You have worked out your story’s plot. You know the direction your story will go, you know the problems your characters will face, and how your story will resolve. Good for you. You’ve put in the time and thought to make the story plausible. But who is your protagonist? Sure, you have the general idea … Read more
Hiya! It feels like it’s been a decade since I’ve last posted, but here I am again with an attempt at normalcy. The last several posts were about various scenes or parts of a plot. I posted those bits and pieces with the intent of helping you to organize ten scenes that will help write … Read more
It’s a weird world right now. How about we do something with some normalcy? Like work on your story outline. You’ve been working on your manuscript outline draft and we’ve covered the first few of story blocks in your outline to help you get on your path to writing: the opening scene, the climax, the … Read more
We’ve talked about the inciting incident, and the climax in our plotting process. Now it’s time to consider the ending. Endings can be tricky. Endings should be gratifying and fulfilling for your reader. After all, the reader has invested their time into reading your ENTIRE book and unhappy readers are not good for writers. Make … Read more
Last time, we talked about the inciting incident— a great place to start thinking about the plot of your novel. This time I’d like you to think about the climax, which is the next plot point I think you should consider. The climax is that point in the narrative where the conflict or tension reaches … Read more
When you think of your story’s plot, it is helpful to think of a story’s parts to help you see the big picture and help you to begin to work out your story’s plot. All stories have beginnings, middles, and endings. They also have inciting incidents, midpoints, and climaxes. Regardless of the genre of book … Read more
As mentioned last time, plot is the significant events and incidents that happen in a story and how these events relate to each other. But how do you create a plot? Can’t you just string some events together for your character to muddle through? You could do that, but that story structure generally results in … Read more
I was recently at Colorado Gold, which is a conference geared toward writers wanting to improve their craft and writing skill. It was a great conference attended by 300+ writers. While there, I chatted with people and I noticed that for some of them, the concept of plot seemed to be an afterthought. These were … Read more
We’ve had a substantial number of submissions at Literary Wanderlust lately. We always take the time to read every submission with the goal of finding some really great stories to contract and turn into books. Well, that’s not actually true. There is one category of submissions that we reject without reading—books with exorbitant word counts. What? … Read more
What should the last scene in your novel look like? Learn how to write that final scene well to satisfy your readers.