Wordsmith Writing Coaches

Writing Coaching, Editing, and Publishing

  • Academic Services
    • Academic Coaching
    • Academic Seminars
    • Tutoring
  • Author Services
    • Editing Services
    • Author Coaching
    • Author Seminars
    • Published Authors
  • Screenwriter Services
  • Our Writers’ Groups
  • Our Team
  • FAQs
  • News and Resources
  • Sign Up Here
    • Privacy Policy

Powered by Genesis

Archives for September 2018

Building a unique storyworld

September 16, 2018 by Nic Nelson Leave a Comment

Building a believable storyworld is crucial when writing fantasy, SF, paranormal, magical realism, or any other sort of speculative fiction. Naturally, your storyworld will be influenced by the worlds of your favorite authors and filmmakers and storytellers in other media, but you want to avoid mimicking them so closely that your work sounds like fanfic. But how […]

Filed Under: Blog, Writing

Remain Calm: the update (CreateSpace is digested at last by KDP)

September 10, 2018 by Nic Nelson Leave a Comment

If all your books are published on the CreateSpace platform (which is dissolving very soon), we have good news, old news, and …well, the potential bad news still lurks in the future. First some bottom-line good news for nearly all of you:

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: indie authors, indie publishing, self-publishing

Micro-level story structure: The Mysterious MRU

September 10, 2018 by Nic Nelson 1 Comment

Story Structure, Part 2: the MRU Remember that mid-level scene-by-scene story structure works best with a rhythm of Goal, Conflict, Disaster, Reaction, Dilemma, Decision. You can divide this rhythm into Scenes and Sequels, as Dwight Swain does, or you can divide them into pairs (Goal/Conflict, Disaster/Reaction, Dilemma/Decision), or you can consider them one long unified […]

Filed Under: Writing Tagged With: fiction writing, story, story structure

Mid-level story structure: Scenes and Sequels

September 9, 2018 by Nic Nelson Leave a Comment

Many of my posts are inspired by questions from my clients, or from SLAKE discussions, or questions from Quora (for which I am a Top Writer in certain categories). This one came from authors and writers asking great questions at a SLAKE meeting.  It is actually a two-part answer, and it won’t be an exhaustive […]

Filed Under: Writing