Beginnings and Endings: How to Make the Most Out of Your Scenes

Think of a person who’s had a long day of dropping her kids off at school, going to work, driving her kids to soccer practice, coming home to make dinner, putting the kids to bed, and then finally has an hour or two to herself before she has to go to sleep. Can your book keep this tired person turning the pages before bedtime?

The key to keeping a reader turning those pages is to have well-formed scenes.

Scenes are the small links that make up the chain of story structure. When scenes aren’t working, readers could abandon the rest of the story. A well-formed scene has a hooking beginning and a cliffhanger ending.

Finding Conflict in Other Places

Suppose you’re in the middle of plotting or revising. You have your main antagonist and protagonist outlined. You’ve set up their opposing agendas within your plot. But what about the scenes when good and evil aren’t battling each other? Does the rest of the story fall flat? Feel static? Maybe you need more conflict, just not a lot of the same. Different types of conflict.

3 Ways to Create Sympathy for Your Character

By Stacy Melanie Jerger (@ApoideaEdits) Like people, characters make first impressions. Readers will either like or dislike a character immediately. It’s up to writers to sculpt their characters for a desired effect and control the reading experience for their audience. …

3 Ways to Reveal Character Without Sacrificing Conflict

Often revealing character can feel like you’re showing your poker hand prematurely and it’s especially difficult to balance when the plot is character driven (meaning the primary conflict comes from within the protagonist). So how do we help readers understand our characters if our characters are unwilling to share or if sharing runs the risk of weakening conflict?

Why Characters Need to Check in With Readers

I’ve read some books in the past where I didn’t feel that connected to the main character, even though the plot was going places, things were happening… Once I followed the protagonist head first into a gunfight after dodging danger right and left in the previous scenes. She ran up ahead, having the adventure of her life, and I could’ve easily sat down on a rock and waved her to go on without me. I realized I was part of the adventure, but felt left behind from the character’s inner journey. The main character did not stop to inform me of her thought process or how she felt along the way.