Literary Elements

Telling character backstory is sometimes necessary to show why your character has a specific motivation or mindset. Yet it’s important to learn how to write backstory that will not bog your novel down in constant harking back to prior events that occurred before the present time of your narrative. Read 5 tips for using backstory better: 1: […]

By Becca Puglisi There are a lot of heated opinions about whether plotting or pantsing is the best way to write a story. As an avid plotter myself, I was curious to hear about Dario Ciriello’s process, which contains a little of both. If you find yourself stuck on either end of the spectrum, today’s post

By David Corbett The difference between writing emotion and writing feeling is more one of degree than kind. Feeling is emotion that has been habituated and refined; it is understood and can be used deliberately. I know how I feel about this person and treat her accordingly. Emotion is more raw, unconsidered. It comes to us

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy    A structure is like a rough map, the line drawings in a coloring book. How we overlay our story (color in the line drawings) is up to us, but the structure provides guides and boundaries to help keep us focused. Turning points like, “leave the ordinary world” are just a

An inciting incident definition: The inciting incident is an episode, plot point or event that hooks the reader into the story. Screenwriting guru Syd Field wrote about the inciting incident in his classic book Screenplay. The inciting incident also fits Carl Jung’s description of the ‘hero’s journey’. In an examination of myths and stories from all over the world,