Three Act Structure and The Lord Of The Rings

The Lord Of The Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is one of the clearest examples of the three act structure, which is the base of effective storytelling. Three act structure is the structure used in all of storytelling, in novel writing, scripts or films, and short stories. Every story you can think of most likely follows...

Info-Dumping Correctly

Okay, first off I'm gonna start off my saying, info-dumps are my pet peeve. I hate having a huge block of text telling me about the history of something or why something is the way it is, but only because usually it's written in such a boring way! Info-dumps don't have to be bad!Sometimes people...

Spin-offs And Side Stories

I'm one of those authors who will have a billion stories based in the same universe. I'll have a series, and that series will have three spin-offs, two prequels, a sequel, and a collection of short stories to go along with it. I love spin-offs and side stories, I believe they deepen the world and...

NaNoWriMo 101

It's October now, which means November is coming up fast, and with it, NaNoWriMo!Over the coming weeks, I'll be writing a series of blog posts to help you with NaNoWriMo, should you choose to participate. But today, the basics. What Is NaNoWriMo? First off, what the heck is NaNoWriMo? Honestly, it a good question, because...

Preptober!!

Today is the first day of October, and for those of us who are doing NaNoWriMo, that means the start of Preptober! You may be wondering what Preptober is, because you've never heard of it before. I hadn't heard of it until last year either. Preptober is the month before NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month,...

Outlining: Why, How, and My Method

There are three different types of writers, the plotters, the plansters, and the pantsers. Each one writes theirs stories in a different way. Plotters plot out their story before they start writing, so they have a clear path they can take when working through their novel. Pantsers have no plan, they write by the seat...

Trusting Your Creative Muse And When To Get Feedback

I see it all the time. People thinking their pacing is too fast, or too slow, but not trusting themselves on this feeling. Or asking other what they should do with a character because they want to do this one thing but they're not sure if it's the right move. But here's the thing. It's...

Generating Story Ideas

I have far more story ideas than I know what to do with, and it took me a while to realize not every person is like this. So what do I do to constantly be coming up with and developing new ideas for books, series, screenplays, and short stories? 1: I'm Always Looking I go...

What Style Is Best? Finding The One That Fits Your Story

When you come of with a story idea, there's always that moment when you go, wait, how am I going to tell this story? Maybe you have a plot, or characters, but so far you've just been envisioning it as a movie in your mind, and are uncertain of how it should all go down...

How To Keep Your Stories From Blending Together

We are writers. We have ideas constantly running through our minds, ideas begging to be written down on paper, or typed into an empty word document. And if you're like me, you'll have a dozen different stories going at one time, some first drafts, some second drafts, and some third drafts.But what do you do...