Sean Platt's Blog, page 10

Sterling & Stone Announces: New “Core Curriculum” Series with Story Guru Bonnie Johnston

While we mostly keep Bonnie locked away in our story vaults, buried in outlines and drafts, Sterling & Stone is thrilled to announce that we’re sharing her story wisdom with the world in the upcoming Core Curriculum series, expected to launch in Q4 2021. These books are a collection of everything Bonnie has learned in…

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How To Write A Great Book Review

If you’re reading this article, I’m going to guess you’re a book lover. 

Few people even think about book reviews if they don’t seriously love reading books. Whether you are the voracious and gluttonous reader who finds themselves with Kindle queues a mile long, audible apps stuffed with titles, and a nightstand overflowing with hardbacks all fighting for your attention every day or the kind of reader who insists on reading a single book start to finish before starting another, it is likely that you also read at least a few book reviews.

Many avid readers are eager to share their deep love of books with others. How often do you get to the last page of a fantastic book and immediately want to tell everyone you know all about it? Do you gush to friends and family about how great it was and give them all the reasons why they should read it too?

How many books have you read solely because someone you trust and like recommends them to you? For me personally, this number is very high.

Writing book reviews is a great way to spread your love of books and your favorite authors, not only to those you already know but to the rest of the world as well. Rather than needing to tell each person what you thought of the book individually, you can send them a link to your review so they can read it for themselves. It can also establish you as a writer of quality reviews which can help you in a number of ways. Perhaps you want to become a paid book reviewer for a particular site. A portfolio of excellently written reviews will help. Or even if you just want to be recognized by friends and family on Goodreads and Amazon for having exceptional taste in books, this is a great way to do it too.

If you aren’t sure quite how to go about writing a great book review, here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Hook Your Reader With a Rocking Title

On platforms like Amazon, some reviewers skip-over writing titles for their reviews entirely, but this is a mistake. If you want people to read your review, you need to entice them with a title that stands out from the rest and makes them click on the “read more” button so they can see the entire piece.

One way to do this is to just get straight to the point. Here is an example of a book review with a title that tells you exactly what the book did for them.

“The first book to get me excited about dictation” is the title and here is the rest of the review:

“I read a LOT of books on the craft of writing. Numerous others have mentioned dictation as a means to “write” faster, but none have made it sound like anything I wanted to attempt. The thought of having to speak punctuation was enough for me to throw my hands in the air, never to try such lunacy.

Then came along THIS book! Not only did Sean convince me that dictation was something I COULD do, he made it sound so appealing that I actually wanted to give it a try. (Actually, I was so excited, I stayed up past my bedtime to finish the book, which I only intended to read the intro.)

He compares dictation to learning to drive, and it’s such a great analogy. At first, it’s awkward and you have to think about every little thing. But with training and practice, it can become as natural as getting in the driver’s seat and heading for your destination when you know what you’re doing.

The best part of this book is that he breaks down the learning into bite-sized chunks. The exercises at the end of the book are perfect. Not overwhelming, and I appreciate that they start small and build up. I’m not at the point of dictating my books YET, but soon I will. And I can’t wait!

Even if you’re unsure about dictation (and maybe ESPECIALLY if you’re unsure) pick up this book and see if you don’t end up as excited as me.”

Often the title of a book review includes the title of the book itself, but you can make a play on words with the title of the book or give your immediate emotional reaction in your title. What’s the first thing you’d say to someone you know who would probably love this book if they gave it a chance, but might not read it if you don’t make it sound interesting enough?

Try something like: 

“FINALLY! A book about dictation that actually has me excited about the process and not just its potential.”

2. Make it Personal

Book reviews aren’t supposed to be book reports. Don’t just give a detached outline or cliff notes version of what happened. This is all about your personal opinion. People want to know what you loved or hated, what you thought worked or didn’t work. So, state your opinion upfront.

Use your own voice to write the review. It doesn’t have to sound like a professor wrote it, and shouldn’t. Be casual and conversational. On platforms such as Goodreads, Bookish, and Amazon, readers follow specific reviewers because they love their personal insight. 

Think about who might follow your reviews. What will they get out of following you? What would you tell your best friend, or your mom if that’s who you would recommend this book to? If you gave the book 5 out of 5 stars, explain why. If you wanted to give it half a star more or less but the platform doesn’t let you, you can explain that too.

Here is an example of an excellent review that’s written very much in the reviewer’s own personal voice of a book that most of us are familiar with from our high school reading list, George Orwell’s 1984. Notice how it draws you in and makes you feel like you’re sitting across a table in a coffee shop with a good friend excitedly gushing about a new favorite book she just read telling you all the reasons you have to read it too. 

This review is on the long side so I will only quote a few paragraphs here, but you can read the entire piece here.

“YOU. ARE. THE. DEAD. Oh my God. I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Or in Newspeak “Double Plus Good.”

Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can’t help it. My mind is completely fried.

This book is like the dystopian Lord of the Rings, with its richly developed culture and economics, not to mention a fully developed language called Newspeak, or rather more of the anti-language, whose purpose is to limit speech and understanding instead of to enhance and expand it. The world-building is so fully fleshed out and spine-tinglingly terrifying that it’s almost as if George traveled to such a place, escaped from it, and then just wrote it all down.”

3. What is the book about?

Include the title, author, genre if there is one, and it’s a good idea to also state what kind of book it is if that isn’t clear from the start. Is it a comic-tragedy space opera? Or maybe a crime mystery set in a dystopian sci-fi futuristic world on a distant planet? A historical fiction romance? The reader wants to know. 

When reviewing non-fiction, this might be super easy. If the book’s title does its job, you may not need to say much to directly address this, but it’s still good to say what you learned or what made this book different from other books that address the same topic.

If you’re reviewing fiction, tell the reader just enough about the plot to get them interested and sucked in without giving away any of the shocking plot twists or the surprise ending. If the book crosses genres in a surprisingly successful way, let your readers know. 

Did you expect to hate it but love it instead? Or the other way around? Nobody likes spoilers, but you can entice your reader with the promise of all those twists and turns.

What if you didn’t entirely love the book? That’s fine too. There are so many books that start out promisingly only to leave the reader a little cold at the end, their expectations not entirely met, their longings not entirely satisfied. You can still write a great review of this kind of book, and it might be particularly satisfying to do so if you are going against popular sentiment in doing so. 

Here’s an example of a review written about a hugely popular book that the reviewer felt didn’t quite live up to all the hype.

“Video-game players embrace the quest of a lifetime in a virtual world; screenwriter Cline’s first novel is old wine in new bottles.

The real world, in 2045, is the usual dystopian horror story. So who can blame Wade, our narrator, if he spends most of his time in a virtual world? The 18-year-old, orphaned at 11, has no friends in his vertical trailer park in Oklahoma City, while the OASIS has captivating bells and whistles, and it’s free. Its creator, the legendary billionaire James Halliday, left a curious will. He had devised an elaborate online game, a hunt for a hidden Easter egg. The finder would inherit his estate. Old-fashioned riddles lead to three keys and three gates. Wade, or rather his avatar Parzival, is the first gunter (egg-hunter) to win the Copper Key, first of three. Halliday was obsessed with the pop culture of the 1980s, primarily the arcade games, so the novel is as much retro as futurist. Parzival’s great strength is that he has absorbed all Halliday’s obsessions; he knows by heart three essential movies, crossing the line from geek to freak. His most formidable competitors are the Sixers, contract gunters working for the evil conglomerate IOI, whose goal is to acquire the OASIS. Cline’s narrative is straightforward but loaded with exposition. It takes a while to reach a scene that crackles with excitement: the meeting between Parzival (now world-famous as the lead contender) and Sorrento, the head of IOI. The latter tries to recruit Parzival; when he fails, he issues and executes a death threat. Wade’s trailer is demolished, his relatives killed; luckily Wade was not at home. Too bad this is the dramatic high point. Parzival threads his way between more ’80s games and movies to gain the other keys; it’s clever but not exciting. Even a romance with another avatar and the ultimate “epic throwdown” fail to stir the blood.

Too much puzzle-solving, not enough suspense.”

Reviewing poetry is its own challenge because most books are collections of poems on different subjects and themes that rarely have a narrative thread throughout. 

Here is an example of a short and succinct review written by Roxane Gay of a book of poetry by a poet that she is familiar with so she was able to comment not only on the current collection but the growth of the poet over the course of their career.

“Homie (but really that isn’t this book’s title), is a love letter to friendship, the push and pull of it, the give and take, the good and bad. So many of these poems are unexpectedly moving. Warm. Smith plays with form in several poems. They bring an incredible level of depth and craft to writing about the friends we can’t live without, the friends who are just passing through our lives, the differences that create borders between us, the things we try to make peace with so we might survive. Well worth your time. Smith is, by far, one of the most exciting poets writing today. To watch their creative growth from one book to the next is a real pleasure.” – Roxane Gay

4. Talk About the Characters

For fiction books, it’s always good to mention a favorite character or two and explain why you related to them, loved them, or hated them. Was it heartwarming to watch the character change and grow throughout the story? Did you worry about what would happen to a certain character in a way that made the book hard to put down? 

If this is a memoir or autobiography, you can treat the author as the main character here. Even in non-fiction books, there are sometimes example stories or a fictional composite of case studies used to illustrate the point. If so you can also treat this real person or fictional example as a character.

If the author is one of your favorites, take a moment to focus on them as well. Is this book like their others, or is it a standout in their catalogue for some reason? What is it you like so much about this particular author? Do you want to compare this book to or contrast it with another book by the same author to raise some other point?

5. Who Would You Recommend This Book To? 

If the book is written for a specific audience then you should indicate that in your review. You can do this by saying “for fans of” a certain genre or more popular author. Or you can say who in your life you would personally recommend this book to. 

Is this a book you want your daughter to read? Would you give it to your mom? Or your boss? Or your ex-wife? Why? What do you think this specific person or type of person would get out of reading this book?

Here is a great example of a review that tells you exactly who the reviewer, Cathy Stucker, would recommend the book to:

“This book is targeted to writers and it addresses not only how to get the “big” ideas for books and series, but also the small ideas that can make or break a book. Things such as scenes, character traits and more.

Each technique is explained and examples are given. The authors also suggest which techniques might be most effective in each situation.

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that you are not looking for the one right idea–in any given situation, there are many ideas that can work equally well. Your job as a writer is to find the idea(s) that work best for you and your work.

This book, as with others in the Stone Tablet series, includes a downloadable 60 Second Summary of the main points of the book, and a one-page list of the techniques explained in the book.

Endless Ideas is highly recommended for any writer who could use some inspiration now and then.”

6. Proofread

Hit Publish on your review and you’re putting it out there for all the world to see. This is like remembering to check your teeth for bits of spinach before smiling big for the camera. If you use a spelling and grammar app like Grammarly, run your review through the tool to make sure you didn’t miss any obvious spelling or grammar mistakes. Hemmingway is another option that also gives you a grade-level report for your writing. 

Numerous studies have shown that being able to speak to your audience at a reasonably low-grade level greatly increases the readability and reception of your writing. Especially if you’re writing on a massive platform like Amazon where not all readers are necessarily college graduates or looking for academic books to read, keeping the grade level low is a great idea. This means using conversational language and vocabulary as well as short, simple sentences and paragraphs. Meaning over cleverness and fancy wordplay.

If you aren’t using one of these apps, at least put your review into a word document and run it through the spelling and grammar function there. Then read it through another time to ensure your eyes aren’t skipping over any mistakes that you could quickly correct. Our brains have an amazing ability to see what they expect to see and to fill in missing words because we know what we meant to say.

Also, be sure to double-check the spelling of character names and fictitious places in the book itself. You don’t want to write a review calling Bilbo Blibo and Middle-earth Middle-derth.

Last of all, don’t forget to have fun with this. Writing book reviews is a labor of love. Think about reviews you’ve read that really drew you in and convinced you to read a book you’d never heard of before. It was probably because the reviewer was able to convey their sincere enthusiasm and joy. 

If you get stuck, try reading a few reviews for inspiration!

Happy review writing!

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24 Timeless Tips For Writing Your Book

Writing a book is one of the most significant things you can accomplish in life. 

Fiction or nonfiction, a finished book gets your thoughts on the page, transforms your ideas into something more permanent, and plants the seeds of your legacy into more fertile soil than the earth inside your mind. 

But writing a book is also difficult, especially if it’s your first one. Yet, that hardship is an asset if you know how to leverage your experience. Writing a book will help to shape your character, and help you turn into a better thinker. By its very nature, writing a book gets you to see yourself in a new light. How you think and the ways you choose to express yourself, or not. 

A finished book is always better than the one in our imagination, so the best thing you can possibly do for your creative self, as well as whatever it is you’re working to nurture by writing your book, is to start. This page is to get you out of your dreams and onto the draft. 

And after writing more than a hundred books by myself, and a few hundred with my partners in our studio, I’ve fallen down, gotten back up, and kept on writing plenty. I want you to finish what you started, or finally step on the gas. 

You’re here because you want to write a book, and I’m here because I want to help you. You’re about to read 24 tips that will take you from feeling numb as you stare at the page, wondering when you’ll ever find momentum, to the exhale that can only come once you finish your book. 

As with most things I do, writing a book starts with this essential step: 

1. Know Your Why

Many authors stumble through the process because they aren’t clear enough on their reasons for doing it. Never make this mistake. Always get clear first. Understand what you want to achieve most so you can appropriately arrange the experience around your opportunities. There are plenty of reasons, and none of them are right or wrong. There is only what’s right for you. 

But ask yourself, are you writing a book to: 

Make a lot of money? Connect with readers? Feed your passion? Give yourself an escape? Build authority? Change people’s lives? Get your stories onto big and little screens everywhere? 

Each one of those reasons (and any of the other countless motivations not listed) is a different why, and therefore requires a slightly different approach to the book writing process. 

Especially when it comes to nailing one of the essential elements of a fluid book writing process, covered in tis next tip. 

2. Nail Your Outline 

There is no “one way” to outline a book. Any Google search will turn up hundreds if not thousands of methods. But knowing your why helps you to refine the way you approach yours. 

Is your book fiction or nonfiction? That’s the biggest factor that affects the outlining process. The easiest way I’ve found to outline nonfiction is to start with a massive list of questions I know my ideal reader would need to know the answer to. If you have no idea where to start this process, or what questions your ideal readers are asking themselves, you might be writing the wrong book.

For a fiction title, I want to start by breaking down each of the four acts (we use four rather than three, even though it’s essentially the same thing), then break each of those acts down into ten chapters, with a single sentence each. 

You could use notecards, a list of scenes. Organize chapters by mood or tone. It’s all dependent on the author and the project. I outline for everything, but how I outline depends on what I’m trying to accomplish. 

It’s always best to experiment and see what works for you, but never neglect this step. If you’re trying to prevent yourself from getting stuck at some point along the way, you need strength in both your momentum and your message. An outline helps with that, and keeps you from getting lost in the weeds. 

3. Read Outside Your Genre or Niche

This goes for nonfiction and fiction. You should have already been feeding yourself with the main ingredients of your book for a while. If you’re writing nonfiction, that means you know the topic inside and out and will be able to explore the material in a way that’s unique to you. If you’re writing fiction, you should be a fan of the genre and have a general understanding of what is already available in the space. Now it’s time to read outside the lines. 

If you’re writing nonfiction, you want outside ideas to color your perspective and help shape your argument. If you’re writing fiction, investigate outside voices and ideas as additional ingredients to make your storytelling unique. And be aware as you’re exploring that your preferred genre might not be the appropriate genre for you at all. 

4. Know your Genre

After working with hundreds of writers over the last decade it came as a shock to discover that most writers finished their first book in the wrong genre. This happens most often in romance, because the story structure for that genre are straightforward and easy for novice authors to get their heads around. Demand is high, so on the surface the risk in this genre appears to be low. But there are major discoverability issues and the opportunity cost of wasting time writing in the wrong genre can be almost absurdly expensive, especially considering the overhead is often invisible. 

Though this is pervasive in romance, the problem itself is genre agnostic. Many authors find themselves several books deep into a type of stories they never should have entertained let alone lost years of their creative life trying to feed. 

Never assume your genre. Just because you enjoy consuming a particular type of tale doesn’t mean your best equipped to create that experience on your own. Ask yourself what genre excites you, while also matching your skill set. If you know nothing about science, despite enjoying the genre as a consumer, that’s probably not the best place for you to be writing. Same if you love fantasy, but are weak on description. 

If you want to write your first book reasonably fast and without getting lost, questioning your genre and really finding out what’s best for you longterm is essential. 

5. Schedule and Protect Your Writing Time

You want to write, but too often you let other things get in the way. Either you don’t make time for your creative work, or you let other things get in your way even after you do. Knock it off. 

If writing a book is genuinely important to you then you have to send that signal out into the world. Put your writing time on the calendar and treat it with the same importance as you would give any other appointment. 

Back when I was a freelance copywriter I realized that my dream of writing a book one day was exactly that — only a dream. The only thing that would turn it into something more was me. So I told myself that I was my best client, and thus deserved a spot on my writing schedule. Once I had booked my regular spot I didn’t allow anything else to stand in the way. That was about twelve-million words ago, thanks to this next related tip on our list. 

Once you have your scheduled time, don’t let yourself get in the way of your own success. This is easy to do, and if I’m not careful it still happens to me all the time. It might be Facebook, Twitter or Instagram for you. My kryptonite is email and Slack. There are apps that will bar you from your worst vices. Know yourself; if you need the help, get it.

6. Hold Yourself Accountable 

Like money, everyone spends their time differently, but we don’t all put as much thought into how it’s spent as we probably should. Unlike money, time is a finite resource. Once it’s gone you can never ever get it back, no matter what you do or how hard you try, or how much you’re willing to spend. 

Commit to writing your book, then honor that promise to yourself by doing everything possible to keep that commitment. 

There is no right way to hold yourself accountable. But if you understand your strengths and weaknesses you will be able to design a system that is optimized to you. This can include the proper tools, applications, peer groups, calendars and to-do lists. Never assume that something will get done because you’ve told yourself that it would be. You can’t improve what you don’t track, or track what isn’t measured. So give your book a better than fighting chance by knowing who and when you will report your results to, even if that person is only yourself. 

Weekly deadlines, daily word counts, an overall percentage of progress — whatever you decide, your work deserves a target. 

7. Get Organized 

It’s a lot easier to hold yourself accountable when you’re working ahead with a sense of clarity. Don’t just get started, get started right by doing the following: 

Designate your official writing space. Whether this means a room in your house or a table for one at Starbucks, make sure you have a distraction free area where you’re not likely to be bothered. Create a path of least resistance for getting your words in. This means a clutter free space with all of your tools (digital or otherwise) easily accessible. In addition to your writing space, you should designate an official writing time. Never mingle this block with other activities. Don’t set aside a fat chunk of creative time only to fill it with assorted to-dos that thinned your potential results. Prepare your tool box with whatever you need to write. Everyone’s box is different. Writing is different from brainstorming, which is often a more analog activity for me. But for rough draft writing I’ve migrated to an almost entirely digital environment. Scrivener and my current work in progress is usually enough. But you might need pen and paper, maybe legal pads, in addition to tools like Grammerly for editing assistance. Know your software. Even within our studio where uniformity lubricates momentum, we don’t all use the same tool. Most of us use Scrivener for a variety of reasons (you can find out more about the software here: https://www.literatureandlatte.com), but there’s also standbys like Word, or newer online entries like Hemingway. Whatever you choose, make sure your software isn’t by default or accident. Even if you’re hand-writing your book, you should still take the time to save your work digitally with a permanent backup. You’ll need to publish it eventually, so this isn’t a step you can permanently skip. One of our studio authors writes every book by hand, then copies it over to the typewritten page once she’s done. 

Start out organized to build early momentum into your book writing project, then stay organized to keep yourself from getting lost. 

8. Understand: Perfect is the Enemy of Done

Progress and perfection are not the same thing. It’s never about getting your work into a flawless state so much as it is about getting it out the door in as appealing a way as possible, given the time you have, knowing you can do it even better the next time. 

Your job as a storyteller is to tell a story, not to fret over every syllable. Instead of getting lost in the details, constantly yourself if your work is moving you in the right direction. 

Effective writing pushes you toward a desired outcome. You will make mistakes and your work will have flaws. But momentum matters more than anything, and you’ll earn less of it if you fixate on the details that do little if anything to move the dial. 

Focus on the process rather than the finished product, because while a single book is an asset on your shelf, the process you use to create that piece of IP will stay with you forever. 

9. Take the Time Required to Think 

It isn’t enough to organize your time, space, and writing tools. Productive authors who can regularly finish one book before moving onto the next understand that sometimes going slower is the best way to go faster. 

We all need time to think. Whether you are brainstorming ahead of your project, during difficult parts of the draft, or once it’s finished and you’ve cast your eye on revision, it’s always smart to take a step back when the work requires it. 

Barreling forward just to get the work done isn’t just sloppy, it usually ends up requiring more work on the backend. This doesn’t mean you should second guess yourself as a constant, but you should listen to your instincts when they’re requesting a brief creative respite. 

While you don’t want to forget that perfect is the enemy of done, and thus slow down enough to turn a simple pause into a longterm paralysis, you do want to note when your work is in need of some genuine thought.

10. Don’t Panic

Even after finishing more than a hundred novels, almost every project still has a moment or two (or a whole lot more than that) where I’m doubting everything I’ve written, am writing, or am going to write in my story. Everything feels stupid and like it’s all going nowhere. A total waste of mine and the reader’s time. I imagine the heavy revision the work will require, the endless mountain of edits I’m almost for sure going to see. The awful reviews if I can’t fix what’s broken.

By now I have the experience to recognize all of that for the bullshit it is, but that doesn’t mean it’s easily ignored. The process is second nature by now, so I acknowledge the hiccup’s existence, then do whatever I must to get through those moments without letting them derail me. 

I’ll take a short break to work on something else, or go on a long walk through my neighborhood to consider the project, and why some part of it’s giving me trouble. 

If you don’t have a moment or ten of self-doubt at some point while writing your book (especially in the beginning, of either the project or your writing career), there’s an excellent chance you have an inflated sense of self or are slightly delusional about your own abilities. Writing can be difficult, but it isn’t brain surgery, so don’t ever let it be hard enough to beat you. Which is exactly the point of this next tip. 

11. Stick With Your Project

You will be tempted to quit, anywhere from one to a hundred thousand times or more. But please, don’t do that. You will regret it. Worse than not finishing, you’ve taught yourself that you’re not a finisher. The next time you make plans for yourself there will be a voice inside you that knows the truth: you don’t see things through to their end. 

That can cripple your momentum more than any other factor. Finish your draft, no matter what. Even if the book is three times harder to revise than you expect or want it to be, there is exponential value in getting through to the end. 

Again, the biggest value in writing a book (if you’re wanting to write as a career) is in the personal process you develop over time. It will be frustrating, but use the fuel of truth that it will constantly get better. I’ve been at this for a decade now and am still seeing improvements in both my work and my systems with every new story. The same will be true for you…but only if you teach yourself to stick with it, taking notes on what works and what doesn’t while you go along.

You have to ship eventually. Whether that means sending your draft to a publisher or uploading it to digital retailer yourself, your book belongs in front of readers rather than your bottom drawer.

12. Write the Story You Would Most Want to Read

This alone will help you stick with it. I’ve met a lot of storytellers who feel desperate to develop their author career. They start out “writing to market”, then end up with a project that looked great in the idea stage and held its convincing argument all the way through the outline. But the author isn’t connected to the narrative, characters, or situation at all. They’re only writing that story because it seems like a more certain path to readers than the ideas more native to their personal interests and style. 

This is a mistake. You never want to write a story because you think it could be a bestseller. Chances are it won’t be, then you will have failed by definition. Whether it’s a genre you love, or a specific style of story or voice or cast of characters, tap into your natural interests to consistently stoke your drive. Because once you unplug from the narrative it can be difficult if not impossible to plug back in. 

If you find yourself stuck at any point in your story, pause, and ask yourself if you would want to read the book you’re writing. If the answer is NO, ask yourself why not?, then do whatever you can to fix it and thus maintain a high level of interest in the project. Without it, momentum will always be a struggle. 

13. Make Things Happen

It’s easy to get stuck throughout your story if there aren’t enough things happening. And nothing will get you staring at the blank page for harder and longer than trying to figure out what’s next when there isn’t enough going on. Even the most compelling characters and well-crafted prose will crumble in the face of a story that isn’t moving forward. 

This is why we spend so much time in the outlining phase. If something significant to the plot is happening in each scene, and I make sure I’m hitting those points in the draft, then the meat and potatoes are already served so the details are gravy. 

Sometimes we get carried away with our own ideas and allow a written tangent to lead us somewhere we didn’t intend or need to go. Cut it, either now or in the revision, but get on with your story. No matter how great an exchange of dialogue, internal monologue, description or setting, if it isn’t driving the narrative forward you should question its presence in your story. 

Every scene must pull its weight. If one of them isn’t, then cut it. If you have questions about how to “make things happen,” remember that great storytelling always comes down to character.

14. You Can Never Focus Too Much on Character 

Your characters can’t be marionettes for you as the author. They must have their own opinions, motivations, and flaws, with all of them influenced by yet independent from you. More than anything, your characters need compelling problems to solve. Something to challenge, torment, or propel them forward. Both through their lives and your story. 

Every well-told tale has a beating heart of constant conflict. And whether it’s internal or external, that friction will shape your character, and if you did your job while writing the book, she’ll be different by the end of your narrative. 

So make her flawed yet believable. Rich with inner thoughts and outer behaviors that support them. She should live and breathe and feel real enough to surprise you at least a few times throughout your draft. 

If a character’s thoughts or behaviors fail to surprise you at any point in the story, there’s an excellent chance that they’ll come off as flatter or more one-dimensional to your reader than you need or want them to. 

15. Keep your Story Believable 

That doesn’t mean your book should read like a documentary. Or that it shouldn’t have superheroes, dragons, or monsters. It’s the paranormal activity that makes the genre fun. But everything in your story should be consistent within the universe you’ve established. 

Marvel movies are able to make more than a billion dollars at the box office because, even as unlikely as it might be to get super powers from a radioactive spider, the narrative pieces all support that fiction. 

Deus ex machina is the death of excellent writing. Do it even a little and the best your book can be is good. Great is automatically out of the question. Do it a lot and your work will read like it was written by a hack. In case you don’t know what it is, Deus ex machina is a plot device where a seemingly unsolvable problem is very suddenly resolved by an unexpected and/or unlikely occurrence. It’s contrived and readers hate it. Fortunately, we have a terrific solution for you.

16. Writing is Rewriting 

This is most true when it comes to what we call “reverse seeding.” You can pile all the deus ex machina into your story that you want, just make sure you justify it the second time through. 

We do this for every story, but it was born during our Fiction Unboxed project. My writing partner, Johnny, and I were finishing a book with a rather dramatic climax that involved a local bakery burning to the ground. This scene was supposed to have some deep emotional impact, but what we wanted the reader to experience simply wasn’t there, because we’d done nothing to set it up. 

We fixed this during revision, with an additional scene that showed our main character visiting this bakery as a child, along with a few mentions and memories throughout the draft. Something that seemed sudden and stupid in the first draft became anchored with the weight of emotion during the second. 

Knowing that nothing in your draft is permanent, and that you will always have the opportunity to improve your work should be enough to keep you consistently moving through it. 

17. Understand that Writing is Practice 

I’m ambitious and undaunted for the most part. I often have unreasonable expectations of what I can and can’t do. Still, I would never wake up one morning and assume I could run a marathon without training. Yet, that’s what a lot of people assume they can do when it comes to the creative process of writing a book. 

You may work in sprints, but writing itself is a marathon, and for maximum results you need to train accordingly. It doesn’t matter how many books I have in the done pile behind me, I still approach each new project as yet another opportunity to practice and improve what I do. 

Writing is one of the biggest parts of my job, so it makes sense for me to do it every day. That might not be true for you, even if you hope that it will be someday. Regardless of how much you’ve done, or plan to do, see your work as practice and practice as work. That framing will make the process more fluid and fun over time.

18. Do What You Can Do

Most of us have made some sort of New Year’s resolution promising that we’ll lose weight, drink less, be kinder, or any other example of a temporarily solemn vow you can possibly think of. The problem usually stems from the best of intentions crashing into human walls such as willpower and crippling inertia. 

You tell yourself you’ll go to the gym 3-5 days a week, then by the second week when you’ve only gone a total of four times you start feeling like a failure. The next week’s even worse. But if you had given yourself the more reasonable goal of two days a week, no matter what, you could have developed enough consistency to carry you through.

Don’t promise yourself you can write 2000 words a day if you can’t. Same for 1000 or 500 or any other number. Whatever your Holy Grail goal, let it surprise you when it happens. Demand consistency for yourself more than anything else. If you can only get 250 words in a day, then make that happen, no matter what, and by the end of next month you’ll have 7500 words. Not bad at all. Now do it again. And PLEASE: 

19. Don’t Edit as You Go

Getting in your head is the worst thing that can happen to your work. Imagine having to write after just getting out of a terrible argument with someone you love, especially if that argument is still unresolved. Worse than not being able to focus, you can barely string two thoughts together. It’s too difficult with the parade of exchanges you’ve been replaying for hours in your mind. Regardless of what you want, the story you’re supposed to be writing comes second to the one on a loop in your mind. 

The same is true when your inner editor is cranked on high. It has no business casting judgment on a work in progress, and doing so will only keep flow from happening. Never forget that writing is rewriting, and that your rough draft will never (by its very nature) be good enough. Of course you can and should correct obvious typos, and if something will affect your continuity (and therefore your mindset) you might want to leave yourself a comment or quickly address it, but your job in the first draft of a book is to keep going forward. 

If you wouldn’t edit every word out of your mouth during a conversation with a friend, then don’t do that to your story, because the page should be your best friend while you’re on it. 

Other friends come later.

20. Write With the Door Closed, Then Open It

This is one of my favorite takeaways from Stephen King’s excellent book, On Writing. I have my three drafts — say it, say what you mean, and say it well — and he has his two: door open and door closed. My rough is always written with the door closed, meaning no one gets to read a word while I’m writing it. There are rare exceptions. Sometimes I’m collaborating in real time enough that it’s necessary, but I always prefer to work on the first draft in isolation. 

But then I share. Though it is important that you get outside perspective on your work, you must always trust the source. For better or worse, your mom will tell you what she’s going to tell you, the same is true for your friends. Fellow writers have their own stories in their head and are often filtering your narratives through their perspective. Worse, they might not be in your genre, and could therefore gift you with some well-meaning but terrible advice.  

Ideally, you want people who would be among your ideal reader group to be giving you usable feedback. This group might be harder to target at first, but you should always keep it mind. After all, getting it into the right readers’ hands is what marketing is all about. 

21. Bake Your Marketing into the Book

All books need a marketing strategy Yes, anyone can publish, but that doesn’t mean they can do it successfully. There is no EZ Button or autopilot. Everything in this business takes consideration, marketing included, or even especially if getting new people to find, read, and share your work is among your type priorities. 

But beyond reading the right books and blogs, listening or watching the appropriate podcasts and YouTube channels, or networking with a specific circle of friends, you should always be looking for ways to make marketing a more natural part of what you do. The easiest way to do this is by putting the reader’s experience in front of everything else. 

Design your series so they lead from one right into the next. Create side stories and shareable content that makes it simple for them to show your world to like-minded friends. Write your books toward your ideal readers’ interests so it becomes easy to communicate with them through social channels and regular emails. 

The most successful authors have built strong enough brands that their names alone will sell the book. Hopefully you’ll get there one day as well. In the meantime, always consider the elements you could introduce to your book that makes it either conversation worthy or easy to share. 

22. Embrace Failure 

You will absolutely mess up at some point. Hopefully, many many times. A successful author is one who can afford their whims and mistakes, and that’s what I want for you. 

This is going to be difficult. You may stumble lightly, and you might fall hard. But be okay with what’s happening, no matter what. Understand that writing a book is a journey and not an event. Using that truth as a compass will keep you on the path far more than an unreasonable standard of perfection.

23. Get Ready For Whatever is Next

Every book you publish is another employee who never clocks out; an asset to feed you forever, a dollar or two at a time. If your first book isn’t good enough, throw it away and make sure that your second one is. There’s no shame in that. 

If your book is good enough for prime time then get to work on the followup immediately. If a reader falls in love with your work, they need to know they can get more. New authors without a catalog are too easily forgotten. Know matter how great your story is, there are great stories everywhere. 

It’s worth saying again: If you can afford to hold off on publishing your first book until you have a few in the bank, I highly suggest you do. That might make the difference in your ultimate sustainability, and could lead directly to either your failure or success.  

24. And All the Rest of It 

Because of course there’s more. Writing a book is an exhaustive process that gets easier (though never easy) by the project. The above tips all required more detail, but the rest can be handled in a sentence or two.

Work breeds work. Write in the company of others and commit to not talking. We have office hours in our studio. A bunch of us get on Zoom, write in sprints, pause to chat for a few minutes, then rinse and repeat.Take frequent breaks. Even if you think you don’t need to. I walk several times throughout the day, and have a streak of getting in at least 10K steps a day that’s over three years now. It takes a lot of time, but I’m still more productive than I was when I didn’t spend I because I ‘couldn’t afford it.” Pay attention to what inspires you. Once you start writing, you should be seeing the world through a writer’s eyes. People are characters and everyone (and everything) is a story. Make the muse come to you. She’s fickle and you know that, so never allow her to control your destiny. Show up for work consistently and you will be in charge of the relationship. Try something smaller. If you’re getting stuck on your big book, try a novella, a short story, a letter, or whatever it takes to get your brain used to getting words on the page. Writing is a muscle, never be embarrassed to build it. Know what your book is about. You’d be surprised by how many authors don’t, even after it’s finished. Of course they know what their book is about, but they can’t sum it up in a sentence. Learn to do that before your Once upon a time … and you will have a better book. 

These tips are all general understandings that have worked for me and the writers in our studio. Your mileage may vary. Some of the above will permanently improve the way you create, and some of it you’ll forget a few minutes from now. That’s great, exactly how it’s supposed to be. 

Stay true to yourself and to the writing. 

Finish that book, and start changing the world with your story!

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How to Write a Revenge Story

Revenge is a universal theme that can improve any book, short story, or screenplay. 

Because revenge is elemental to who we are as human beings, this is a genre that will always remain popular and never die.

We all know that two wrongs don’t make a right, and you don’t have to be violent or have inhuman impulses to sometimes think about revenge. It’s almost hardwired into us, that primal need to prove you won’t be walked all over in front of your tribe: If somebody wrongs you, you’re going to wrong them back.

I’m an amiable guy, live and let live and have been for most of my life. But when I was 18 years old, two employees who had worked for my family at our flower shop for a long, long time stole our clients and opened another competing flower shop a mile away from ours.

I was angry, young, and impetuous. So I opened several flower shops in a circle around their new one. My only goal for these new locations was to have the shops break even, just so I could put “my enemies” out of business.

It was really, really stupid.

I wasted a couple of years of my life doing that. This was more than twenty years ago, around the time I met my wife. Back then Cindy called me the Godflower, and so goes the tale of my misguided revenge. 

These days the thought of revenge curdles my stomach. I just don’t see the point, and it’s never worked out as a means to improve my life, and the same could be said for everyone I know. Still, as a human I understand the thirst for justice and vengeance by my own hand, and acknowledge the power of revenge as a genre convention. 

Stephen King’s first book, Carrie, Stephen King’s is ultimately a revenge story. The Count of Monte Cristo might be the best revenge story of all time. There’s Gladitator, Munich, and True Grit — a book that’s been made into a movie twice now, once with Jeff Bridges and the first time with John Wayne.

Old Boy. The Professional. Django Unchained. Death Wish. John Wick. 

The list is endless, and it’s easy to see why. In an elemental revenge story like any of the narratives mentioned above, the audience is eager to see the protagonist get what they deserve, and to have their day with the antagonist. 

Kill Bill isn’t just my favorite revenge movie, it’s my favorite Tarantino film, and one of my favorites of all time. I count both movies together as one story, same as the writer/director himself (there has been a long rumored cut of the film called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair that strings the two films together with a few additional scenes). In my mind, this movie (or movies) gets everything about the genre right, and does a remarkable job of both playing into the tropes and conventions, while also turning some of them on their heads. 

Sterling & Stone traffics in the art form. From a pacifist monk who goes on a bloody rampage of revenge, to a man who makes a deal with the devil in an effort to wage an attack on the monsters who murdered his daughter, the storytellers in our studio enjoy writing revenge stories because they tap into something human and primal. 

But there is a danger in striking the wrong tone when writing about revenge. You never want cheese in your story on accident. This is a terrific genre to explore, but it must be done well. 

So here is everything we’ve learned about writing revenge, so that your story will hit all the right notes, with the sort of narrative weight that will help it to endure. 

1. Make sure your characters know what they are doing and why.

From beginning to end, tour protagonist must have a clean and clear motive throughout the story. They can’t be wiping bad guys off the face of the planet simply because they’re blood thirsty. That kind of revenge story will always ring hollow. Even if it’s fun, that enjoyment is fleeting and a lot less likely to create the sort of story experience a reader remembers, wants to tell a friend about, or earns a spot on their list of authors they can’t ever miss, no matter what. 

In Kill Bill, the Bride is (supposedly) murdered by her ex-lover on the day she is to wed another. He arranges to have her ambushed and killed by her friends — while eight months pregnant. Instead she goes into a coma and wakes up from her coma several years later. But from the second she opens her eyes, the audience knows that her revenge is deserved. She’s also been sexually defiled while comatose, so it’s easy to root for the Bride from the very first second we see her. 

Try to avoid the expected. Your character’s motivation should have layers, and your reader should be kept guessing, either about what happened, or why it’s affected your hero as much as it has. 

Please, no matter what you do, don’t base a serious revenge story on a simple misunderstanding. Your reader will never be able to trust you again.

2. Your protagonist requires a satisfying arc. 

You don’t want your hero to wipe the floor with every enemy standing in their way as though their pins in a shooting gallery waiting for a rubber bullet. Unless you’re writing pure pulp, there needs to be risks and consequences and significant weight to the scenes in your story. Whatever your hero is forced to deal with throughout the narrative should turn them into a better person by its end.

After I was done with my own rampage of revenge, opening and closing five flower shops in a personal quest for vengeance, I finally had to grow up. I matured a lot in my misguided attempt. It turned me into a smarter, better person.

The best revenge stories are about consequences as much as they are about the act of vengeance itself. Your hero (probably) isn’t an insane psychopath, and they’re definitely not the villain, so tend to their emotional growth same as you would for the protagonist of any other genre. 

A revenge story should push your hero to their emotional limits, so you need to show the reader how that reality has changed them. 

3. Give as much attention to your villain as you do to your hero. 

Great revenge stories are about the bad guy as much as the good guy. The more personal your narrative can be, the more visceral it will feel to your reader. Smart audiences appreciate the unexpected, so make sure to at least try that if it makes sense for your story. 

The end of Kill Bill Volume II is so effective precisely because it subverts our expectations. After everything we’ve seen throughout the first film, and two-thirds of the second, we expect Bill to be monster. So we’re disarmed when we can clearly see that even if he is a cold blooded murder, he’s also a compassionate father. 

Revenge stories are usually bloody tales of vengeance, and of course violent reprisals are certainly a staple of the genre, but an intelligent villain should demand more from your story. 

Maybe your villain isn’t even the bad guy. They almost for sure don’t see themselves that way. So ask yourself, what’s their story? Perhaps your reader doesn’t discover until the final confrontation that the villain feels just as wronged as your hero. Maybe the identity of this story’s victim isn’t as straightforward as she had believed, and the antagonist has been casting blame in the wrong direction.

Play with motivations, expectations, and characters all you want, just make sure to keep the essential elements all in place. Your villain’s behavior should be as easily understood as the person seeking revenge. Your antagonist might have done something terrible in the past, but it’s possible that they did so for a justifiable, or at least understandable reason. 

Considering your villain’s arc will help you to clarify what your story requires for a satisfying reader’s journey.

4. Every revenge story needs a victim and an incident to se everything off. 

All stories need an inciting incident to get the story going, but in a tale of revenge this part of the premise is often almost absurdly straightforward. Your antagonist will be the character who has committed whatever heinous act have gone unpunished and driven your protagonist into his quest for revenge. 

The story’s victim could be the hero, or it could be someone your hero must protect or honor, perhaps arouse sympathy or ire in your audience. No matter what, the stakes must be personal or it will be harder for your story to have weight or meaning for your reader. 

The more heinous this initial act, the more justified your hero will be in their quest (and thirst) for revenge. The more you can make your antagonist’s new world grate against their everyday reality, the more dramatic the story will feel for your reader. 

That’s why we chose to make the hero of one of our first revenge stories a pacifist monk, because it’s such a glaring opposite from what the audience expects.  

5. Thoughtful revenge is always more interesting. 

Again, unless you’re writing a pulpy Death Wish style revenge piece, your story should have rhythm and flow. There should be a rise and fall to what you are drawing for the reader. Every scene can’t be balls out with your hero constantly quenching his craving for revenge. 

Vengeance can be thoughtful. Give your antagonist time to research, train, and prepare to meet the antagonist. Have him or her slowly putting their plan into action rather than rushing right into things, unless barreling forward stumble or fall and maybe lose the upper hand. 

6. Revenge stories should have steady escalation. 

Your hero will eventually have to confront the villain, but that can’t happen on page one, in chapter one, or even anywhere near the first act. Unless the villain is wiping the floor with you hero, the two should stay very far away from one another until the end of the story. 

That doesn’t mean the antagonist won’t have their presence felt. That negative force should be constant. Your story doesn’t have to play out like a video game where every boss leads to an even bigger boss, but the villain’s existence should infect the hero’s present, making them constantly aware of how little control they actually have … until the situation has ratcheted up enough that they are finally able to turn the tables. 

7. Revenge isn’t always the answer. 

Sometimes the best ending to your revenge story is to keep the vengeance out of it. That’s not always the right thing to do, far from it, but sometimes the emptiness of revenge delivered as an epiphany is what’s best for your narrative. 

Your hero has learned that no matter what she does, nothing will ever rewind the clock and give her what she has lost. The damage is done and the original crime will always exist. Since your antagonist can’t return to her normal world — the one she had to leave before the awful incident that made everything start to go wrong — she can still return to a better version of who she was. 

We’ve all craved revenge at some point in our lives, even if it was for something petty and almost entirely irrelevant. Ask yourself what you learned in the moments you were big enough to ignore the thirst. One of those times when you realized what an empty craving it was. 

8. Keep your hero relatable.

The bigger your revenge story, the more likely it will be to find your antagonist operating outside of the law. Still, you want to keep your reader on the righteous side of things so your reader never leaves their corner. Empathy is earned, and if you expect that emotion from your reader, then you have a few responsibilities as a storyteller that you simply cannot ignore. 

First off, make sure that your hero is morally justified. Maybe they tried to engage law enforcement first, but the police they contacted were corrupt or indifferent, so that forced their hand. Your hero must operate outside the law because they have no other choice. 

And no matter what, the punishment your hero dispenses on their enemies must fit the crime, or else you risk your character being as bad as the person or people who wronged them. If innocents are murdered on your hero’s way to justice, you revenge story sucks — unless that’s the point, in which case, more power to you.

Yes, your reader wants a catharsis, that’s why they’re reading a revenge story. And it’s your job to craft that, but you need to do it without going overboard or diluting your hero’s virtue. 

9. Revenge is a journey, not a destination. 

Your hero might win or lose in their quest for retribution, but the most important thing is that your antagonist tried regardless of the odds, and ultimately grew from the experience, even if they were unsuccessful in executing the vengeance itself. 

Revenge can be the basis for a great plot for storytellers of every skill level. Some of our most basic books are based on trading an eye for an eye, as is one of our most complicated, by far. The device works in every genre, and will help any writer to focus on the story being told between the expected conventions and tropes.

Revenge stories force you to focus intention. They require the kind of well-developed antagonist that will stretch your storytelling muscles, while keeping you on a well-defined path. 

A character craving revenge is like a person in lust, driven to act at the slightest provocation. This motivation is easy for the reader to understand, and straightforward for the author to execute because the hero is driving the plot. 

The best ending to your revenge story (like the ending to any well told story) should feel surprising yet inevitable. Ideally, your hero will reach an epiphany that leaves them forever changed and gets your reader thinking. 

That’s how you write a revenge story that readers can’t stop thinking about. And even if you’re out of the revenge business once you’re onto the next book, if you’ve made it into your reader’s head, she’s more likely to follow where you want to go. 

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What is Genre?

So … what genre is it?

That’s as necessary a question for us to answer in our story studio as it is for you at home. 

We question our genre with every story we tell, even if it goes unspoken. My darkest writing partner never has to define his genre — everyone in the studio knows that Dave will write some variant of children in jeopardy.

Starting our story with a firm understanding of the genre we’re trying to hit before we even get to Once upon a time, helps us to define what we’re ultimately trying to say, gives us the knowledge to shape our story, and inform our marketing once the narrative is finished. 

I’m fortunate to have our studio. You probably don’t have a room full of storytellers ready to bounce all of your questions and ideas off of. That’s what this page is for. I’ve written this to help answer your questions about genre so that your writing projects can go faster, stay on-point, and ultimately perform well in the marketplace. 

Let’s get the bad news out of the way: genre isn’t easy to define. People have been arguing over exactly what it means since the concept was first applied to books. You’re here for the broad strokes, because you need a working understanding of how your tastes can amplify rather than hamper your efforts. 

That’s how I use it as well. I have no opinion as to the superiority of one genre over another, and I’m not in this for the arguments. I use genre as a framework to hold my story. 

“My book doesn’t really have a genre” is not an acceptable statement. Our storytellers are required to define this before they start writing. One of our authors — whom we met at a genre therapy event back in the days when we did more than publish books — had declared herself “genreless.” I’ve read her work and can see what she means, but I still disagree. 

I’ve been working with this author for a while, and she now understands that she writes a lot like Dean Koontz — her work all features everyday people who experience a touch of the mystical — so her future catalogue is more clearly defined before she starts writing. The work is easier to conceptualize, execute, and sell. 

This author is seventy-two years old and has been writing all her life. Yet, she’s never felt more confident or more efficient in her craft. 

The reason is simple: Understanding genre means understanding yourself. 

And understanding yourself is the key to unlocking your brilliance as an artist. 

That’s where we find most of the fun. And sometimes, if you’re a little lucky and work really hard over a consistent period of time, that’s where the money is as well. 

This is a big topic, but I’ll cover it like Rowling rather than Clancy. We don’t need all the unnecessary details. I want you to leave this page energized, with a deeper understanding of story. That’s not a diss on Tom, but we know you don’t need the literary equivalent of serial numbers on bullet casings. 

You can always add art to your genre, but only after you understand how genre applies to your art.

So … what is genre? 

This might not be an easy answer, and that might be frustrating. 

In order to determine a book’s genre, you must know something about the story itself and what other books it resembles. For you, the most useful angle of genre is to develop an understanding of audience expectations, so you can meet or preferably exceed them. 

A person who reads psychological thrillers with a fast pace and high stakes, looking for an experience that threatens an outcome worse than death for its heroes would probably get ticked if a sweet romantic comedy tried to “defy his expectations.” 

Those expectations matter. They are a threshold, not a wall. 

Genre is ultimately a construct of marketing — another example of human nature needing categorization and labels. We find two things that are similar in some way, place them into a pile with each other, then give that pile a name.

It’s important to understand what genre you’re writing in because it’s the salt, sugar, and fat of reader expectations. Someone looking for essays won’t be pleased to find themselves with epic fantasy, and people seeking an escape from a crappy day with a fluffy romance likely won’t care for heady sci-fi.

People can and should read and write across multiple genres. Fans of The Kardashians can appreciate Charlie Rose. We like what we like, and each of us has our reasons. There is no better or worse. There is only understanding or not. 

If you can articulate the conventions and reader expectations of a particular genre, then you are more likely to write stories that reach and satisfy your ideal readers. 

The ones who will love you, and tell you so — in emails, reviews, or adoring shout outs on social media — and keep returning for every new story you write. 

Let’s start with the biggest division there is.

Fiction Or Nonfiction?

This isn’t just the biggest division, it’s the most easily-definable split. 

Fiction is made up; nonfiction is not. 

Of course, even here there are blurred lines. Fiction can be (and often is) based on some semblance of reality — it can be set in the real world and must therefore adhere to real-world physics, geography, cultures, and histories — while nonfiction can (and often does) include fictional storytelling techniques — characters, scenes, settings, dialogue, narrative flow — to engage the reader while conveying its information or message.

For the purposes of helping you to figure out your genre, I’ll keep it simple:

Did you make up the story? 

If yes, you wrote fiction.

Did you tell a story or convey information that was not made up? 

Then that sounds like nonfiction to me. 

Now let’s hit some of the trickier bits. 

Nonfiction Genres

There aren’t nearly as many nonfiction genres as there are in fiction, and the divisions are more readily apparent. 

Narrative Or Informational?

The major differences between nonfiction genres is primarily what the book is meant to do, and how it goes about doing that thing. Narrative nonfiction tells a (true) story — e.g. the life of Steve Jobs or the rise of the Walt Disney Company. 

Major narrative nonfiction genres can often be categorized by who wrote them.

Biographies: The story of a person’s life as told by someone else. Biographies are usually written around figures of historical or cultural import. Autobiographies: The story of a person’s life as told by that person, also usually a person of some significance to the world at large.Memoirs: Scenes of an individual’s life as told by that person. This type of narrative is different from an autobiography because it’s not meant to cover an entire lifetime. Vignettes and moments make the story. You can also find memoirs of average people. One of our studio favorites is about a lounge pianist and all the wackiness she dealt with during her years playing in restaurants. 

Some of the more popular narrative nonfiction books are Hidden Figures, Unbroken, In Cold Blood, The Blind Side, The Right Stuff, 127 Hours, Moneyball, The Big Short, and The Devil in the White City. 

You’ll probably notice those choices have all been turned into movies, except that last one, which needs to be and I have a strong sense that it will be someday (or maybe a limited series on TV). That’s because great narrative non-fiction translates well to the sort of powerfully emotive and highly human stories Hollywood loves to invest in. 

This is a great space for a writer to thrive in, assuming there’s a deep passion for any given project. Interest is always important. This genre requires an enormous amount of research. Time is a heavy investment. You’re allowed to color the details, but not outside the lines of truth. 

Informational nonfiction is less about telling a story as it is  — as the name suggests — informing the reader and imparting them with a specific desired information. Storytelling and other writing techniques such as author voice are obviously used to make the information engaging and memorable where possible. This is where you will find genres like:

Essays: Short(ish) pieces of writing meant to persuade the reader to thinking a certain way or opening their eyes to an experience they may never have had.Self-help: Books intended to solve a problem in a person’s personal life — how to build confidence, how to attract love, how to be effective. We’ve all read, or know someone who regularly reads in this genre. Science/Technology/Politics/Business/Etc.: You just read the label. These books are meant to educate, inform, and perhaps persuade readers of the topics covered. Reference: Titles that might not fit anywhere else. Encyclopedias, textbooks, dictionaries, human anatomy coloring books — the sorts of books you look through more than read when you’re searching for a fact. Books you might refer to.

Nonfiction is an easier target to hit, both for writers wanting to find an audience and readers seeking answers, inspiration, or a specific style of narrative truth.

Fiction, no twist in this part of the story, is much more complicated. 

Fiction Genres

Nonfiction genres are relatively well-defined, with most nonfiction having a clear goal and purpose. But fiction is slippery, and subject to the whims of personal taste. You couldn’t name all the fiction genres if I gave you all day, and there are some genres — I’m looking at you, Romance — with more sub-genres and niches than items on a menu from The Cheesecake Factory. Genres where reader tastes get extremely, even bizarrely, specific. 

Dinosaur porn. Is. Real.

Let’s wade through it. But first, a short digression. 

About Classics

This is a category of fiction (well, if it’s a fiction classic; there are nonfiction classics, too) that isn’t one you can slot your book into. A book must stand the test of time in some way, or be considered important over the course of years and decades before it can be declared a recognizable classic. 

This isn’t to say your book won’t make it there. I hope it does. Write a book that means something to its readers, and who knows, in a half-century or so your book might have earned a spot on that shelf. 

I’d love to write a classic one day, and that’s an ambition I share with every author in our studio. But our readers will decide that. Never us. The same is true for you. Aim for a classic, and be proud that you published at all. 

Is it Literary Or Commercial?

This is the often first distinction in fiction genres, and necessarily so. It’s also the first question an author should ask themselves if they expect to elevate their odds of success. 

Literary fiction is usually prose-focused and character-studying, while “commercial” (or, confusingly, “genre”) fiction tends to focus more on plot and story. That’s not to say that character doesn’t matter, because of course it does. 

As with every arbitrary distinction ever made, there’s an awful lot of overlap. Literary fiction can and should have story. Same as commercial fiction can and should have deep, interesting characters and intelligent, flowing, error free writing. The distinction here is focus.

Did you write a book for the joy of the words, or to take a long, hard look at the humanity’s nature, or your place in it? You probably wrote a literary book.

Were you itching to tell a story? To push your characters through events, hooking the reader with a chain of exciting scenes and twisting events? You probably wrote commercial fiction.

The Great Gatsby, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Corrections are all examples of popular literary fiction. Commercial examples include, The Da Vinci Code, Gone Girl, and Crazy Rich Asians. 

Children Or Adult?

Your target audience matters in fiction just as much as it does in nonfiction. One of the most fundamental things you can determine about your target audience is their age. It would be an unforgivable publishing mistake to label your X-rated dinosaur porn as Middle Grade, and there are probably a lot of people who would be annoyed to find a picture book in their search results.

What age is your audience?

Kids: The younger the child, the more specific your book will likely need to be in prose and content. There is tremendous difference between books intended for toddlers and those meant for 2nd graders, mostly because there is also an absurd amount of development that happens, very quickly, in both the child’s brain and their reading abilities throughout those elementary-and-earlier years. Books for young kids (usually 3rd grade and below) are often labeled for specific ages, reading levels, and grades.Independent Reader/Middle Grade (MG): For your 3rd through 7th grade children. Here we’ll find chapters and more complex narratives, as appropriate for the target ages. This is also where the concept of genre becomes more broadly applicable (we’ll cover those broader genres in a moment). You could have an action/adventure, or a mystery. Middle Grade is the literary equivalent of a G or PG rating.Young Adult (YA): A fairly new division in the book world, YA is targeted primarily at teenagers/high schoolers. This is a diverse category that ranges many genres. Often what distinguishes YA from NA (below) or MG (above) is tone and the hero’s age: if your protagonist is between 14 and 18, your book will probably be considered YA, in addition to its broader genre. YA books can be darker and more explicit than MG because they are intended for an older audience. This is your PG-13 story where you’re allowed the occasional curse word or more adult situation. New Adult (NA): Even newer than YA as a category, it’s still relatively unknown and without a lot to define it as a particular genre. Still mostly distinguished from YA and adult by college-aged characters. As of this writing, the category is dominated by steamy romances. As it matures, the genre will likely branch into various other genres, same as MG and YA before it. Adult: Everything else, including every genre, sub-genre, and dino-porn niche your heart could ever desire.Speculative Or Realistic?

We’re making this distinction because it’s a solid way to separate sci-fi and fantasy (SFF) from everything else. This is essential to indicate when it comes to finding your ideal readers, so they can keep finding you, again and again. 

People who read westerns generally don’t want unicorns in their books.

What Is SFF?

Science fiction/fantasy (SFF, or sometimes SF/F if you’re feeling pretentious) is the “speculative fiction” genre, meaning there is some question being asked about the story world itself.

What if technology …? 

What if magic …? 

What if ghosts …?

This is a MASSIVE genre, and a container for much of our popular entertainment and cultural touchstones. It’s also a genre that can get very, almost alarmingly, specific. To complicate things further, the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy can be slippery at best. Stories like Star Wars are full of both future tech and magical Forces can be “science fantasy.” 

But broadly speaking, if technology (or aliens) is important to your book, that’s sci-fi. If there is magic or Tolkienesque creatures in your worlds, then you’re dealing in fantasy. 

Are there ghosts, angels, demons, shapeshifters, psychics, or other spiritual — but not exactly, necessarily, magical — forces in your world? You’ve probably gone paranormal.

Yet again, there are no hard-and-fast rules. The important thing to remember here is that marketing conventions help to manage reader expectations, and genre-blending is a fun way to surprise your reader. Urban fantasy, for example, is a blending of realistic and speculative, tossing magical/paranormal elements into a (usually) real setting.

And, if you’re still searching for your genre, it’s time to look at the realistic ones.

Realistic Genres

The best way to figure out where your book fits is to know a genre’s expectations and tropes before you write. Do your research. Your future marketing self will thank you for not having to figure this out after your story is finished. 

In case you need a place to start, here’s a rundown of the most significant genres that are, in some sense, realistic (as opposed to speculative).

Romance: A ginormous genre, the biggest out there, and full of notoriously specific and voracious readers. A romance (as opposed to a mystery or other genre with a romance) is that the couple coming together is the story’s primary focus. Given its significance to the human condition, this genre pairs well with just about every other one out there. It comes in all varieties, from sweet and chaste to pornographic. If you ever need to giggle at the surprising things out there, go ahead and look into dinosaur porn.

NOTE: If the couple doesn’t end up happily together (at least for now), under no circumstances should you call your book a romance. Find another genre. There aren’t many hard rules, but this is one of them. Romances must have a happy ending, or they aren’t romances — they are mysteries or thrillers or whatever with a romantic subplot.Mystery: A crime has been committed. Someone must figure out who, and bring the perpetrator to justice. Another broad genre that can range from cozy mystery (an amateur sleuth caught up in hijinks) to police procedurals and cop dramas.Western: John Wayne. But in books. And never with unicorns.Historical: What it says on the box, historical fiction that takes place in a real place and time somewhere in the past.Thriller: A genre meant to get the reader’s heart racing and pages flipping fast. Someone is in danger and they must escape or survive. Psychological Thriller is a dominant sub-genre, where the danger is primarily to the person’s psyche rather than their body.Horror: Meant to evoke a sense of dread, terror, or repulsion in the reader, as opposed to thrillers, which are more about suspense and general excitement. This genre is often sprinkled with speculative (particularly paranormal) elements. Stephen King in shorthand.Action/Adventure: A book where the story is primarily focused on the plot, and all the exciting places and interesting occurrences exist to fuel the narrative. This is another genre that’s easy to pair. Like romance, most of us wish we had at least a little more action and adventure in our lives.Where Does This Leave You?

Experimentation is the best way to figure out what genre(s) you like most. Read widely. Write a lot. Eventually you’ll find something that tickles your creative self more than anything else. 

Never forget that genre is a marketing convention, and marketing is all about understanding what the customer wants. 

Know your genre, know your reader, and know yourself. 

The rest is just telling a story. 

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The Ultimate Guide to Character Development

If you’re a storyteller, then this page is about to become invaluable to you. Characters are the backbone of every great book, movie, or television show. Unforgettable narratives are driven by human frailty and the broken or brittle decisions that are a result of those weaknesses.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Character Development appeared first on Sterling & Stone.

The Ultimate Guide to Developing Your Characters

Congratulations … 

You’ve stumbled onto the secret of all great storytelling. 

If you’re a storyteller, then this page is about to become invaluable to you. Characters are the backbone of every great book, movie, or television show. Unforgettable narratives are driven by human frailty and the broken or brittle decisions that are a result of those weaknesses. 

Characterization is not impersonation. Great storytellers aren’t doing an impression of the personalities populating their story. Done well, it’s the author’s job to fully realize that character on the page. Most fiction writers spend significant time considering plot, but I wish I knew more who were half as devoted to developing their characters. 

As architect of the story you must be three people: the character who knows only what he or she is supposed to, the author who knows everything, and the reader who will one day experience it all. 

Despite the headline, there is no “ultimate guide” to developing your character. I’ve been studying this stuff for more than a decade. Our studio has well over a century of combined storytelling experience. And guess what? Even among our group of writers there is no one way to do this, or anything. 

But it’s still worth us sitting down to write this guide for you. Our studio will publish around two-hundred books in 2020, but we also have an understanding of what’s available in the indie space. While there is a lot of industry focus on what separates self-published titles from their traditional counterparts, too many comparisons are focused on conversion elements such as the book’s title, genre listing, product description, and cover. And yes, those elements are all critical for selling your book. 

Yet, longterm, that’s a poor place to focus. After your book is bought, it needs to resonate with readers, and that will only happen if you nail your character work. 

Sterling & Stone is all in on character.

We produce mostly genre fiction. We do have a line of nonfiction books where we pass on what we’ve learned to our audience of writers for the lowest possible cost, but we are a story studio, so our focus is naturally fiction. That means books, television, and film. Someday it will include graphic novels, games, VR/AR experiences, or any other form of storytelling that comes along. We dabble in literary, but because we have a business to run and there is generally much less revenue in literary fiction, our attention is on the sort of well paced and strong plotted stories that currently thrive in the marketplace. 

These are the stories where character traditionally takes a back seat to what happens next in the story. But not for us, and hopefully not for you. 

Think about your favorite books of all time. Pick the first one or two or three that pop into your head. Once you pictured the titles, your next thought probably went right to the characters rather than something that happened in the story. Now try the exercise for the last movie or TV show you saw and just had to tell someone about. Even if there were a staggering number of events and all of them bordered on lunacy, most people are still only driven to share their experience if they are emotionally invested in the journey. And those storytelling treks always come down to character. 

You don’t have to care as much about character as we do to have a successful career as an author. Truth is, these days it’s easy enough to focus on plot, write fast, tickle the algorithms, enroll your book in the right marketplace, and see a nice enough return on your titles every once in a while to keep you writing. 

But if you want to create perennial work that is human focused, can remain ignorant of the algorithms, and gather passionate and fiercely loyal readers who will inhale your work and tell their friends, characters must come first. 

This is one of the hardest jobs for a storyteller. Fortunately, it’s also the most rewarding. Readers deserve complex characters like the people in their lives, not the wallpaper amateur authors use to dress their narratives. This doesn’t have to be an overwhelming endeavor, but it does require both understanding and practice to get right. Well-developed characters are rarely obvious. They are nuanced, with subtlety and subtext prioritized over blunt force personality traits. 

As with any of the single page guides we create for hardworking writers like you, who want to do the hard work of understanding their stories, this one comes with the usual caveats. This time our warning is simple: don’t allow yourself to get overwhelmed. 

We made this as exhaustive as we could (it was supposed to be the ultimate guide, after all) without getting lost in the weeds. There are entire books on character creation, and you should read at least a few of them. But too many storytellers get lost on their way to greatness because they don’t know how to get going. It’s never been easier to learn as you work. Get started, pay attention, and constantly improve. 

Don’t expect to finish reading this and became a master by the end. But you should use this page to give yourself a working vocabulary that covers everything you need to know about basic character creation and improve every story you write on a foundational level. 

Before we give you a long list of elements to focus on, we’re going to quickly cover the different types of characters in your story. All of the below advice applies to characters in general, but you do want to adjust what you’re doing depending on the type of character you’re creating for your story. 

Protagonist: the hero of your story. Antagonist: the character who stands in the way of your protagonist’s goals. Deuteragonist: an important character, secondary to the protagonist (the sidekick). Love interest: a common element even outside of romances.Tertiary characters: background characters. Confidant: best friend, love interest, mentor, or any character the protagonist can confide in.Foil: a character whose values clash with the protagonist’s to highlight the protagonist’s personality.Dynamic character: a person who changes throughout the story.Static character: a person who doesn’t change. Stock character: archetypal characters (the innocent, the explorer, the jester, etc.). Symbolic character: this person is representative a larger theme or emotion.Round character: a fully realized person the audience feels they know. 

Yes, this is a lot of different character types, but stories need variety so consider this your cast. Don’t use every type in every story, but please understand them all. Character development is more than making up a person and giving them a name, a job, and a place in your story. Your reader deserves more than literary cardboard, your character needs a backstory and the traits that make that personal history believable. 

This (ultimate) guide to 20 things that will keep your characters strong and make your stories stronger. 

1. Know who your characters are and (just as important) why they are in the story

Characters aren’t something to collect with abandon, they are there for you to create with purpose. The more you understand why a personality makes the cut, or why you have given your protagonist a particular set of quirks. This list isn’t in order of importance, but this one is still up top because you should never, ever ignore it. 

You don’t have to know every character in your story beforehand, and you can absolutely allow the narrative to unfold to reveal people you never expected populating the pages almost a step ahead of you, but there should be a reason for every character in your story. Even if the person’s only job is to tear the movie stub of the couple going on their first date. 

Beginning storytellers will add characters for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with story. Maybe they like the way a certain character thinks or dresses or talks. That’s not good enough; an inventory of excuses for an unnecessary character’s presence isn’t the same as a reason. After a while this becomes second nature. 

Seasoned storytellers understand that if you color a character too much, readers will expect you to do something with that and not leave them hanging. When you’re learning how to create compelling characters, ask your self the following questions: 

What role does this character play in my story? Is this person essential to the story I’m trying to tell? What is his or her relationship with the other characters? Are they considered an addition or subtraction when around others?Is my character a stereotype, and if so how can I can I round them out? How will the story change if the character doesn’t exist, or isn’t on the page? 

Answer those questions and your character will be more well-rounded from the start. 

2. Create full character profiles

You can’t truly know your character until you spend time with them on the page and have seen how they behave. Only after you accompany this person you conjured from nowhere through some sort of incredible journey can you use your combined experiences to sharpen that personality for your reader. 

You get to decide everything, but you are also responsible for those decisions. Do your job, and a character of your creation will feel real to your reader. Some people are closer to the characters in their favorite books than they are to most humans in their actual life. If you’re one of those people, then you already understand the gravity of this responsibility. Let’s get you prepared to greet it. 

No two writers handle character exactly the same. Johnny is one of the three authors I write with. I’m on the outlines and he’s on drafts. Our process has steadily evolved over the years, but right now it’s more character based than ever before. He recently asked me to scale back to something almost skeletal on the “what happens” part of the outline. Johnny wants “as much as I can give him” on character. A sentence or two per chapter is good enough to get him going on what must occur, because our characters will both fuel and respond to the events. 

To create quality profiles that yield real feeling characters:

Get in your character’s head. Ask yourself, what would it be like to have lived all of my life as this person? Start with empathy, even or especially if you’re brainstorming the villain.Interview your character. We use something called Character DNA, a set of 350 questions. We never use them all, but we have a bank to draw from. Everything from What was your earliest childhood memory? to What would you like to be doing five years from now? Give your character a secret. Treat this as an essential step, even if the reader never knows what it is. That part isn’t important. You’re getting to know this character and secrets often drive behavior.  Make them complex. You probably don’t have a single simple person in your life, so don’t disrespect your characters by making them one-dimensional. Give them backstories (we’ll get there in a few minutes) and contradictions (we’ll cover that, too). See the world from their perspective. Your character’s childhood, parental relationship, religious and political beliefs, peer group, political leanings, sexual preferences, and strong opinions all inform the way he or she sees the world. That means you have to temporarily see it that way, too. 

Give your character a strong enough identity that it helps you to understand their place in the world. The more your story feels like a container of truth, the more weight it will carry. If you can properly make the reader believe in your character on the page, then your story will mean more to them. 

Most of understanding who a character is comes from knowing where they came from. 

3. Give your characters a strong backstory

We all have our baggage, so does your character. 

Consider the mile marker’s in your protagonist’s life. That matters for all your characters to some degree, but with the usher tearing your ticket it only matters whether he had a good or bad day before showing up to work, and whether he was nice to the couple on their first date. For your protagonist, that backstory is everything. 

You should have fun here, without getting carried away. Some of us could write imaginary memoirs for our characters, that doesn’t mean we should. But we do want enough personal history to understand why a character responds to situations the way they do. There is no limit to what you can know as the author, but you should only hang a lantern on what’s important for your reader. 

Our life is made up of every moment until the one we just inhaled. Your character needs a history that feels like an honest origin story, and not just a bunch of happenings that felt cool to come up with. 

If you interview your character before creating their history, you will have naturally colored some of this in already. If not, you can still interview yourself as the character after you understand their backstory. The process will be illuminating. 

Ask yourself: 

What are the significant events in my character’s childhood that affected the person they became? Was anything about their adolescence especially traumatic? Where on the income spectrum did your character’s family fall? Did they accept their upbringing, or rebel against it? What are the three healthiest relationships in your character’s life, and how are they defined by them? What are the three most toxic relationships in your character’s life, and how are they defined by them?What is my character’s biggest ambition? What is my character’s biggest secret? Has my character ever gone into mourning? What is the most destructive patterns in my character’s life? What are my character’s three pivotal life moments?

You can do a lot with those last two. Consider your own destructive patterns and how they’ve held you back. Now do the same for some of the people in your life. Most of us don’t pay nearly enough attention enough to the rhythms of our own behavior, but we can’t afford to ignore that when it comes to our characters. Know when she’s looping, so you can give her an earned exit from the behavioral echo. 

Use the three pivotal moments to find the pattern. Tell yourself three stories of significant events in their life, or times when they had to make an important decision, then find the common elements. Congratulations, your character just gained another layer. 

4. Draw upon your own experiences

This is one of the greatest joys of being a writer, so please don’t miss out. Good, bad, and all the characters who live in between (that should be most of them). The joy of creation lives in every character and helps you to develop your creative self. 

People who know me agree I’m a really nice guy, but I’ve been heinous on the page. One of our studio’s most popular characters is a serial killing genius who couldn’t be more fun to write. Heroes or monsters, I’ve had a blast with both. I’m also used to drawing heavily on my own life to tell a story. This doesn’t mean that everyone I know always shows up, or that my characters are writers or anything like that. But if I see a clever billboard while driving, it’ll probably make the page within the next week. That comes with writing an average of 5,000 words a day. You’re always skimming from the surface of your life. 

You should do it too, in big ways and small. It’s easy. 

Do you remember a time when you were really scared? 

How about a time when you couldn’t stop laughing? 

What about getting your heart broken? 

Or breaking someone else’s? 

Have you lost a grandparent, a child, a cherished pet? 

Were you ever abused or molested? 

Have you ever been unkind? Or perhaps even the perpetrator of evil?

No matter who your characters are, there is always at least a splinter of you inside them. Be intentional. 

5. Make sure your backstory always has purpose

Drafting your character’s personal history for your understanding is great, but deluging the reader with it is not. It’s a natural desire to share what you know. You’ve spent all that time inventing this person, of course you want them to crackle on the page. Don’t worry, they will. But sometimes addition can lead to subtraction and too much of what you know won’t serve the story. Your reader didn’t buy a biography, they want to be told a story.

There are three simple questions when adding backstory from your research into the narrative. 

Does it drive the story forward? Does it define something about your character the reader didn’t know before? Does it serve as a callback to an earlier point, or to further the bond the character and reader?  

It can be one or all three of those, but if it’s less than that, the backstory is for you and not the reader. 

6. Pepper your character’s history throughout the story

Don’t let that last tip scare you off adding a liberal amount of backstory. You absolutely should. Just make sure it’s the best stuff, and not dumped all in one place. You’ve never gone up to someone at a party and started telling them everything about your life in an info dump like Chunk when Mama Fratelli’s about to shove his hand into the blender. If you have, I’m sorry, about all of the times you’ve probably eaten alone.

Backstory can be tricky to get on the page, if you’re trying to force it. Know your character’s history like you would know your own and this becomes more manageable. You make these people up, but it should never read that way. That means only sharing what makes sense to share. Always in the appropriate amount. Too little or too much affects your pacing. And there’s a fine line between starving the reader for information and boring them with details the author feels compelled to tell them. 

Never assault your reader with excessive exposition or contrived explanations. Always layer backstory into your story where it makes most sense to do so. 

It is okay to tease at things without fully explaining them. Curiosity is a highly effective driver. But don’t ask any questions you don’t intend to answer, unless that’s your intention. Ambiguity should never be an accident. Related: 

7. Never send your characters to Exposition Laboratories

Even if you get super, stupid successful and your books are optioned for movies, then they commission you to write the screenplays for those movies, please don’t ever have your characters go to Exposition Laboratories. 

This isn’t an actual place, but you’ve seen it plenty. Most genres have a version of this trope. Imagine every disaster movie ever. At some point the hero goes to Exposition Laboratories so some scientist who doesn’t matter to the story in the slightest beyond explaining what’s happening to the audience. A version of this scene is sometimes necessary, it’s up to you how ridiculous you want to make it. We suggest subtlety. 

Audiences don’t want info dumps of information. Even done well, they are an interruption to the flow. The larger the dump, the bigger the wall you’re erecting in front of your story. Characters can’t express the obvious through dialogue because it undermines their believability, and delivering the information through inner monologue can add unnecessary weight to your story. 

Find subtle, intelligent ways for your characters to discover the things they need to know. 

8. Who your characters will become is just as important as who they are.

Backstory is great, but that isn’t what your reader came for. The character’s quest should be informed by their past, but remain in the present. If you’re writing genre fiction, it’s essential for your character to change over the course of your story. 

The pilot for Breaking Bad does this perfectly. Walter is perfectly milquetoast. No respect from anyone. A true sad sack. But the story never wallows in it. Once that backstory is established it’s used to fuel one of the most impressive character arcs storytelling has ever seen. 

Give your characters places to grow, then make sure they do. 

9. Give your character plenty of internal conflict

Even if you’re avoidant in real life, you can’t afford to turn a blind eye on your character’s suffering. Heap it on without apology. 

The problems your character will have with the world are actually problems he or she has with themselves. They are projections, or perhaps reflections of the demons inside them. Cognitive dissonance, the clash between want and need, the chasm between who your character is are and who they’ve been telling the world they want to be with their behavior, it’s all a part of the cocktail, even if your character doesn’t know it.

10. Give your characters fears and desires

You already know your character needs an arc, and that it needs to tie into theme. You probably also know they need strengths and weaknesses, though we’ll cover that next. But realize that fear and desire are a pair of elements that influence everything else in your character’s life and you will have someone who feels much closer to a living, human person to your reader. 

Define your character’s internal compass. Know what drives them forward, and the irritations holding them back. Our formative fears and desires often shape us. Your character needs at least two primary goals. One for their life and another from the story. These can be the same, and can also overlap, but they might be entirely different. It depends on your character and on the story, but as with all the other elements, it should never be an accident. 

You don’t need to go deep with minor characters, but your protagonist and antagonist should have these goals serve as the basis of their journey. This will ground your narrative with purpose and direction. 

Motivation: every action your character takes should be done for a reason, even if he or she doesn’t know what that reason is. A goal helps your reader invest in the character’s journey. Purpose: every character should add value to your story. Knowing what a person wants or fears will always give you insight into the way they think and will likely behave. Purpose helps both your character and your story feel more authentic to your reader. Fear: that’s why we’re here, but it’s worth restating: fear shapes the human experience. We’re plagued by the unknown, dogged by insecurities, and forced to constantly doubt ourselves. Make your character afraid of something elemental and you will be stoking empathy in your reader. Desire: Your character’s wants are extremely powerful, and will push him or her to do terrible, heroic, or maybe dangerous things. Desire is a consistent quality driver of story. Love: or hate, since they are opposite sides of the coin. These are the two most powerful emotions, so imbuing your character with either one will automatically supercharge much of the other stuff. 

Fears and desires add shade to your characters strengths and weaknesses, so let’s talk about those next. 

11. Give your characters strengths and weaknesses, but make sure they also have a specific flaw

Do not make your character a Dudley Do-Right. I created a character in one my first series with Dave. I made Desmond a little too knowing, a little too honorable, and a little too courageous. Dave called him Desmond Do-Right, and we had to make him go dark in later books to account for my earlier lack of judgment.

No one wants to read about a perfect character. Anything close is boring. You want a character who is as flawed as everyone else you know. Human, vulnerable, and real. Even Superman, a living god, is occasionally forced to deal with kryptonite. A perfect protagonist is alienating to your reader. 

But please, don’t make your character Barney Fife. Unless that’s the point. Always with intention, no matter what. Your reader needs to relate to the character, so that means making them human, somewhere in the middle of wonderful and needs some work. Probably not too different from you. 

Once you’ve determined your character’s strengths and weaknesses, it will feel more natural to find places in your story to exhibit their positive and negative behaviors. If your character is scared of the dark, it will seem noble when he enters the abandoned mansion first. If he’s naturally courageous, it might be more heroic to hang back and let someone else take the lead. 

And don’t forget to give your character that flaw. Humans are imperfect. Know what it is that your character always gets wrong. This will be closely linked to their patterns. When in their lives have they felt most restless, been the most discontent, afraid, or hungry? When have those negative emotions led them to regrettable behaviors, and how often do those feelings resurface? 

We’re all different, because we’re all dragging different baggage behind us. 

To be imperfect is to be human. So you can write a more human story by giving your character personality flaws that play into their relationships, fears, disappointments, and discontent.

12. Make your characters distinct

It’s fine to have character types you can lean on. Actors and directors do this all the time. If you’re watching a Scorsese movie, odds are good that you’re also watching either Dicaprio or Deniro. Johnny and I have a small stable of character sketches we rotate through. It’s practically an art with Dave. Most of his books have a lonely teenager, an abusive father, or someone taking too many pills. Several of our books together have all three. But still, even those character types are all different, from one book to the next. 

I referred to them as sketches for a reason. Even if you’re starting from the same place, there are things you can and should do to refine the character and shape them into something unique. You still want to articulate the characters fears and desires and strengths and weaknesses, now detailing how speech, dress, or physicality might influence or demonstrate these qualities. 

Make your characters unique by giving them individual ways of talking, dressing, and behaving. Add diversity to your cast, not just so the social and ethnic makeup is representative of the world you’re presenting for your reader, you also want a balanced lineup of personalities to act as foils for your most important characters. 

Avoid stereotypes. Like the rest of your sketch, they might serve as a decent place to start, but you can always do better. Your characters deserve a personality that isn’t born from tired clichés. Take the time to craft personas who represent a clearer world view. 

Keep them interesting by giving them interests. Thin of the last fascinating person you met, where you couldn’t wait to hear them expound about their passions. Craft this experience for your reader by creating characters who care deeply about their areas of pursuit.

Give your character a quirk. We all have odd habits that seem normal or innocuous to us but are noticeable to others. These are the sorts of small details that help your character stand out, even if you’ve used a similar character before. 

13. Make things really difficult for your character

We’ll keep this one simple, because I’m sure you’ve already heard a version of it plenty. Story is conflict, so we can probably agree that the same is true for character. You want to make your characters: 

FAIL: This is the only way they can grow. SUFFER: This gives meaning to their success.WORK: It isn’t enough that things go well, the reader wants to see the results of your character’s effort. 

It’s your job as god of the story to be at least occasionally unkind to your characters. Make them insecure, uncomfortable, and uncertain of their future. This is for the best, even if it’s hard. Readers will thank you with five-star reviews.

No matter how difficult you make things for your character, make sure you reveal those hardships to your reader in the most appropriate way. 

14. Show, don’t tell

You’ve heard this over and over, but that doesn’t excuse you from hearing it now. This is the golden rule of fiction: tell stories as you want them told to you. And whether we realize it or not, we all prefer showing over telling, and that applies to your character development as much as to anything else in your story. 

You could tell your reader everything there is to know about your character through narrative summary, but she will never appreciate that (or love your story) nearly as much as she’ll can if you trust her enough to color the picture and let her see it all for herself. 

Reveal your character through dialogue and their interactions with other characters. We’ll discuss both of those in a moment. But first, let’s hit the reasoning so you won’t just get this right with your next character, but with every character you write throughout the remainder of your storytelling life. 

A reader chose your book at least in part because they have have an active imagination and part of the joy in reading is in activating and using that imagination. Telling her about the characters in your story is a passive experience, but revealing character through dialogue, behavior, and subtext is always more impactful. 

Reveal your character through the words they use, the things they think, and the way they treat the enemies and allies in their life. As a reader, would you rather be told that a character is friendly, or shown? Do you want to be told that they’re sad, happy, or scared, or would you rather see that reality for yourself. 

TELLING: Sam didn’t feel well, but he couldn’t let that stop him.  

SHOWING: Sam clutched his stomach, ignored his gurgling bowels, and entered the room anyway. 

TELLING: Sam was happy. This was the first trophy he had ever won. 

SHOWING: Sam couldn’t stop smiling as he set his trophy on the shelf. Alone for now, but not for long. 

TELLING: Sam was scared. There was something evil on the other side of the door. 

SHOWING: Sam’s brow and face were slicked with sweat, he couldn’t slow his heart, and he thought he might choke on his own fear. A heavy breath was coming from the other side of the door, and the creature making it was probably going to kill him. 

Occasionally, your narrative might need a little telling, but if you’re showing well on the page, then your secondary characters can sometimes do a bit of that necessary telling for you. 

15. Add perspective by using secondary characters intelligently

Much of a storyteller’s focus should stay fixed on developing their protagonist and antagonist. But secondary characters often deserve more attention than they receive. Done well, it’s your story’s side characters who can show sides of your hero or heroine that you’ve not yet revealed to your reader. 

Maybe your protagonist seems weak, and perhaps even sees themselves that way. And yet, after viewing the world from another character’s perspective we come to understand that the hero isn’t weak at all, they’re holding onto some pain so that secondary character doesn’t have to. What appeared as a frailty was actually a strength. Of course, that works the other way around as well. Your character could appear strong, until another personality enters the story to disclose their weakness. 

Great characters have layers, but no matter how much complexity you add a single perspective can only say so much. If given proper development, secondary characters can have a massive impact on both your characters and your narrative, especially if revelations are delivered mostly through dialogue. 

16. Reveal character through dialogue

Your story needs interesting, believable characters. But you can’t just tell your reader the protagonist is interesting, because plenty of authors have tried that before and she’s going to have a hard time believing you. We’ve talked a lot about different ways to reveal character, but one of the most rewarding, both for the reader and for the character herself, is dialogue. 

This can be difficult, especially for beginning writers, since dialogue is one of the hardest things to consistently nail. For some storytellers this is natural, but for many dialogue is an element of the writing process that requires more work. Sure, you want your characters to have witty banter and memorable one-liners, if that’s the sort of story you’re telling, but that can’t be all there is. The point is to know who your characters are, not how clever they can be. 

Each character should have his or her own speech patterns, vocabulary, rhythm, and tone. In other words, a personalized but general way of speaking. Is their language more likely to be timid or bold? Do they curse like my mother, or are they afraid of bad words like my son? Are they honest, excitable, manipulative, calm? What do the things a character says reveal about where he or she has come from? 

Miles Davis said that music lies in the silences “between the notes.” This is true when it comes to dialogue as well. What isn’t being said is often as important, or even more than whatever is explicitly stated. Consider all of this when crafting intelligent dialogue that moves your story forward. 

But don’t overdo it. You want your characters to be unique, but as in real life there should also be overlap. You don’t want a cast where every character has an entirely different way of speaking so much that it becomes a distraction for the reader. 

Keep your dialogue tight and avoid unnecessary exchanges. It’s okay to let your characters go on and on in the rough draft while getting to know them, but be vigilant in the edit and make sure that every line you leave in the story has a specific purpose. Always read your dialogue out loud. If it sounds unnatural, it probably is. 

17. Keep your characters consistent

Consistency is essential to developing a strong character. 

We’ve all been there. We read a book, see a movie, or are watching one of our favorite shows when a character does something we know they would never do. At least not according to everything the story has told us about the character so far. This makes us immediately tune out, at least a little. We can’t help it. There’s a part of us that’s stopped believing in that story. Even if this happens on a subconscious level, it is happening. Please, don’t ever do this to your reader. 

Consistent characterization will help your reader believe, identify, and bond with your story. Someone who has been faithful to their spouse for twenty years needs an excellent reason to cheat. Simple temptation in that instance is never going to be enough. 

Character stability is something you should be mildly aware of during the rough draft and deeply tuned into during revision. Try any of the following strategies to keep your work consistent. 

Create a bible. This can be simple. It can stay in Scrivener or whatever writing software you use, or in a separate document altogether. Either way, your bible houses all the details you might need for future reference. Physical descriptions like height, hair and eye color, or style of dress. Personal preferences such as favorite foods or places to visit. Style of dress, nervous ticks, secrets kept and confessed, etc. Give your draft character passes. This is a strategy you can grow out of for sure, but it’s especially helpful in the beginning if you’re the type of writer who has difficulty with consistency. Focus on going through the draft while paying attention to one character. Worrying about one thing rather than everything will help you to see where characterization might be uneven. Cool the draft. Returning to your work after some time away will open your eyes to inconsistencies you will be more likely to let go of after some time apart. Seeing something as new can help you see it for what it needs to be.

Inconsistencies can pull your reader out of the story. But you need her to stay invested, and ready for the next one. So keep your character’s behavior dependable, and always give them something to say. 

18. Give your characters strong opinions

It doesn’t matter what genre you’re writing. It could be romance, sci-fi, or historical fiction. Your characters need opinions, because readers don’t bond with weak or indecisive characters. Characters drive the story, regardless of genre. If you make them incapable of making good decisions or having strong opinions, then the reader won’t trust them.

That may be fine for a particular character, if that is their character trait. We all know people who love to say things like, you decide, but we know they have little to no leadership ability. That’s fine for a side character, but it’s not okay for your main characters because opinions form action. That drives the story, and your reader needs urgency to turn the page.

Any time you have an opportunity to show conflict between opinion and action, take it. If a character feels strongly that they shouldn’t enter the cave, then have that character make a compelling argument as to why they should leave it alone. Then they can either enter the cave or not. Either way, you’ve made the reader care about the decision.

Your character can have unpopular opinions. In real life people have unpopular opinions and your audience may not like your main character for exactly that reason. It’s better to have a character with strong opinions who rubs your reader the wrong way, than a character who stands for nothing. At least the character with strong opinions will move the story along.

Look for opportunities to give your characters strong opinions. In your outline, in your draft, and definitely in your revision. Any time you have the chance to give your characters strong opinions, capitalize on the opportunity to make your story feel that much more authentic.

19. Give your character’s name the attention it deserves

Naming matters, much more than many storytellers realize. 

The title of your book, world building elements from businesses to magical systems, and, of course, characters. But the truth is, a lot of authors don’t put nearly enough thought into their namestorming, or they give it the wrong kind of attention. 

Yet, naming deserves deep thought as much as any other element of characterization. Name reveals a lot about plot and setting and background. My father’s name is John but he’s gone by Joe my entire life. He’s also convinced that he would have had a different life if he’d been Joe as a kid instead of John, because everyone knows that Johns are more serious and Joes are more fun.

Sure, you could pick a standard name and make your person unique throughout the rest of your characterization, but taking their name into account from the beginning can add to that character. Ideally, the name you choose should have both purpose and power. 

Use the following shortcuts and considerations when naming your character. 

Look for root meanings. If you want your character to be heroic, you can name him something like Connor, Dorian, or Gabriel. For most genres that’s going to work much better than something on the nose like “Dash.” Pay attention to the era. Google is your friend. If you’re writing a book set in the roaring 20s and your character is a teenager, then do enough research to know what names were popular at the dawn of the twentieth century. Location and time should always factor into a character’s name. Make the name easy to pronounce. Don’t get cute. If you’re writing sci-fi, please don’t assume your name needs extra Qs or Xs. The name “Quaxelborg” doesn’t scream science fiction so much as amateur.Consider your reader. Vary your names. I’m always changing Dave’s. In our last book we had an Anika and an Alexa. We also had a Seb and a Sid. This creates unnecessary work for the reader. Alexa became Chelsea and Sid became Ned. Variation helps. Borrow from your life. Sometimes the best name combinations come from paying attention. A few of our studio’s most memorable names have come from mashups of baseball players my son loves, names I’ve seen on billboards while driving, or interesting monikers I’ve come across. Keep a file of interesting sounds, then draw on that file when you’re looking to name a new character.Get alliterative. But be careful with this strategy. It can work great, or seem especially gimmicky, depending on genre, tone, and execution. 

Names are one of the ways your reader can bond with your character. Give it, and this last step, the attention they deserve to create the most memorable personality possible. 

20. Give your character a great introduction

A lot of authors will introduce a character by focusing on their physical appearance. While this can be done well, it’s rarely the best option and should only be done with specific intention. It’s not that your character’s appearance doesn’t matter, but it is a lower form of narrative. Telling over showing your story. 

Remember, you never get a chance to make a first impression. That’s as true in your story as it is in real life. Frame your character’s first introduction according to what you want your reader to know most about them. Consider the following starting points: 

Use backstory. If you can effectively deliver backstory without dumping exposition on your reader up front, this can give them a mainline to your character’s psychological profile.Show your character at work. What is it that makes this person unique? Are they great at their job, or miserable? Either way, professions are often an excellent means to reveal character. Let a secondary character do the work for you. As discussed, your protagonist can be revealed through other people in your story as well. Showing other characters talking about your heroine before she’s introduced can add tension and intrigue to her inevitable introduction. Show your character mid-decision. We are a product of the choices we make. Open your story with your character on the cusp of the right significant, life changing decision, and bonding is immediate. Have your character introduce his or herself. This works especially great in first person stories. Create a situation that has the character showing themselves. Johnny and I have used this device a few times, where we’ll have our protagonist go through some sort of intake process during the opening scene so the reader gets to know a lot about them, without it being exposition heavy. Describe your character. Of course, this is an option, and it deserves to be on the list, but it’s down here at the bottom so you will hopefully give some of the other less exhausted options a try first. If you go this route, please make sure you know what makes the description unique, and how that snapshot defines your character. 

First impressions matter, in life and in your story. Make your main character’s the best it can be. 

Characters tell the story …

Your story deserves strong, complex characters. 

But there’s no way even a tutorial as thorough as this one can do that work for you. The only way to create truly memorable characters is to start writing and see how the people of your creation come alive in your story. Then do that again and again. 

No matter the depth of your character, they will always be a different person at the end of your story than they were in the beginning. You will discover what shaped them, what sent them off on their journey, and what changes they faced in their world. 

Give your characters obstacles, observe their mistakes, and help them to pivot through them. 

Make them complex, unique, and relatable. Give them a voice that reflects where they were raised, their experiences, level of education, and personality. Know their happy place, the bane of their existence, and their life’s only refuge. Find their redemption and their glory. 

Your character can and will mess up. You as the storyteller will help to shape who they become and define who they are in their heart, whether it beats in real life or not.

Yes, characters are the backbone of every story. And yes, unforgettable fiction is driven by the best of them. But now you understand that characterization isn’t the same as impersonation. Storytellers are collectors, so start gathering the bits and pieces that will help you to tell the best possible story. Not just character traits, but how they all work together to form your story’s theme, which is, of course, a character in itself. 

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The Ultimate Guide to Writing Dialogue (with Examples)

What’s your favorite line of dialogue?  Let’s stick with movies, because that’s a vocabulary we can all agree on. And if you want to learn to write great dialogue, well written movies are a great place to start. So what is it, your favorite line?  Don’t think too hard on it, favorite lines can change…

Read the full article

The post The Ultimate Guide to Writing Dialogue (with Examples) appeared first on Sterling & Stone.

How to Outline a Novel

Writers are always looking for formulas. 

It’s part of our wiring. We love telling stories, so that’s rarely the hard part for us. 

The hardest part is knowing what to write. 

Maybe you’re just starting your search now, or maybe you’ve scoured the internet looking for the solution that’s right for you already. 

Stop looking. You’ve found the only answer you’ll ever need. This page is about to become one of your favorite references. You might want to share it with all your writer friends: OH MY GOD! Did you see the outline template over at Sterling & Stone? That shit be CRAZY! 

You might also prefer to keep this page all to yourself. I believe in sharing, which is why I’m writing this for you, but I also understand the temptation to keep the treasure for yourself. 

Either way, this page is a forever page, designed to help you permanently improve your storytelling. There is a ton of advice out there on outlining, starting with the question of whether writers should even outline at all. But the big problem with all of that advice is that the people writing it have no idea who you are or what you actually need. 

The same is true for us, the difference is that because we’re a studio full of writers, we have a depth of experience to tell us what consistently works and what’s likely to send an average writer off the rails. 

Let’s start by addressing the battle between pantsers and plotters. 

As with everything creative, there is a spectrum. There are pantsers who wish to sit at their desk without any idea as to their beginning, middle, or end, and are most interested in seeing where the story might take them. Then there are plotters who outline every beat for each scene in their story, with nearly every second of the narrative playing out in their heads before they ever get to Once upon a time. 

Plotters plan and pantsers fly, but there are pros and cons to both. There are no rules, but in general, plotters are more likely to develop an efficient creative process while avoiding hurdles like writer’s block. Yet, they also lack the freedoms that pantsers can bring to their pages, allowing the characters a strong enough voice to take control of the story.

Our studio is filled with both plotters and pantsers. Some of us outline, some of us don’t, and no two outlines are ever the same, even among collaborative teams that have been writing forever. 

Outlining component is like any other part of the writing process. It’s highly personal and your mileage will vary. Our job is to help you understand what you need from an outline so you have the tools to create higher quality work in less time. 

The goal isn’t to get you going on your next outline. We want to sharpen your approach to storytelling so that whether you’re a plotter or a pantser, your ability to craft a better narrative will be immediate, and something that follows you for the rest of your life. 

As we said up top, writers are always looking for formulas. The variables are up to you, but this page will give you a general storytelling equation to evolve the arithmetic of your writing.

Always be evolving … 

I’m sure you’ve heard the adage, Give a man a fish and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you’ve fed him for a lifetime. Confucius might have said it. 

I’m going to give you a template. Please use it wisely. Many people will read this page then use the information as a temporary solution. I hope you’re better than that. I want you to read this page, understand the principles, so you can permanently develop yourself.

I never use this template, and yet it informs much of what I write. Being the most collaborative storyteller in our studio (according to number of active projects), I draft, absorb, and write the most outlines. And still, no matter who I write with, the process is unique. 

I’ve been writing with Dave the longest and yet our process has evolved the least. He’s a natural pantser and bristles hard against pre-production structure. It’s easier for Dave to write an outline for me than it is for him to craft one for himself. Most of Dave’s joy comes from discoveries he makes in the draft, so his outlines need to reflect that. When I write an outline for Dave, I know it should focus more on generalities than specifics, with plenty of room to play. His outlines for me are often a set of highly specific scenes intermingled with moments of dialogue (that usually make it into the rough draft) and many chapters that are barely more than one or two sentence sketch to tell me what has to happen and why. 

Johnny mostly wants character, settings, and interesting details. He only needs a prompt when it comes to what will happen next. Anything else is getting in the way. We’ve written together for more than seven years. I’ve always written the outlines and he’s always written the drafts. I’ll likely be writing to my first Johnny outline soon. We will learn something new and evolve our process further. 

I’ve never outlined for Bonnie, because she would prefer to think out the story for herself. That makes sense, she also crafts the most detailed outlines I’ve ever written from. If I’m working from a Bonnie outline, the story is already there. My job is to bring it into vibrant life. A 40,000 word novella might have 15,000 words worth of outline. 

I’m fortunate to work with many amazing writers. It’s a massive benefit, getting to tell a wide array of stories, but my favorite part about having an abundance of great creative relationships is how much it forces me to constantly grow. I can only produce the way I do thanks to excellent systems and spectacular partners. 

I can’t offer you my collaborators, but I can still share our process.

I was a copywriter before I turned to fiction. I wrote a lot of sales letters, and even wrote a book about how to do it. Fiction is cake compared to sales copy. I can fly through a story I’m just making up, but words that need to drive a reader down the page before moving them to take a specific action at the end is both a science and an art. 

Starting was always difficult. I could write the rough draft for a 5,000 word sales letter in a couple of days, but it would sometimes take a week before I finally started. Eventually, I learned the lesson I now apply to every fiction project: writing is rewriting. 

The most important part of the process was getting the ideas down. I needed a system to do that, so I built one for myself. Interesting thing was — and this is exactly what I want for you — I only needed that template a couple of times. 

Once I understood what made the template work, the knowledge was there in my head. 

That’s why I never use what I’m about to share with you. I hope that you use the hell out of it, then toss the template and never need it again because you’ve developed a deeper understanding of story. 

For now, this can be the only outlining template you need. But please, use it to build muscle memory, and fish rather than eat. 

Before you start plotting …

A lot of storytellers focus on “what should happen next,” especially when they’re starting out. This is natural. When we read books, watch our favorite TV shows, or go to the movies, that’s the question we’re constantly asking ourselves. 

But construction and consumption aren’t the same. There are a few elements that will help you craft a better, because even if they aren’t what the audience is actively thinking about, it is what they will ultimately care about, and that’s what matters most to the long term relationship you want to develop with your audience. 

Better stories make for better fans, and better fans help us storytellers to write the best possible life for ourselves. 

To start your story off right, make sure you know the following:

Who your protagonist is — what makes him special, what he wants more than anything, and what he fears most (i.e. he’s an adrenaline-junkie smuggler who’s determined to strike it rich, but his fear of being a sucker means he keeps everyone at arm’s length)
Your protagonist’s external goal (i.e. to complete the K-run in less than 12 units of speed — not parsecs, because parsecs are a unit of distance)
Your protagonist’s flaw or backstory-inflicted wound, and how that flaw/wound is keeping him stuck in a rut and causing him to fit/not fit into his everyday world (i.e. his inability to trust others comes from being abandoned by his con-artist father)Your protagonist’s coping mechanism(s) he uses to deal with the pain that’s eating him (i.e. drinks, gambles, jogs away the hangover while his one-night stand is still snoring)Your protagonist’s misbelief — the flawed way of thinking that warps his understanding of reality, which arises from his backstory-inflicted wound (i.e. everyone else is looking out for number one first, so I need to protect myself by doing the same)The same things for your antagonist, plus how he embodies what’s wrong with your protagonist’s world (i.e. in a galaxy dominated by a totalitarian government determined to keep its citizens “safe” by micromanaging their lives, this control-freak cop believes that rule-breakers create chaos that rots civilization from the inside out)

Put twists in wherever they make sense, but never ever force them. If you’re looking for spots where story structure tends to support a twist, those have been noted in the template.

A note on structure: 

You’ve heard of the three act structure, everyone has. Problem is, the fallacy of stories adhering to those three movements has too many writers struggling through the middle of their books. We like three acts because it’s logical. Stories have beginnings, middles, and ends. Clearly that lines up with three acts. 

Yet storytellers wrestle through their narratives. They know where to start, and they maybe have an idea for a killer ending, but that endless second act sees them crashing into walls or running in circles. 

I use four acts because the math is more obvious. In just about every diagram on structure we see that the first and third acts account for around half of a story, while the middle or second half accounts for the rest. But it’s more than the second act being split in two, because in our studio the second and third acts have different purposes. 

I don’t think in terms of three acts, not just because I believe that’s an unreasonable ratio of time devoted to the second act, but because I see them as the different sections of the book dealing with separate thematic elements. I treat each as unique, dramatic movements. 

The general outline I use for this template is divided into four acts, with ten chapters per act. This can’t be stated enough, so here we go again: This is one way of doing things among a billion possibilities. This does not mean your book needs to be 40 chapters exactly. This is an exercise to get the story out. Some chapters might need to be expanded, while others should get collapsed. Understanding the template will direct your efforts better than painting by the numbers. 

Subplots are optional. You can keep all 40 scenes focused on the main story. But if you’d like to include a subplot — a romance, a bromance, or some other smaller story line — you can use the following scenes to develop your subplot:  5-7, 12-13, 17-18, 22-23, 27-28. 

I’ll cover the outline first as the what that needs to happen in each chapter, followed by the why at the end of this page. 

The Only Novel Outline You Will Ever NeedACT ONE

1. It’s business as usual for your protagonist, who’s being his sympathetic self while he chases his dream … until something throws him off-stride. Could be someone messing with him, or he might’ve slipped up.

2. We see what’s special about him as he does his best to recover from the stumble, but we also see what sucks about his current rut, and how his flaw or wound is holding him back.

3. He thinks he’s getting his groove, but instead he staggers face-first into the inciting incident, which irrevocably ruins his life and starts the clock ticking on his story goal. 

4. He didn’t handle that very well, so now he indulges in one or more coping mechanisms as he muddles through the aftermath, resolving to get his life back on track.

5. Your protagonist has a new plan, and it’d be a great one, if it wasn’t based on his misbelief. But something has changed, whether he recognizes it or not, and things get a little rocky as he executes it.

6. He leans on his usual allies and resources, but they’re not enough; even worse, the trouble he gets into triggers his flaw or wound — this new situation feels a little bit like that thing he never got over.

7. Taking a step back, literally or metaphorically, your protagonist tries to figure out how he lost control of this situation. He might go looking for advice, or advice might come looking for him … but either way, his misbelief prevents him from understanding it.

8. Realizing it’s time to pull out what he thinks are the big guns, your protagonist does something that he would normally consider to be a last-ditch effort to get his life back on track — but instead, whatever he tries ends up backing him into a corner.

9. He might have a moment of false success before he finds himself stuck outside his comfort zone, exposed and vulnerable. Maybe he wasn’t expecting there to be a twist here? He’s made his situation ten times worse, and none of his usual allies can (or will?) help.

10. Maybe he has no choice, or maybe they’re all bad choices — either way, your protagonist has to choose between letting his everyday world become intolerable or stepping into uncharted (for him) territory. He commits to entering the extraordinary world.

ACT TWO

11. Your protagonist immediately stumbles on unfamiliar terrain — everything feels different here, even if it looks the same: new rules, new problems, new dangers. He dusts himself off and his insecurities sing a song of future failure.

12. Moving onward, he meets a representative of this extraordinary world — the antagonist, a minion, a mentor, a former ally or enemy who’s comfortable here, or maybe even a random stranger who embodies the spirit of this place. Your protagonist starts to understand the new yardstick that he will be measured by, and that he’d underestimated the dangers.  

13. Your protagonist plots what he thinks will be a safe course through the extraordinary world, recruiting whatever allies and resources he can, and sets off in a new direction. 

14. He seems to be making progress … yeah, he was freaking out, but he’s getting the hang of this place, so maybe it won’t be as bad as he thought. The new world throws a problem at him, and he handles it almost competently. Or was that beginner’s luck?

15. Crossing paths with the antagonist — or stumbling into a mess the antagonist has left behind — your protagonist is caught off guard. He gets a glimpse of the antagonist’s true power for the first time, and realizes he’s in over his head after taking significant damage.

16. Retreating, your protagonist finds temporary safe haven, but only after a sacrifice big enough to hurt. He licks his wounds, and if he receives advice, his misbelief keeps him from understanding how to apply it correctly. 

17. Your miserable protagonist reaches for one of his usual coping mechanisms, but even if it’s available in this strange world, it offers no relief. He might hide it well from those around him, but he’s on the verge of a meltdown and desperate enough to try something new, even if it means temporarily abandoning the misbelief that he’s been hiding behind.

18. A new door opens up for your protagonist …but the price of stepping through that threshold is steep, and might include losing allies or sticking his neck out in a big way.

19. An ambush waits on the other side of the door. Your protagonist survives by improvising, surprising even himself.

20. Past the ambush, your protagonist makes a discovery or has an epiphany that allows him to see that he hasn’t been playing the game wrong, he’s been playing the wrong game …and more is at stake than he ever imagined. This is an excellent place for a twist. 

ACT THREE

21. He might feel foolish for not seeing things clearly until now, but your protagonist makes a new plan. Unfortunately, now past the meltdown, he fails to recognize that temporarily abandoning his misbelief was a healthy thing, and he grabs onto it more tightly. 

22. Executing the new plan while gathering allies and resources as he goes, your protagonist hits a snag. It becomes apparent that his epiphany might’ve made him a wee bit overconfident.  

23. He must improvise again in the face of a dilemma: his misbelief wants him to choose option 1, but his epiphany suggests option 2 is the way to go. 

24. Whether he makes the wrong choice or fumbles after making the right one, he’s now on a collision course with the antagonist. He might be walking into an ambush, or he might be deliberately seeking the confrontation without realizing how seriously he’s outgunned.

25. The antagonist has the upper hand, and your protagonist feels his enemy’s true power — the antagonist is even stronger than before. Your protagonist might get a glimpse into the enemy’s end game, but he definitely realizes how deeply he’s in over his head. Another place where twists are often welcome. 

26. Your protagonist retreats in the face of his worst disaster yet, one that feels so much like that thing he never got over that’s he’s having déjà vu. He might’ve noticed a chink in the antagonist’s armor, but not soon enough to take advantage of it. 

27. As he’s gathering new allies and resources, something your protagonist did — or failed to do — in Act Two because of his misbelief comes back to bite him on the butt. 

28. He’s got to eat crow, beg for help, sacrifice more resources or improvise within an already imperfect plan — and he can only blame himself. He starts to question his misbelief: his biggest success came when he’d temporarily abandoned it, but the idea of surrendering it voluntarily is terrifying.

29. Your protagonist attacks that vulnerability he noticed earlier, and at first it seems he’s caught the antagonist unprepared — is victory at hand?

30. Nope. (Maybe there’s a twist here?) Either the antagonist was using that weakness to draw the protagonist in, or he reacted fast enough to protect it. Your protagonist gets one clear shot at the antagonist, but he must lose his misbelief to take it, and he isn’t able to make that leap of faith.

ACT FOUR

31. Forced to retreat or be taken prisoner, your protagonist experiences a moment of hopelessness that allows him to see his misbelief for what it is: a falsehood that’s kept him stuck in his flawed state ever since his backstory wound was inflicted. 

32. Something rekindles his hopes. Maybe he sees a way to defeat the antagonist, or perhaps he realizes he’d rather die on his feet than live on his knees. Either way, he’s ready to sacrifice everything to take his enemy down.

33. Your protagonist prepares for battle. Does a SWOT analysis for both sides, identifies the decisive blow that will be needed to win the battle, and makes his plan. 

34. As he takes the fight to the enemy, he may indulge in one of those if I die, I just want you to know moments. He arrives at the scene of the final showdown only to discover that the situation is different than he expected. Yet another great place for a twist, it’s practically built right into this beat. 

35. No plan survives contact with the enemy — and your protagonist’s enemy has been crushing it ever since their last encounter. Both sides take damage, and when your protagonist redoubles his efforts, his forces manage to neutralizes one of the antagonist’s minion or resources.

36. The war of attrition begins as the antagonist’s forces fight harder and your protagonist is isolated from the allies and resources he was counting on. The antagonist’s minion or neutralized resource is brought back into play or replaced by someone/thing even more powerful.

37. Your protagonist steps forward to battle the antagonist mano a mano. The true extent of the antagonist’s power (and the depths of his evil) become clear, and the antagonist gains the upper hand. Twist it up if you want to. 

38. Your protagonist realizes how he can strike the decisive blow and defeat the antagonist — and he does. Last chance for a twist! 

39. Your protagonist reacts to the defeat of the antagonist, who is or has been disposed of, and out-of commission allies might be recovered or revived.

40. Your protagonist and any surviving allies may celebrate their victory and console each other on their losses as they tie up all remaining loose ends (including a romance subplot, if there was one). Your story ends with your protagonist reaffirming how he’s changed and how he’s remained the same as a result of his ordeal (through both his words and his actions). 

Now, let’s make it even simpler. 

Again, this is all about understanding. So while the above told you what to do in each chapter, knowing the why behind each chapter can help you understand the narrative verse, chorus, verse you’re trying to create.

In between the major plot points, you’ll find a series of complications. Use these smaller plot points to show the conflicts that fall out of the major points, or for a subplot. Just remember that all subplots must dovetail with the main storyline and enhance its emotional impact.

In the summary below, scenes are grouped in sequences that form short arcs within your story.

Everyday world, everyday conflict Setup for the inciting incident Inciting incident Aftermath of the inciting incident Setup for the first complication First complication Aftermath of the first complication Minor dark moment Setup for the first plot point First plot point Aftermath of the first plot point Second complication Aftermath of the second complication Setup for the first pinch point First pinch point Aftermath of the first pinch point Third complication Aftermath of the third complication Setup for the midpoint Midpoint Aftermath of the midpoint Fourth complication Aftermath of the fourth complication Setup for the second pinch point Second pinch point Aftermath of the second pinch point Fifth complication Aftermath of the fifth complication Setup for the second plot point Second plot point Aftermath of the second plot point, part one: the dark moment Aftermath of the second plot point, part two: the resurgence of hope Climax, stage one: preparing for battle Climax, stage two: taking the fight to the enemy Climax, stage three: first contact Climax, stage four: war of attrition Climax, stage five: mano a mano Climax, stage six: from the ashes of disaster Resolution, stage one: sweeping up Resolution, stage two: reconnection

That’s your formula.

I hope it helps you to make starting more fluid and finishing easier than it’s ever been. 

Focus on the right things. Understanding the above outline is a lot more important than copying it. This isn’t a universal story, it’s one representation of how a narrative can unfold. A tool we use to teach our writers to become master storytellers, one project at a time. 

A tool I want to share with you. Because I understand that the hardest part of writing is getting started, and that a helping hand there can mean the difference between momentum and inertia. Like I said, I hope you share this, but if not then I hope it helps you to put better stories out into the world. 

Publishing is not a zero sum game. Another author’s success will never dilute yours. The better the standard in indie publishing, the more likely we are to keep people reading all of us. That’s another reason why I wrote this.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a plotter or a pantser. Try the above approach a time or two and see for yourself if it sharpens your understanding of story. 

In the meantime, may you never need another novel template again. 

The post How to Outline a Novel appeared first on Sterling & Stone.

10 Blog Post Ideas That Will Grab MAJOR Attention

Attention is everything online.

With enough attention, you can focus on other essentials of your blooming online business, such as authority, consistency and creating the pillar content that will give you plenty of free search engine optimized traffic.

But first, you must start with attention.

And it has to be the right type of attention, the kind that makes for happy readers, thrilled by your content’s inherent value. Not echoed posts that leave them feeling cheated, shortchanged or manipulated.

These 10 posts will help you grab the RIGHT kind of attention.

1. Make A List Of 10 Blogs In Your Niche You Couldn’t Live Without

Which websites have helped dictate the direction of your blogging most?

You’re subtly influenced by everything around you, but there are probably a small handful of sites which have shaped how you approach your time online. From their content to personality to the overall look, creating a top 10 of your favorite blogs should be easy enough to do.

Make a list of those blogs that have taught you the most about your industry; blogs that make you laugh, think, or leave you inspired.

10 Blogs You Absolutely Must Read
10 Blogs That Are Totally Worth Your Time
The Top 10 Blogs That Help Me Work Smarter (They’ll Help You, TOO!)

This type of post is easy to put together, and will help you clarify the direction of your own site by reminding you of what’s important to you. Even better, it’s a great way to reach out and get noticed by those bloggers you admire most.

2. Carry Out An Argument To Its Furthest Extreme

A bit like satire, though not quite. Done well this post carries an effect similar to well done satire –– to highlight the absurdity of an argument through friendly hyperbole.

Dissent by way of agreement is a sharp way of getting people who already agree with you to dig their heels deeper into your side, yet it’s also a way to sway opinion of those on the fence.

You do need to be careful with this type of post. Some readers may misunderstand your intentions, take your argument at face value and vehemently disagree. Others may know what you’re doing and vehemently disagree anyway.

The key is in striking the right tone, effectively blending serious with silly.

Why All Marketing Is Terrible
Warning: Does The World Belong To Google?
This Is Why Blogging Won’t Get You Anywhere

By flipping an argument on its head, you’ll be able to punch holes in its consistency and potentially sway the opinion of your readers.

This type of post can go viral, sway fence sitters, and draw your core audience closer to you. Just don’t try and appeal to everyone. Do that and you’ll touch no one.

3. Publish A Rant

Most readers appreciate a good rant, especially if it’s not your normal style.

Great rants are smart, full of energy, and most of the time quite funny. Writers love to write them because it’s an open vent, readers love to read them because we’ve all felt frustrated at one time or another, and someone else’s tirade can make us feel human.

The key is in not allowing yourself to get carried away.

Never publish your post in the heat of the moment. If you’re responding to something that just happened, give your copy time to cool before pressing publish.

Be passionate, but be reasonable.

Don’t let your biases color your objectivity so much that your audience will see you as irrational. There are two sides to every story. Yours, no matter how well articulated, is only one.

6 Lies (INDUSTRY EXPERTS) Love To Tell
Why (INDUSTRY TARGET) Must Be (FAVORED ACTION)
Enough Is Enough! Why I’m Sick And Tired Of (NICHE PROBLEM)

Edit your points to precision and make sure you remain a lady or gentleman in the comments. If you’ve chosen a hot topic aligned with your audience’s interests, and you’ve articulated yourself well, you will draw your readers closer to you, sometimes even if they disagree.

4. Write A Parody Of A Popular Post

Your readers love to laugh, and they’ll appreciate you giving them the giggles.

You don’t have to be the weird Al Yankovic of the blogosphere, but a well-written, well-timed parody of a popular post can go viral and get a lot of eyes on your blog that would never have found you otherwise.

Be respectful of the original copy so you’re not making fun of it, exactly, but rather highlighting and then twisting whatever it is about the original post that worked so well.

Exaggerate the points from the original, and make sure you follow the same format, but instead of bullet points and snippets of information, you’re creating perfectly timed comedic beats.

Start by twisting the headline.

The Simple Secret To My Success
10 Ways To Make Money With Your Website
How to Choose A Logo For Your Business

Could be changed to:

The Simple Secret To My Inertia
10 Ways To Lose Money With Your Website
How To Choose A Logo For Your Business (That Scares Buyers Away!)

Make your reader laugh and they’ll look forward to a return visit.

5. Publish A Manifesto

You’re not like every one else. By trying to be like everybody else, you’re building a tall wall in front of your ability and potential.

Take the time to consider who you are, what you stand for, and who you want to be. Then let your readers know.

List your core, essential values, then write from there.

Your mission statement doesn’t need to be especially long, but it should’t be short. You must prove your point with passion, integrity, and a well-reasoned argument. It’s as important to detail what you don’t want as much as what you do.

Mission statements can go viral, and even if your manifesto never does, you can use it as pillar content that will add long term value for your readers.

Mission statements should have passionate, call to arms style titles.

Anything Is Possible!
Greatness Doesn’t Happen By Accident!
(INDUSTRY PROBLEM) Is Broke, THIS Is How We Fix it!

If you write a manifesto, throw your entire voice behind it. Your mission statement can be grandiose, but it MUST be passionate. Do it well and you will do more then get links, clicks, shares and re-tweets, your blog will also step forward, lead and inspire.

6. Craft A Well-Articulated Confessional

Be honest.

Pour ink on the page like it was blood from a wound.

You’re human, just like your reader. You’ve made a ton of mistakes, just like your reader.
You’ve often found that your mistakes help you to grow. So has your reader.

It’s cathartic to write a confession detailing something you did poorly, haphazardly, or just altogether wrong. Your reader has had similar things happen to them.

Business is hard, and decisions must sometimes be made too fast and without preparation. No matter what niche or industry you’re in, machine gun decisions are probably a regular part of life.

Write a passionate, honest post that paints you as human, like them, admitting your shortcomings for all your audience to see.

It’s True: I (CONFESSION)
Yes, I Admit it. I DID (CONFESSION)
Yes, I (CONFESSION): The Full Story
A guilty pleasure for your reader and potential catharsis for you. Win-win.

7. Make Fun Of A Marketing Email That’s Recently Hit Your Inbox

If you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you probably get regular e-mails from marketers trying to pitch you everything from info-products, to television shows, to laundry detergent. People will offer to sell you link space on their site or beg for a spot on yours.

Many of these e-mails are unintentionally hysterical.

Pick an e-mail, then publish it, along with a critique for your audience, using it as a great example of not what to do.

THIS Is Why People Hate Marketing
How NOT To Win Friends And Influence People
This Is The WRONG Way To Market To Your Customers

People like to buy, but rarely like to be sold. Anyone who’s had bad marketing pushed on them, which is just about everyone breathing, can relate to a bad pitch gone wrong.

This is a no big deal, potentially fun post you’ll likely enjoy writing, that will also make your audience smile.

8. Write About A Tool Or Service Everyone Loves That You Just Can’t Get Behind

There is tremendous value in occasionally taking the contrary view.

Of course, never be a curmudgeon just to be a curmudgeon. No one really likes an Eeyore. Yet, taking an opposing view and explaining why a popular tool simply doesn’t work for you or your industry will help you bond with those readers who simply don’t understand what all the fuss is about.

If you write the post well, even die-hard supporters will probably look at the tool with a fresh perspective. At the very least, it should initiate a lively debate in your comment section, and a long string of comments can lead to a lot of retweets.

Why (NAME OF TOOL) ISN’T For Realtors
This Is Why (NAME OF TOOL) Doesn’t Work For Me
(NAME OF TOOL) Is Bad For Business. This Is Why.

Don’t be afraid to zig while others are zagging. Show your readers you’re unafraid to take a stand, even if it’s just a stand against a popular tool. They will be more likely to trust you if it ever looks like you’re hitching yourself to a bandwagon.

9. Controversial Post

Controversy can be one of your blog’s best friends, so long as you use it well.

Never be mean, condescending, or cutting in any way, but don’t be too afraid of controversy. Online, nice equals boring, and while that may be fine for the majority of your posts, the occasional copy that stands out in bold type could make a massive difference to your brand.

What sort of post could you write that would really stir the pot and get people talking?

Maybe I Shouldn’t Say This?
You Might Not Want To Read This…
This Will Shock You (SHOCKING STATEMENT)

The curiosity factor for this type of post will be high and that could be enough to fuel its momentum. Own your perspective, but have someone else read through the copy first to make sure you don’t go over the edge.

Be specific, and never write simply for controversy’s sake.

And never feed the trolls.

You will have people disagree with you in your comments section, probably Facebook and Twitter, too. That’s fine. You’re job is to build your blog, not get in an argument.

10. Make Up 10 Blogs In Your Niche That Don’t Really Exist (And Make Them Funny)

This type of post will go over like gangbusters if you have a lot of bloggers in your audience, or even if your readers frequent other blogs.

It will take creative thought, and if you want it to really resonate with your audience, you should take the time to make it great.

Spend an hour or so looking around the blogs in your niche, then take the titles and think of clever ways to poke light fun at your industry. This doesn’t have to be deep, it just has to make your reader smile while highlighting a few essential truths of your niche.

The Top 10 Fake (NICHE) Blogs
The Top 10 (NICHE) Blogs You Wish Existed
10 Fake Blogs About (NICHE) That Would Change the World

Parody makes people laugh. Come up with clever names for the fake blogs and you’ll give your readers a smile. Smiles lead to shares.
These 10 post ideas will help your blog get the right type of attention, leading to happy readers who will like, re-tweet and help you spread your content.

The post 10 Blog Post Ideas That Will Grab MAJOR Attention appeared first on Sterling & Stone.