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One Thing Marketing … PINhead Authors

By on March 23, 2012 in Amy Lathrop, One Thing Marketing

Hi. This is Christen from Litfuse Publicity Group. By day, I’m the Nester – keeping the Litfuse Nest in order. By night, I’m like you, an aspiring author. One of my favorite things about starting a new WIP is finding pictures of my characters and settings. I spend hours pouring over magazines trying to find the perfect look for the characters in my head. Currently, I have a file cabinet full of characters sitting in my garage – taking up space. Enter Pinterest. It is my new filing cabinet, per say, for characters (and settings and costuming and etcetera etcetera etcetera). What is Pinterest? I am so glad you asked! Get ready for mind-blowing awesomeness… According to the Pinterest website it is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and […]

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Three Steps to Being a Voice, Not an Echo

By on March 22, 2012 in Quick Skills, Rachel Hauck, Voice, Writing

Writing in the Christian market pushes us to go beyond the realm of this life to find meaning and purpose for our characters. While we are not writing sermons and devotionals set in fictional places with fictional characters, we are imitating life. For the Christian author, Jesus is very much a part of our every day life. We want to express Him in some way in our stories, through the lives of our characters. But often our stories sound hokey, canned, full of Christianese. How we talk in the foyer at church, or in Sunday school class does not translate into fiction. Remember, our goal is to write great stories about great characters. Our goal is not agenda fiction where we pound the pulpit so to speak about some error of […]

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Quick Skills: Black Moment Construction

By on March 20, 2012 in Backstory, Editing Basics, From the Inside...Out, How do I write Tension?, How do I write the Character Change Journey?, Protagonists: The Basics, Quick Skills, Story Crafting, Susan May Warren, The Hero's Journey Simplified, What is the Black Moment and how do I create it?, What is the Dark Moment/Secret and how do I use it?, What is the Epiphany?

The Black Moment in your novel is the most important part of your novel. I just had to say that because I see so many manuscripts that pull their punches on the Black Moment.  Authors have fallen in love with their characters and they just don’t want to hurt them.  But creating a powerful Black Moment is what both the character and the reader need to convince them they must change. So, how do you create a powerful Black Moment? First…let’s just take a look at the Black Moment Flow Chart: Dark Moment of the Past (Greatest Fear + Lie) = Black Moment Event = Black Moment Effect = Epiphany = Character Change. Again, how do we find the Black Moment?  We go into our character’s backstory and find a […]

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Conversations: Finding the Black Moment and Epiphany

By on March 19, 2012 in Backstory, From the Inside...Out, How do I create the Inner Journey?, How do I end my story? (The Final Battle & Happily Ever After), Protagonists: The Basics, Story Crafting, Susan May Warren, The Hero's Journey Simplified, Truth or Dare: Conversations with an aspiring novelist, What is the Black Moment and how do I create it?, What is the Dark Moment/Secret and how do I use it?, What is the Epiphany?

“Are you ready to finish your book?” Sally laughed as she sat down at the table in the corner.  “I just started and already you want me to  finish it?” “I’m not asking you to write the end of the book, I just wanted to talk to you today about how knowing the black moment, and the ending actually gives power to your first act. Think of Act 1 and Act 3 as the “bookends” of your novel. They are the before and after pictures of your novel.  Even if they begin in a happy place, there is still something that will cause your hero to become a better person through the book and they’ll with that lesson learned. “They learn that lesson by experiencing the Black Moment, having their […]

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