Beginnings are difficult. You need to set-up a story, hook your reader, give a lot of information but not too much information, and make it entertaining, intriguing, or suspenseful all in one go. Beginnings are hard. But they’re also easy, because they are the beginning.
Tag: Plot
Point #2: The Dramatic Question
Knowing what our dramatic question is – what the main driver of our conflict is – can help us focus the narrative in the direction we need it to go.
Just Get The Damn Words Down
You have a story to tell. Go and tell it. Don’t use excuses. Don’t find reasons to not write. Don’t let writer’s block have a second of your time. Go and write. Write fast. Write badly. Make it incoherent. You can fix it all in revision.
The 30-Point Narrative Structure: An Introduction
As someone who is always trying to find a more productive way to plan the story, to make sense of the mess that is in my head, narrative structures are a happy place for me.
Session 23: The Blurb
In all seriousness, the blurb is probably one of the most important things about your book. It’s an introduction to the story, to the characters, to the world. It’s the one thing that can and will help you get readers to open your book. You should make it with care. Not as an afterthought, not because you need it, but with the notion that is just as important as what is in the book.
The What, How, Why, and When of Turning the Page
Getting a reader to turn a page is probably one of the hardest things a writer has to do. It might not seem like it, but it is. We put a lot of thought into how we construct chapters and scenes. We put even more effort into how the story unfolds. We do these things constantly as we write, and we make small decisions about small details in the hopes that it speaks to the reader, that it makes them want to go to the next page.
Must There Always Be A Twist?
My first instinct is to say yes. Of course, there must always be a twist. Twists are incredible. They reveal important information, they invoke emotional reactions in an audience, and they can elevate a good story to a great one. They may even save a terrible story.
Session 22: Revision
Yes, you can finish your first draft fast and you can write beautiful prose, but if there are plot-holes, if the characters make no sense, if there are massive mistakes, then no one is going to care how beautiful your writing is.
Revision is your most important tool.
Session 18: Writing Prompt – The Pinch
The pinch is basically the first moment where things get bad. It’s the first moment when real pressure is applied to your characters. It’s the first twist, or the first defeat, or the first sight of the big bad while he’s murdering a village. The pinch is the moment when the characters realise that they are not in the most ideal situation.
Session 17: You Should See The Other Guy
This way of thinking gave me the chance to spend more time with my villains, to create them to be more sympathetic, and if not more sympathetic, at least more understandable. It also gave me time to give them obstacles to climb over, and faults, and weaknesses, and set-backs, and real emotional reactions to those set-backs that wouldn’t have been there. It gave me time to get to know these characters I created, and to make them well-rounded, to nail down their voice.
Professional Amateur Writers 