We're in the home stretch of pre-planning, dear writers and readers! In our series so far, we've looked at characters and character arcs, loglines, setting, plot structure, and theme. Hopefully you've got lots of notes, full of little gems of insight into different facets of your story. Now what? How do we pull it all … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: Outlines – Pulling It all Together
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Novel Writing 101: Theme–Unlocking the Heart of Your Story
This week's topic may seem like a throwback to high school English class--how many of us struggled to come up with 5-7 pages explaining the theme of some book we barely understood? But I'm happy to report that the idea of "theme" isn't nearly as confusing as your English class may have led you to … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: Theme–Unlocking the Heart of Your Story
Novel Writing 101: Ingredients for Character Arc Soup
Hello, friends! Do any of you like cooking? Or perhaps just watching other people cook on TV shows? (Iron Chef, anyone?) I'm more of a baker myself, but the concepts are the same. Whatever you're making isn't going to come out very well without adding the right ingredients in the proper order. Last time we … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: Ingredients for Character Arc Soup
Novel Writing 101: How to Give Your Story Bones
Hey, friends! How is the story building going so far? Have you made some great progress on creating your story's world? So far we've touched on creating characters with goals, worldbuilding, and creating a plot sentence. Today we're going to dive deeper into story structure, an essential part of fleshing out your plot and giving … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: How to Give Your Story Bones
Novel Writing 101: Bringing the Setting to Life
So far in this series, we've talked about characters and their story goals. We've established a plot sentence or logline summarizing the basics of our stories. In our loglines, we included a short phrase for the story's setting. Today we're going to dig deeper into exactly how to construct that world where the action happens. … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: Bringing the Setting to Life
Five Courses of the Rough Draft: Are You Hungry Yet? A Guest Post by Laura L. Zimmerman
Welcome to summer, dear friends! Are you savoring the return of longer days and sunshine? Today I have a special treat for you - a guest post written by fabulous MG/ YA writer and homeschool mom, Laura L. Zimmerman. And since we've been working in this series on putting together all the pieces to write … Continue reading Five Courses of the Rough Draft: Are You Hungry Yet? A Guest Post by Laura L. Zimmerman
Novel Writing 101: Creating a Target with a Plot Sentence
Hello again, friends! I'm very excited to tackle today's topic, because my own lack of knowledge in this area caused my early writing efforts to flounder. I spent months writing and rewriting my stories, but felt like they were never quite hitting the target I wanted. Probably (duh!), because I had never created the target … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: Creating a Target with a Plot Sentence
Novel Writing 101: A Great Story Starts with the Characters
Think about some of your favorite books. What is it that drew you into the story the first time? Maybe it was a cool idea (dinosaurs! time travel!) or an exotic setting (space stations! Middle Earth!). Or maybe you were lured in by the art on the cover. But whatever caused you to pick it … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: A Great Story Starts with the Characters
Novel Writing 101: So You Want to Write a Book?
Have you ever had the dream of writing a book? Maybe, thinking to yourself something like this? "I'm going to write a novel this year. This time, I'm really going to do it." A surprising number of people have tossed around this idea before, or included it on their bucket list for lifetime goals. Maybe you're … Continue reading Novel Writing 101: So You Want to Write a Book?
Meet a WIP: “Flashback”
For this post, I thought I'd take a break from our regular writing topics to introduce you to one of my stories. (For those of you aren't writers, WIP means "Work In Progress.") Flashback is an Inspirational Romantic Suspense of about 60,000 words and my first completed novel. I wrote the first draft several years … Continue reading Meet a WIP: “Flashback”
Kellie Michelle Parker 