Building Your Story Arc: Discovering the Bones of Your Story Video Download

Building Your Story Arc: Discovering the Bones of Your Story Video DownloadStructure in a story, whether fiction, nonfiction, short or long, has to do with integrity wholeness. There is a whole and that whole is not visible or predictable to the reader but sensed by the reader. The result is something like giving a reader an experience of "gravity," which they will experience as your expertise and talent and take the power of that for granted. Now testing for the structural elements represents the best tool a writer can use

Structure in a story, whether fiction, nonfiction, short or long, has to do with integrity--wholeness. There is a whole and that whole is not visible or predictable to the reader but sensed by the reader. The result is something like giving a reader an experience of "gravity," which they will experience as your expertise and talent--and take the power of that for granted.

Now testing for the structural elements represents the best tool a writer can use to find that integrity of story. Furthermore testing for structure can often get a writer out of story trouble, especially when we hit a "wall" in continuing to develop a story.

Charlotte Cook, MFA, is a former publisher and acquisition editor who now works as a story editor. Her clients are often successfully published and have won awards and honorable mention for their work, including in Writer's Digest contests. She is a published writer as well, writing creative nonfiction and literary short stories. Her suggestions, examples and comments are considered practical and follow a simple guideline: compelling story, engaging characters, evocative world. Her Writer's Digest Tutorial "8 Things First-time Novelists Need to Avoid" was the number one tutorial of 2012.

During this 58-minute video tutorial, you'll discover tools to:

• Move your story forward
• Measure the effectiveness of the story arc
• Trouble-shoot issues of pace and momentum
• Understand how readers perceive gravity-like structure

Evaluating the effectiveness of the structural integrity of your story is an ongoing process within completing a story. No talk here of outlines before the fact, superimposing requirements that don't relate to the story arc. Instead this practical, reader-oriented approach might even result in the pitch and synopsis material you will need at a later date for agents, editors and publishers. Wouldn't that be a great by-product?