Home > Work > Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story
1 " The Resolution is not just the ending of this story, but also the beginning of the story the characters will live in after readers have closed the back cover. "
― K.M. Weiland , Structuring Your Novel: Essential Keys for Writing an Outstanding Story
2 " Most stories aren’t meant to tell every detail of a character’s life. A story is just a snapshot, a set period of time chosen and extracted from a character’s life because it offers the necessary dramatic arc. "
3 " Character and change. That’s what story is all about. We take a person and we force him onto a journey that will change him forever, usually for the better. "
4 " …the ending is the last chance you have to impress your reader before they pick up your next book. Do you want to wow them or [leave] them feeling dissatisfied?” —Christa Rucker "
5 " The moment fiction becomes dishonest is the moment it ceases to matter. "
6 " If we turn too much of our backstory into the story or illustrate too much of it via detailed flashbacks (either at the beginning of our stories or in subsequent chapters), we rob our readers of the sense of weight given by the 9/10 of the iceberg floating under the water of our stories. "
7 " If your characters don’t have a response—in speech, in thought, or in action—to the events happening to them, they haven’t been touched by those events, and the reader will likewise remain untouched and uninvolved.” —Beth Hill "
8 " The thing should have plot and character, beginning, middle and end. Arouse pity and then have a catharsis.” —Anne Rice "
9 " A great first line is the collateral that grants the author a line of intellectual credit from the reader.” —Chuck Wendig "
10 " Conflict” and “tension” are often used interchangeably, not so much because they’re the same thing—because they’re not—but because they’re kissing cousins that fulfill similar functions within the story. "
11 " In order to have a plot, you have to have a conflict, something bad has to happen.” —Mike Judge "
12 " A strong dilemma section will drive home to readers that your characters are realistic, thinking human beings. Just as importantly, it will provide a solid bridge between the previous scene’s disaster and the following scene’s goal. "
13 " You should write something happy,” people tell me, and I don’t understand. Happy like Anna Karenina? Happy like The Grapes of Wrath? Happy like ... Catch-22 or ... Hamlet?28 "
14 " Few of us would want to subsist on a steady diet of tragedy, but all of us are better for having cleansed our reading palate with the astringent bite of these unflinching portrayals of bittersweet truth. "
15 " Consider your First Plot Point, which will be the first major turning point for your characters and, as a result, often the Inciting or Key Event. The setup that occurs prior to these scenes should take no more than a quarter of the book. Anymore than that and you’ll know you’ve begun your story too early and need to do some cutting. "
16 " Examine your story. Where does it truly begin? Which event is the first domino in your row of dominoes? Which domino must be knocked over for the rest of the story to happen? "
17 " Good stories are driven by conflict, tension, and high stakes.” —William Landay "
18 " A flashback can sometimes function as one of the major plot points, but only if the character’s act of remembering this incident changes his course within the main story and prompts him to react in a decisive and plot-altering way. "
19 " Being too easy on their character and their readers.” —Lori Devoti "
20 " Is that what we’re doing when we write sad stories? Are we squelching hope, beauty, and wonder? Or are we perhaps exploring the opposite side of the same coin? Life is just as full of sadness as it is of happiness. To ignore that fact is to limit both our personal experience of the human existence and our ability to write about it truthfully. To cap every story with a happy ending is dishonesty to both ourselves and our readers. The moment fiction becomes dishonest is the moment it ceases to matter. "
