How To Write A Novel Using The Snowflake Method. Writing a novel is easy. Writing a good novel is hard. That’s just life. If it were easy, we’d all be writing best-selling, prize-winning fiction. Frankly, there are a thousand different people out there who can tell you how to write a novel. There are a thousand different methods. The best one for you is the one that works for you.
In this article, I’d like to share with you what works for me. This page is the most popular one on my web site, and gets over a thousand page views per day, so you can guess that a lot of people find it useful. Good fiction doesn’t just happen, it is designed. For a number of years, I was a software architect designing large software projects. I claim that that’s how you design a novel — you start small, then build stuff up until it looks like a story. If you’re like most people, you spend a long time thinking about your novel before you ever start writing. But before you start writing, you need to get organized. Some hints on what makes a good sentence: How Writers Create Suspense.pdf. Elements of Suspense in Writing: 6 Secret to Creating and Sustaining Suspense.
Thriller writing? Mystery writing? Literary fiction? It’s all the same: Building apprehension in the minds of your readers is one of the most effective keys to engaging them early in your novel and keeping them flipping pages late into the night. Simply put, if you don’t hook your readers, they won’t get into the story. If you don’t drive the story forward by making readers worry about your main character, they won’t have a reason to keep reading. Think: Worry equals suspense. The best part is, the secrets for ratcheting up the suspense are easy to implement. 1. Four factors are necessary for suspense—reader empathy, reader concern, impending danger and escalating tension. We create reader empathy by giving the character a desire, wound or internal struggle that readers can identify with.
We want readers to worry about whether or not the character will get what he wants. Suspense builds as danger approaches. Then blow in more. And more. Until the reader can hardly stand it. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 41 WAYS TO CREATE AND HEIGHTEN SUSPENSE. According to top New York literary agent Noah Lukeman (The Plot Thickens), if a writer can maintain suspense throughout the story, many readers will keep reading even if the characters are undeveloped and the plot is weak. Clearly, suspense is a vital tool, yet most books on writing only mention it in passing and few devote much space to its creation and development. I've written 27 novels, and some of them have been rather successful, but Lukeman's observation came as a revelation. Accordingly, I've scoured my writing notes for the past quarter century, and the books and articles I've read on storytelling, in order to compile a comprehensive list of ways to create suspense.
Here it is. My sources are listed at the end. At its simplest, a story consists of a character (the hero) who wants something badly, and an adversary (the obstacle) who is trying equally hard to prevent the hero from getting what he wants. Suspense comes from readers' anticipation of what's going to happen next. The Role of Suspense in Stories and Music. 0 0Share Synopsis Storytellers and musicians create and manage expectations to build suspense and keep the audience coming back for more.
One of the hallmarks of a good story is the element of surprise. A good story leads us down a path of expectations, slowly building tension until an unexpected plot twist catches us off guard. Mystified, we reinterpret the story with the new details, taking delight in how the storyteller managed to pull the rug out from underneath us. Stories have been tricking us for as long as they’ve existed. At least this is what I’ve always assumed. Christenfeld and Leavitt found that participants significantly preferred the spoiled versions in all three categories. Alfred Hitchcock once told the French film critic Francois Truffaut to imagine a couple having lunch at a restaurant.
Of course, Hitchcock left plenty of room for surprises. Is this why even though we know George Taylor is doomed to a post-apocalyptic Earth we willfully return to Planet of the Apes? Short Story Shortcuts: 4 Techniques For Making A Big Impact In Few Words. To successfully write short fiction, you need to make a big impact in as few words as possible. So every choice you make as an author needs to be deliberate, every character needs to act with purpose, and every word needs to pack a punch. When less is definitely more, focusing on certain details can help imbue your short story with lots of color, meaning, and subtext—without superfluous words.
Four Small Ways To Pack Big Meaning Into Short Stories 1. Character Gestures – When you’re writing with a word count restriction, you want to show your characters’ personalities without using too much dialogue. One way to do this is through physical gestures. 2. 3. 4. How Can You Implement These Techniques In Your Writing? To understand how well these techniques work, read some short fiction! As an exercise, give yourself a short word limit and try to tell your story. Check out these articles for more about keeping short stories short: 5 Ways To Shorten Your Short Stories. At Circa, it’s not about ‘chunkifying’ news but adding structure. You sometimes hear what we do at Circa described as “chunkifying” — taking the news and presenting it in mobile-friendly chunks. And while on the surface this observation is correct, it misses the bigger picture. Yes, each “point” of Circa is a single unit of news — something designated as a fact, quote, statistic, event or image.
We thread these points together to tell stories. The end result is succinct and allows us to track which points a reader has consumed, powering our unique “follow” feature. But I often respond to talk of chunkifying by pointing out that what we’re really doing at Circa is adding structure to information — and it could be the most powerful thing we do. The assumed output of a reporter is the “article.” If I just described 90 percent of the CMSes you’ve used, read on. The value of journalism comes from filtering things out of the flow of information and serving them up to readers. At Circa we do things differently. Go beyond good vs. evil to give your script depth. A lot of adventure, action and superhero movies set up a conflict between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Nothing wrong with that, as the box office results of many of these films reflect. However, if you want to write a story with more depth you’ll need to move closer to the kind of choices ordinary people face.
After all, how many times in your life have you had to choose between doing something you knew was good and something you knew was evil—I mean super-villain evil? Probably not often if at all. On the other hand, how often have you had to decide what to do in situations where both choices had their pluses and minuses? Probably frequently. Other times both seem equally good or both seem mostly negative and you’re trying to figure out the lesser of two evils. . * You’re not as keen on somebody else as they are on you. . * You know that a friend of yours is more seriously ill than she lets on. . * You get a good job offer but it requires moving to another city. How To Create An Intriguing Inciting Incident. Every single element between the first page and the very last page of a screenplay is arguably the most important, salable thing about it. In this article, the beginning of the plot takes the number one spot. However, the plot really can’t begin being awesome until it is set in motion.
That’s where the inciting event comes in. A good plot is everything that transpires in the screenplay and, if it’s captivating, will have an equally captivating inciting event. But good inciting events don’t come easy. First, the reader/audience has to care about the character they’re following. Even if the main character isn’t all that interesting, the situations or surroundings that make up their world can be what keeps the audience engaged.
Now that we have a good starting point, we have to make the inciting event big. In Star Wars: Episode IV, the inciting event is Luke Skywalker discovering that his family has been killed. Active Voice Versus Passive Voice. Today's topic is active voice versus passive voice. Here's a question from Brian in Iowa. He writes, “It drives me crazy when people write in passive voice. How can I teach people how to tell the difference between passive and active voice and to stay away from passive voice?” Well, Brian is right, the first step is to help people understand the difference between active and passive voice, because many people believe they should avoid the passive voice, but fewer people can define it or recognize it. What Is Active Voice? I'll start with active voice because it's simpler.
In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action. Another example is the title of the Marvin Gaye song “I Heard It through the Grapevine.” What Is Passive Voice? In passive voice, the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. If you wanted to make the title of the Marvin Gaye song passive, you would say “It was heard by me through the grapevine,” not such a catchy title anymore. Announcements 1. Leave Something Out - Matthew E. May. By Matthew E. May | 11:00 AM October 1, 2014 The white circles you see in the grid below don’t really exist, nor do the white diagonal lines you see connecting them. Yet they are the most interesting part of the illustration. Even if you try to ignore the white space, your brain will override the order: As any visual artist will tell you, the white space is just as important as the drawing. In music, too, the pauses matter just as much as the sound. And yet in business, we rush to fill any empty space with noise — a new offer, more features, another conference call.
But when we respect the white space — or when we intentionally create by removing just the right thing in just the right way — we allow others to fill the void, adding their own interpretation and impact. It’s a lesson I’ve seen taught especially well by comic illustrators. Apple’s 2007 launch of the first iPhone used a similar approach. In between? Or is it? In-N-Out actually has a “secret menu” for those in the know. Kurt Vonnegut’s 8 Tips on How to Write a Great Story. By Maria Popova The year of reading more and writing better is well underway with writing advice the likes of David Ogilvy’s 10 no-bullshit tips, Henry Miller’s 11 commandments, Jack Kerouac’s 30 beliefs and techniques, John Steinbeck’s 6 pointers, and various invaluable insight from other great writers.
Now comes Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922–April 11, 2007) — anarchist, Second Life dweller, imaginary interviewer of the dead, sad soul — with eight tips on how to write a good short story, narrated by the author himself. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.Start as close to the end as possible.Be a Sadist.
10 Secrets to Creating Unforgettable Supporting Characters. The 22 rules of storytelling, according to Pixar. Lessons in Storytelling: The 1944 Noir Film DOUBLE INDEMNITY — Colleen Collins Books. Seven Others Habits of Effective Storytellers. THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE STORYTELLERS by Deborah Potter and Annie Lang The story begins with a highly produced sequence that grabs the viewer's attention right from the start.
It has all the elements-compelling video and sound, fast edits and wipes, sophisticated graphics-the kind of story that draws applause in newsrooms. But what about in living rooms? It turns out that producing stories this way can actually make harder for viewers to understand and remember what they've seen. That's because watching television news is not a simple task. Even when viewers are paying attention, when they're not distracted by their surroundings, they still have to process information on two tracks simultaneously, both audio and video. That's the basic message from a stack of studies that most journalists know nothing about. Let the Emotions Talk It may be obvious that emotion compels attention and engages the viewer. The research supports his perspective, and goes even further. Slow it Down. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Storytellers.
Storytellers don't have it easy. Storytelling is a performing art, and like any kind of performing, it takes some practice and a basic knowledge of the rules to develop your skills. The best place to practice is with your own family; they won't run away if your storytelling isn't the best they've ever heard. They may even offer some criticism, whether you want it or not. If you're ready to sharpen your storyteller skill, start by learning these seven tips that will help you craft an effective performance. Memorize the story. Nothing bores an audience faster than someone reading from a book or looking at notes. How to Master the Art of Storytelling to Increase Social Sharing. Marketing is about telling good stories. Social media marketing is about getting your customers to tell them for you. The value and freshness of your content and how well you tap the connections that tie users and businesses together via social networks directly impacts the effectiveness of your social marketing campaigns.
Connections are the key to making social business, well, social. But it’s good stories that fuel conversations, allow businesses to be a trusted source, and underpin the success of social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. The content that tells a story is the content that elicits the most conversation and engagement. How content is crafted and presented is a huge determinant of its social success. 1.) 2.) 3.) 4.) 5.) 6.)
How do you incorporate storytelling into your content creation? Image credit: contemplicity. Latest News on Content MSEVEN STEPS TO THE PERFECT STORY. The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You. When Jonah Berger was a graduate student at Stanford, in the early aughts, he would make a habit of reading page A2 of the Wall Street Journal, which included a list of the five most-read and the five most-shared articles of the day. “I’d go down to the library and surreptitiously cut out that page,” he recalls. “I noticed that what was read and what was shared was often different, and I wondered why that would be.” What was it about a piece of content—an article, a picture, a video—that took it from simply interesting to interesting and shareable?
What pushes someone not only to read a story but to pass it on? The question predates Berger’s interest in it by centuries. In 350 B.C., Aristotle was already wondering what could make content—in his case, a speech—persuasive and memorable, so that its ideas would pass from person to person. Aristotle’s diagnosis was broad, and tweets, of course, differ from Greek oratory. Just how arousing each emotion was also made a difference. The Formula: How To Make A Video Go Viral. Marvel´s Secret Formula: Storytelling For Businesses. How to Delight Your Prospects with Powerful Storytelling. Storytelling Strategies: When In Trouble, Reach for the Deadline. The Science And Psychology Behind Viral Articles In Your Social Feeds.
How To Get 300% More People To Read Your Content. 8 Storytelling Tips for Business Leaders. Market Your Business the Marvel Comics Way. What Are The Clues To A Good Story? Sense of humor is the key to innovation: Peter Perceval at TEDxUHasselt. Copywriting 101 (pdf)