Archive:
The Writing Craft
To make your reader feel they can’t put down your novel, make sure everything your main character does to get out of his terrible trouble makes it only progressively worse, until everything appears hopeless. Such obstacles and failures making things worse — with the emphasis on progressively — is the very definition of Rising Action. […]
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Guest post by Becca Puglisi When it comes to story conflict, there are so many options to choose from. Power struggles, physical threats, moral dilemmas, failures, ticking clocks — they’re all great for ratcheting up tension, building reader empathy, and strengthening our plotlines. But the conflict we face most often as human beings — the […]
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A successful novel must feature an event, known as the inciting incident, that irreversibly ignites the story. The stronger your inciting incident, the more dramatic, compelling, and engrossing your novel. A weak or nonexistent inciting incident means no reason for your main character to become heroic, or for readers to keep turning pages. What is […]
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Publishing a children’s book in today’s extremely competitive market can be tough. And because most such books require four-color illustrations, they are also the most expensive to print — though most publishers have this done overseas. You might think it’s easier to write children’s books because they’re shorter than adult novels. Well, they might not […]
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You have a great idea and you want to start writing a book. You love to write. You’re told you have a way with words. Your friends and family might even be encouraging you to write. But you struggle with: How to begin How to start fleshing out your ideas How to know whether the […]
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