Once you have the overarching plot points of your story, the next task becomes placing your protagonist into the novel and writing the beats, otherwise known as the individual interactions, conflicts, and choices he or she will make throughout the rest of the journey. At this point, many writers decide to sit down at their computer and start drafting the novel… Read more →
We’ve entered the home stretch. We’ve done our job admirably. Our audience has bonded to our characters, we know the answer to the story question, and our protagonist (or every so often our antagonist) has come through the climax the victor in his/her struggle for his goal, or at least part of it. Now comes the Epilogue, defined aptly as… Read more →
Jim Butcher sums it up nicely. “Everything you did in your book leads up to this. Deliver on the climax or die as a writer. Simple as that.” So essentially, no pressure. Climaxes of a story are the natural conclusion, the culmination of all the work a writer has done up to this point. The story question gives the novel… Read more →
For a long time, I assumed the antagonist of every story needed to have a maniacal mustache and some type of British styled bowler hat (or at least kept one tucked away in their broom closet). He or she needed to be plotting to take over the world, or sucking the fun out of a high school’s last dance, or… Read more →
The second story I started working on had potential. It existed in the fantastical world of Antheia, where shadow beasts fought against the Shama-Yeem, the people of substance and light. There were cool powers and a city built on among the petal’s of a giant flower. It had epic battles, mystic abilities, and even a snarky, talking lizard. A… Read more →
If the story question is the known, external path a plot takes (you find it on the back-flap of most books or the movie’s summary on IMDB), than the Controlling Idea of the story is the unspoken but ever present truth of the journey. When a writer sits down to tell his or her tale, they are essentially making a… Read more →
The vast majority of western storytelling (and the only type of story I feel any right to comment on) revolves around a central plot, or said another way, the Story Question. Introduced during the inciting incident (more on this plot device later), the Story Question boils down to a fairly simple formula, When x happens to the protagonist, then he/she… Read more →