Today, I’m going to show you how to make stuff happen in your story. Duh, right? What could be easier? You put characters on the page, they dance around, stuff happens. Mission accomplished. Except if you’re not using plot reveals to execute all this happenin’ stuff, your readers may end up bored anyway. What are plot reveals? […]
December 26, 2016 by 64 Comments CharactersDeepen Your Story With Character Misdirection
In childhood, stories are always about exactly what they appear: “See Spot. See Spot run.” But as we grow older and our life experiences deepen, so do our story experiences. What emerges is often a complex weave of subtext and misdirection. Life isn’t always as we perceive it on its surface—and even when it is, half the […]
August 21, 2015 by 48 Comments ForeshadowingHow to Make Readers Happy by Giving Them Exactly What They DON’T Want
This week’s video shows you how to make readers happy by taking advantage of their conflicting desires for the fate of your characters. Video Transcript: I think it’s safe to say when you ask pretty much anybody what they want out of life, they’re not going to come up with answers that involve mind-numbing tragedy, […]
May 20, 2015 by 71 Comments Novel EndingsIf You Don’t Fix This Mistake in Your Story’s Climax, You’ll Hate Yourself Later
The Climax has got to be the best part of your story, right? It’s the maraschino cherry on top of the sundae (that is, of course, if you’re the kind who saves the cherry to eat last). Anyway—the point is you want your story’s Climax to be gripping. You want it to be suspenseful. You […]
July 30, 2014 by 27 Comments ForeshadowingForeshadowing’s #1 Job in Your Story
This week’s video reveals a simple but often overlooked function of foreshadowing that all writers should be aware of. Video Transcript: As you may have noticed (or maybe not) I’ve taken almost a six-month break from the video posts. So starting this week, I’m pleased to say that I plan to return to my old […]
July 24, 2014 by Leave a Comment Plotting Your NovelKeeping Secrets: How to Make Your Book Un-Put-Down-able
Did you know there’s only one (count it: one!) reason readers read? This reason manifests in many different ways. One reader might call it a search for knowledge. Another might call it a desire to be swept away to unfamiliar worlds. Others might say they’re after adrenaline or maybe romance. But what those reasons all […]
March 21, 2014 by 28 Comments Writer's HelpSherlock Holmes vs. C. Auguste Dupin: 4 Ways to Improve Your Writing
Sherlock Homes rose and lit his pipe. “No doubt you think that you are complimenting me in comparing me to Dupin,” he observed. “Now, in my opinion, Dupin was a very inferior fellow.–A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Fighting words—within the detective genre, anyway. Yet the term “detective” had not yet been coined when […]
July 5, 2013 by 17 Comments Characters5 Ways to Limit Your Character’s Options – and Make Your Story Better
This post is by Mooderino. Given a predicament, a character in a story will have a number of options on how to proceed. As in real life, some of those options will be more sensible than others. Doing the sensible thing saves a lot of grief and trouble, which is why it is absolutely no good for […]
May 22, 2013 by 18 Comments Point of ViewAre Your Multiple POVs Killing Your Story’s Suspense?
Writers often love writing stories with multiple POVs. After all, we have all these characters we adore, and we want the opportunity to explore the mindsets and the activities of as many of them as possible. However, I discovered something rather interesting during one of my Writing Questions of the Day on Twitter (#WQOTD). Turns […]
February 27, 2013 by 19 Comments Plotting Your NovelEpisodic Storytelling? Here’s Why
The term “episodic” is rarely a compliment when used for a novel. What it usually indicates is a herky-jerkiness to the plot, a lack of cohesion, and an overall story arc that doesn’t pull together into a concerted theme. Not exactly what most of us are striving for. What we want is for the plot, […]
