Read authors such as Charles Dickens, who is famous for creating larger-than-life, memorable characters. Why do they desire the things they do? Find quick story ideas and character profiles using our step-by-step outlining tools. In a brilliant middle , your story might:.
Chuck Wendig has a great post here on how to fight the mushy middle and make your own story lean and mean throughout. Find your next steps. Discover your narrative landmarks. Learn how Now Novel helps you develop your story and get help improving your draft. This becomes part of the subplot of Quoyle grieving for and looking for substitute love.
Deepening your plot with subplots will improve your novel because readers will feel more connected to your characters. Connection arises out of understanding and empathy. A good, relevant subplot can help you create these two things. In a good story, characters do not sound like real people all the time even if they create the illusion of being real. This is because in a good story:. See advice for writing better dialogue in our separate post on the subject.
What makes a story great? Besides unforgettable characters, a crafted plot, engaging action and dialogue?
Immersive settings. A great story puts us right in the heart of its scenes, its world. How do you write a great setting? War, for example, or physical fights between adversaries. But there are many kinds of conflict you can use to improve your story. Characters might also grapple with their environments. For example, in a character vs society conflict such as in The Scarlet Letter. Or when characters struggle with natural phenomena the typical disaster story.
James Duncan offers some excellent advice on creating conflict and tension. Says Duncan:. April 4, at pm. The last section is very visceral in its imagining of our experience of art in the proximity of an encompassing performance. Thanks for your comment, David! Your email address will not be published. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Newsletter is sent no more than once per week.
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Click HERE to sign up. Email Read Great Literature admin. Contact: admin. Nothing destroys drama like over-sharing. However, when placed next to the step above, it becomes very effective. Show the scene! Your readers have a right to see the best parts of the story play out in front of them. Show the interesting parts of your story, and tell the rest.
Good dialogue comes from two things: intimate knowledge of your characters and lots of rewriting. Think about the last five novels you read. In how many of them did a character die? Good stories often involve death. Death is the universal theme because every person who lives will one day die. Tap the power of death in your storytelling. Most professional writers write three drafts or more. Instead, the second draft is meant for major structural changes and for clarifying the plot and characters of your novel or the key ideas of your non-fiction book.
The third draft is for deep polishing. Now is when everything starts to gel. This is the fun part! But until you write the first two drafts, polishing is probably a waste of your time. Good writers know all the rules and follow them. Great writers know all the rules and break them. They break them because their stories require a whole new set of rules. You serve your stories. The best way to defeat writers block is to write. Just write.
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