These are all the posts that didn’t quite fit anywhere!
Everybody wants stakes. A big red slab of stake. A juicy tender cut of stake. And today’s exercise from Mr Bell asks us to ask ourselves What are the stakes in the novel? I remember attending a poetry / story slam event in NYC. I had a couple of […]
Isolate a tense scene in your novel, where the conflict is at its highest. Then stretch the tension even more. Use the techniques from the chapter. Then return to it in a few days. Does it need to be cut, or have you added to the reading experience? This […]
Dear Writer, Please make your villain more badass. Sincerely, Every reader . . . Dude, even I have to admit, I like me a strong evil character. I’m thinking Ganon in the Legend of Zelda games. All the Disney queens. Or even the literary villains […]
Today’s exercise is a matter of life or death. For the characters. That’s because Mr Bell recommends that the stakes be so high, so grand and important, that they will make or break a character to his fundamental being. I remember last night’s episode of Sex and the City, […]
I read something interesting the other day. “Titles are the lens through which we read a story.” It makes a lot of sense. A title can enhance or reverse our understanding of a story. It’s like labels. If you see two people arguing and fighting and kicking each other, it […]
The next exercises in the chapter all revolve around the first. You essentially pick it apart. Kind of odd, if you ask me. Like scratching something off your back, and inspecting it. Well, here is it. First, a look at story world. How well do you do it? Are […]
I’m being silly with the title. But here is why: James Scott Bell tells us in chapter four his thoughts on beginnings. They must check a series of elements. The story hooks the reader, usually with motion (which I thought a nice touch). The reader bonds with the lead. The […]
Who doesn’t like pyramids? Mr Bell always wanted one named after him, so in his plot book he did just that. He asks writers to put their unsunken lines and hooks through another test: PPP. Does the story inspire passion? Does the story have potential? Will the writing […]
In chapter three we find a quote from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. These Hollywood producers are shooting the breeze, coming up with movie pitches, when one of them say, “That isn’t an idea, it’s an notion. If we put some money into it, then maybe we can turn it into a […]
In chapter three of his plot book, Mr Bell suggests ways for coming up with hundreds of ideas. Ok, we wonder, why? Remember how one tip to writing subsequent scenes was to imagine multiple scenarios? We tend to write A, B, C, D . . . but Mr Bell suggested, […]
Finally! The last exercise from chapter 2 is this third one. Using a structure diagram, map out your current plot. (I plotted my next novel, Awake & Asleep.) Come up with a disturbance scene and events that make up the two doorways of no return. (Done.) Write these down […]
How could I not? I read chapter 2 of Mr Bell’s Plot book through the lens of my last novel. Why? Because I wrote They Lived They Were with plot squarely in mind. At first I wrote freely, as I tend to do. But later, every editing decision, every scene […]
Now we enter chapter 2. It’s the point of no return! The part after the beginning and the part before the end, the “muddle” as the author cites. Lol. The muddle. I’ve always been shy of my muddles. What do I do? I tattoo them with references. I slash them […]
The last exercise from chapter one talks about all the little things that make a story amazing, on top of plot. They key here being writing plot-first doesn’t stifle creativity. Since everything you add on top is you. For example, the recipe for making an omelette is pretty much […]
Today’s exercise calls for four lines, one for each of the LOCK element, on your next novel. Well, well! I do have a next novel idea, which I really (really) want to be plotty. Like I might as well get the thing down pat. Butterflies, remember? Gossamer wings. Plot of […]
This exercise builds off another idea from chapter one of Mr Bell’s simple and clean book on training your plot muscles. Essentially, the structure of our favorite books boils down to this acronym: L.O.C.K. In pieces, Lead, Objective, Confrontation, Knockout. Acronyms are sexy, we must admit, and choice […]
The first book in the semester of Plot will be James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure. With a name like that, how could you go wrong? Not his, although it does reminds me of one of my favorite professors in college, Susan Bell . . . nevertheless, just for bibliography’s […]
Has it ever happened to you where you get the same message three different times, in three different ways? Your stomach growls, you’re hungry. But it’s better to save money, hold off until dinner. And then you see an ad on your computer for ice cream. No, you say. Then […]
Circumscribe, v.1. restrict something within limits.2. [geometry] draw a figure round another, touching it at points but not cutting it.Origin: Latin circum “around” + scribere “to write” I. Just as the word describe comes from the Latin “to write down,” let us reconsider a similar word, largely ignored […]
The guitar player strums or picks. The turtle does not scuttle or bumble. The sink drips, while the sirens . . . the sirens . . . holler? Hoot? Sound off?! What describes the sound a siren makes? It’s important to have the right vocabulary, especially when communicating important things […]