All good stories are about character. The job of a good storyteller is to create an emotional bond between those characters and the reader as they endure the conflict in the story. It’s a vicarious emotional experience where the reader experiences the hopes and fears of their hero or heroine. It's a connection. We don't …
Category: For newbie authors
Plot Points, Turning Points and Reversals
If you're a writer and interested in the art of storytelling then you can learn a lot from the world of movies by breaking down stories into their component parts. In my previous blog I focused on how the story narrative can be broken down further into sequences. Yet another way to break down the …
Foreshadowing and Chekhov’s Gun
In my last blog, I looked at the importance of creating tension around the dramatic question of a story. For example, will Luke and Obi Wan get the Death Star plans to the rebels? Will Indie find the Ark of the Covenant? In simple term, tension is created by putting the main character in increasing …
Sequences and Tension
In last month's blog, I covered some aspects of sequences for writers, and in particular Darrin and Travis Donelly's '10-day Screenplay'. This month I want to look again at sequences from a slightly different perspective by looking at the use of 'tension'. In Paul Joseph Gulino's book, 'Screenwriting the sequence approach - The hidden structure …
A Sci-Fi Writer’s Dilemma
It's July 2023, and I have just realised it's over a year since I wrote my blog on "Taking stock". At that time I had decided to take some time out from writing to pursue a research project and set up a database for the mass of information I had accumulated on various different academic …
My Seven writing rules
First of all, I want to make it clear there are no rules for writing or story-telling. These are simply my rules, or perhaps more accurately 'preferences', that I have adopted for my own purposes. They worked for me and helped me publish four novels. If you're starting to write for the first time, maybe …
Science fiction or science fact?
I wondered about which topic to cover this month, and I chose my favourite genre, scifi. My favourite scifi authors were Herbert, Heinlein, Asimov, Clark, Aldis and Dick, all sadly no longer with us. Of course, there are new writers today; but none quite fill the boots of those classic writers. The 1980s and 1990s …
State of fear
Stephen King once said, “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” He's right of course. The only way to improve as a writer is to learn from the best. I confess I read a lot -- a serious amount. But …
5 Story Questions to consider
The process of developing a story from a basic idea is not easy. When I first started writing fiction, I thought it was just a matter of discovering the plot events in the story - an outline. But it's more complex than that. Before starting a writing project you need to understand the story dynamics …
Learning storytelling from the movies
I'm a big fan of movies -- sci-fi, action-adventure, fantasy, rom-com, comedy -- even the kids movies and series like Ice Age, and Toy Story. I have a decent sized blue-ray and DVD library and it's fun to watch those great movies over and over again. But besides the entertainment value of movies, if you …
JMJ Williamson 