Heidi Main's Blog, page 3

Top 26 Life Skills Teens Need Before Leaving Home

A friend recently asked for a list of things others thought a teen needed to know before they left the house. That got me thinking. There are a bunch of items that most of us have on our radar:

cook (simple things like boxed mac & cheese, grilled cheese)cook mealsbake from a boxbake from scratchshop at a grocery storemenu planningclean a bathroomclean a housepaint a roomhang a pictureuse an ATM cardmake deposits/withdrawals at the bankcomplete transactions at a grocery storereturn ...

Goal, Motivation, and Conflict

Recently I brainstormed a new novel specifically using GMC (goal, motivation, and conflict). I won’t go over GMC here because Debra Dixon’s GMC book is simply perfect. I will clarify a few key points though that helped when I plotted my latest novel:

Goal: should be very obvious to the reader

Motivation: must be larger than life

Conflict: what keeps her from reaching her goal?

Keep in mind that the GOAL is the vehicle that keeps your story moving forward.

When you are done with the GMC charts, y...

Crafting Turning Points or Disasters

Donald Maass states in his Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook that “A turning point in a story is the point at which things change.” Susan May Warren refers to this change in her Deep and Wide craft book as a series of disappointments (actually, each D gets more dire: disappointment, disaster, destruction, devastation.)

So, turning points or disappointments move your story forward with conflict. Each character has four to five turning points or disasters during the course of the story.

Turning ...