Listen
You might be surprised to know that there really aren’t that many story plots out there. If you picked any novel or movie it most likely falls in one of the seven or twelve, depending on who you talk to, story archetypes that exist. Whether it’s overcoming a monster, rags Read more
It’s all been building toward this, Act III. Where all the setups payoff, characters have overcome their internal/external issues to solve the big problem in front of them, and where they plan live out the rest of their lives in this new world. The gather the team, the execute a Read more
Act II was/can be a scary act, for me at least. It’s the heaviest, beefiest of the three acts and can either drag a story down, bringing it to a grinding halt, or it can raise the stakes and tension for a sweet payoff in Act III. Act II is Read more
As I switch gears back into prep for book two, I recently revisited my writing reference crutch, Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. There are plenty of books about writing, story structure, and methodologies for turning your idea into a story. Besides Save the Cat!, Stephen King’s On Writing, and Read more
I’m not having it right now. Not yet at least. Right now, I’m being lazy and procrastinating or finding some other task to do instead of writing. Maybe I’m doing that because I actually don’t know what to write? Shit, do I have writer’s block? No. You can’t have writer’s Read more
One of the key elements of creating compelling characters is finding their motivation. Whether it be internal, external and/or both (ideally), character motivations are what drive them to make decisions about the obstacles thrown at them. This creates conflict which creates drama which creates an interested reader. Even if they Read more
So you wrote and launched a book, great! But does anyone know about it? I launched HOST on 08.01.23, it’s crazy to think it’s been out for almost a month already, and I feel like the work is just getting started. Marketing, sales, promotions are key to getting the word Read more
It’s been a week since I released HOST and so far response has been good. Mostly pushing to friends and family with plans for wider reach over the next few weeks. Hoping to leverage everyone for reviews and ratings. This portion of the project, the sales, marketing and promoting, is Read more
They say don’t judge a book by it’s cover but…come on…we all do. (Note: The original idiom is traced to the novel The Mill on the Floss, written by George Eliot in 1860. In the novel, the reference is to a physical book when the character, Mr. Tulliver, uses it when Read more
Finding good comps is harder than I expected. Comps (short for comparable titles) is an important step in the post-writing / marketing / selling phase. The phases I love…not one bit. If you’re going the traditional publish route comps serve as a quick pitch for potential agents / publishers and Read more