story structure—in all of 90 seconds. Ready? Strap in and take a look at the video below to see the foundational art of […]
March 3, 2010 by 26 Comments Structuring Your NovelHow to Write Scenes That Matter
One of the single most important decisions in storytelling is one you make every day, maybe even several times a day. It all comes to: how to write scenes that matter to your story. Imagine your story as a line of dominoes and each individual scene as a single domino. If you expect your line […]
March 22, 2009 by 53 Comments Structuring Your NovelWhat You Need to Know About Writing Novels in the Age of Movies
I have a confession. For someone who spends her time writing novels, it’s kind of a deep, dark secret, so brace yourself. I like movies better than books. Shocking, I know. Don’t get me wrong. I couldn’t live without books. I practically breathe books. I gobble more than 100 books a year. Why? Because I love […]
