Most people have at least heard of the three act structure. It originated from the stage, but can also be used by writers and screenwriters to analyse their stories. Of course, unlike a play, a book or movie is not broken down into discrete units, and so the act structure is invisible from the reader’s/audience’s …
Month: July 2013
Outline and outliners
How do you measure the progress you’re making on writing a book? Do you think in terms of the word-count you’ve written or the number of scenes you’ve completed? The answer possibly lies in the type of writer you are. If you’re an organic writer (or ‘pantser’) that believes that any form of outlining is …
Getting off to a good start
So you’ve developed your story idea, done some outlining or story planning and now you’re ready to start writing your novel. You stare at the screen and the curser blinks back at you. You think it’s mocking you. You know that first sentence has to be brilliant prose; it has to capture the reader’s imagination …
The Style Rules of Writing Fiction
After spending so much of my business career writing reports, books and letters in a plain style of English, writing fiction for the first time was quite a challenge for me. If you’re contemplating writing your own novel for the first time, you might be struggling with the same kind of issues. Below I’ve set …
JMJ Williamson 