Endings are the point at which whatever changed in the protagonist’s life at the beginning has been resolved, and the story is over. Endings give many writers almost as much trouble as beginnings or middles (though often it’s not the same writers), though for different reasons. The
Read more →Every story that’s complete has a beginning, a middle, and an end. They may not be written or presented in that order; one or more elements may be implied rather than stated, or left out entirely; but the story has them. Middles are the hard part for
Read more →A new year means a new beginning for many people, and it presents an irresistible opportunity for me to talk about beginning a story, even if most of you are probably in the middle of something at the moment. The first question that comes to mind is
Read more →The holiday season is always a bit tricky when it comes to blog posts. I generally take the week off between Christmas and New Years, so next week will be another Open Mic, available for whatever people want to discuss (or just for exchanging holiday wishes). I’ll
Read more →This is the post about different types of climaxes that I mentioned last week. It’s closely related to reverse planning—or any kind of story planning, really—because how you plan or outline a story (if you work that way) depends a lot on what kind of climax you
Read more →This is Part II of me trying to answer LM’s query, specifically the part about backward planning—that is, starting with a climax scene and working out the plot backwards from that. I had a whole other post written, then realized that I had gotten distracted talking about
Read more →LM requested a post on “speeding up a novel planning process re: structure, etc.” This one is probably going to be another series, because I have a lot to chew on here, including backwards planning and gardening/explorer planning vs. the more commonly advised three-act-structure planning. First off,
Read more →Deep Lurker’s request was second, for a post “on ways to depict events spread over several months.” If someone has been writing stories that take place over a couple of days or weeks, being faced with a story that takes place over a year or more can
Read more →Well, based on the comments in last week’s Open Mic, it looks like I’m going to be talking about structure and endings for a while. Rowan M got in first, with a request for a post about length—specifically, how you tell how long a story will be
Read more →OK, day after Halloween, but it’s still closer to it than it’s been before. Talk among yourselves, ask questions for me to blather on about next week, whatever you like. I’m back from the current round of New Book Publicity and head down in trying to get
Read more →
