Tag Archives: craft

Works, News & Contests

Announcing Character Arcs (the book!)

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It’s a big year for me! After speaking at the LDStorymakers Conference this spring, I wanted to get my thoughts on character arcs out there again. so coming soon, it’s . . .

character arcs
Character arcs the book!

I’ve already collected all the cool stuff I’ve shared through guest posts, the original blog series, and my presentation, and I’m clarifying, refining and expanding it!

It should be launching on Amazon Kindle as an ebook sometime next month. I’ll definitely keep you posted.

I’m planning more writing craft ebooks in the future, and I think I’ll probably bundle a couple ebooks for print editions as well.

What do you think? What writing series or topics would you like to see a book on?

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Reading

TBR Tuesday: Writing craft books

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Shocker: one of my favorite types of books to read? Writing craft books. Here are a few of my favorites that I reference over and over again (Amazon affiliate links—I get a tiny percent of any purchase you might make within 24 hours of following one of these links; it costs you nothing and helps me out.)

Story Engineering by Larry Brooks I’ve used Larry Brooks’s story structure in every successful story I’ve written since I first encountered it.
Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder Like Story Engineering, Save the Cat! has become a staple in my story structure outline. (In fact, I combined the two to create the plotting roadmap freebie you get when you join my newsletter.)
Scene & Structure by Jack Bickham This model for scene structure is another that I use every. single. time.
How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey This was one of the first books on writing craft I read that went deeper than the basic principles of line editing, and Frey’s books taught me a ton about creating character sympathy. It’ll always have a special place in my heart for that.
Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass With a forward by Anne Perry, who gave a PHENOMENAL keynote at the LDStorymakers Writers’ Conference last week, this book of writing advice from an agent/author is a perennial classic. It also comes with a workbook, but having read all of his stuff, I’d actually recommend starting with The Breakout Novelist, as it covers most of the material in his other books.

What do you think? What are your favorite books on writing craft?

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Reading

M is for Maass, Donald Maass

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Two years ago, I’d pretty much exhausted my local library of writing books that looked good, and I knew it was time to knuckle down and buy something. One of my favorite writing craft blogs often drew from two books: Stein On Writing by Sol Stein (which I absolutely cannot find in my house now :\ ) and Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. Both were great and well worth the money.

Then for Christmas, I asked for and received The Fire in Fiction on my Kindle, and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook in paper. All of these books have challenged me as a writer, helping me to focus my stories better, deepen my characters, better ground my story in its setting, and more.

So I was very excited to accept a free copy of Maass’s latest, The Breakout Novelist.

The Breakout Novelist is a combination of some of the best material (albeit slightly abridged) from Maass’s first three books (the above two, plus The Career Novelist, which I downloaded as a free PDF from his site when it was posted there a while ago, but haven’t gotten around to yet).

Naturally, since the source material is good, the result is good. Probably my favorite feature is that all the exercises from the end of each chapter in the first two books have been compiled into two sections of 20+ pages. My other favorite: the book is a hardbound spiral, so it lays flat (I like to read while eating, so this is great!).

I think that it’s probably still good to read the full Writing the Breakout Novel and Fire in Fiction, but The Breakout Novelist is great to keep on hand as a refresher course for each book—and that’s how I’m going to use it. I’m also looking forward to Maass’s posts on writing beautifully at Writer Unboxed.

I received a copy of The Breakout Novelist free for review. However, publishing this review is my choice.

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Technique

Getting resourceful

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This entry is part 1 of 5 in the series Writing resources

While we like to hear stories about prodigies and untaught geniuses who magical write perfectly poetic prose (and always on the first draft!), the reality is that for pretty much everyone, writing takes a lot of practice, effort, time—and learning.

Writing resources are really important in that learning process. Everything from craft books to conferences can help us improve our writing craft (not to mention learning about the the business side of publishing). From the mechanics of writing to story-level technique, writing resources can help us every step of the way.

And yet sometimes, it’s still hard for us to take that help—for me, it’s often either the expense (of money and time—I’d rather be writing!), or debating whether I really need to work on that area (answer: probably). Can’t I figure this out on my own? Shouldn’t I?

Maybe, maybe not. No, a critique group or a class can’t teach you how to write—at least not if you’re not willing to listen and learn and try new things, and apply them in your writing. But finding those new things to try, identifying your weaknesses and finding ways to improve them all take a lot longer (and may not be as effective) if we don’t seek that outside help.

So this week, we’ll be looking at writing resources, and how they’ve helped us learn and grow as writers!

What writing resources have helped you in your writing journey? (If you’re interested in joining the series with a guest post, I still have openings!)

Photo by Fabrice Clerc

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