Earlier in the month we took a look at the importance of crafting satisfying endings to our story. Today we’re backtracking a bit to look at the story’s start! The first page (and often the first sentence!) of our novel needs to hook our readers and introduce them to our story. It is critical that […]
August is a time when we dip our toes into some posts from the archives! Today we’re looking at story structure which is the most read and shared topic on the blog. Specifically, this infograph is the number one most shared item on the blog and has been shared thousands of times! Story structure can […]
Last week I talked about the importance of knowing who we are writing for. We talked about genre and how knowing our genre can give us a foundation to help us create satisfying stories that our readers will find and enjoy. Another important aspect of knowing who we are writing for is identifying our target […]
Writers should know who they are writing for. “I’m writing for myself!” many writers say. As best selling author Jodi Ellen Malpas says, “You must write for yourself and not what you think people want to read.” And that’s important advice. It’s important to evaluate our personal motives for writing and work toward satisfying them. […]
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 […]
Story structure provides us with a time-tested road map of elements to include in our stories to help them connect with readers and satisfy expectations. This structure gives us a framework to make our stories as powerful as possible. We’ve looked at many components that make up a strong story previously. Today we’ll be looking […]
Story structure doesn’t have to be boring or legalistic. In fact, it’s vital for maximum reader engagement and emotional involvement. Story structure makes stories stronger. Story elements we’ve covered in this series so far include the novel’s hook, inciting incident, key event, midpoint, and crossroads. All of these elements help with building tension, raising stakes, […]
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. […]
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 […]
Understanding story structure helps us create stories that keep readers reading. Story structure provides a critical framework to make our stories powerful and engaging. We’ve looked briefly at an overview of the core elements of story structure. Today we’re going to dig deeper into the inciting incident. The Inciting Incident The inciting incident is where […]