Balance
Balance: each and every piece you write must have a
balanced portion of narrative, description, and dialogue
Characterization and Dialogue
Good characterization and dialogue go hand in hand.
Control Dramas
Darth Vader or Sponge Bob
Different Traits of Character Types
Define Your Audience
Dr. Susus or War and Peace
Who Are You Writing Your Story For?
Editing Symbols
What Do These Horrible Red Marks
On My Perfect Manuscript Mean
Editors
Why They’re Important.
Why They’re Necessary.
Why You Need One.
How Set Up Readability Scores
Data Or Jack O’Neill
At What Level Is Your Story
“How To Write Successful Dialogue”
“Yesterday I couldn’t spell engineer, today I are one.”
Writing dialogue is just as simple as writing the way people speak, right? Actually, no.
Readability Tracker
What do you mean it needs work?
My mother loves it!
Punctuation Dictionary
“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.“
A misplaced comma changes the meaning of the whole sentence
Scene and Structure
What is a scene? Scenes are the building blocks of your story. They’re mini-stories that make up one larger story. Each scene has a beginning, middle, and end, and centers on one event, action, or situation.
Scene. Character Outline
The four-act structure divides a story into four major parts: the setup, the rising action, the crisis, and the resolution. It’s a modified form of the three-act structure, which lumps the rising action and the crisis together in a hefty second act; the four-act structure separates the two.
Show Don’t Tell
“Don’t Tell Me the Moon Is Shining;
Show Me the Glint of Light on Broken Glass.”
Anton Chekhov. Apocryphal.
The 4 Arc System
Think of your novel as having four parts, roughly 70 to 80 pages each in length (based on a total length of 300 pages; longer books have longer arcs). Each of these parts has a distinct purpose in telling your story.
The Seven Basic Plots
Those seven plots are:
1.Overcoming the Monster, 2.Rags to Riches,
3.The Quest, 4.Voyage and Return,
5.Rebirth, 6.Comedy
7.Tragedy.
The Storyboard
Oh, my gosh, not another storyboard. They make my head hurt!
Writing in Viewpoint
If there is one single reason why most new writers are unable
to publish, it is because they do not understand viewpoint (POV).