Plotting a book scares a lot of authors. Developing characters and planning a book outline intimidates a lot of writers as well. But, honestly, none of these things are scary. They're fun. Really. The key to plotting a book, or planning a book outline, if that is how...
Plotting
Plotting with The Hero’s Journey
There are many, many ways to plot a book. But, quite honestly, almost all of them... okay the good ones... all tie back in some way to The Hero's Journey. They may use different names for the steps or plot points. They may not ask you to come up with as many steps or...
What is The Hero’s Journey?
What is The Hero's Journey? It depends on who you ask. To a writer, it's a plotting method. To fans of mythology and folklore, it's a narrative pattern that human storytellers have followed since we had human storytellers. Which brings us back to why writers use it...
How to Plot a Book – The W Plot
One of the most frequent questions I get is "How do I plot a book?" The answer, honestly, is that there are tons of different ways successful writers plot (or don't plot) books. Personally, I am a strong believer in having some kind of a plot to guide you before you...
How to Write a Book: 8 Steps
How to Write a Book or "How do I write a book?" is the most basic and yet the most complicated question I get from other writers. For fun, I plugged this question into Google and got some really bad advice. Like starting with the names of each chapter. Maybe that...
Plotting: The Inciting Incident
When plotting your book the scene you probably know immediately is the Inciting Incident. It's the event that kicks off all of the action in your book. The Inciting Incident is what pushes your character to make some choice or embark on some journey that is the main...
Plotting: The Ordinary World, Should Your Story Include it?
If you are familiar with most of the common plot structures for fiction, both for novelists and screenwriters, you have heard the term Ordinary World. Even if you aren't familiar with these plotting structures, the term kind of gives it away. The Ordinary World is the...
Writing Romance? 5 Scenes Every Romance Novel Needs
Considering writing romance novels? Romance is one of the top selling genres in fiction and has been for a very long time. Romance gets a bad rap and when you say you are writing romance, you may get a superior look or two. Shake it off. These people know nothing...
How to Write a Romance
How to write a romance? Contrary to what some people seem to think, writing a romance is no easier than writing any other type of book. In fact, if writing romance and relationships doesn’t come naturally to you, it may be harder than writing any other type of book....