Top Ten Storyfix.com Posts of 2012

First, though… I’d like to reflect on the year we’re tucking into bed.  The Top 10 list follows, if that’s what you’d rather read. Globally, nationally, it was a tough, dark year.  I’m not here to break that down, you know how it went. This is a writing website, so let’s talk about that.  Our […]

CPR and Life Support for Your Part 2 Story Segment

Or… “How To Give Your Story a Better Middle”  Get ready to go deep. This story structure stuff is hard.  It’s also the key to getting your story published.  So we must accept hard, and step into it with keen hunger for a competitive edge. Hard, because it’s like throwing a ball or singing a […]

The Tools We Choose to Use

I can’t not go there today. My wife is a painter.  She reads a blog for painters by Robert Genn, who shows he’s an artist with words, as well.  The following is from that blog – The Painter’s Keys – (you can see he’s already wielding words artfully), and his salutation indicates it’s for us, too. All […]

For my newsletter readers:

What a week.  What a frustrating, crappy week. Best intentions… I sent out a newsletter with two free gifts. Happy Holidays to all. Turns out one of the links was broken (my fault), and (when fixed) both links were limited to 100 downloads a day (not my fault, other than selecting the wrong place to […]

Questions You Should Ask Yourself Before You Write a Scene. Any Scene.

One of the stories I was coaching this week had this little wrinkle: the main character’s quest was interrupted by a flashback scene showing the hero as a boy delivering newspapers, falling off his bike and being laughed at by a group of girls standing on the opposite corner.  After that we were back in […]

The Secret To a Successful Concept

Here it is, right up front. No elaborate setup. Not even a needs-analysis as a lead-in. We’ll get to that once you know what a successful concept is… and what it isn’t. The secret of a successful concept is to move from the situational to the actionable. From a state-of-being to a call-to-action. From a […]