structure

Quick Link: How I Wrote Two Full-Length Novels in 18 Months

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

Over at Lifehacker Nicole Dieker, who is obviously not a pantser, shares how she was able to successfully write two novels in 18 months.  She has some great tips for you to check out and see if anything is useful to you.

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How I Wrote Two Full-Length Novels in 18 Months

by Nicole Dieker

My debut novel, The Biographies of Ordinary People: Volume 1: 1989–2000, releases on May 23, 2017. The sequel, which covers the years 2004–2016, is scheduled to release in the first half of 2018.

I wrote the first chapter of Vol. 1 during the last week of July 2015. I wrote the last chapter of Vol. 2 during the last week of December 2016. Two full-length novels—roughly 90,000 words each—drafted over eighteen months, plus I was revising Vol. 1 while I was drafting Vol. 2.

If you’ve dreamed of writing your own novel(s) but haven’t yet written anything besides the first two chapters—and trust me, I’ve been there—you’re probably wondering how I got it all done, in addition to my everyday workload and all of the other stuff that goes into a life.

Some of it has to do with experience. I was able to write The Biographies of Ordinary People in part because I had already written hundreds of blog posts, online articles, and short fiction.

But a lot of it came down to structure and planning.

Read the full post on Lifehacker

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

What Are Pinch Points? And How Can They Make Your Book Easier to Write?

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This post by K.M. Weiland originally appeared on her Helping Writers Become Authors site on 3/29/15.

You may have heard of these little darlings called “Pinch Points.” Of all the important structural moments in your story, they’re the most likely to be neglected. They get lost amidst all the excited chatter about their bigger, flashier brethren: the Plot Points. But Pinch Points–two of them, both occurring in the Second Act–are crucial to your story’s structure.

I realized I’ve never written a proper post on Pinch Points, so today I figure it’s time to remedy that. After all, there is a lot of confusion swirling around the subject.

What are Pinch Points?

How do they compare to Plot Points?

Where do they belong in the story?

What do they do?

And what happens when you neglect them?

Let’s find out!

 

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors.

 

The Secrets of Story Structure (Complete Series)

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This post by K.M. Weiland originally appeared on her Helping Writers Become Authors site. Note that while it references K.M. Weiland’s book based on her Story Structure blog series, after you click through to view the full post you’ll find links to her original blog posts in the series there.

If there’s just one thing that matters to your success as a writer it’s story structure. Story structure is what allows authors to create stories that work every single time. Story structure is what allows you to quickly diagnose and remedy plot problems.

The fear that story structure is formulaic and difficult couldn’t be farther from the truth. Story structure changed my life. The moment the foundational principles of this all-important technique clicked into place for me was the moment I came of age as a writer. Now it’s your turn!

In the Secrets of Story Structure series (which is the basis for my award-winning book Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys to Writing an Outstanding Story and its companion Structuring Your Novel Workbook), you’ll learn

  • Why structure is make-or-break territory for every novel
  • How to implement a strong three-act structure
  • How to bring your story to life
  • How to ensure your story built to have the greatest possible impact on readers.

 

Read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors.

 

Selling LOTS of Books and Why Bright Ideas Can Go BADLY

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This post by Kristen Lamb originally appeared on her blog on 6/19/14.

Writers must understand structure if they hope to be successful. Yes, it might take five years to finish the first novel, but if we land a three book deal, we don’t have 15 years to turn in our books. And the key to making money at this writing thing is we have to be able to write books…the more the better. If we can write GREAT books quickly? WINNING!

Understanding structure helps us become faster, cleaner, better writers.

Plotters tend to do better with structure, but even pantsers (those writers who write by the seat of their pants) NEED to understand structure or revisions will be HELL. Structure is one of those boring topics like finance or taxes. It isn’t nearly as glamorous as creating characters or reading about ways to unleash our creative energy.

Structure is probably one of the most overlooked topics, and yet it is the most critical. Why? Because structure is for the reader. The farther an author deviates from structure, the less likely the story will connect to a reader.

As an editor, I can tell in five minutes if an author understands narrative structure. Seriously.

Oh and I can hear the moaning and great gnashing of teeth. Trust me, I hear ya.

Structure can be tough to wrap your mind around and, to be blunt, most new writers don’t understand it. They rely on wordsmithery and hope they can bluff past people like me with their glorious prose. Yeah, no. Prose isn’t plot. We have to understand plot. That’s why I make learning this stuff simple, easy and best of all FUN.

 

Click here to read the full post on Kristen Lamb’s blog.

 

Because Size Matters: McKee’s Four Tips on Writing a Big Story

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This post by Jan O’Hara originally appeared on Writer Unboxed on 6/16/14.

You know how certain types of feedback get under your skin like road rash, so that months or years later the grit is still working its way to the surface? Well, eons ago, as she contemplated a novel I’d set in my province, a critique partner sent me metaphorically skidding on the asphalt in a pair of Daisy Dukes.

The comment she dropped  which I found so distressing? “I think this would appeal to readers outside of Canada.” (Meaning, as I took it, that my beloved story wasn’t sufficiently big or universal to warrant a larger audience.)*

If you’ve had similar concerns about your fiction, today’s post might help. It’s a summary of four techniques advocated by Robert McKee in his seminar on Story which, when employed individually or collectively, promise to give your fiction a sense of expansiveness. While you’ve likely encountered the first three in one venue or another, it’s the fourth which lit up my neurons and where I’ll focus the bulk of this article. (If you’ve missed my former McKee Morsels, you can read them here and here.)

 

1. Take the Story Conflict Wide

In this circumstance, what is the worst thing that could happen to my character?

Writers are encouraged to use the above question when brainstorming progressive complications for their story. If attempting to go wide, then, while the story might begin at the level of personal or interpersonal  conflict, the “worst” ripples outward to affect the larger world, including societies and institutions, possibly even nations or worlds.

 

Click here to read the full post on Writer Unboxed.

 

Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 1: Can You Structure Characters?

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This post by K.M. Weiland originally appeared on her Helping Writers Become Authors site on 2/9/14.

What if there were a sure-fire secret to creating stunning character arcs? Would you be interested in discovering it? If you care about connecting with readers, grabbing hold of their emotions, and creating stories that will resonate with them on a level deeper than mere entertainment, then the answer has to be a resounding yes!

But here’s the thing about character arcs: they’re way too easy to take for granted. On the surface, character arcs seem to boil down to nothing more than a simple three-step process:

1. The protagonist starts one way.

2. The protagonist learns some lessons throughout the story.

3. The protagonist ends in a (probably) better place.

That’s character arc in a nutshell. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. What’s to learn?

Turns out: a lot.

 

The Link Between Character Arcs and Story Structure

Too often, character and plot are viewed as separate entities—to the point that we often pit them against each other, trying to determine which is more important. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Plot and character are integral to one other. Remove either one from the equation, or even just try to approach them as if they were independent of one another, and you risk creating a story that may have awesome parts, but which will not be an awesome whole.

 

Click here to read the full post on Helping Writers Become Authors.

Also see this follow-up post: Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 2: The Lie Your Character Believes