Donna L.H. Smith

This week, we’ve been looking at Donald Maas’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. I trust you have had your whistle whetted to learn more from this writing resource.

Yesterday, we looked at Lessons 13-24, Part II, Plot Development. The lessons covered everything from subplots, to adding tension in different ways, to how and when to use backstory, plot layering, and complications.

I’ll do the same today – pick out one point from each of the remaining lessons to encourage you to acquire the workbook and devour it. It will help you grow your novel and make it special. That’s what readers want and it’s what we writers want.

Today – I’ll be listing the lessons from Part III – General Story Techniques. This unit covers Lessons 25 to 34, everything from raising the stakes, complications, layering plot lines, subplots, turning points, conflict, and adding tension. I also talk about…

REBLOGGING this painful episode from January. Just want you all to know, I have totally healed from it. It was upsetting at the time, but you forgive, heal, and move on.

I’m actually at another writer’s conference this week. So, I’m not generating new material.

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“All the winners are present. And there may be some here who didn’t win, but came very, very close.” I was at a writer’s conference over the weekend where an announcement was made. I’ve talked about it before, but I hate to use the real names, but many of you will know who I’m talking about, and what contest it was.

There were three publishing prizes given out, and three of us were there. But the announcer was wrong, as I was to learn just a minute later. As it happened, two winners were present, and I was the “close” one. But that first…

Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maas is another great resource for fiction writers. There is also a valuable workbook by the same name. I have used both in my training through CWG. Either resource could stand alone, because even though a lot of the material is the same, it’s not coordinated or formatted to correspond with each other. Example: Chapter One of the book is Why Write the Breakout Novel? Chapter One of the Workbook is on Character Development: From Protagonist to Hero.

Emotion Thesaurus

I recently purchased The Emotional Thesaurus through Amazon. I haven’t explored it thoroughly, but from what I’ve seen, it’s going to be very helpful.

How do you write anger, joy, desperation, despair, or denial? Let’s look first at how the book is laid out. The emotion is at the top of a two-page spread. A definition is given, followed by a LOT of physical signals, in other words, describing what a person does who feels this emotion.