Blog

I have covered figuring out your Concept and Premise of your novel (scroll down and find it on my blog). That is step one.

I take it for granted you know your genre.

Your first scene in your first chapter should set up the precipating event.

in my novel Gunny Mac Private Detective Trouble in Cleveland,

Alan Burke dialed the phone while simultaneously trying to ligh...

 A Guide to Constructing Scenes and Sequels in Fiction Writing 

 When it comes to writing scenes and sequels, most fiction novelists have their own individual approaches. However, there are some common elements that can help a new writer create vivid, effective scenes and sequels in their stories. In this blog post, we’ll explore the essential elements of scene and sequel construction so you can start incorporating them into your work. 

Scenes vs Sequels - What’s the Difference?&nb...

1. Use Quote Marks and a comma.

Before your dialogue starts puts a quotation mark at the front and the back.

Example:

"I'm  not going through with it," she said.

A comma is used because you have a dialogue tag (she said) to identify the speaker.

"I hate you," shouted Betty. 

2: When you have another speaker answering the one before it; create a new paragraph indicating a new speaker.

As you can see with this dialogue it is confusing... donot do this.

“I don't like the color blue it makes me look fat," said Lucy." "No it doesn't, it makes you look skinny,"said her hus...

As an Architect and Builder of a story, the very first step is figuring out your CONCEPT and PREMISE.

Your novel begins right here.
Concept and Premise
You must understand these two concepts.
If you do your novel will be much easier to write.

CONCEPT

IS BUILT AROUND A UNIQUE
WHAT-IF-QUESTION
THAT CAN BE PITCHED IN
ONE TO THREE
SENTENCES
 

CONCEPT:   
WHAT IF A MAN CAME DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS 
 

PREMISE

AND PROMISED ETERNAL LIFE?

 

• A protagonist whose life is interrupted...

I will use the beginning scene in my third novel Gunny Mac Private Detective Trouble in Tomahawk Gap as an example.

We shall use some scenes from my novel Gunny Mac Private Detective Trouble in Chinatown to illustrate what a scene should do in Lesson 6

PS. This is not a scene!

What is the purpose of a scene? It has only one main job…to drive the story forward!!! If it doesn’t move the story along what is its purpose?

Forget it k...

As I stated in one of my earlier lessons I had a framework that I wanted to write around but I had no story. Here are those individual items I wanted to write about.

I wanted to write about events in the 1940s and 1950s because I love that time period.

I have a certain genre I love.

I always have a main character that I love.

I always have a sense of the story I love

I love dogs…so they are in my novels.

I’m Catholic, and some of my heroes...

So Much Information Out There!

I had a degree…I had my Masters of Science…I thought I should know how to write a novel. I certainly had read enough of them. I started to look over my favorite fiction novels and I went through them with different colored pens. Blue for narration, yellow for dialogue, green for different tags ie. he said, she said, etc., etc. I circled adverbs because they were supposed to be the evil of writing. I used purple for any information on the setting. I h...

Below this picture is the last two scenes in Chapter 1 of my novel: Gunny Mac Private Detective Trouble in Chinatown. I will explain to you what each scene represents and why.

 

My first Chapter was designed to do a few things.

• Introduce Gunny Mac and Gunny Wojo
• I needed to show the reader who Gunny Mac was and why he had to leave the Marine Corps after getting terribly wounded on Guadalcanal in 1942.
• The audience now know...

In this lesson, we will cover the important concept of writing about what you love.  Once you grasp these two simple concepts, you can begin to look deeper into your novel. It makes no difference to me if you are a pantser (a person who sits down and starts writing) or a plotter (where you outline your novel) when you begin to write.

People have different comfort levels when it comes to writing a novel, and th...