The Climax is the pièce de résistance of your gourmet meal of a novel. When you wheel out the Climax and lift the serving dish’s gleaming silver lid, this is the bit that gets all the oohs and aahs. The Climax should have readers on the edge of their seats. They should be breathless, tense, […]
The Third Act begins with another life-changing plot point. More than any preceding it, this plot point sets the protagonist’s feet on the path toward the final conflict in the Climax. From here, your clattering dominoes form a straight line as your protagonist hurtles toward an inevitable confrontation with the antagonistic force. Because the entire […]
All of us are impacted by setting. Every place we’ve been has made an imprint on us in some way, whether small or significant. In fiction, we want our characters’ past and personality to be gradually revealed. Amateur writers dump information about a character entirely out of POV. What this means is they are not […]
The Third Act is what readers, writers, and characters have all been waiting for. This final section of the story is the point. It’s what you’ve been building up to all this time. If the First and Second Acts were engaging and aesthetic labyrinths, the Third Act is where X marks the spot. You’ve found […]
What makes the difference between a good novel and a great one? Simple: the editing. Seasoned fiction writers know that in order to reach a pinnacle of excellence with their writing, they have to be “brutal self-editors” (quoting Jerry Jenkins here). The problem is most writers, whether newbies or experienced, don’t have training on how […]
Today, I want to talk about learning how to trust yourself as a writer rather than relying too much on other people’s advice. This is a question I receive in one form or another quite frequently from writers, particularly the writers who are just starting out and are trying to find that balance of honoring […]
Podcast: Download (Duration: 32:46 — 45.0MB) Subscribe: Spotify | TuneIn | RSS | More In this solo episode, I talk about my lessons learned from 13 years as a full-time author entrepreneur. You can read/listen to previous updates at TheCreativePenn.com/timeline. Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today […]
After the Midpoint, your story heats up. The Second Half of the Second Act is where your plot really begins popping. Your main characters cap the dramatic event at the Midpoint with a decision that allows them to stop reacting and start acting. Almost always, this is born of a personal revelation, even if the […]
Halfway through the Second Act, something marvelous happens. There you are, minding your own business, toiling in the seemingly endless desert of the Second Act, when everything changes all over again. Legendary director Sam Peckinpah talked about how he always looked for a “centerpiece” on which to “hang” his story. That centerpiece is your Second […]
Nailing proper use of POV (point of view) is a challenge for many fiction writers. It seems easy, right? Whoever has the point of view in a scene is telling and showing the events unfolding. You can only be in one head per scene, the current “rule” goes. Back in the day (some decades ago), […]
