Story Structure for Dummies
A Ceiling-Cracking Epiphany for Newer and Unaware Writers An Explanation of the Inevitable for Frustrated Practitioners There was a time, a decade or so, when you couldn’t write a headline like that. Because it seems to say one of two things: if you don’t understand this then you’re a dummy… or… you know you’re not […]
Writing Successful Fiction: When What You Don’t Know Trumps What You Do Know
A tale of mishandled craft sinking the story ship. Quick story from the writing conference front. A few weeks ago I was doing a couple of workshops at a major writing conference, and as is often the case at these gatherings, the spare hours between sessions were spent meeting one-on-one with writers to go over […]
Getting Published: The Genre-Concept Connection
Somewhere deep within the genealogical family tree that illuminates the origins of the word genre, we find another word that confuses the whole issue: generic. And that’s the problem. Your genre-based story can easily become generic – it simply becomes another face is a crowded sea of stories – rather than standing out. This very […]
The Seductive Trap of the Historical Novel
Or, how to kill off your historical novel before you write a word. I’m working with two writers on their historical novels, and both — at this stage of their development — are hobbled by a classic (common) flaw in the design of the story. That is: they have history in play, but they have […]
Eight Fundamental Steps to being a Professional Writer
A Guest Post by Art Holcomb Writers and Athletes and Actors all share very similar career arcs. Many start out but few make it to become practicing professionals. No matter what their path, they all have to master the fundamentals. Practitioners of all three of these professions are rightly considered artists – people striving toward […]
A Process-to-Product Success Story
Welcome new readers: click HERE for a no-strings free ebook offer, equivalent to an entire writing workshop! ***** This post wasn’t my first impulse where this story is concerned. I’d like to share a story with you, submitted to me for evaluation by a Storyfix reader. A story that is so good, so shockingly professional […]
How to Elevate Your Story Above the Eager Crowd
The “crowd” is pretty good, too. And they want what you want. So you need to be better. Greetings from Los Angeles, where I’m presenting at the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference. I did two sessions yesterday, and later today I’m doing a workshop entitled: “Your Story on Steroids.” This is why I […]
The Epidemic and Systemic Sabotage via Brainwashing of Aspiring Novelists
As a writing coach and author of writing books and articles, I deal in numbers. Volume. Significant databases of writers and stories. Manuscripts, story plans, synopses, samples, story analysis and the hands-on witnessing of stories under development. And I’m here to tell you… … there’s trouble in River City. I see it, I read it, […]
A Better Way to Open Your Novel
There’s always two ways to put something out there. The room divides in terms of which hits hardest… the in-your-face “don’t make this mistake!” approach… or the more positive, “here’s a better way you can do it.” Frankly, I can lean either way. I mention this because today’s headline cuts both ways. I came to […]
Story Structure… for Television
I’m doubting that many of us write for television. But I’m betting that most of us watch it. As students of story architecture and story physics — that is you, right? — we tend to look for evidence of the principles in play in all of the fiction we consume, a large percentage of which […]