By: Mandy
Wallace
Admit
it. Plotting a novel can be a bitch. You start down the path all plucky
and excited to translate your beautiful novel onto the page, and what happens?
Characters fall flat. Tension fizzles out. Scenes go nowhere. And climax ideas
feel , well, anticlimactic.
Pretty
soon the cursor on your screen has been blinking so long you’d swear it’s
trying to hypnotize you into some plot-devoid pit of despair.
That’s
why it pays to have a few plot tools like these in your back
pocket.
Last
week, we covered three renowned
novelists’ trust-your-writing plot tips from the online writing course
through University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, How Writers
Write Fiction.
Get
caught up if you missed them. They’re definitely worth the look, especially if
you prefer a more organic—or what some would call the “panster ”—approach
to writing.
Today,
though, we’re covering plot tips for planners. Outline-lovers.
Structure-o-philes . Whatever we call ourselves. These plot tools—from How
Writers Write Fiction lecturer, Bruce Elgin —will
feel like the writers tool belt for anyone who gets the
willies from hitting the blank page unprepared.
Even
if you love the panster approach (it’s my go-to for short and flash fiction
writing), these tools may save your story next time you’re stuck. Hey,
we’re all writers here. Getting stuck happens.
What
I loved best about Elgin’s lecture on writing and plot is that, like last
week’s novelist lineup, he says it’s important to trust you’re writing. But
then he hands over a ton of great tools to help you get unstuck anyway.
Here
are some of my favorites.
Unstick
Your Plot Tool #1: Define Character Desire vs Need
. . .
To
read the rest of the post, click here:
~*~
If
you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they
are again:
- 7 Tips for a Writing Partnership — Guest: Jennifer Hale | Jami Gold, Paranormal Author http://ow.ly/USH2G
- How Are You? Good vs. Well http://ow.ly/USHRq #writetip
- Lesson learned from a critique group: ‘why’ is the magic question for storytellers | Nail Your Novel http://ow.ly/USLa5
- Pretentious
Title: Writing Wednesdays: The Not-So-Secret Formula
to Writing Character Driven Stories http://ow.ly/USLwQ - 5 Hard-Hitting Plot Tools To Unstick Your Story http://ow.ly/USLHt
- Fiction University: 7 Tips to Make the Most of Working with a Cover Designer http://ow.ly/USLO0
- Common
Mistakes Authors Make
... and How to Avoid Them! Tip #1 - Author Marketing Experts, Inc. http://ow.ly/UTzJf Writability : A 2015 Diversity Reading Analysis http://ow.ly/UTCuK- 7 Ways Author Websites Irritate Readers http://ow.ly/UTDiz
- Busting 6 Strong Female Character Stereotypes (What I Learned Writing Storming) - Helping Writers Become Authors http://ow.ly/UTFbg
- Author, Jody Hedlund: 8 Tips For Picking Meaningful Character Names http://ow.ly/UTFo5
- Writing a Compelling Story | Self-Published Authors Helping Other Authors http://ow.ly/UTFZE
- Are
You Making These 4 Common
Dialogue -Writing Mistakes? http://ow.ly/UTGio - Translation For Indie Authors Plus Profanación in Spanish | The Creative Penn http://ow.ly/UTGo6
- Does
Your Author Site Convert? —
and other questions your website data can answer | http://ow.ly/UTGwp - Tearing Our Passions to Tatters http://ow.ly/UTGLZ
- Writing to Market | The Passive Voice | A Lawyer's Thoughts on Authors, Self-Publishing and Traditional Publishing http://ow.ly/UTILp
No comments:
Post a Comment