by Stephanie Morrill | Oct 15, 2018 | Editing
Jill and I are super excited to announce that we are releasing a REVISED AND UPDATED version of our popular 2013 release Go Teen Writers: How To Turn Your First Draft Into a Finished Book! The new title is Go Teen Writers: Edit Your Novel, and will be available for...
by Shannon Dittemore | Oct 12, 2018 | First Drafts, Grow An Author, Plot, Story Structure
Over the past few Fridays, we’ve been talking about the pitfalls of story middles. Often it’s here, in the dead center of things, that we begin to notice the cracks climbing through the words of our tale. It’s easy to panic and abandon our story for something new and...
by Jill Williamson | Oct 10, 2018 | First Drafts, Plot
It’s no secret that I love screenwriter Blake Snyder’s book Save the Cat. That’s where I first learned the term “promise of the premise.” Every book or movie makes a promise to potential readers and viewers. For a book, this promise comes...
by Stephanie Morrill | Oct 8, 2018 | Editing, First Drafts, Grow An Author
For the past couple weeks, we’ve been talking about story middles. Shannon talked about how in the middle you often find cracks in your masterpiece, and fixing character problems that crop up. I talked about creating a big midpoint scene, and the structure of...
by Shannon Dittemore | Oct 5, 2018 | First Drafts, Grow An Author
Writing a story is no easy task, but it’s fun to dream up new lives and new worlds, and our initial excitement often gives us the momentum to make a fair amount of progress up front. For most of us, the cracks in our stories don’t start appearing until we’ve reached...
by Jill Williamson | Oct 3, 2018 | Punctuation
Once upon a time, there was an author named Jill Williamson. Jill was a blogger on a website called goteenwriters.com. She had worked as an editor for a few years, then became an author and a writing teacher. As she read the manuscripts of many beginning writers, she...
by Stephanie Morrill | Oct 1, 2018 | First Drafts, Grow An Author, Story Structure
Last week, I talked about the middle of your story, and the difference in your main character at the 25%-50% part of Act II, and the 50%-75% part of Act II. (Sometimes it’s easier for me to think of it as Act II A and Act II B when I’m brainstorming my stories.)...
by Shannon Dittemore | Sep 28, 2018 | First Drafts, Grow An Author
Writing the middle of a story should be exciting, right? By this point, you likely have a setting or two in place and at least the edges are starting to take color. Your characters have shape and desire and, when prompted with various issues, they likely have...
by Jill Williamson | Sep 26, 2018 | Editing, First Drafts, Productivity
Normally, I don’t like to do any rewriting during my first draft-stage. I just want to plow through and get that story written. But I’ve had an unpredictable summer. Life didn’t always go as planned. (Didn’t ever…) And here I am at the...
by Stephanie Morrill | Sep 24, 2018 | First Drafts, Grow An Author
I am really looking forward to getting back to our series on crafting a novel and “growing an author,” as Shannon so artfully put it. It’s been a while—since May, to be specific—so let’s review what I’ve covered so far in my story crafting process. I...
