plot

Of Plot, Authenticity, and Knowing Who We Are…

Leave a Comment / Articles and Essays /

“A story should generate it’s own actions and emotions organically…A story should be authentic…made of stuff that has never been appropriated from other forms of narrative art…other stories…movies or television. Or it has it should be sufficiently re-processed through the author’s unique sensibilities so the resulting work has its own authenticity.”

–Peter Selgin, 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers

A story should have it’s own unique characters and plot.

Well if this be the case why are writers encouraged to read for more than the experience of learning writing technique?

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Of Setting, Change, Action, and Dilemmas…

Articles and Essays /

What creates setting, both physical and emotional?

And what goes into creating a setting that stimulates a reader to feel?

What is the challenge of creating a formative and transformative setting?

What needs to remain static and constant in a setting?

And what needs to cry out for change?

These questions point out the importance of setting and the challenge of meeting the needs that setting addresses in a story or novel.

John Truby, author of The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Masterful Storyteller, advises that the setting of a novel needs to include 2-3 separate and distinct places.

His belief debunks the idea that a good story needs to have a list of settings in order to sustain interest and hold the reader’s attention.

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Introspection, Thought and Nascent Creations…

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Recently I’ve been helping my high school teenager with the story they are writing. Now that school has ended and summer vacation has begun they are spending more time writing on their work.

It is wonderful to watch them pour their energy in passion into the project.

Doing so revives wistful memories of when I began writing nearly two decades ago.

Recalling my first attempts at writing a novel, brings to mind not simply the excitement and angst at setting out accomplish such a great feat.

I doubt we would have succeeded had most of us who have accomplished this goal understood the full nature of our undertaking and what it would and has required.

And so it has been with care and caution in choosing my words and responses that have and sought to nurture my child’s passion when they have sought my guidance and consultat

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Of Revelations, Developments and Hidden Aspects of Personality…

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Novels consist of a string of revelations. 



These revelations, consistently timed and well paced comprise and provide an important part of plot. 



As such they play and inherent and necessary role in character development.

Revelations lead to irrevocable moments wherein the protagonist, when faced with an immediate challenge demanding on the spot response, makes a decision and acts in a way that forces her or him forward.

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Motion, Identification and The Inertial Frame of Reference…

1 Comment / ... anjuellefloyd ..., Articles and Essays /

“Everything moves. Everything …motion is just a manifestation of going from one spot to another spot in space. When we are trying to understand motion all of the things that we measure from have to come from an inertial frame of reference. An inertial frame of reference is a reference frame that is moving at a constant speed and not changing direction.”

–Motion and Relativity, Dr. Charles Liu, Research Associate @ the Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History

The backbone of a story, particularly an entertaining and engaging one is motion, movement from one place in conscious and consensual reality to another.

Amplifying the reader’s engagement with the internal movement of the story, the emotional thread requires clarification of setting and displaying the subtle shifts that take place and occur in perception of setting reflective of one’s internal changes.

These changes are usually transmitted, or rather shown through the eyes and physical senses of the protagonist who is also the point-of-view character.

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Of Time, Plot and Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity…

1 Comment / Articles and Essays /

When we think about time, we automatically link it with motion. The most constant things in human history have been the motions of the objects in the universe. So we first figured out how to measure time by figuring how long it took for the various astronomical motions in our solar system. If you move through space you are also moving through time.
Time is the 4th dimension in our universe.
–Dr. Charles Liu, Research Associate,
Department of Astrophysics,
American Museum of Natural History

Albert Einstein’s gift to the 20th century through his postulation of the Special Theory of Relativity was recognizing the existence of a 4th dimension in our universe.
This 4th dimension is our experience of time.

Human consciousness of time plays an important role in the crafting of story.
Time directly relates to plot regarding fiction.
And as plot is the backbone of story it can be said that time forms the frame and an essential dimension of story.

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