by Stephanie Morrill | Nov 19, 2018 | Antagonists, Grow An Author, Plot, Story Endings, Story Structure
Here’s something that confused me about story structure back when I wrote contemporary young adult fiction: Any teaching on the hero’s journey/three act structure tends to focus on stories with traditional villains. And in the third act when teachers talk...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 14, 2018 | Plot, Story Endings, Story Structure
How is your NaNo going? Mine was going really well, then I got behind. To be fair, I’m at a little over 17K, but I am supposed to be at 25K by tomorrow and there is no way I’m going to manage that. I had a busy weekend and so much to catch up on that I...
by Jill Williamson | Nov 7, 2018 | Dark Night of the Soul, Plot, Story Middles, Story Structure
All good stories are about a Character who changes in some way. The Character starts out believing a LIE. And through the course of the story, he tries hard to hold onto that LIE. This becomes more and more difficult as the story progresses and the Bad Guys Close In....
by Jill Williamson | Oct 24, 2018 | Antagonists, Plot, Story Middles
You guys. There is WAY too much going on in my life right now. I feel like a hamster on a wheel that someone rolled down a very steep hill. Anyone relate? Anyone? Bueller? “Hang on, Jill,” I tell myself. “Almost there.” Where...
by Jill Williamson | Oct 17, 2018 | Plot
You’ve likely heard both of the writing terms: midpoint twist and mirror moment. We’ve talked about them here before, but I don’t think we’ve talked about them together. I’m going to talk about them together. 🙂 The whole point of the...
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...
