Not With A Bang

rococorendezvous:

The Secret to Successful Plotting

amandaonwriting:

Beginner authors often say, ‘My story is about a woman who wants to be respected / accepted / loved.’ 

This is a common problem with first time novelists. They haven’t realised the biggest key to story-telling success is for your character to have a physical goal.

Wanting to find ‘love’ or ‘acceptance’ or ‘justice’ isn’t enough. If your character is loved, accepted or vindicated after achieving a physical goal, you have a story.

To define a physical story goal a character needs:

1. to get something physical
2. to cause something physical
3. to escape something physical
4. to resolve something physical
5. to survive something physical

Characters always have abstract story goals. Never let the abstract goals become more important than the physical goals, which have deadlines, and are experienced through the senses. When the protagonist achieves his physical goal, the story ends and his abstract goal is a by-product of this success.

Example: If your character has to escape from a life-threatening situation he will find out how emotionally resilient he is. He will gain respect and self-respect.

by Amanda Patterson creator of Writers Write   

lol, awww, I know how you feel. I was world famous for about an hour after Misha used my lipstick. Now I and my poor husband are the only ones who know about it. (husband knows because I won’t shut up about it)

Right! Well, I’ll remember, at the very least, since I know you as a lovely person already- so now you’re a lovely person who was recognized by Misha, too! Anywho, I was a total nuisance to my family. No one watches Supernatural in my house, so they just knew I cooing all day because of “some hot guy I want to be stuck in an elevator with,” as my brother so poetically put. I think it was enough experience, though! :)