We end our week-long celebration of Teen Literature with an interview today with the charming Elana Johnson. I began following Elana’s blog when I first started exploring the blogsphere for fellow writers. Immediately it became one of my go-to writing blogs because of her honest, no-nonsense advice and her generosity to other writers. She’s one… Read more »
Writing fiction is alchemy. We can have all the ingredients for a great story and still miss that wow factor that makes it all come together, makes our work transform from words on a page to a living, breathing entity with the possibility to burrow into someone else’s consciousness. And we all know plenty of… Read more »
This past week we’ve been talking about outlines. On Monday I asked the question: Plotter or Pantser? Where Do You Stand? That post got me thinking about my own writing process. I’m usually not a seat-of-my-pants writer but I hate traditional outlines. Something about long lists (I.A, 2.b–it’s all Greek to me) just doesn’t work… Read more »
One of my favorite ways to outline or plan a story is to map it out like a subway or road map. Here’s how this technique works. Each road or subway line represents a different story-thread or plot line. The dots (exits on the highways or subway stops) represent different scenes or moments in the… Read more »
Plotter: n. (1) A writer who plots out his or her story in the greatest of detail before starting the draft; (2) a writer obsessed with outlines, index cards and writing apps; (3) a writer who spends most of his or her time organizing the novel then writes it in about ten minutes. Pantser: n…. Read more »
Every story needs a “bad guy,” someone or something that gets in the protagonist’s way and keeps making trouble for him or her. For instance if my life were a novel, the “bad guy” would be an impossibly cute 3-year-old ginger cat, whose offenses include: “Decorating” the living room with shredded articles of mail Skulking… Read more »
I first learned to sketch out a story in a novel-writing class. The purpose of the sketch is to provide a snapshot of your work-in-progress (WIP), capturing all the important information on one page so that you can see it all at a glance. This technique is especially useful when you need to give a short excerpt… Read more »
Starting a novel or short story is like making a promise to the reader. You set up rules and expectations that your readers will rely on as they read your piece. You take your readers by the hand and guide them into your story. You develop a trust-relationship with the reader. Delaying or changing these… Read more »
The ABCs of plot is a technique I learned from one of my mentors and it’s very powerful for helping writers map out the plot of their stories. I’ve since borrowed parts of the method, added some of my own flare and have used it in many of the workshops I teach. You can use… Read more »
There are lots of different opinions out there about plot archetypes and how you can represent just about any story with one of a few labels. For instance, John Gardner once said that there are only two plots in all of literature: “you go on a journey”, or “a stranger comes to town.” While most… Read more »
