Writing Tips
I joined NetworkedBlogs on Facebook. I try to visit as many of the blogs I follow that I can each day. Today’s visit took me to Jill Corcoran Books (blog no longer available) who is not only an author but an agent. Her site is quite informative.
Under her labels (on the left side of her blog), I noticed a ‘writing tips’ tab. I decided to venture to that area and I discovered this tip “How to Plot Your Book”.
I don’t know about you, but most of my children’s stories simply cascade out my head and into text. This may work okay for very short stories such as I write, but I have some lengthier pieces I’d like to develop for middle or young adult readers. This will need more planning.
Jill gives reference to a book by Martha Alderson, The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master that might be handy to have and she mentioned Martha’s instructional videos available on her YouTube channel. I felt this could be valuable to other authors who follow my blog. With that, I hope you’ll check into all of these cool resources for better plot development.
Happy Plotting!
If you’re looking for a literary agent, you may want to visit Jill’s site.
3 Comments
antrisdale
Wait? I’m supposed to actually plot my book? Now you tell me, Cathy 🙂 Even with my adult novels, every time I try to set out how the plot will go, my characters like changing it on me. I felt better when I heard Bernard Cornwell say the same thing happened to him while writing the Sharpe series.
Oh well, I shall check out the “Plot Whisperer” and gain some information.
Cathy Kennedy
Yeah…who knew Amanda? LOL Well…Martha did mention that characters can and do often time change, as well as the plot. One tip she gave was, the more difficult the plot the better. I feel like Martha’s wisdom may be especially useful when I start composing longer stories. Right now, I’m really out of my legion when I hear about manuscript word counts that reach 80,000 plus. That hurts my brain just thinking about it. I’ll stick with early readers for Children until I’m more secure to move forward.
I hope the tip is beneficial to you.
antrisdale
Wait? I’m supposed to actually plot my book? Now you tell me, Cathy 🙂 Even with my adult novels, every time I try to set out how the plot will go, my characters like changing it on me. I felt better when I heard Bernard Cornwell say the same thing happened to him while writing the Sharpe series.
Oh well, I shall check out the “Plot Whisperer” and gain some information.