Don’t forget: The site is likely to be either down or wonky this weekend, as we’re switching to the new server and design. I won’t be able to post on Friday and Sunday and perhaps not on Wednesday, but check back later next week for the unveiling of a brand-new Helping Writers Become Authors site!
In other news . . .
It’s official! I just tied off the last of the copyedits on Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys to Writing an Outstanding Story. I won’t see it again until it’s all dressed up in its paperback tuxedo and digital ball gown on September 1, 2013. But I do have its finalized back cover blurb to share.
Structuring Your Novel (affiliate link)
Is Structure the Hidden Foundation of All Successful Stories?
Why do some stories work and others don’t? The answer is structure. In this new guide from the author of the acclaimed Outlining Your Novel, you will discover the universal underpinnings that guarantee powerful plot and character arcs. An understanding of proper story and scene structure will help you to not only perfectly time your story’s major events, but will also provide you with an unerring standard to use in evaluating your novel’s pacing and progression.
Structuring Your Novel will show you:
- How to determine the best methods for unleashing your unique and personal vision for your story.
- How to identify common structural weaknesses and flip them around into stunning strengths.
- How to eliminate saggy middles by discovering your “centerpiece.”
- Why you should NEVER include conflict on every page.
- How to discover the questions you don’t want readers asking about your plot—and then how to get them to ask the right questions.
Story structure has empowered countless bestselling and classic authors. Now it’s your turn!
How Perfect Does Your Story’s Structural Timing Have to Be?
How to Structure Stories With Multiple Main Characters?
7 Tips for Opening Your Story In Medias Res
Clearing Up Some Misconceptions About In Medias Res
About K.M. Weiland | @KMWeiland
Can’t wait to get my hands on it! Oh, and now I’m dying to see Pacific Rim. 🙂
If you like action movies with heart – and particularly action movies about robots and monsters bashing on each other – then it’s hard to miss with Pacific Rim. 😉
Looking forward to getting it. How does it differ/mesh with Larry Brooks’ ‘Story Engineering’, which I found helpful as well?
Larry’s book is absolutely excellent, and I highly recommend it. His focuses on structure, as well as other aspects of important storytelling. I dive into a little more depth on the structure front and explore scene and sentence structure as well.
This looks fantastic! I’ve listened to the story structure episodes of your Wordplay podcast like 5 times! They’re so good! I got sick of writing novels that needed SO much work once their first draft was done and I realized they lacked structure. So I stopped writing and studied story structure and MAN did it help me write better stories! I’ll be picking up a copy of this book for sure. You had an amazing understanding of story structure – I read about the same things in many places but your podcast tied it all together so well. I also like using Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet to help me get the structure of my story in place. I know it’s for screenplays but it works great for novels. Anyways, sorry for the long comment – but I’m excited about your book!
I also just saw your book “Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success” – and I’ll have to pick that one up too! I just started listening to your other podcast episodes other than the story structure ones and it brought me to your site where I saw the news of this awesome new book coming out – so now you know your podcast has paid off 🙂 Thanks for making it – it’s great for writers with much to learn like me.
So glad you’re enjoying the podcast! Structure really is all about simplifying things. Once we understanding the basic underlying girders of a story, we can instantly troubleshoot what’s not working in our stories. I hope you find the books useful!
An excellent book, KM. Thanks for that.
I hope you enjoy it!
Great back cover (and front cover), Katie.
I’ll have my hands on it soon!
Thanks, Bill! It’ll be out before we know it.
Cool! I loved Crafting Unforgettable Characters; it has been invaluable! Congrats 🙂
Thanks! I’m so glad it’s been useful to you. Been thinking about updating that one as well.