Plots

A Simple Tip to Help Get Rid of Saggy Middles

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Sorry, it’s not what you think. This post is to help with your writing! If you are like me you can come up with a great opening and a great ending but get bogged down in the middle.

A Simple Tip to Help Get Rid of Saggy Middles

By Fae Rowen
Sagging chins you are on your own…

Need to tone and tighten the middle of your WIP?

Have a saggy, lackluster character that needs work?

Feel like junking your half-finished, used-to-sparkle story?

Don’t.

Today I have a simple tip for you to brighten your character and/or your plot.

Go another way.

I first heard these words in reference to life’s struggles. You know, the ones that hammer you, and you just try to keep your head above water? Instead of encountering each challenge with my lance and sword, I was encouraged to try a different response.

You’ve heard the definition of insanity: You keep doing the same thing, but expect a different outcome.

Well, if you keep fiddling with a character or a plot over and over, approaching it from the same perspective, you’re going to get the same probably-not-acceptable fix.

Go another way.

Read the full post at Writers In The Storm.

Quick Link: Plotting With Layers: 4 Steps to a Stronger Plot

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

You know every once in a while you come across something that lets you see issues in a new light? This post by the wonderful and talented Janice Hardy at Fiction University is one of those things. I personally love the idea of using layers to add depth to my stories and her tips really resonated with me. Let us know if they help you too.

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Plotting With Layers: 4 Steps to a Stronger Plot

By Janice Hardy

This week’s Refresher Friday takes a heavily updated look at why plots are like houses, and how “building” with layers will help you create stronger plots. Enjoy!

Plots are like houses. When built on a strong foundation, with good flow and an well-thought out floor plan, readers want to move in and stay awhile. Just as we build in layers, we can also plot in layers. This helps us make sure all the right pieces are in place to hold up our story and allow our characters to live within them.

Layering your plot can create more interesting stories, but it’s easy to go overboard and end up with a convoluted mess. How many layers are good? How many are too many? And mostly, how do you craft a well-constructed story that builds on itself and keeps readers interested?

I’ve talked about writing in layers before, and plotting in layers is similar. It helps to look at each layer individually and try not to build the whole thing at once.

Lay the Foundation for Your Plot

Read the full post on Fiction University!

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

Just like the evil electric company

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His and hers SU bottles

I was lying flat on my bed with the fan turned high, misting water into the air with the squirt bottle we use to discipline the cats (kids occasionally too) feeling pretty sorry for myself because it was 109 in southern California today.  And I know that there are plenty of people out there who would gladly switch places with me right now, first world problems and all that, but this is my very small pity party. I don’t do well in the heat.

We have an air conditioner, a really nice one. But earlier this year I signed up for a deal with the electric company. So in exchange for a lower rate, when the grid is getting a bit overloaded, the electric company can turn off my a/c. I know it sounds stupid in 109-degree weather but this is what makes them so clever.  When I was pitched this wonderful opportunity it was cold outside.  I mean cold for southern California, but still, you want a hot cocoa and a sweater.

Then I realized how bloody brilliant that was. Because you don’t remember how much you suffered in the heat in February, so the money looks good. They only shut off your a/c for a short time and it gets rotated around with other people so it shouldn’t be too long. Blah de blah blah blah. Of course, I want to save the money.

Until now when reality hits. I could go someplace else to find some coolness but it is too hot to move or think.

Then I realized that a smart writer would do the same thing. Place clues and hints when it is cold outside and your reader easily buys into it, but then later in the story switch the weather. Just like the evil electric company.

No matter what the weather is for you (107 for me!) please be safe and take care of yourself.

Paula

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Quick Link: Three Ways to Build a Better Plot

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Quick links, bringing you great articles on writing from all over the web.

How are you NaNoWriMo‘s doing? Keeping up on your word count? Today’s offering is from Janice Harding’s Fiction University and might help.  Janice writes about three ways you can ramp up your plot. More & better plot = more words!

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Three Ways to Build a Better Plot

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Building blocksPlot is how writers illustrate a story to their readers—which is why it’s so vital to craft a compelling one. It’s the foundation on which a story is built, and the weaker that is, the less likely the story will stand, let alone entertain. That’s a lot of pressure to put on a poor story idea, so it’s no wonder so many writers have trouble with plotting.

I love plotting myself, but even I’m always on the lookout for ways to make the process easier and more effective. Here are three things that I find particularly helpful when working on a new novel:

1. Know the Ending First

Since the whole goal of a novel is to solve the core conflict problem, knowing A) what that problem is and B) how that problem is resolved, makes it easier to plot it. Let’s look at a common way a novel’s plot is described:

Jaws is the story of a sheriff with a fear of the water who finds out a killer shark is terrorizing his beach during a major holiday weekend (the premise).

Next, let’s look at that same story with the ending as part of the idea:

Jaws is a story of a sheriff with a fear of the water who faces that fear to kill a killer shark terrorizing his town during a major holiday weekend (the general problem and how he solves it).

The premise version only gives the setup for the story. It doesn’t provide enough information to know what the sheriff does after this discovery. A large percentage of novels start out with this type of “plot” summary (I’ve done it, too), and it’s no wonder an equally large percentage of first drafts hit a wall around page 100.

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If you liked this article, please share. If you have suggestions for further articles, articles you would like to submit, or just general comments, please contact me at paula@publetariat.com or leave a message below.

The 37 Basic Plots, According to a Screenwriter of the Silent-Film Era

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Today’s post by Rebecca Onion originally appeared on Slate on October 27, 2015. What do you think, are we all repeating the same plots over and over again?

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In his 1919 manual for screenwriters, Ten Million Photoplay Plots, Wycliff Aber Hill provided this taxonomy of possible types of dramatic “situations,” first running them down in outline form, then describing each more completely and offering possible variations. Hill, who published more than one aid to struggling “scenarists,” positioned himself as an authority on the types of stories that would work well onscreen.

Advertising Hill’s book in a 1922 issue of the Scenario Bulletin Digest (“A Magazine of Information and Instruction for the Photoplaywright”), the manual’s publisher, the Feature Photodrama Company, offered hope to screenwriters feeling stuck for inspiration who might be willing to send away for the volume:

A few hours’ study of this remarkable treatise ought to make it an easy matter to find a cure for your “sick script”; to inject new “pep” and suspense into your story or safely carry it past a “blind alley”; it gives you all the possible information an inspiring [sic] scenarist may require.
Read the full post on Slate including screenshots of the 37 basic plots!