“At heart, despite its infinite variety, the hero’s story is always a journey.” —Christopher Vogler, “The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers” It helps to have a map, itinerary, or even hotel reservations when setting out on a journey. The writer works with symbols that settle reader in for the journey.
Preparing for the Journey Read More »
Once you have established the general place and time of a novel there remains the specifics of where the majority of action takes place. Eager to supply a healthy amount of action and avoid writing a stagnant and boring read, young writers often craft a story that holds a infinitesimal number of places where the
So You Want to Write a Story: Where the Action Is Read More »
Identifying our character’s fears is like uncovering the groundswell of what drives her or him to act and speak as she or he does in order to accomplish their larger goals. On another level it’s like discovering why we feel compelled to write.
Our Characters’ Fears Read More »
Writing is exhilarating. Crafting stories holds a rare type of excitement. And yet it can, and often stirs a fair amount of discomfort within the writer. Much of the angst we experience when writing relates to the aspect of revising, choosing the write word and phrasing, re-ordering paragraphs, re-scripting and re-organizing scenes.
Good stories and novels thrive on conflict and tension. All are headed for a climax, an arc, the mountain top experience of transformation. And yet the writer must travel in the opposite direction, deep within her or himself, to cull out the true meaning that supports and belies the words and actions of our protagonist
Spiritual Awakening: Every Story is a Journey Read More »
Screenwriters hold a wealth of knowledge that benefits the fiction writer. Screenwriter and playwright, Kendall Williams who runs Morningside Writers’ Group sees himself as a dramatist-teacher. Along with facilitating fiction writers and memoirists to learn the basics of story telling–character, plot, point of view, dialogue, setting, and theme, Kendall also teaches workshop participants how to
The Screenwriter and the Fiction Writer Read More »
The novel or short story is first and foremost a source of entertainment, what consumers turn to among myriad of choices, to provide rest and relaxation, from a world moving at breakneck speed. To insure the most comfortable reading experience, writers want to offer a story with interesting plot, centered on characters about the reader
Flexibility and the Writers Capacity for Growth and Learning Read More »