Tag: Save the Cat
-
Friday’s Findings: The Cat and the Snowflake
In my last post, I discussed using the Snowflake Method simultaneously with the Save the Cat beats to develop a story and end up with a first draft. I expanded this idea with an Excel spreadsheet that can be downloaded. Or if you prefer, right click on the graphic below to expand it. Once the image…
-
Can Save the Cat and the Snowflake Method be Used Together? Simultaneously?
I’ve taken most of the summer off from writing blog posts to concentrate on my writing projects. Now summer vacations are over, and school is back in session, I’ve decided to get back into posting. Right click to enlarge. To see step-by-step instructions on using this graphic, click here. A thought occurred to me: as…
-
Friday’s Findings: Books on Writing
I’d like to share two books on writing I’ve recently purchased: Save the Cat Writes a Young Adult Novel by Jessica Brody Brody expounds on the Save the Cat beats with young adult novel examples. Even if you don’t write YA novels, or even if you are a pantser, you can probably mine out some…
-
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.…
-
Friday’s Findings: Screenplay Writing with Tony Acree
Last week, I attended a short workshop on screenplay writing. Tony Acree, author and publisher, has turned his novel, The Hand of God, into a screenplay. He talked about what he has learned as he gets it turned into a movie. With his permission, I’ve summarized his main points: Video of Acree’s presentation. Here are…
-
NaNoWriMo Day 30: Some resources to check out
No two writers approach their WIPs in the same way. Over the years, I’ve used a combination of the following methods to develop my stories. You may be familiar with some of them. Some of them may be new. I cherry pick parts from them and have created an amalgam of a fiction creating process…
-
Friday’s Findings: Fictionary
I bit the bullet and purchased a subscription to Fictionary. Being a word-processing program and outliner for authors, it falls into the same category as Scrivener, but they have some differences. Here’s how I feel about Fictionary: Character tracking: Fictionary has a great feature for keeping track of characters in each scene. Character tracking is…
-
A Three Hour Writing Course That’s Worth Your Time
Beware: the following sounds like like a commercial, but it’s only because I liked the “product” so much. Now that I’m wrapping up the second draft of my WIP, I wanted to share my thoughts about an online course I took called Write a Bestselling Novel in 15 Steps, which I’ll refer to as WABNI15S…
-
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…
Andrew M. Friday 