I am at the tail end of a One Story course on self-editing your short stories. I’ve taken the material presented and some items from the discussion threads and turned them into a kind of checklist of things to look for when editing your fictional works. You can find the like to a PDF of […]
Write Minded
Lost and Found and the Story Spine
Today I started work on the second draft of my first novel. The first task I’ve decided to undertake is to review and revise the plot structure. Recently I took a little course offered by the fine folks at One Story. Ann Napolitano did a five day course entitled “Lost and Found: A New Way […]
Hero’s Journey in Three Act Structure
I’ve was recently reading Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, and he has a nice outline of The Hero’s Journey, or Mythic Structure in a Three Act format, which I paraphrase here: Act I Introduction to hero and his world Disturbance that interrupts the hero’s routine and/or a “call to adventure” The hero may […]
Their Ways
This page documents some things I found while reading other peoples’ works that I think stood out as lessons in greatness or lessons in mistakes. I only cite authors if I quote them verbatim and if it’s not so bad it might embarrass them :-O Errors of Their Ways I read a short story in […]
Character Discovery Scenarios
Sometimes it is helpful to see how your character would handle being in different situations to get a better idea of who he/she is. Here are a few samples: Set your character up on a blind date How does he/she react to the idea? What does he/she do to prepare? What happens on the date? […]
Questions To Ask Your Character
Sometimes I talk to my characters. Here are some questions that you can ask your character to get the conversation going and discover more about him/her: Questions for your character How do you feel about that? Why did you do that? What interests you about that? When did that develop in you? Where were you […]
Character Development Template
Here is a template, in the form of a set of questions, for understanding a character when you first meet him/her. At the bottom I’ve linked to the sources for a few of the questions and references to some resources on this topic. Basics Full name: Species: Age: How old is he? (And how […]
Writing Tips/Pointers/Reminders
Here are some tips, pointers, and reminders I find useful to keep close while writing. I put them here in the hopes that at least one will be helpful to you …. This page changes at the drop of a hat as I find something useful to add, and I just add the new content […]
Write Minded
Here I’m going to drop links to helpful pointers, tips, lessons, and tools for better writing that I have learned or picked up here and there and along the way of whatever way I am on. Since most of my writing is fiction and poetry, these are focused primarily on those genres. I’m always interested […]