Tag: hero’s journey

  • Friday’s Findings: Do We Really Need Story Structure?

    Friday’s Findings: Do We Really Need Story Structure?

    I just finished Stephen King’s On Writing. Once again. I’m still flabbergasted that one of the best-selling authors in American history doesn’t endorse story structure. And I also just listened to a fiction writing seminar with Lisa Cron. In it, she reiterated what she says in her book, Story Genius, to begin with the story.…

  • Story Structure: Harmon’s Plot Embryo

    Story Structure: Harmon’s Plot Embryo

    I’ve already talked about Harmon’s Plot Embryo. It’s the most visited page on my blog. Just to review, here are the story structures I’ve posted about recently: 3-Act Structure 7-Point Structure Hero’s Journey Freytag’s Pyramid Snowflake Method Harmon’s Embryo

  • Story Structure: Hero’s Journey

    Story Structure: Hero’s Journey

    This is a classic. Here’s a beautiful graphic from StoryboardThat. Photo by Klaus Nielsen from Pexels

  • How I got to my rough draft

    How I got to my rough draft

    Now I’m getting to the fun part! Sorry I haven’t published in a while. I have a good excuse: I finished the draft of the novel I started for 2018’s National Novel Writing Month. I’m calling it The Sentient and it falls under the genre of science fiction, more specifically, space opera. One thing I’ve…

  • Comparing Story Grids

    Comparing Story Grids

    When I think of some of the ‘a-ha’ moments I’ve had when developing my craft as a writing, I think of times I discovered these concepts: show verses tell; avoid on-the-nose writing; subtext in actions and dialogue. I could name many more. I like to think one of my best ‘a-ha’ moments as a writing…

  • What I’m learning as I write my novel

    When I say I’ve written six novels, this is what I really mean: I’ve written the rough draft of six novels. Sure I like to say “I’ve written six novels” to try to impress people, but if anyone would read these “novels”, he would read for five minutes, stick out his tongue, squinch up his…

  • Hero’s Journey

    I found this helpful for writing fiction: The Hero’s Journey. “The Hero’s Journey is a pattern of narrative identified by the American scholar Joseph Campbell that appears in drama, storytelling, myth, religious ritual, and psychological development.  It describes the typical adventure of the archetype known as The Hero, the person who goes out and achieves…

  • Writing Blog Roundup: dialogue tags, avoid procrastination, two pages, idiot characters, hero’s journey

    What I read this week in writing blogs: Help with dialogue tags. What about “he said”/”she said”—do you need them? Ten tips to help you avoid procrastination.  A couple of weeks ago I talked about this distracting world we live in and how procrastinating has been refined into an art form of sorts. Two pages…