There are three main ways of getting your book published: trade publishing, vanity publishing and self-publishing: Trade Publishing Trade Publishing is the accepted term for the traditional royalty-paying publisher (also referred to as a legacy publisher). You may receive an advance (particularly for second and subsequent books), and you will be paid a defined amount …
Plot: Scene, Sequel and Summary
Have you ever heard the phrase ‘scene and sequel’, and wondered what it meant? Scene A scene is a unit of action. Something happens. A scene isn’t a person thinking about other characters, it isn’t a group of people sitting around talking about what did happen (or what might happen), and it isn’t a long …
Plot: Ten Steps to Story Structure
KM Weiland is the author of two books on writing (Outlining Your Novel and Structuring Your Novel), and several works of fiction, including Behold the Dawn and Dreamlander. This post is based on the information in Structuring Your Novel, available on Kindle, and which I highly recommend for Weiland’s understandable and no-nonsense way of explaining structure …
Rules of Online Reviewing
This is a special post for the members of the Indie Christian Authors group on Facebook, as we are discussing online reviewing this week. It’s taken from a series I’ll be posting over at Australian Christian Writers in May and June, and it’s actually two posts—so it’s long. Very long. But I do encourage you …
Plot: The Snowflake Method
The Snowflake Method is the creation of Randy Ingermanson, author of Writing Fiction for Dummies (that’s part of the well-known Dummies series, not a statement about the intelligence of fiction writers—or readers) and six Christian thrillers. He also publishes a free monthly ezine (Advanced Fiction Writing) and has a website full of useful articles. The Snowflake …
Plot: The Three-Act Structure
Just like a play or a movie, a book has an underlying structure. Aristotle formulated the concept of the three-act structure, and most books on plot and structure use some form of the basic three-act structure (even Freytag’s five-act structure can be seen as a variation on the three-act structure). James Scott Bell defines the …
Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?
There is ongoing debate among novelists as to the ‘right’ way to write. There are two main groups, both roughly equal in size, with different names depending on who you ask: Plotter The plotter will undertake a great deal of preparation before beginning to write their novel. They will have researched their locations, will have …
Plot: The LOCK Elements
Last week we looked at the GMC method of plotting and characterisation. This week we are looking at another acronym, LOCK, used by James Scott Bell to describe what he sees as the four key elements of a strong plot: Lead – Objective – Confrontation – Knockout Lead A novel needs a lead character that …
Plot: The GMC Elements
GMC: Goals, Motivation, Conflict was first published in 1996, is now available as a Kindle edition, and is recommended reading. Authors who use the methodology tell me it’s changed their writing (yes, they mean for the better), and I believe them. I see too many manuscripts (or self-published books) with insufficient conflict. The basic premise …
An Introduction to Plot
Randy Ingermanson states the essentials of fiction are plot, character, theme and building a credible story world. Although this series of posts will focus on plot, it is inseparable from character, and the two must be considered together (as you will see over the coming weeks). Ronald Tobias says: Plot and character. They work together and …