The Best Writing Workshop You’ve Ever Taken for Five Bucks

Seriously.  It happens next week — an online workshop on story structure… for five bucks. It’s not here, by the way.  It’ll be at Savvy Authors, and to get in you’ll need to enroll ahead of time.  Or, on the day itself… though there is a cap on attendance (don’t want to crash the server, […]

Rethinking Your Novel: The Rationalization of Mediocrity

The seventh in a series of posts on what elevates a story to greatness. Contrary to how adamantly I pound the metaphoric table as I offer my views on structure and the principles of narrative, nothing about this stuff is an exact science.  Writing is like any other form of art and entertainment – getting it […]

Rethinking Your Novel: The Quest for Art vs. The Quest for a Publisher

The sixth in a series of posts on what elevates a story to greatness. If it’s commercial, can it still be art?  And if it’s art, are there really rules and standards in play? And whose are they? Or are we free to create anything we desire outside of and separate from those expectations? The […]

The Consequences of Writing Casually

Or, how not thinking it through before you stamp “Final” on a draft can bite you in the butt… while your readers are laughing theirs off. Change of pace today.  The following have been culled from real church bulletins.  Thank the Lord for typos and best intentions.  Enjoy. ————————– The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes […]

Rethinking Your Story: A Menu of Variables to Consider

The Fifth in a Series on What Elevates A Story to Greatness Rethinking… what does that even mean?  It’s not about fixing mistakes.  That’s not rethinking, that’s finishing. It’s not about revising your story.  That’s not rethinking, that’s repairing and renewing. Rethinking is more about reconsidering.  It’s about the strategic decisions you make along the […]

Rethinking Your Story: What’s Your Favorite “Vicarious” Ride?

The Fourth in a Series on What Elevates a Story to Greatness Wanted: Your Input Some of you — many of you — are asking for examples of vicarious storytelling, and how this differentiates from, well, less than vicarious storytelling. The mystery genre is a great example of storytelling that doesn’t particularly rely on the […]

Rethinking Your Story: Take the Reader for the Ride of Their Life

The Third in a Series on What Elevates a Story to Greatness If sports analogies aren’t your cup of tea, then allow me to apologize in advance.  But today’s case is a great example of how thinking differently can make the difference between a bench player and a superstar.  Which is also true in writing. I’m going […]

Rethinking Your Story: The Power of “Arena”

The Second in a Series on What Elevates a Story to Greatness In the last post I suggested that the great ones — in writing and in any other avocation — think differently than the rest of us.  With writers, this doesn’t necessarily translate to more compelling prose.  Writing voice isn’t as much a function of […]

Empowering Ways to “Think” About Your Story

The First in a Series on What Elevates a Story to Greatness In virtually every field of endeavor you can name, scrutiny shows us that the great ones think differently than the rest of us. They may outperform us, too, but rest assured, before that happened they thought differently.  Almost without exception. This notion struck […]

Story Structure vs. Music Theory — a guest post by Steve Steuart

The following is a guest article by writer and musician Steve Steuart.  I was a musician, and then I was a writer.  Actually, both, once music gets in your blood it’s there for good.  As I began an in-depth study of storytelling, both here on Storyfix and elsewhere (including Larry’s ebooks), I quickly noticed something.  Wasn’t […]