This is the foundation, the book that sets the stage for the series and introduces the major characters. The hero is Harry Potter, an 11-year-old boy reared Cinderella-style by his cruel aunt and uncle, Petunia and Vernon Dursley. In contrast, the Dursleys lavish gifts and attention on their son, Dudley. Harry spends the first years…
by Eugie Foster As writers, we’re already sold on the premise that reading is fundamentally enriching as well as essential. However, reading is a skill that eludes a growing number of children, reluctant readers who have never been engrossed in a book, or who think of reading as a chore, work to do rather than…
Gustav Freytag GUSTAV FREYTAG (1816-1895), German novelist, was born at Kreuzburg, in Silesia, on the 13th of July 1816. After attending the gymnasium at Ols, he studied philology at the universities of Breslau and Berlin, and in 1838 took the degree with a remarkable dissertation, De initiis poeseos scenicae apud Germanos. In 1839 he settled…
45 Questions to Create Backstories How much about your characters do you really know? Small details might seem superfluous even irrelevant to the story you intend to write, but the smallest detail informs the bigger picture. The more you know about your characters, the better you’ll create believable characters who live and breathe on the…
By Alley Carter, author of the YA series The Gallagher Girls Are you a plotter or a seat-of-your-pantser? If you hang out around enough writers you’ll eventually hear that question. And it’s a pretty good one. Everyone has a different approach to plotting. Some people just sit down and start writing; some agonize for weeks or months…
by Melanie This map is kind of the way I see all stories. At the bottom, you can identify characteristics, like the seven deadly sins, and a comparison to the seven heavenly virtues, or Gandhi’s list of sins, or whatever, so you are ready to compare and contrast. The mini circles on the edges can…
Fiction writers generally come in two kinds: those who are strong on plot, and those who are strong on characterization. Rarely is a writer brilliant at both. Thus, even if you excel at great story premises, foreshadowing, plot twists, and careful pacing, you may still receive rejections with critiques pointing to ‘two dimensional’ or stereotyped…
by Crawford Kilian Contents Foreword Developing Efficient Work Habits Elements Of A Successful Story In the opening… In the body of the story… In the conclusion… Throughout the story… Style: Checklist For Fiction Writers Manuscript Format Storyboarding Ten Points on Plotting The Story Synopsis Understanding Genre: Notes on the Thriller Symbolism and all that The…
by David Alexander Thirty-odd books ago, when I began writing my first action thriller, the initial installment of the Phoenix series (Leisure Books), I decided to take a critical look at the genre. I wanted to craft dynamic action scenes that would give the reader the most bang for the buck. I was anxious to…
1. “Today you are YOU, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than YOU.” (Dr. Seuss, Happy Birthday To You) 2. “Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me…Anything can happen, child. Anything…
Go, Spot. Go and find Dick. Go and find Jane. Run, Spot, run. Dick and Jane, the children’s book characters who taught an estimated 85 million children from the 1930s through the 1960s how to read, are back in print, and nostalgia-crazed baby boomers are scooping up the titles as fast as they are being…
Scene and sequel are two of the most important components of plot, but they also seem to be two of the least understood. If plot were an engine, scene and sequel would be the pistons powering the drive shaft. Writers striving to turbocharge their writing might want to fine-tune their use of scene and sequel….