Category: Plotter-Oriented Writing
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Opening Image/Final Image: how to fulfill your arc
Dig into Key Beats, beginning with the opening image and closing image, which balance a story and demonstrate your hero’s journey.
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Storyboard: How to make your story beats easy to map
Learn how to create a storyboard, a simple way to organize your story beats and comprehend your entire novel or screenplay at a glance.
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Anchor Beats: 5 big moments in a story’s life
Just five anchor beats hold together the plot of your novel. Learn how each of these key moments defines the arc that collectively make up a story.
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Research: better results through (of all things) effort
Understanding why research is both critical to developing a story and a whole lot of fun, with a little help from Star Trek.
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The End: a great place to begin your novel
Stories don’t begin at the beginning. They begin in the middle. In Plotter-Oriented writing, therefore, we start by thinking about the END.
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Prototype: a surprising route to a story’s best destiny
The prototype allows you to ask yourself and a few readers “will this idea work?” It also creates an artifact to which you can return in the future.
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Lonely Girl: a prototype of air
A prototype chapter for The Poison Sky, representing the mood and world of the story. Many details are inconsistent with the current state of the work.
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Inspiration: wonderful and uplifting magic
In Plotter-Oriented writing, as in most forms or writing, we start with inspiration. Where does that come from? Your mileage, as they say, may vary.
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Extreme plotting! The magic of plotter-oriented writing
A philosophy for Plotter-Oriented Writing, in which I describe my extremist approach to plotting before writing, and why I think it makes sense.