When I launched the Edit Your Novel Like a Pro online course in January, I never thought it would take a year to complete. But that is fibromyalgia kicking my tail once again. The course is nearly complete now, and contains about seven and a half hours of teaching—an hour …
Tag: Elements of Fiction
The Prophet’s Chronicle Storyworld
One of the things fiction allows us to do is examine hypothetical situations that don’t exist in the real world. A novel is a large-scale thought experiment. This is true of any fiction, but doubly true in speculative fiction. The whole point of science fiction and fantasy is to explore …
Subplots, Side Stories, and What to Do with Them
Novelists often get carried away with characters. Or maybe that should be, characters often carry away novelists. Either way, well-developed secondary characters can run away with a story if you let them. In one of my sample book maps, I showed how this can happen. In my fictional fiction (sorry …
Use Storybreaking to Fill Narrative Gaps
Once you’ve made your book map, you may find that it reveals a gap or disconnect in the writing — a place where you’ve jumped from point A to Point D without explaining to the reader how you got there. Storybreaking can help you close that gap. Narrative gaps can happen …
Using a Book Map to Edit a Novel
Last time we looked at how book maps can help in nonfiction editing. Now let’s look at how this technique can help novelists. As I worked on how to illustrate this, I found myself redacting so much information from so many client book maps, that you would get more out …
How to Make a Visual Book Map
Last time I wrote about how to use Excel to create a book map. My friend and editor Travis Perry once declared spreadsheets to be “antithetical to coherent communication,” and maybe you feel the same way, in which case a graphic representation may work better for you. Especially for people …
How to Make a Text-Based Book Map
There are lots of ways to build a book map, and once I describe my method, you may think of better ones. Whatever works for you will be the method to use. You can write your book map on paper as J.K. Rowling did, or you can get a little more …
Use Book Mapping to Examine Structure
A book map is a visual representation of a book’s contents. This allows for easy analysis of elements and can reveal gaps in the content of a nonfiction book or the storyline of a novel. You may have used a book map without even realizing that’s what you were doing. …
Use Storybreaking to Edit Your Novel
One of the hardest things about editing your book is keeping all of the information straight and in the right order. That’s one reason I advocate for outlining. A plain outline doesn’t suit everyone during the drafting process, but once we reach the editing phase, having a visual depiction of …
Elements of Fiction handout
I had a great group at the Mandel Public Library of West Palm Beach today for the Edit Like A Pro: Elements of Fiction workshop. I brought 20 handouts and ran out, so I guess I had about 30 eager writers there. So for those who didn’t get a handout, …