You are reading along, a scene ends a new one begins and... Wait... Where am I? Who am I with? WHAT IS HAPPENING? I'm lost... Have you ever had this experience? If so, that writer was guilty of not setting the scene in their story or as I sometimes call it, not...
Beats in Fiction Writing? Honestly, beats isn't a term I use a lot, but it is a term I hear a lot, so I thought it would be good to define what beats in fiction are and why they matter. Beats in Fiction Writing Defined According to Sandra Scofield in her book, The...
So far in our discussion of how to write a scene, we've talked about what scene is, both as many think of it and as Dwight Swain defines it in Techniques of the Selling Writer. We've also gone over the importance of sequel and showing your characters motivation. Today...
Transition words and phrases. As writers, we spend a lot of time talking about plot, character, setting, and description. We learn how to put all of those together into scenes and how to show character motivation with sequel. But then when it comes time to stitch it...
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...
All stories (books and screenplays) have information that needs to be told. Often it is boring information. Too often writers solve this with a big old info dump that no one wants to read. Should you just leave the information out? Maybe. Often the reader doesn't need...
How to end a chapter? What's the big deal? When everything is all tied up, you move on, right? No. In fact, everything shouldn't be "all tied up" until the very end. In the body of your story, there should never be a place where everything is 100% good. Sure, the...
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,...
