Craft a more effective story by using your characters' emotional beats in your plot - in this video I'll show you how using examples from Harry Potter and Stranger Things. Previous videos in this series:  1 Story structure overview   2 Catalyst examples   Make planning (and writing) your novel easy. Grab The Novel Approach Planning Worksheet for just $9 (AU).   Jump on the waiting list for The Novel Approach Ultimate Accountability membership .    ===== Music: https://www.purple-planet.com ===== ===== Fair Use: Stills and clips of copyrighted material is used for commentary and educational purposes. ===== Emotional arc timeline examples This video goes through:  - Recap and explanation of the three-act structure re-drawn as an emotional timeline: 00:50.0 - SPOILER ALERT: Examples of emotional timelines from:  Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone Starts at: 01:35.0 -- Ends at: 03:35.0  Stranger Things Season 1 (Mike) Starts at: 03...

We are going down memory lane here at the Blood Red Pencil during the month of December, recalling and honoring BRP regulars and guest contributors. Today, we raise a glass (of eggnog, perhaps, because it is the season) in memory of Dr. John Yeoman , PhD Creative Writing. Prior to receiving his doctorate degree, Dr. Yeoman spent 40 years as a commercial author and chairman of a major PR company. He wrote children's books and historical mysteries for adults and ran the Writers' Village story competition. Dr. Yeoman died unexpectedly in 2016, but his words and his works live on. Dr. Yeoman's Hippo Yeoman series of instructional novels (unobtrusive tips explain the writing techniques used to craft the stories) are still available from Amazon Kindle, and are well worth working through:       His many insightful posts at the Blood Red Pencil include: How to Win a Writing Competition   How To Pitch A Self-Published Novel to A Publisher - Part One   How ...

Among other things, today is "National Memo Day." A memo, or in its original, longer form, memorandum , is defined as "a short note designating something to be remembered, especially something to be done or acted upon in the future; reminder ." As a non-plotter, it's important to keep track of ideas, clues, story reveals, character development and all the myriad details that keep those dreaded plot holes and continuity errors at bay. Some writers use lengthy outlines, some jot notes on legal pads, some use voice recordings (I know one author who dictates all his novels while hiking), some keep a separate document file, or use a program like Scrivener to help them keep track of their stories. I use a foam core board and sticky notes, and it's as close as I can get to plotting. There's no particular ordering of my notes. If I place a clue in chapter 6, I'll note it on my board. Then, when it's dealt with, I can toss the note. As the bo...

Image by Karen Woodward , via Flickr Okay, I have a confession to make. I’m in the process of going against everything I believed about my writing style. As long as I can remember, I’ve started the writing process with nothing but my characters and a situation in mind. It’s the way things have always been. I, Merry Farmer, was a pantser. As comfortable as pantsing has been, though, I’ve had this sense that there might be a more efficient way to do this novel-writing thing. Over the years my pure pantsing style has evolved to having a clear idea of the end of the book and a few major plot points along the way, then writing notes about what I’m writing as I write it to make sure I’m still on track. It’s served me well…and caused a lot of editing and revision. This summer, a light bulb of sorts went off for me. I started talking to several authors who write super fast. The common thread between them is that they outline their stories extensively before they start writing. So I t...

Every now and then, there's a scene that absolutely refuses to get from opening to closing in a straightforward fashion. When I was working on a scene for Danger in Deer Ridge , I had my starting plot points, there were only two characters in the scene (and one was asleep for most of it), and I had a reasonable idea of where it should end. As I worked on it, however, it was more like a connect-the-dots picture, but without any numbers telling you where the next dot should be. This scene happened to be one of my few ventures into the villain's POV. It's only the second time he's been on the page, so I wanted to show what kind of a man he was in a little more depth, as well as reveal some points that would heighten the tension. And, as I was writing, it turned out he was a lot nastier than I'd first thought. My plot points for this single-scene chapter: Bad guy is having an affair. He's thinking about breaking it off. He's looking for something he th...

This post first ran on Sunday, October 19, 2008 Any method of writing is valid if it produces something worth reading. I am a writer who outlines meticulously. But I do know that all of the different methods can work really well for the type of writer that they suit. Call it what you will - pantsing versus plotting, freewriting versus crafted writing, plus the third option (a bit of both: start with the beginning and end in mind, freewrite until you get stuck then plot your way out of it) - all these methods work somewhere for someone. Once you've figured out how you need to write to suit your personality, you've got it made. And when you do reach that point, do not let the so-called pros convince you that you're doing it wrong. Stephen King has said some nasty things in the past about writers who outline before they write. He's softened his tone, though, in the last twenty years. But I'm going to poke back, anyway, with the comment that many of Stephen King...

Spiders. Snakes. Dark alleys. Thumps in the middle of the night. Scary things, yes, but nothing strikes fear into the heart of a writer more than... Photo by Eamon Curry via Flickr.com THE MIDDLE . The place where plots go to die. The place where characters reveal themselves to be flat, unimaginative and straight-out dull. It's a place from which you're sure you'll never escape. Well friends, I've been to the middle and come out the other side. How, you ask? First, let me say it wasn't easy. Second, let me say it wasn't pretty. There were colourful metaphors flung about. There were clenched fists. There was a finger sneaking toward the delete key. But I escaped. By moving backward. Let me explain. I knew my ending, so I wrote that. I also knew what had to happen right before the ending. Wrote that. I kept working my way backwards, step by step until I found myself back in the middle. I then discovered that I needed only a few scenes to bridge what...

Bas relief from Mamallapuram, India When we first moved to Colorado, we rented a tiny studio apartment while we went house-hunting. One evening, our landlords invited us up for a glass of wine and some conversation. She is a sculptor who works primarily in stone. She mentioned that it was interesting that we were both artists. Frankly, I'd never considered myself an artist, but we discussed our creative processes. There's an old saying that in order to carve a block of stone into an elephant, you simply chip away everything that doesn't look like an elephant. In writing, you keep adding until you get the elephant. If writing were like sculpting, it would mean being able to change what comes next, but not what came before. Scary. Really scary. I mean, I know authors who sell on synopsis, but when they write the book, it's all different. As long as it's good, there's usually no problem. When the sculptor asked how I created a book, what my preparation p...

Our most effective stories are often those which achieve the illusion of hidden ‘depth’. The reader glimpses a world, multi-dimensional, behind the story. So the tale appears real. We can conjure this effect of smoke and mirrors in many ways. Perhaps we set the tale, wholly fictional, in a real location and cram it with authentic detail. In Colin Dexter’s Inspector Morse stories - set in Oxford, England - the reader can sit on the actual chair at the Turf Tavern where the characters - and Morse himself - once sat. The chair is real. So the story must be too... Or we interweave the story with genuine events, as witness Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night . Or we present our story, wickedly, as non-fiction. Paul Kavanagh’s thriller Such Men Are Dangerous was accepted by many readers as the dramatised autobiography of a real CIA agent, until it was exposed as a publisher’s hoax. Defoe’s chilling A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) was widely believed at the time to be an eye-witne...

Photo by Will Scullin Did you ever consider the correlation between building a house and writing a book? This year, we’ll explore those similarities, one each month, taking the book-writing process from blueprint through construction to sale. Beginning writers, I invite your questions and comments. Contractors (published writers) and subs (editors, proofreaders, book and cover designers, marketers, etc.), I invite you to share your expertise. We’ll explore the writing process from the first budding idea to the marketing of a published book, perhaps even diagramming a few sentences. Does anybody remember doing that in high school English? Our topics will include • Drawing the blueprint – creating outlines and character sketches, • Excavating – researching (essential for fiction, too) • Pouring the foundation – solidifying theme, • Laying the subfloor – determining timelines, • Framing walls – structuring story, • Constructing trusses – writing effective sentence...

This post first ran here on January 1, 2009. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For the last two days, I’ve been filling in the details of my outline, working out the timeline, and crafting a sizzling ending that brings it all together. I’m already 50 pages into writing Thrilled to Death , and it felt like to time to solidify some plot points. I know many writers don’t do this; they prefer to wing it and see where the story takes them. ( Stephen King , for example) I rather envy that style. But I write complex mystery/suspense novels, and the outline/timeline has become more critical with each novel. In a police procedural, so much happens in the first few days of a murder investigation that a timeline is essential. For complex, parallel plots with multiple points of view, mapping the story in detail is the best way to avoid writing yourself into a dead end or writing 48 hours worth of activity into a 10-hour time frame. I speak from experience. Then yesterday for the first time, I put in writing...

Today I'm pleased to turn the Blood Red Pencil over to Martha Alderson , a writing coach who has a series of books and workbooks to help writers at all stages of their writing careers. I'm intrigued by your title, Plot Whisperer. How did you come up with the idea to call yourself that? The short version is that, years ago, when I first started teaching plot, writers called me the Plot Queen. I never really liked that title, so, when it came time to start a blog, I surveyed friends and family and writers for ideas on what to name the blog. Because the blog is based on plot consultations with writers, someone came up with Plot Whisperer. The name stuck. I'm familiar with a horse whisperer or a dog whisperer. I'm trying to see how their techniques apply to your program. Do you encourage writers to "stare down their plot?" (Smile) Great idea! I’ll have to try that. During a plot consultation, writers recount the scenes and events, ideas and vis...

To find this intersection the title alludes to, we need to think about the longevity and depth of a story: its horizontal and vertical roads. While editing a client’s manuscript, I began thinking about the two roads and how important it is for writers to travel down both in order to develop their stories. Horizontal Road , in its basic sense, is the plot. It's what happens in the story. It's the making sure that all the pieces of the story are told so that the story makes sense from beginning to end. It doesn’t mean you have to follow a chronological, literally first thing first and last thing last, progression, but you want to make sure you leave no gaping holes. Vertical Road is the depth of the story. It could be development of characters, development of setting—those things that connect readers, endear them to characters, to place and therefore make them invested in the horizontal road they travel while reading the story. As you plunge into editing your work, think a...

Thanks so much, Susan, for giving us something to consider with our writing. PLOT VS STORYLINE What makes for an effective plot?  How do you keep a tale moving? Plots are really the simple part. The difficulty comes in the telling—creating the story effectively and believably, with the right cadence pulling all of the elements together.  You can outline any book out there (including your own) by simply jotting down what happens in each chapter.  But is that the plot?  Or the storyline? The plot is the gist, the point, and part of the theme of the book.  And the storyline is how you get from point A to point Z.  I.e., the plot is the entire forest, and the storyline, the trees.  Both organization and structure come into play here as well, the organization being the road map that the structure bolsters up. So, once you have your plot clear in your own head—boy finds girl; boy falls in love with girl; girl dumps boy; boy spends rest of the novel...

There are many pieces of writerly advice. One I read warned Don't Fill Your Plot Holes with Dragons  and made excellent points about realistic and unrealistic ways to deal with plot holes. Just for fun, though, think of the advantages of using dragons. Your character needs to be in a different location.  Don't worry about climbing into a car or taking a train. Call a dragon. Your main character is in danger with no way out.  After cursing at yourself for writing yourself into a corner, remember your friendly dragon. Let him appear and scare the skin off of whatever is imperiling your character. It's a cold night and your character is freezing.  Hello, dragon! A bit of fire, if you please. Problem solved. Your character has a deep secret, which you alluded to many times, but never actually figured out what it is.  Solution? He has a pet dragon. The dialogue drags . Talk about the dragon. You discover your main character is, in fact, rather hum-drum . No o...

Once again, Terry Odell is here to share some tips on writing. We like her so much we are going to let her keep coming back. Thanks, Terry. Even though we write fiction, it has to come across as reality. One technique I use to make sure things seem “real” is to ask myself WHY a character would do or say something. If the answer is "Because I need it for tension/conflict/humor/plot advancement," it's probably wrong. When I was writing DANGER IN DEER RIDGE, the first major error I spotted in my opening draft was having the hero appear while the heroine was looking in her car's trunk for her tool kit. WHY didn't she hear him drive up? Well, he left his truck at the top of the drive, and she was busy looking for the toolkit. But WHY did he park the truck there? WHY did he come down without a toolkit of his own? So she could be surprised and scared is contrived and cheating. All these WHY questions require answers. Answering all the WHY questions drives the story...

I admit I can't write very well without some sort of a plan. But I don't use an outline. I use a mind map . I first learned the technique from a Tony Buzan handout in a corporate training course decades ago. I've used the technique ever since, for taking notes, making a shopping list, planning a story. There is a ton of information online about mind maps and mind mapping programs for computers. Me? I prefer drawing them by hand because I'm a doodler, and in my finer moments, I even use assorted colors. I find it gives me the bones, but still allows me plenty of seat-of-the-pants opportunities. (Example below not mine. Isn't it beautiful?) How about you? Have you tried plotting this way? How are you preparing for NaNoWriMo ? Are you a plotter or a pantser? Leave us a comment! ~~~~ Dani Greer is plotting a number of different projects this week and has a mind map for each one.