“Turning point: The point at which a decisive change takes place.” – Oxford American Dictionary Some while ago, I got about a half-page of questions on turning points from someone who was writing an article on the subject. They were an odd mix of the sort of
Read more →The second deadly Chapter One problem that was mentioned in the article that started me off on this series was “The action is weak or meaningless.” This is obviously a problem, but simply saying “Make it strong and meaningful instead” doesn’t tell you much about how to
Read more →There are a myriad of books out there on how to construct a plot. Most of them, so far as I can tell, seem to take one of two approaches: either they focus on the main character as the driver of the plot, or they focus on
Read more →OK, since there seems to be yet more interest in plot planning and prewriting and how to do it, you get still more posts on the subject. This one is on alternate ways of doing plot-related planning; next one will be on the kind of outline you
Read more →So we come to why I have been thinking about plot shapes for the past week. It started with an article on the traditional triangle plot that mentioned in passing that there were other possibilities, but didn’t give them much consideration beyond that. Naturally, this got me
Read more →I’m sure all of you have been waiting for the e-book with baited breath. Wrede on Writing goes live tomorrow, December 4th. It’s the first time I’ve had THREE sets of galleys to look over (epub, mobi, and the pdf that they’re using for the hardcopy version).
Read more →The traditional plot shape I discussed last time is vaguely triangular; it starts at a beginning, tension rises as the protagonist faces and overcomes (or doesn’t) a series of obstacles, until things reach a peak at the climax or turning point; after that, it’s all downhill until
Read more →When I was in school, back in the Jurassic, I was taught the basic plot structure and its variations: beginning, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action. The chart that went along with it looked something like this: For years and years, I thought this was
Read more →The first time I heard an editor talk about character-based plotting, it made me think I was doing something wrong. (This was around 25 years ago, mind.) “Your characters have to want something, and want it badly,” he said. “That’s where you start. All the best plots
Read more →Sometimes it seems that there are a zillion different metaphors for how writers construct a plot. There’s the sculpture metaphor (carve away everything that doesn’t look like an elephant). There’s the pottery-making metaphor (add a lump of clay, work it until you have the center, then shape
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