In my blog over the years, I have written a lot about story structure. Story structure is all about the foundations of a story. From childhood we are introduced to stories and quickly understand their patterns. Once-upon-a-time… and they all lived happily every after. Remember this one: Jack takes his family cow to sell, but …
Author: John
Writer of speculative fiction.
Story design and readers’ expectations
What makes a story a compelling read that the reader cannot put down? Is it the story idea at the heart of the story? Or is it the way the story is executed? Great writers, of course, do both. But creating the readers expectations about the book and delivering what they want must be of …
The writer’s toolbox (iii)
In my last two blogs I covered two of my favourite tools that I use for writing novels. Scrivener -- my go to software for researching, planning, writing and book formatting software. Scrivener has virtually everything you need to plan, produce and publish your novel. It's a very powerful application, but it takes time to …
The Writer’s Toolbox (ii)
In last month's blog, I looked at Scrivener, the primary tool I use for writing and publishing. This month I want to look at another tool, which is relatively new-- Plottr. Plottr, is essentially a time line planning tool. It allows you to quickly map out a story's timeline with scene cards. It also allows …
The writer’s toolbox
In this blog I want to look at Scrivener -- a software tool that changed my life as a writer, and which today I couldn't do without. What does a novelist or writer need in order to write? Comparatively little. Remember Shakespeare only needed a quill, ink and paper. And he did quite well with …
Eliminating the saggy middle
Choosing a topic for this month's blog was a difficult choice. During the month I finally managed to see the Star Wars The Rise of Skywalker and commenting on the unbelievable bizarre ending could easily fill at least one blog post on story design. But I don't like to give negative reviews and there are …
Finding a story from chaos
One of the tasks I have been putting off for some time is a limited re-edit of my debut novel, Collision. After its release in 2012, I noticed some irritating typos had crept into the final proof. Well, as you can see it's taken me quite some time to get around to doing it. But …
Daydeam Believer
Not many people are old enough to remember Daydream Believer. It was a single released by the Monkees in 1968 with lead singer Davy Jones and headed the US charts for four weeks. It's a catchy tune, with cryptic lyrics about a daydream believer and his homecoming queen. But I can still remember the chorus. …
Structure and character arc
Some writers don't like the idea of story structure and reject it on the grounds that any such approach would be too rigid for them. Structures like the Hero's Journey, the Three-Act structure, and the Sequence Method may appeal to some writers, but not all. But even if you don't like to write in a …
Heroes and Villains
After the Christmas break, it's been difficult for me to get back into a writing routine again. Not that I ever switch off completely from the writing process -- I'm always thinking about my current novel and where the story is heading. And that's just as important as time spent at the keyboard. But one the …
JMJ Williamson 