Archive | What is Storyworld, and how do I write it? RSS feed for this section

What makes a great book stand out? Is it the story? The words? The characters? All of the above. In today’s competitive market, a story has to sing, it has to woo the reader with its premise, a hero or heroine who stands out from the mundane, and sentences that connect with oue hearts. However, the truth is…most readers don’t even notice these components. They say – wow, what a story, I loved the characters. Or, it made me cry. But, most don’t know the secrets that are embedded in every page. But you will. *g* We’ve been talking over the past weeks about premise, and characters, even setting, but today, we’re going to turn our attention to the words we put on the page that beckons our reader into […]

Every book, regardless of what kind – Suspense/Romance, Fantasy, Thriller, Historical romance – every book starts out someplace. In a world. At a moment. And, in today’s literature, with a person. Whether it’s a firecracker start to a book, or something that begins with a wide-angle view, drawing into the scene, it needs to have action. Movement. A place for your reader’s eye to land, and a perspective with which to view it. A good way to see storyworld is to watch the opening scenes of a movie. Note the details of the scene, and how they pinpoint on just a few and then move into the action with the character. I recently wrote a book that started in Night Market, in Taiwan. I could have started with description, the […]

I love the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. I can’t help it – the music, the love story (and the hope of movie #4!), the rich characters. But what makes the movie come alive is the textures and sounds of the world they live in. I can almost taste the salt and smell the briny wash of the gooey Davy Jones. For nearly 3 hours, I become a pirate, and come out of the theaters saying, “Ahoy, Matey!” It’s that same for a well-written book. A well –written story world swallows me into the story, and I’m lost, with no desire to be found. Storyworld is one of the key elements that makes a book rise from the mundane to stellar. What is storyworld? It’s more than just setting, or […]