Showcase: Using Beat Sheets for Story Structure and Pacing
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What’s Up, Danger? An Analysis of the Turning Point
Hopefully by now, you have seen (or at least heard about) the 2018 release Spiderman: Into the Spider-Verse. Everything in this film -- animation, writing, music -- is completely stunning. Today I want to talk about what is possibly the most famous scene: What’s Up, Danger? Take two and a...
LIVE Q&A: Creating Flawed Characters
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Creating Emotional Impact
Since the start of my career, I’ve made a point not to read reviews, a choice mostly made for my mental health. However, by the time my fifth book came out, I realized if I wanted to get better at this writing thing, I needed to assess where I stood...
Developing a Strong Supporting Cast
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LIVE Workshop: Character Development
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LIVE Blog: Maximizing Suspense in Your Story
“I couldn’t put the book down.” “A real page-turner!” “I stayed up late to find out what happened next.” Compliments like these can make an author’s day. But how can we create the kinds of stories that receive such enthusiastic reviews? One way is by maximizing suspense. In his book...
The Five C’s of Story
Stories are, ultimately, simple things. Character, plot, world. Someone does something somewhere. But to create an engaging story that really draws in a reader, you have to dig a little deeper. CHARACTER Nearly every story starts with a character. No matter how inventive your plot or world is, no one...
Roundtable: Writing Villains
We invited Amelinda Bérubé, Annie Sullivan, Christopher Healy, Diane Magras, Marissa Kennerson, Olivia Cole, Pintip Dunn, and Ryan Dalton to answer a series of questions about their experiences and opinions regarding writing villains. Each question below is followed by the participants’ answers. As you read through them, note where there...
LIVE Panel: Character and Plot in Picture Books
This post will go live 30 minutes before the session begins. To ask a question of the panel, leave a comment below! This session will begin at 6PM EST. At that time, you may need to refresh the page and click the play button.
