Outlining an Epic Adventure With the Hero’s Journey

Today we have the great privilege of having Lewis Jorstad with us to share about how to use the Hero’s Journey to outline our stories. Lewis is an editor and book coach who also leads the thriving writing community over at The Novel Smithy. Without further ado- take it away, Lewis! Outlining an Epic Adventure […]

Strong Story Structure 101: The Resolution

Story structure is the framework that keeps our novels strong and makes them as powerful as they can be. Today we’re looking at the very last element in our stories- the resolution. The resolution of our story is incredibly important. As Mickey Spillane put it, “Your first line sells the book. Your last line sells […]

Strong Story Structure 101: The Crossroads

Strong story structure is what holds our stories together. It doesn’t need to lead to formulaic or weak stories, instead gives our stories the strength and emotional resonance with our readers to be even more powerful. So far in this series we’ve looked at the hook, inciting incident, key event, and midpoint of our novel. […]

Strong Story Structure 101: The Midpoint

Story structure is vital if we’re going to write strong novels that grab our readers’ attention and never lets it go. The midpoint of our stories often tests this structure. (Check out the earlier posts in the Story Structure series for a review of the hook, inciting incident, and key event.) The Midpoint Often called […]

Strong Story Structure 101

Each book on our bookshelf may seem different, but the best of them often share core elements of strong story structure.  Why Care About Story Structure? Story structure is the backbone to keep our stories on track and enable our stories to better resonate with our readers by fulfilling their subconscious expectations. Having strong story […]

typewriter with drawings

Bethany’s Best: Story Structure & More

Each month I take a moment to pause and share a few things I’ve found to be helpful and fun along the adventure of living and writing well. I hope you find them to be enlightening and encouraging! Article Roundup: Story Structure Story structure is the framework that holds our stories together and helps them resonate with our readers. It […]

Steps to Success Part 3: Creating an Outline

Steps to Success is a series walking us through the process of writing a novel from beginning to end. As always, personal preferences and experiences differ. This guide is based in part on my own experiences as well as from authors I have worked with and/or learned from along the way. Today we’re talking about […]