Stories & Streams
The tagline to Donald Maas’ The Fire in Fiction is “passion, purpose, and techniques TO MAKE YOUR NOVEL GREAT.”
The book covers everything from characterization, the story world, scenes, dialogue, and voice. Each chapter has a set of practical tools dealing with each section from that chapter. As an example, I’ll talk about Chapter Three, Scenes That Can’t Be Cut.
What is a character? An imaginary person we writers think up. How did I create Meghan Gallagher? She started out as a nineteen-year-old very unlikeable spoiled brat, which is what I wanted her to be, but soon learned no one wants to read about a spoiled brat, even though she was going to change drastically. A former Christian Writers Guild (CWG) mentor helped me make her more likeable, and it worked. Meghan could still exhibit immaturity and impulsiveness, but without the entitlement snobby attitudes that go with it.
How did I form her two suitors, Scott and Duncan? Well, they had to be similar, yet very different. Duncan the cowboy especially, had to be opposite of Meghan, yet in reality, had more in common with her than Scott, the doctor. I’ll deal with them in Part II, and some of my supporting characters in Part III. Continue reading “Writing–The Mystery of Characters Part I”
This week, we’re looking at Donald Maas’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. My goal is to inspire and educate you to the basics of writing, and hopefully help you find resources to enhance your writing.
Yesterday, we looked at Lessons 1-12, Part I, Character Development from Donald Maas. The lessons covered everything from adding heroic qualities to a protagonist (the one we root for), to antagonists, to enriching the major cast with secondary characters. I listed one point from each, and encouraged you to acquire this workbook and complete the fill-in exercises at the end of each lesson to help you grow your novel.
Today – I’ll be listing the lessons from Plot Development with a “nugget” from each. This unit covers Lessons 13 to 24, everything from raising the stakes, complications, layering plot lines, subplots, turning points, conflict, and adding tension.
This week, we’ll be examining Donald Maas’ Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook. My goal is to inspire and educate you to the basics of writing, and hopefully help you find resources to enhance your writing.
Today, we’ll look at Lessons 1-12, Part I, Character Development from Donald Maas. The lessons cover everything from adding heroic qualities to a protagonist (the one we root for), to antagonists, to enriching the major cast with secondary characters. I’ll pick out one point from each, and encourage you to acquire this workbook and complete the fill-in exercises at the end of each lesson to help you grow your novel.
I love hearing from you, my readers and followers. And I love sharing my resources with you. I appreciate you taking the time to read this blog and explore the website.
Let’s see what we have for today.
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