Write Tip: Three Act Structure
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 2: A sketch that will inform your outline, the three-act structure nonetheless identifies the core...
View ArticleWrite Tip: Four Act Structure
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 2: The four-act structure is a more recent rethinking of three-act structure. Proponents claim it is...
View ArticleWrite Tip: Developing A Novel’s Theme
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 1: “If a powerful problem is a novel’s spine,” Donald Maass writes in The Breakout Novel, “then… More
View ArticleWrite Tip: 5 Basic Plot Elements All Novels Must Have
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 3: In Writing the Breakout Novel, Donald Maass identifies five basic plot elements that all plots...
View ArticleWriteTip: What Is A Premise and What Makes It Good?
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 1: The Premise In his bestselling book How to Write a Damn Good Novel, James N. Frey… More
View ArticleWriteTip: Using The Five Senses
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 3: Many of us are guilty of falling into the habit of using one or two senses and… More
View ArticleWriteTip: 8 Things You Must Know About A Character To Write Them Well
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 2: Readers want your characters to seem like real people, whole, alive, believable, and worth caring...
View ArticleWrite Tip: A Trick Every Writer Should Know About Writing Scenes (In Medias Res)
When I went to screenwriting school, the key thing they taught us about writing scenes was a concept called in medias res: to enter a scene as late as possible and get out as soon… More
View ArticleMy Top 15 Favorite Writing Books & Why (In No Particular Order)
Today, I thought I’d list the 15 writing books I find most helpful to my writing and teaching writing and offer a little explanation as to why. Hopefully some of these are useful and helpful… More
View ArticleWriteTip: How To Use Speech Tags Well
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 7: Another area of concern related to dialogue are speech tags. The most common of these, of course,...
View ArticleWrite Tip: Creating Tension Through Dialogue and Description
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 8: Last week, I wrote about The Key To Good Plotting—Asking The Right QuestionsThe Key To Good...
View ArticleWriteTip: What is Dialogue and What is its Purpose?
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 7: Chances are fifty percent or more of your novel will consist of dialogue. Dialogue is the...
View ArticleWriteTip: Techniques For Creating Suspense
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 8: Techniques for Creating Suspense So in addition to ratcheting up the tension every chance you...
View ArticleWriteTip: Suspense Tools—Pacing The Slower Moments & Narrative Pacing
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 8: For the past month I have been covering Suspense and Pacing Techniques for writing. Today, we...
View ArticleWriteTip: How To Approach Worldbuilding, Part 3
The following is an excerpt from my book How To Write A Novel: The Fundamentals of Fiction, Chapter 9: Worldbuilding. It is part of a multipart series. For Part One, click here. For Part Two, click...
View Article
