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Study effective examples of plot developmentReading is a great way to improve at any stage of the writing process because great writers give us inspiring examples of how to get craft right.
When you read your next novel, ask:
How do the characters in the novel change over time?
What is the main sequence of events (what happens in the novel and when?)
Where does the story take place? What benefit does each setting offer to the overall story structure and development?
A few experts of story development you could read:
John le Carré, noted for his spy novel plots
J.R.R. Tolkien (whose Lord of the Rings has been voted the best single plot arc in a multi-novel series)
Sir Terry Pratchett
Stephen King, whose horror and supernatural thriller books are frequently adapted for film due (in part) to their tight plots
You can read the work of contemporary bestselling authors for insights (particularly regarding what is marketable).
Yet many classic authors (e.g. Charles Dickens) are read to this day for their brilliantly paced, well-structured stories.
https://www.nownovel.com/blog/develop...How to develop a story: 10 steps to a winning plot
Learning how to develop a story so that you take readers on an unforgettable journey is key to becoming a great novelist. Here are 10 steps to ensure that the final draft of your book has a winning, memorable plot.
Learning how to develop a story so that you take readers on an unforgettable journey is key to becoming a great novelist. Here are 10 steps to ensure that your book has a winning, memorable plot:
--- Develop your story in 10 simple steps:
1. Study effective examples of plot development
2. Use a plotting process to shape your story
3. Create a timeline of your novel’s plot events
4. Make characters develop in intriguing ways
5. Make each of the ‘5 W’s’ change
6. Outline scenes to create a storyboard
7. Learn how to develop a story using subplots
8. Use character-driven and action-driven arcs
9. Ask yourself key questions about story development
10. Get helpful feedback on your story arc
https://www.coursera.org/Write Your First Novel
https://www.coursera.org/learn/write-...
You will learn how to write and complete a full-length novel of 50,000 words. You will have a finished manuscript in hand at the end of the course.
Writing and Editing Specialization
https://www.coursera.org/specializati...
Creative ways to use syntax
Techniques for adding nuance to your sentences and slogans
Tips to help you punctuate and paragraph like a professional
Habits needed to complete both short-term and long-term projects
Creative Writing Specialization
https://www.coursera.org/specializati...
This Specialization covers elements of three major creative writing genres: short story, narrative essay, and memoir. You will master the techniques that good writers use to compose a bracing story, populated with memorable characters in an interesting setting, written in a fresh descriptive style. You will analyze and constructively evaluate peer writing. In the Capstone, you will draft, rewrite, and complete a substantial original story in the genre of your choosing.
Our courses are designed for anyone from the aspiring short story writer to established novelist. Whether you have a finished novel sitting on your desk calling for a fresh look or have had the germ of an idea for a decade, this Specialization gives you tools to achieve your goal. Through 4 courses focused on a key aspect of writing, and taken in any order you choose, you will develop a stronger ability to not only refine your writing, but critique writing in general and find inspiration in the works you are already reading.
Creative Writing: The Craft of Plot
https://www.coursera.org/learn/craft-...
In this course aspiring writers will be introduced to perhaps the most elemental and often the most challenging element of story: plot. We will learn what keeps it moving, how it manipulates our feelings, expectations, and desires. We will examine the choices storytellers make to snag our imaginations, drag them into a fictional world, and keep them there. We will learn how to outline and structure a plot, discuss narrative arc, pacing and reversals and reveal the inevitable surprise: connecting the beginning, middle and end.
Writing for Young Readers
https://www.coursera.org/learn/writin...
This course is for curious students and aspiring authors with a passion for writing for young readers. Participate in a dynamic online community of writers as you experiment with your own writing and develop your voice. This course will guide you with a combination of video lectures, online readings, peer reviews, and guest appearances from world-renowned children’s authors. As you work through the writing exercises, you will give and receive feedback from your peers and gain tools and techniques for improving your writing.
During this course you will identify stories that matter to you, explore cultural significance and boundaries, and shape your identity as a writer; become familiar with standard elements of narrative (character, setting, plot, theme, language, dialogue, point of view); reflect on your own work and practice essential self-editing skills; see the different ways in which words and art interact, and the possibilities of longer narrative forms; come away with practical insights into publishing options; and create a plan for pursuing your enthusiasm for writing. By the end of the course, you will have ten to twelve extracts of writing that you can develop into a portfolio.
Creative Writing Specialization
https://www.coursera.org/specializati...
Thanks to our sponsors, upon completion of their first assignment, learners in each course will receive up to an 80% discount from Write-Bros and a 30% discount off their first purchase from Scrivener to use on their writing software. Additionally, learners who complete an assignment will receive 30% off membership at the online writing community Scribophile.
One of the most important things about self-publishing has always been that authors were finally in control. Without gatekeepers blocking the way, authors could sell where they wanted to, price their books how they wanted, write whatever genre and crossovers they wanted. Choice is a glorious thing when it comes to buying and selling, but that choice diminished somewhat with the rise of Amazon.Still, other platforms are out there doing the work for authors who choose to sell their books in a variety of retail locations. Barnes and Noble, whose self-publishing platform has undergone a number of dramatic changes over the years, has just announced some new features that will prove to be very enticing to authors who sell their books “wide.”
According to a press release from B&N, “Effective today, Barnes & Noble Press authors will receive a flat 70% royalty rate for eBook sales, up from a range of 40% to 65%. The self-publishing platform will also accelerate payments to 30 days after purchase instead of the prior 60 days. In addition, Barnes & Noble Press will expand its array of merchandising options, including curated ads on BN.com, better email placement, and social media and blog exposure on Barnes & Noble Press and NOOK channels.”
That first change is a pretty big deal, not only because it ups the amount authors could earn through this platform, but because it outshines top self-publishing platform Amazon’s KDP in pricing versus royalty (with KDP, ebooks can only earn 70% if they are priced at $2.99 or higher). Earning those royalties faster will also be nice, of course. As for the rest of the new features, advertising continues to be a thorn in the side for most authors and small presses. Even Amazon ads–by many accounts, an exercise in futility and frustration–aren’t a straightforward tool that’s readily available to most authors.
But wait… is it really worth it for an author to remove their books from Amazon’s exclusive program, KDP Select, and sell elsewhere? That’s a veiled way of saying, “Is B&N really selling enough books to make it worth losing out on Select status?”
Authors have to ask themselves what that Select exclusivity is really doing for them. If an author earns enough income from any promotional bones Amazon throws their way and the page view income from being included in Kindle Unlimited, then it might not be worth moving their books to other platforms. But with the opportunity to earn 70% on books at any price point–rather than 35% from Amazon for books priced below $2.99–those royalties can add up for authors who have a good-sized list.
Habits of Effective Writersby The Trustees of Hamilton College
1. Organize and argue. Good writing is about raising important issues,
making persuasive arguments, and marshalling evidence. The key to
expressing your ideas effectively is sound organization. Follow a logical
design and build your paper with clear sentences and coherent paragraphs. See The Essentials of Writing, “The Writing Process” and on unity.
2. Be concise. William Zinsser writes, "Clutter is the disease of American
writing. We are a society strangling in unnecessary words, circular
constructions, pompous frills and meaningless jargon." Ruthless editing of
unnecessary words, phrases, and sentences will improve your writing
dramatically. See The Essentials of Writing on jargon; the Writing Center handout "Sentence Revision."
3. Write what you mean. Know what you mean, know the meaning of
words, and choose the words that precisely express your thoughts. See The Essentials of Writing on diction; the Writing Center handout "Commonly Confused Words.”
4. Write with force. Express your ideas directly and gracefully. Vague
words hide good arguments, but they don't camouflage bad ones. Using
strong verbs in the active voice will make your writing more forceful. Keep
subject and verb close together. See The Essentials of Writing on active voice; the Writing Center handout "Sentence Revision."
5. Write for a reader. Your professors are a captive audience. In your
professional life, you will not have this luxury. Most readers are busy and
impatient, and you will lose them quickly if you make their job difficult.
Develop the habit of reading your writing as another person might read it.
Read your sentences aloud. Test your work on readers, including the peer
tutors at the Writing Center. See The Essentials of Writing on audience and primer style.
6. Revise and rewrite. The bad news is that writing is hard work. The good
news is that with hard work you will become an effective writer. Make
drafts a habit, even when they are not required. In addition to editing on
screen, edit hard copies of your drafts in the cold light of day. Use the
Writing Center. See The Essentials of Writing, “The Writing Process”; the Writing Center handout "Revision Strategies."
7. Avoid common errors. Rules of grammar organize communication, and
your readers will judge you by your knowledge of these rules. On the
reverse side of this page are common errors. Learn to avoid them.
Learn other rules of grammar by paying careful attention to comments on
your paper and asking questions about comments that you do not
understand. All of these topics are discussed in detail in “The Essentials of Writing,” Hamilton’s on-line style sheet. It and many other writing resources are available at the Writing Center and at its homepage: http://www.hamilton.edu/writing.
Common Errors
1. Sentences. A sentence has a subject and a predicate. Do not link two
sentences with a comma or run together two sentences with no punctuation. See The Essentials of Writing on fragment and run-on.
2. Punctuation. Use a comma to separate two independent clauses
separated by and, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet. Use a comma after an
introductory phrase or clause. Use a semicolon between two independent
clauses not separated by one of these conjunctions. See The Essentials of
Writing; the Writing Center handouts “Punctuation Patterns,” "Sentence Revision,” and “Five Comma Rules.”
3. Agreement. A singular subject takes a singular verb; a plural subject
takes a plural verb. Use a singular pronoun with a singular antecedent and a plural pronoun with a plural antecedent. Some singular pronouns to
remember: anyone, each, either, everyone. See The Essentials of Writing; the Writing Center handout "Sentence Revision."
4. Parallel Construction. Sentence elements connected by idea should be
expressed in similar form. See The Essentials of Writing; the Writing Center handout "Sentence Revision."
5. Tense. Use verb tenses correctly and consistently. See The Essentials of
Writing; the Writing Center handout "Tense."
6. Voice. Use the active voice, in which the subject acts, unless you have a
good reason to use the passive voice. See The Essentials of Writing; the Writing Center handouts “Sentence Revision” and “Use Active Voice.”
7. Pronoun Reference. Avoid the vagueness of pronouns, especially at the
beginning of sentences and paragraphs. Rather than write "This is" or "It is," use as subject the noun that is the actual subject of your sentence. See The Essentials of Writing; the Writing Center handout “Sentence Revision.”
8. Misplaced and Dangling Modifiers. Misplaced modifiers are words or
phrases that, due to incorrect placement, refer to the wrong word in the
sentence. Dangling modifiers do not refer to any word in the sentence. See The Essentials of Writing; the Writing Center handout “Sentence Revision.”
9. Citation. Use citations in the proper form to document your use of other writers’ words and ideas. Plagiarism is a violation of the Hamilton College Honor Code. See The Essentials of Writing; the Writing Center handouts “MLA Documentation,” “Footnotes,” and “Using Sources.”
10. Other errors. “X” marks the spot for other errors. Ask your professor
what’s wrong, or do the detective work yourself
https://goinswriter.com/7-tips-for-ef...Everyone has their own idea of what it means to be a “good” writer. Opinions on quality vary, depending on who you ask, but effective writing is hard to argue with. It gets the job done — plain and simple.
So how do you write in a way that effectively communicates your message? Or are you merely trying to be good?
Since this often confuses people, here are seven tips for more effective writing, which you can apply today:
1. Practice your craft
You can't do something well unless you do it badly first — and that begins with practice. I recommend setting aside time (even if it's only 10 minutes) to write each day. You can't get better if you don't show up. Commit to the process and you will be amazed at the results.
I do this with my blog and other pieces I'm working on by writing daily a minimum of 500 words . The more I write, the more I learn about writing — and the more I realize I need to practice.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Set aside time to write each day. You can’t get better if you don’t show up.
Talking about writing isn’t writing. Planning to write isn’t how you get better. The only way to get better is to actually do it.
2. Challenge yourself
Write about topics that interest to you, but don't forget to dabble in new stuff, as well. The more you stretch yourself, the more you grow. You could challenge yourself and join me for a free webinar to learn my three keys for effective writing. Or maybe take up a daily writing challenge.
The point is to never underestimate the importance of learning. I try to learn something new every day by reading books and blogs and listening to podcasts and audiobooks.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Learn something new every day.
I don’t like to go to bed until I've gleaned at least a few bits of wisdom and information from different sources.
3. Be yourself
Don’t model your writing after another writer. And if you do, do it only as a means of learning someone else's technique, so that you can make it your own.
Ultimately, what you want is to discover your original writing voice. And frankly, that's what your audience wants, too. If we wanted to read Hemingway, we would read Hemingway.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Discover your original writing voice.
I still struggle with this, but I'm getting better. One technique I use is to read aloud to myself what I've just written, and if it doesn't sound like me, I rewrite it.
4. Don't write like an idiot
Learn the basics of grammar. Buy an MLA, APA, or another style book (I recommend the AP Stylebook to a lot of copywriters and journalists). Chicago Manual is good for writing a book. Become a student of your craft and dedicate the rest of your life to honing it.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Become a student of your craft and dedicate the rest of your life to honing it.
As Hemingway once wrote, we are all apprentices in a craft nobody masters. The point is not to arrive but to attempt. To aspire to write the best that we know how in the only way we can. So let’s honor the craft and start writing like a pro.
Learning the rules, after all, makes it easier to break them later.
5. Start small
Most would-be writers begin in the wrong place. They begin by wanting to write a book. Don't do that. That’s too big. Too audacious. Too easy to fail at.
Start small, maybe with a blog or a journal (you know, Doogie Howser style). Then write a few articles for some magazines, and after that, consider a book. As you take one step after another towards getting published, you'll find that your confidence builds. So does your competence. You get better faster the more you practice in public.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Don’t your creative journey by trying to write a book. Start small.
That's been my experience, anyway. After four years of writing for websites and magazines, I was finally ready to write a book. Without all that small work, I never would have been ready for something bigger.
6. Don't give up
If writing is your dream, treat it seriously. Stick with it, even after the passion fades, which it likely will. Write every day. Perseverance pays off.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Write every day. Perseverance pays off.
Most days, I don't even want to write, but I show up, anyway. And something mystical happens; the Muse meets me, and inspiration happens when I least expect it. I enjoy something I was dreading because I fulfilled my one commitment as a professional writer, which is to never quit.
After all, that’s the only difference between an amateur and a pro.
7. Learn to pitch your pieces
Many writers expect to write something phenomenal and get published immediately — you know, by osmosis and stuff. But before you write a piece, you should learn to pitch prospective publishers (book, magazine, or website).
Learn the art of asking. You will be doing it your whole career. Better get used to it now.
[share-quote via=“JeffGoins”]Learn the art of asking.
A good pitch is short, compelling, and promising. Without learning how to effectively market your writing, even the best writers can be overlooked. You are only one “yes” away from your next big break.
Here are 31 strategies from Joe Walters is the editor-in-chief of Independent Book Review.1. Can your reader determine the following in the opening chapters?
Who will be the protagonist(s)?
What situation needs to be improved?
What is the protagonist’s role in the world they surround themselves in?
2. Is your protagonist’s primary personal issue introduced in the beginning of the book?
For example, will your protagonist change from nervous to brave? Then show me their nerves in the beginning. From selfish to selfless? Let me watch them steal early on. Before we take the journey toward their improvement, the reader should be able to recognize what the issue is (even if only hinted at) as early as possible.
3. Is the reader made aware of important factual information?
Think characters’ ages, familial situation, time period, setting, etc.
4. Is your inciting incident within your first few chapters?
Readers love to spend time in the everyday life before the character is about to change—but not for too long. So don’t waste any time getting there.
5. Have you introduced specifically what the protagonist has to do to achieve their goal?
How far do they have to go? In which ways are they going to put themselves in danger of not achieving those goals?
6. Is your protagonist’s physical goal attached to an emotional counterpart?
For example, if their goal is to save their friends from an evil Demogorgon, consider giving them a deep-rooted personal fear that they also must conquer in order to save them. As readers, we’ll be excited to hope for a future where the protagonist will be in a better position emotionally than when they started.
7. Do all of your characters get along?
If not, air out some dirty laundry in one of the first scenes they have together. You don’t have to spell out exactly what the problem is, but you may want to give the reader this problematic dynamic to pay attention to.
8. Does the reader know the answer to the question “What if the MC does not achieve the goal they set out to achieve?”
As readers, we need to understand the stakes, and this is one of our first indicators of how high they are.
9. Have you established clearly the first step that your protagonist has to take in order to get started on their physical and/or emotional journey?
Make sure it’s clear why the direction that they are headed is described as the only way to achieve their goal and why they believe that each step will give them a chance to succeed.
10. Do your characters consider what they will do after they achieve their goals?
It could be as monumental as holding hands with a new girlfriend in an alien-free world or as small as eating a baguette from Panera. Up to you. A little specificity never hurt anybody though.
11. When your characters recognize what they must do, are they also aware when they have to complete it by?
A sense of urgency creates some excellent narrative tension. As the clock ticks on, your reader’s heart will be pumping right alongside Captain Hook’s. Look at all of the tasks that your protagonist has to complete: which one(s) could benefit from a ticking clock?
12. Who are your side characters and what do they want?
Did they want it before their first appearance in this book? Will they discover it in the near-future? Treat each character’s motivation like a novel in itself, except we don’t get everything like we do in the protagonist’s story. Everyone has baggage in real life, so it should be that way in your novel too. No?
13. Is your primary narrative being mentioned in nearly every scene?
Good. As a reader, I want to follow that thread even while I’m taking detours for secondary narratives. I don’t want to turn off onto a secondary narrative’s road and stay there for too long.
14. Does the primary relationship in your novel get a full story?
Does it have a beginning? Do the characters’ have goals relating to that relationship? What obstacles stand in their way? What does their climax look like? This relationship storyline might be a quiet one, but it should probably still exist if I’m asked to invest in it.
15. How are your side characters doing compared to the last time the protagonist has seen them?
Has their general demeanor changed? Their clothing, hair style, health? Is there anything that the reader can insinuate about this character’s previous change and wonder where they will go from here?
16. Is the reader being updated on the side character’s attempts to achieve their personal goals?
Don’t let go of their motivations. Their goal might even complicate things for our protagonist down the road.
17. Is your protagonist nervous to meet any of the characters?
If so, the first time we meet this character on the page, something should either explode or feel like the explosion is coming slowly. They’re nervous for a reason, so why not use that tension?
18. Do you have a loose cannon character?
If so, how does the reader meet them for the very first time? If they don’t do something crazy in scene, let me know the previous thing they did that classifies them as a loose cannon. Each time they show up in the future, the reader will consider that they might affect the plot in a big way. Even just the prospect of conflict can excite your reader.
19. Is someone backstabbing the main character and/or primary narrative?
If so, great conflict! If not, don’t be afraid to hint that this is possible. Readers love to keep a close eye on someone, even if they surprise us by being a hero later on.
20. How deep-rooted is your main character’s personal conflict?
Do they start off on a good path for a period of the novel? Then let them fail a little bit. Then do it again—with even more complications to the plot. When they finally achieve that personal goal in the end, it’ll feel like a monumental breakthrough.
21. Is your MC too perfect?
Consider having them take a questionable route in order to achieve their physical and emotional goals. Maybe they’ll steal something. Maybe they’ll lie. Make sure we know how much they really want it—and how much they’re like us.
22. Are any of the side characters’ goals dependent on the protagonist?
If not, this would be a great way to put additional pressure on your protagonist to succeed.
23. Do your characters’ obstacles alter the chances of achieving their goals?
In some manuscripts, bad things happen, but they don’t affect the plot in the long run. If a character runs into an issue at the beginning of a scene, it should probably not be resolved by the end of the scene, unless that character or another learns something extremely valuable to the plot in the process.
24. Are your characters on a never-ending losing spree?
Quit being so harsh. Give the reader hope that the characters can do this with little wins sprinkled throughout the novel. Readers love impressive main characters and enjoy believing in their ability to succeed.
25. Are your protagonists tight-lipped or big-mouthed?
Doesn’t matter. If someone wrongs them, I want to hear that they recognize it. Even if it’s internally, I want to share those thought processes with my main character so that I can trust them to defeat obstacles and antagonists in the future.
26. Do the characters’ relationship dynamics fluctuate during their journeys?
Don’t go overboard with these side character conflicts, but I’d definitely recommend using them. This is an easy way for readers to stay engaged even during a chapter full of dialogue and exposition.
27. What percentage are you at from completing your book?
If past 60%, the protagonist should probably be in a different position than when they started. If they haven’t changed by now, then have the plot points really been doing their job?
28. Just before the climax, does your protagonist express doubts about achieving their ultimate goal?
Does something terrifying throw a wrench into what they expected out of the climax? Keep your reader on their toes, wondering up until the end if they are going to succeed.
29. Was your main character advised by someone else to achieve their goal in a certain way?
Great. Have them fail at it. Then, they’ll need to achieve their goal in their own way and make us proud of their intuition and strength.
30. After your climax, does your reader have time to decompress and understand the trajectory of where each of our mini-storylines will go from here?
They don’t all have to be covered in-depth (or at all, really), but we should absolutely have an idea of where they’re headed.
31. What is life going to be like after this?
Now that this story is over, is something else on the protagonist’s mind? The perfect ending is cool and all, but the more you can make me think into the future, the more I want to envision our main character being a stronger person and overcoming anything that stands in their way.
https://www.writersdigest.com/General...Writer’s Digest offers information on writing better and getting published. The site also includes community forums, blogs and huge lists of resources for writers.
https://www.infoplease.com/homework/w...Various articles that aim to teach students how to write better.
https://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/Mignon Fogarty’s quick and dirty tips for better writing. Grammar Girl provides short, friendly tips to improve your writing. Covering the grammar rules and word choice guidelines that can confound even the best writers, Grammar Girl makes complex grammar questions simple with memory tricks to help you recall and apply those troublesome grammar rules.
https://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/...An extensive electronic grammar course at the University of Ottawa’s Writing Centre.
https://www.customwritings.com/CustomWritings.com is an academic writing service which provides custom written papers to help students with their grades. Moreover, do not miss an opportunity to turn to writing guides, topic ideas, and samples on their blog to polish your writing skills. Except for these, you can also benefit from free tools that will ease the entire writing process - free plagiarism checker, citation generator, words to pages as well as words to minutes converter when you are working on a speech.
https://www.freelancewriting.com/crea...https://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Flash...
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https://www.bryndonovan.com/2019/01/1...
https://www.well-storied.com/blog/how...
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/...2 Reasons to Incorporate Flashbacks into Your Story
While flashbacks are not a requirement of writing fiction, they can create layers of complexity and intrigue.
Flashbacks can be a powerful way to make a promise to a reader. It’s common to open a chapter with a cataclysmic event, then move abruptly into the past (“Three Weeks Earlier”) where (usually with a dose of dramatic irony) your protagonist finds himself in an entirely normal situation. This forges a contract with the reader that you’ll explain how the hero went from one situation to its opposite.
Revealing a character's backstory this way can help to make sense of their present-day actions. You can use flashbacks to fill in a backstory about a character’s past or situation, and the flashback sequence creates new micro-promises in itself.
4 Tips for Writing Flashbacks
Books make time travel effortless. Here are a few writing tips for moving elegantly between different time periods in your narrative:
Use verb tense shifts to move between the flashback and main narrative. Whenever your narrative or characters recall a memory from a time before the story began, you have two choices. If the memory is short, you can describe it briefly. If it’s longer, you may want to pull the reader back into a full scene describing a past event. It important to mark the beginning and end of a flashback to make your time jumps clear to the reader. If you’re already using past tense to tell your story, once inside the flashback, use a few lines of past perfect tense to introduce the change—e.g. “he had gone to the marina.” Past perfect tense uses the verb “to have” with the past participle of another verb (in this case “gone”). After a few lines of this, transition into simple past tense—e.g. “he climbed onto the boat.” Generally speaking, using past perfect for a long section of text is jarring for most readers. It’s enough to use it only at the start of the flashback before switching to simple past tense. At the end of the flashback, return briefly to past perfect tense and then transition back into the tense you started out with to signal a return to real time.
Keep them relevant. Flashbacks help fill in the characters’ motives and history, but if they are too long or tedious, the reader will get bored. If you use flashbacks, always be aware that time is still moving in the front story, and make sure that your reader can hear the clock in that front story ticking. It can be tempting to unload every last one of your character’s memories but tell the reader what they really need to know, and no more than that. Keep the language in these passages clear, always keeping the readers’ understanding in mind.
Sometimes the whole book is the flashback. Occasionally, the first scene or first chapter of a book will feature the main character (or a supporting character) beginning to tell a story to someone else. Framing the events of the storyline this way, with a dual point-of-view into a character’s life over the passage of time, can bring more nuance to the storytelling. Before using this technique, ask yourself whether the character’s arc is dramatic enough to make for interesting retrospection.
Tell the present story first. Sometimes it may not be clear where a flashback belongs until you’ve completed your first draft and have a complete view of the storyline. Don’t feel any pressure to weave in flashbacks as you write: simply tell your story in a linear fashion first, then shed more light on a character's motives that may need more clarity, or set up later events in the revision process.
I'm actually doing this in my current working novel. The way I am doing it is:My protagonist is currently imprisoned. As they are being questioned by the 'judge' per se, the protagonist is recalling the events that caused them to commit the crime(s).
The chapters reference the present or the past in the title rather than a chapter title name. This is just to help the reader prepare the mind set for a past or present storyline.
As the past is sprinkled throughout the story, the ending of the past will end up making more sense of the beginning. Then there will be a few chapters where the reader knows the complete story and its concluded with a dramatic finish.
My idea is based on encountering a hero of legend in prison. Then having them recall the events in there life. For example if Hercules was captured and restrained as the most dangerous criminal. The investigator is asking them questions about their life(biography) Hercules is defending himself in a manner. "Actually I killed Posidon because.. blah blah."
So most of my story is backstory rather than present. My present chapters have events that link them to the backstory. For example, in the present there could be a thunderstorm happening which the protagonist recollects something in the past while it was thundering violently. Then they begin to tell their story. "This thunder reminds me of that day..."
I think if you are going to use a flashback, you some how incorporate that into your story style. Don't use it simply once. It will feel out of place. So if every third chapter or so has a flashback then it becomes part of your style and once the style is established, the reader will become more comfortable with how the story is progressing. I hope this helps?
https://self-publishingschool.com/fla...
Welcome Beata,We do see romance writers come through here but they usually pair up like you're doing yourself and then we tend to see less participation as far as the community goes.
Make yourself at home. I would continue to submit chapters with a link here so that someone interested could find you. You're welcome to create a new topic under Coursera reviews and see if you can't get a few fellow writers to join you.
If you get to 10 chapters and still can't find someone to share with let me know I'll at least give it a read for you.
1st create your working title, this might change as you continue to write, something might happen that sparks an awesome idea.Now, in the coursera program you've pitched 3 ideas and hopefully you got some feedback as to what idea might be more successful. Don't forget to keep those other 2 ideas saved, in fact make titles for them as well. Then whenever you get stuck or think of a good idea that would have worked for one of the other thoughts, you can always go and add a bullet to it.
Now you have your pitch. This is what my story is about. We need to flush this out a bit more. You're story will flow a lot easier if you have a basic outline of what you wanted to happen. Sketch out the beginning, the middle and the end. This might help you out a bit https://www.creativindie.com/plotdot/
Your beginning needs to catch the readers attention. Something happens that sets the story into motion. You're middle is the turning point for your character. He now knows he is Hercules and is going to blah blah blah. Onward! As you have thought of a beginning, you should also thought of your ending. In fact, if you can write your ending next, it gives you both points A&B, now we just need to fill it in.
Joseph Campbell wrote a book titled The Hero With a Thousand Faces. The book contains hundreds of examples of stories from a wide range of mythology, including those from Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Native American, and Greek (and countless other) canons. This might also help you with how to structure your story line.
Now if you can visualize, how your story starts and ends, the rest of it just needs a basic outline. List a couple good ideas that you might want your character to go through or things that will happen as your story progress. Don't worry about how many chapters there are. This will come automatically.
