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Extreme Book Makeover: Help Me Hook My Reader: Starting on the RUN!

By on March 3, 2014 in 1. Discover your story, Crafting the Inciting Incident, Extreme Book Makeover, Susan May Warren

I watched the Oscars last night. (Best. Oscars. Ever. #OscarTwitterPic #PizzaDelivery)

I’d only seen one of the movies in the Best Picture category – Gravity. In fact, I saw it this weekend, in our home theater, where I think I only breathed twice in an hour. Terrifying, in a non-horror-film, wow-I-never-want-to-be-there way.

The story, in a nutshell, is about a scientist who is working on the space shuttle – specifically OUTSIDE the shuttle in a spacewalk – when, due to a crazy set of circumstances — she gets untethered and thrown into space. Her quest is to somehow get back to earth.

It’s an amazing movie – the special effects will blow your mind.

And, it’s a great example of starting a movie with just the right amount of PIPE.

Pipe is the distance between the first sentence and the Noble Quest. As an author, you’re opening the faucet of your story, and the pipe is how long it takes for it to start spilling out. The shorter the pipe, the sooner your reader receives the benefit of the story.

However, many authors suffer from Too Much Pipe Syndrome, or the belief that they must tell their reader everything about their main character before the story starts for the reader to enjoy the story. Another way to put it is they start their story way too early.

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Conversations: First Chapter Essentials

By on April 9, 2012 in Backstory, Crafting the Inciting Incident, Editing Basics, From the Inside...Out, How do I Fast Draft?, Story Crafting, Susan May Warren, The Hero's Journey Simplified, Truth or Dare: Conversations with an aspiring novelist

“I’m angry with you!”  Sally said as she sat down.  She was smiling, so I frowned.  “You let me write the first chapter before I was ready.” “Oh, that,” I said.  “Yes, I did, knowing you weren’t quite ready. But I knew you had so much story in you that if you didn’t get started you’d only get frustrated.  I know why you weren’t ready, but you tell me.” “I didn’t really know what my character wanted, nor how to hint at his greatest fear in the first chapter, so I created exactly the wrong scene.” “You created the scene that helped you jump start your story. You were doing a lot of “Wax On, Wax Off” and getting ansty.  So, I told you to simply let your character walk […]

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Quick Skills: Make your Hero/Heroine unique

By on February 28, 2012 in Crafting the Inciting Incident, From the Inside...Out, Protagonists: The Basics, Quick Skills, Susan May Warren, The Hero's Journey Simplified, What is the Dark Moment/Secret and how do I use it?

How do you make your hero or heroine unique? Have you ever written a hero or heroine and thought…oh, they seem just like the last character I created? It’s easy to do – you can only pick so many creative combinations for your character…UNLESS… …Unless you go about character creation from the inside out. I’ve talked at length about finding an identity for your character unique to him, and then building the “outside” to match that inside identity. However, I have a quick trick to help make him even more unique. To make him stand out on the page without going over the top. Yes, we’re going to start with identity again, but this time we’re going to focus in on his greatest fear. We’ve asked him about his dark […]

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From the Inside…Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you! By Susan May Warren

By on February 3, 2012 in Action and ReAction Scenes, Crafting the Inciting Incident, Editing Basics, Featured Book, From the Inside...Out, How do I write Dialogue, How to create a Spiritual Thread, How to create Villains and Antagonists, Protagonists: The Basics, Story Crafting, Susan May Warren, What is Storyworld, and how do I write it?, Writing, Writing Life

Have you always wanted to write a novel, but didn’t know where to start? This book is for you. With proven techniques, easy to understand explanations and practical steps, From The Inside…Out will teach you how a story is structured then take you through the process of creating and marketing your novel. Topics include: Character-driven plotting, How to HOOK your reader, The elements and flow of SCENES, How to build STORYWORLD, Secrets to Sizzling Dialogue, Proven Self-Editing techniques, Synopsis and Query letter writing, How to manage your writing career …and everything in between! BUY Now: From the Inside-Out: Discover, Create and Publish the Novel in You

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