Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors

"Suddenly" has this ironic tendency to mitigate the very effect it's trying to create.

Sitting down to write, in itself, isn't enough. We also have to be excited about every single thing we write.

When readers decide to join hands with us, they are, in essence, becoming our co-writers.

Authors should learn to spot the most prevalent sentence slips-ups and know when to eliminate them from their stories.

If the structure that underlies our sentences and paragraphs is going to effectively convey our thoughts to our readers it will always adhere to the logical pattern of cause and effect.

What if something that happens in your story doesn't seem to fit into the goal/conflict/disaster paradigm of the scene?

At first blush, scene structure can be a subject that takes a while to fully grasp and, as a result, can spawn all kinds of questions.

To help you realize the possibilities of the sequel, let's take a look at some of the common variations we find.

This third and final piece of the sequel grows out of the character's dilemma and leads right into the next scene's goal.

Handled skillfully, a good dilemma can heighten tension, make characters more sympathetic, and, most importantly, keep readers turning those pages.

As soon as your previous scene's disaster hits, your character is going to experience an immediate and instinctive emotional reaction.

The sequel is every bit as important as the scene, since it allows characters to process the events of the scene and figure out their next move.

The great thing about structure is that it provides a solid framework for your story, while still presenting endless possibilities.

Scene disasters come in every variety imaginable, but we can attempt to narrow them down into the four basic categories.

Conflict can come in a variety of flavors, but most can be sorted into five categories.