Article Three in How to Write a Scene - Show Motivation with Sequel by Lori Devoti, a How To Write Fiction Series. Sequel Defined: (Swain, Techniques of the Selling Writer) “A sequel is a unit of transition that links two scenes....It sets forth your focal...
Article Two in How to Write a Scene, Scene Structure: Goal, Conflict, Disaster by Lori Devoti, a How To Write Fiction Series. Goal, Conflict, Disaster is the basic scene structure of every good scene and yes, this means every scene should have these three elements,...
Article One in How to Write a Scene, Scenes in Fiction by Lori Devoti, a How To Write Fiction Series. When I first started writing I sat through a number of workshops where multi-published NY Times-best-selling authors would spout what are and aren't scenes in...
Twenty Five questions to ask a literary agent may seem like a lot. Afterall, there are a lot of great, reputable agents out there but there are also a lot of not so great and not so reputable ones. Even more important to realize is that even if you find a great,...
What makes a book or movie special...makes it stick with you long after the cover is closed and the final credits have rolled? The special effects? The car chase? The slapstick comedy? Maybe for a while, but stories that really have lasting power contain one thing,...
There was a time when I would have argued titles don’t sell books. I would have been wrong. Now there is good reason behind my previous thinking. More often than not I don’t remember the actual title to the last book I read. I remember characters or plot or author,...
A friend of mine, Intrigue author Ann Voss Peterson, has a mantra concerning books and the main characters’ goals and motivations. It needs to be personal and it needs to be important, very important at least to the character—to the world is even better. (but that...
This may seem like a strange question, but it is one I encounter a lot. Maybe not in the actual question form, but from people who think they know the answer and oh so obviously don't. In fact, even writers who say they write romance don't always know what makes a...
Last weekend I was on a panel at OddCon titled People and Animals. It's a pretty wide topic and the conversation varied a lot, but one thing that came up (Okay, I think I brought it up...) were tricksters. I love tricksters. For those of you who aren't familiar with...
