So, how do you sift through all of your ideas to choose which one you’re going to expand into a book? It needs to be a concept that has enough legs to pull readers through a 300+-page story and it needs to be something that will keep you engaged and excited through years of writing, rewriting, editing, and publishing.

A few years ago, when I recommitted to writing, I decided that I needed to focus on just one project. I thought this would make it easier to get momentum in my writing and it would end my cycle of abandoning half-finished projects. And then, as we were preparing to launch StoryCraft, Lindsay and I decided that we were going to go through our own Workbook and each document the process. This meant that I needed to start something new before I was done with my current project.

What I found was that it actually gave me a boost of productivity and excitement for my writing. I should have known that my ADHD brain likes flipping between multiple things and gets burnt out with too much repetition! So now, as the year begins, I want to add a third project to my work flow.

Every time I get an idea, I make a file for it in my Scrivener. Some of those have developed into piecemeal outlines while others are just a logline or a basic concept. There are current 47 different files. So, how do I choose which one should make it onto my current projects list? Or, should I forgo all of those and come up with something entirely new?

In the past, I admit that I fell into the trap of trying to pick the most “commercial” idea or trying to pick something that I felt I should be writing for one reason or another. But, looking back through my years of creating, the projects that I have had the most success with and those that have been the most enjoyable are those that I felt most authentically connected to.

This time around, the first thing I am asking myself is “What do I care about right now? What is occupying my thoughts and time?” While at one point I wanted to be that author who would be lauded with literary awards, I have come to realize that I will likely stick to things that are more light and escapist. It is what I gravitate towards in entertainment as a consumer and where I feel the most comfortable as a writer.

My current projects don’t lean too heavily into the escapist, so I think this is something I am craving right now. My love for fiction came with a love of fantasy. This past summer, I was obsessed with the new season of Bridgerton and really felt a pull to how they portrayed this fun, funny, and chaotic big family dynamic in this historical romance world. So…what if we added a fantasy element to that?

The second test for an idea is to develop it past the concept to see if it has legs to hold the entire plot of a book. Who is the protagonist? What do they care about and want? What are they willing to do to get it? Why is it so important? And what is standing in their way? In answering these questions, I can see if something is just the spark of an idea or if it initiates a plot and structure that I can start building with.

The last thing I do to test an idea is to build my developmental logline. This is the elevator pitch that tells readers exactly why the book is worth reading. For this, I try to put on my reader hat instead of my writer hat. If this was a book on the shelf, would I pay $20 or more to buy it? Would I want to invest 10 hours into reading it? Would I choose it over all of the other choices on my TBR?

For this idea, I still need to answer all of those questions. But “Bridgerton with supernatural powers” sounds like a fair place to start.

Lindsay and I will be exploring how to choose the right idea and develop a killer developmental logline in our free workshop on January 27 at 7pm EST. You can register here.

There will be an opportunity to share your idea for feedback as well as lots of tips for getting your 2025 book project started on the right foot!

Happy Writing

-Jess

Creating rhythm in scenes is one of the most difficult things to do as a prose writer. When you’re working in film or creating something for the stage, the entire creative team controls the pacing that audiences experience – from the way that people speak to what actions draw the audience’s focus at any given time. In a novel, you only have the words to bring everything to life. So, how can you mimic a living moment where it feels vibrant and real?

To begin, when working through a scene, you should know the movements of the characters as if they were happening on screen or right in front of you. What are the opening positions of everyone as we get that first picture? How does each character move and interact with the others? Is anyone doing anything while they are talking? What are their mannerisms? What visual subtext is happening?

Because I started writing for theatre and film, I have been trained to have a bit of an advantage when it comes to building scenes — as I have always thought visually about every aspect of what is happening within action. I often joke that it’s amazing that I became an editor because I read so slowly. But I think this is because no matter what story I’m reading, I need to create that visual picture. I can’t skip over movements or points in a conversation. (And, luckily for my editing life, the result is that I have stellar reading retention and comprehension, even if I take weeks to read a book.)

If you’re not someone who naturally thinks of the moments in your story visually, start by just getting into the bodies of your characters. What do they look like? How do they move? What is their body language and level of comfort with the people they are in a scene with? How do they change and adapt to each environment and moment that we see them in?

Next, take some time to think deeper into the minds of each of the people within your scene, what they want within that moment, and how they would go about getting it. This will inform how they are going to speak to each other and will give lots of clues to their physicality.

When I’m building out a book, one of the first things I do is cast all of my characters with actors or a combination of actors. Sometimes I will think “They look like a mix between Robert Downey Jr. and Ewan McGregor and have the humor and mannerisms of Stanley Tucci in Easy A”. This allows me to picture how they would be in an active scene.

As you’re writing a scene, the real key to creating rhythm is to fully embrace and embody the perspective of your narrator. As the action and dialogue is happening in front of them, what are they focusing on? When are they getting distracted and getting lost in a memory? (Hint, it’s likely not going to be in the middle of a fight scene where they are trying to stay alive!) When are they focused on one character and when are they taking in a whole space? By staying in that view, you will allow readers to move with the narrator and feel their experience within the scene.

And keep in mind that the rhythm, tone, and emotion of a scene are all closely linked. If we are meant to dig deeply into a character's emotions and experience in a moment, we want that moment to be slow and to allow us to take the time we need. If the stakes are high and every second matters, we want the read to be fast and easy, allowing us to breeze through pages as if we are running alongside the characters.

Another thing to think about is the environment and tone within the scene. Is this a place where your characters feel comfortable? It is a place where they are altering their speech or movements in any way? We all behave differently at home than we do at work. We would all speak to a police officer differently than we would our partner or best friend.

Lastly, think about the pauses as much as you are thinking about the action and dialogue. When creating a pause on the page, it usually is going to mean that you are going to shift away from the active elements and instead will concentrate on the setting or other senses. Again, if we are stopping to take in a whole space, it is usually happening in a moment of low action. If we are doing a quick glance to catch key details only, time is likely of the essence. What you choose to concentrate on in your writing is going to set the pace and pull readers through the rhythm of the scene.

The perspective, tense, language, setting, and action that you choose within a scene are all going to play a role in how it plays out. Understand how each element can be used to your advantage and you will create scenes that read like an eloquent symphony.

Happy Writing!

-Jess

Finding your voice as a writer can be one of the most significant hurdles to overcome. Writing a good book is one thing, but crafting a novel that elevates your world and characters above everything else in the figurative slush pile? Literally an artform.

I like to think of a writer’s voice as an innate quality like a singer’s tone or the style of a painter. It’s the quality of the work that allows you to know whose point-of-view you’re exploring. You know a Taylor Swift song when you hear it. Nearly anyone can identify a Picasso painting.

Finding your voice is a journey, and it comes with exploring who you are as a person and what you have to say to the world. How you write is just as important as what you write, and they’re often intertwined. Your voice is going to be the quality that lifts you above other writers, that allows readers to identity you as YOU. It’s the thing that’s going to get you an agent or a publisher or readers.

We usually start writing because we’re inspired by someone else, and those first words or paragraphs or even novels are often variations. We pull this inspiration from other artists and cobble our own worlds and characters, but at some point, the creation needs to feel unique, especially if you want to stand out in the marketplace.

This comes down to you, your life, and your experiences. How do you see the world, why do you see it that way, and what do you have to say about it? These are really big questions, so it’s important to sit with them for a while if you haven’t before.

Let’s look at Jane Austen as an example. Her work is foundational for a multitude of reasons, but one of the biggest is that she infused her life and her worldview into her work. We can see how the society she lived in influenced the art she created. Many of her novels are about the everyday lives of young women trying to navigate the world, and the main concern for most of them was finding a husband so they could survive, not only just as women, but sometimes to support their entire families.

When we read an Austen novel, we can feel the importance of this central theme. As a woman, I must marry well so I can survive, but can I also be happy? What did it mean to find a marriage in the Regency era, and was it okay to marry not just for status, but for love?

A more modern example of this is author Ali Hazelwood. Her romance novels are witty and biting, and filled with references that add an edge of humor to her work. They also follow intelligent women in scientific or academic fields who are balancing their career goals with complex human relationships.

Every book you read isn’t just a story, it’s a conversation between you and the author. What can you learn about the author’s viewpoint from the way they construct their worlds and characters? What are your readers learning from you?

Finding your voice isn’t just about what you want to write, but what you can write the best. I’ve struggled with this a lot over my writing journey because I have so many different interests and I don’t always know where to place my focus (Hello, ADHD). For a long time, I felt that I HAD to write literary science fiction, that it was what made me ME, and for a long time, I never finished anything.

It wasn’t until I had a flash of an idea that took hold of me and didn’t let me go that I discovered the voice inside that needed to be let out. I wrote a “secret” book that I didn’t tell anyone about in detail until it was finished because it didn’t feel like what I should have been writing. It wasn’t SFF or horror. It was romantic. It took place in the real world.

But when I wrote that book, I found a flow I’d never felt before when writing. Every moment I spent in those pages felt right, because I was exploring my newfound voice. It’s one of those things where “you’ll know when you find it,” and that can be a frustrating thing to hear, because it’s not easy. There is no foolproof way to go about the task other than to experiment and try new things.

There will always be error in trial and error.

You can ask yourself questions, though, to help guide yourself along the way. What kinds of ideas set you on fire inside? What are the intrinsic qualities of your life that belong only to you? What is the point-of-view you can offer that is unique?

If we look back at Jane Austen and Ali Hazelwood, we can see two very distinct world views. Austen had an often biting social commentary built into her work that was inspired by her own upbringing. She wrote stories about the institution of marriage and how love factored into it. Ali Hazelwood writes characters who are in the academic and scientific fields because that is her background. It’s a world she can write about with ease because she knows it, but it also makes her work interesting because readers can get a glimpse of something different they might not otherwise experience.

“Write what you know” is a great axiom, and it doesn’t mean to definitively write about your own life, but instead to discover what it is about you that makes you interesting and unique.

If writing a book is like making a pot of soup, then you are the herbs and spices that add flavor.

As you’re working through your books, it’s a good idea to take a look at how you can sprinkle more of yourself to them. What are the unique life experiences you’ve had that no one else has? What makes you interesting? What are your opinions on the world, and how do you want to convey that through your work?

As you begin to answer these questions and infuse them into your writing, you’ll find that your voice just might begin to speak louder from within you. The more passion and excitement you can feel about the books you’re writing, the more that will translate through to the reader. It’s very apparent when a novel means everything to the author, and that’s the kind of work readers want to connect with.

Above all, life is short, so don’t waste time trying to fit yourself into a box that isn’t you-shaped. Create your own box. Craft your own world. Find the readers who will love your novels for what you can bring to them, and find yourself through your own writing.

Every novel contains YOU, so make sure you’re exploring your own truths. It might not be the easiest element of StoryCraft, but it just might be the most important.

-L.

Today’s resource is something we could take about all day: worldbuilding!

Building out your world is important regardless of whether you’re writing an epic fantasy or a contemporary romance. The world is a component of the story, and it needs to feel real and provide conflict to your plot and characters. You can learn more about this in our Setting as a Character Resource.

We have an entire Worldbuilding section in the StoryCraft workbook, so here is a solid taste to get you started.

Storycraft Worksheet Worldbuilding Questionnaire

132KB ∙ PDF file

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During the 12 Days of Craftmas, we’ll be gifting you a free resource every day to help write the best possible novel you can.

Follow us on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky for a chance to win a FREE StoryCraft Workbook as well as a live feedback session to talk through your novel!

For me, a great story is one where it feels like the narrator is talking directly to me. Even if they are a nameless entity, I still want it to feel as if they are standing beside me and guiding me through the world and action, rather than talking down to me like a voice from above that I have no connection to.

I think this comes from a background of starting to write for the stage and then the screen – where you are welcomed fully into the action. In those mediums, the audience is in control of their viewpoint, while being guided by the writing, direction, acting, and production elements that are happening in front of us. But in a book, it is up to the narrator to create every image that we “see” and experience that we have as a reader.

So, how do we get that same level of intimacy and feel the narrator’s presence within a book? The first step is to fully understand who your narrator is. If you’re writing in first-person, why are they telling this story? What are they getting out of it? Are they giving us all of the details exactly how they remember them or are they maneuvering the story to suit them? What does your narrator want the experience of reading to be? Do they want you to feel sorry for them? Celebrate their efforts? Understand everything they have endured? Is there a greater message?

Next, who is the reader to them? Are they telling this story to a trusted friend? A student or someone they are trying to teach or influence? A child? Someone older than them? Someone who they assume exists in a similar world or someone who will understand very little of the world they are walking into?

Pinpointing why your narrator is telling the story and who they are telling it to can help you make all kinds of decisions as an author. It can help you establish the tone and writing style and will help you understand what details to include in this telling of the story.

As I’m diving into my current project, a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, I have been thinking a lot about the perspective that I want to use for the story and how this will affect the reading experience. The original was written in a close third-person. This book was written by Austen at the end of her life, after her own love affairs had come and gone and she remained unmarried herself. We get both a sense of longing for a happy ending and a commentary on the choices we make within the narration. It feels like Anne is a dear and trusted friend of the narrator.

But what if this story were told from Anne’s direct perspective? How does that change how we view her and the events? Or, I have also played with the idea of telling the story from both Anne and Fredrick’s perspectives. Does Fredrick have an equally interesting story to tell? How would readers benefit from hearing his side?

If your narrator is your protagonist, it’s important that they are filling both of these functions well. It’s not enough that we have full access to all of their thoughts and actions. We also need to see how this viewpoint is ideal for telling this story and how it gives us all of the access we need to see the story fully and experience it as we are meant to.

For those writing in third-person, you will have a little more work to do when it comes to building your narrator. How close is this person to your narrator? How much access to they have to in your characters’ thoughts? What is their viewpoint within scenes? How do they experience the action unfolding?

I like to think of most close third-person narrations as the protagonist’s best friend or sibling. They are someone who knows the character so well that they are able to interpret their actions and commonly can read their mind. But there is still one step of distance, where they might not understand every decision as the character is making it and can see the protagonist from a slightly more objective view than we can see ourselves.

Also, consider where your narrator is as you’re crafting your scenes. I usually will place them right beside the protagonist. This allows the view of the action to be similar to that of the story’s lead but we can still see the protagonist head on when needed.

When dealing with a more distant third-person, or one that is jumping from being alongside several characters, I will still come up with some traits that I want the narrator to have. Do they have allegiances to some characters more than others? Or are they trying to give a completely objective view, like a journalist would?

And, most importantly, I still try to figure out what their objective is in telling this story. Is there a theme or message that they are trying to convey? What sort of experience do they want readers to have? Is it different from your goals as the author? Is it you telling the story or is it someone living within this world?

Knowing as much as possible about your narrator is going to help you in so many different ways as you plan and craft your story. It will allow you to see what access you have into the world and action, what biases or objectives you might need to convey, and will help you frame your scenes so that readers can really feel like they are present in the story.

I commonly say that writing is always a conversation between the writer and the reader. Knowing more about both sides will allow you to craft the best possible story.

Happy Writing!

-Jess

Great characters need to feel like real people, and this can be the most difficult hurdle to climb over when we start writing. Why? Because we can be too afraid to make our characters as flawed as they need to be to tell a good story. The phrase “Kill your darlings” applies here. If you baby your characters, they won’t feel authentic to the reader.

Think about some of your favorite characters of all time. There are probably some strong defining characteristics about them that stand out to you, and I would hazard a guess they make some bad decisions in their stories.

Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, for example, is a bit of a snarky know-it-all, and she kind of treats the men around her as not good enough for her. These qualities, even though they’re negative traits, make her feel like a real character. Every single person you know has flaws, and readers know that without these flaws, characters feel 2D, like paper dolls instead of flesh and blood. No one is perfect, and watching someone make only the right choices would be awfully boring.

Another great example from classical literature are the characters from The Great Gatsby. Daisy and Tom Buchanan are careless, selfish people, ready and willing to use those around them however they please, then abandoning them when times get tough. Gatsby, for all his hope, makes a series of terrible choices in his obsessive quest for Daisy’s heart, and even Nick Carraway passively drinks himself into a stupor while he facilitates his cousin’s affair. (Bombastic side-eye).

But this is the reason this story became such a longstanding classic–the characters are kind of terrible people. This feels real. Everyone is a villain in someone else’s story.

We all love our characters because they are fragments of ourselves, and sometimes this affection can cause us to shield them from actually being flawed. I see it a lot as an agent when I’m reading query materials. Characters who don’t have strong motivations or dramatic flaws simply don’t have the promise of conflict, and the reader craves conflict. It’s the good stuff that makes the story exciting.

Your readers will also trust you more if you give them complex characters with nuanced perspectives. Maybe the “right” answer is easy, but the character’s backstory makes it impossible for them to choose that path. Maybe the choice that would save the world would hurt the person the Protagonist cares about most. Every choice should be difficult to make.

As you’re building your novel, think about this internal conflict with every single plotpoint. How can you add conflict and stakes to this narrative moment, and how does the Protagonist’s flawed worldview make it difficult for them to overcome?

Elizabeth Bennet is so proud that when she gets a legitimate marriage proposal that could solve her family’s concerns, instead of saying yes (and the story ending), she refuses it. Your characters should be making the difficult choices.

The other side of the coin is their Inner Need or internal motivation. Who does the character want to be if they could be the best version of themselves? What is the opposite of their flaw? When these two elements work in opposition to each other, it makes for really dynamic conflict that can help fuel the entire novel.

Let’s use Katniss Everdeen as an example. Katniss is fiercely independent and doesn’t trust anyone. Her dramatic flaw is her inability to let anyone help her, and yet, her primary motivation is helping others. She wants to protect the people of District 12, especially her sister Prim. This motivation is what propels her into the Hunger Games in the first place, and at every crossroads throughout the story, her inability to let others help her creates conflict, whether that be with Peeta, or Haymitch, or even herself.

Because we understand who Katniss is and how she’s going to respond, every moment of conflict becomes stronger. The reader can anticipate the drama because they know every obstacle is going to have a fallout, and that keeps them turning the pages. This becomes a hook for the reader, and they can trust you as the writer to take them on an exciting journey.

If this is a new concept for you, first try identifying the Flaw/Inner Need of characters in the media you consume and which speak the most to you. Notice the choices people make around you and why. Notice the choices you make in your own life.

Then, when you’re working on your characters, try thinking of this Protagonist Emotional Arc, as we call it, as a core part of their personality. What about this character’s worldview is flawed, and how did that come to be? For example, an abandonment wound can cause someone to be closed off and end things before they begin because they’re afraid of being hurt (again). But someone with an abandonment wound this deep must crave being loved unconditionally, right? How can these two elements push and pull on each other to create conflict in the story and in their relationships?

We also need to be careful to make sure these dramatic flaws are things that can be changed and not innate things like disabilities or diseases. While something like chronic illness, for example, is debilitating and can create a ton of conflict, it’s not something the character can overcome, and places the blame on the character as opposed to the narrative.

We’ve created a Protagonist Emotional Arc list from some of the highlight novels of the StoryCraft: Writing Your Novel online course that you can use as a source of inspiration. Remember, the more you can pull from your own authentic experience, the more that’s going to shine through to your readers. As writers, we are students of humanity, and when we shine a light on the real, human moments that we can all relate to, that’s what gives books the ability to reach out and touch people at their cores.

Book | Character | Dramatic Flaw | Inner Need

Pride and Prejudice | Elizabeth Bennet | Proud/Prejudiced | To find a love marriage

The Great Gatsby | Jay Gatsby | Deceitful | To be loved for who he is

The Hunger Games | Katniss Everdeen | Doesn’t Trust Anyone | To save her family

The Lord of the Rings | Frodo Baggins | Fearful Hobbit | Save the world from darkness

-L.

Today, we’ve got a great resource for you to help build out your characters. Characters are the lens through which readers experience our stories, and it’s important that they’re interesting and feel real, but that they also add narrative weight to the book itself.

Use the worksheet below to begin crafting your characters from a narrative anchor. The questions within focus on conflict, flaw, and motivation, so your characters will feel authentic and leap off the page.

Storycraft Worksheet Character Questionnaire

132KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

During the 12 Days of Craftmas, we’ll be gifting you a free resource every day to help write the best possible novel you can.

Follow us on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky for a chance to win a FREE StoryCraft Workbook as well as a live feedback session to talk through your novel!

When I was at film school, one of my favorite classes was in adaptation. What is the right way to take something and turn it into something else? If you’re switching mediums, like going from book to stage or stage to screen, there needs to be major adjustments made. And art is so subjective that each person coming to view this new piece will have their own unique experience and interpretation of the original. It almost seems like an impossible task to create something that the masses will embrace or even accept. Yet we have seen it done successfully. So, what’s the secret?

What we learned in that class, and what I have come to believe as I have continued to study adapted work, is that the most important thing to maintain is the purpose and spirit of the original, rather than the details. And using the strengths of a new medium in your favor is likely to be the best road to success.

The evolution of the new film Wicked, starting with the source material of Frank L. Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, moving to the 1939 film adaptation, and then onto Gregory Maguire’s book Wicked in 1994, to the musical version by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman in 2003, and now to the film version of the musical by Winnie Holzman, Dana Fox, and Stephen Schwartz in 2024, is a masterclass in adaptation. It moves through all of the different definitions and considerations.

(I also feel the need to point out here that the only things I had to look up there were the book and film writers for the musical Wicked. My best friend is a Wizard of Oz fanatic and I have therefore memorized more details about Oz than I will ever be able to express. And, as a hopeful musical book writer one day, I am ashamed of myself that hers was the name I didn’t know.) Ok, back to business.

Let’s look at some of the different considerations for adapting Baum’s original work through the years and what has helped to make these different adaptations a success.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to The Wizard of Oz – Using Your Medium and Time to Your Advantage

There are a few different reasons why I think The Wizard of Oz was a success and has continued to be a cultural phenomenon 85 years later and they all relate to the filmmakers taking advantage of the medium of film and the technology and audience that they had at the time.

First, The Wizard of Oz is known for its visuals – something that instantly separated it from the original. While Baum’s book had illustrations by W.W. Denslow throughout the story, The Wizard of Oz could show a living version of Oz in Technicolor to the audience. That moment of Dorthy entering Munchkinland is still one of the most iconic scenes in film history because it captured something within the cultural zeitgeist of the time - a fascination with the new technology of film and a need for the wonder of escapism as World War II was beginning and the Great Depression was lingering on.

Another thing that they took keen advantage of was the popularity of movie musicals at the time. Most of these were contemporary stories and by creating something that was in a fantasy world, it felt brand new while still working within the desires of their audience.

When creating any adaptation, one of the most important questions to ask yourself is how the medium and time that you’re writing in are going to affect the work. If you’re switching mediums, it’s likely everything from the structure to the perspective is going to need to change. If you’re writing in a new genre or just for a more modern audience, you need to consider how you are going to both satisfy and surprise new readers and lovers of the original.

The Wicked Book and Musical - Jumping Off While Staying Grounded

There are different forms of adaptation. When moving from the original book to The Wizard of Oz movie, the writers stayed true to the overall plotting and story structure. When Gregory Maguire created the book Wicked, he used the world and the core of the story as a jumping off point and created a plot that works parallel to the original. When taking this approach, understanding the essence of the original is very important. Why do people love it? What is the story’s message? What is the experience that people get with the story? Gregory Maguire wanted to subvert by showing a different side to the “villain” by making her into the hero. But he needed to work within the parameters of the original. He couldn’t change existing lore, but instead was showing us the same from another angle.

With the musical, the writers were working with Maguire’s book as their text but still were paying homage to the movie musical. The character’s voices and their costume styling are similar. We have little easter eggs throughout for movie lovers. There is a great respect given to fans of the movie, while taking us in a different direction.

One place where the musical differs quite a bit from Maguire’s book is in its tone. The Wicked book is quite political and dark, while the musical is more catered to families rather than adults who would be interested in these themes. Both focus on the relationship between Elphaba and Galinda, but the musical does it in a more playful way – using songs like “What Is This Feeling?” and “Popular”.

Here, their intended audience was more fans of Broadway and musicals and those with a love for the original story of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz than it was necessarily just for fans of Maguire’s book. While the book was popular at the time, it never reached the wide appeal of the musical. The writers of the musical intentionally made their story fit a wider umbrella.

I think it is the change of perspective that allowed for this change in tone and feel of the story. While the book is written in third person, it stays close to Elphaba. With the musical (and later the movie), we see things from further back, giving us the chance to sympathize and understand various characters in a different way. We identify more with Galinda, Fiyero, and even Madame Morrible as we understand the side they were viewing things from.

While knowing your audience is always important in any writing, it might be even more so in adapting existing work. Why does this new version need to be present in the world? What is it offering that the original does not? Is it appealing to a different audience? Saying something new? Told in a new voice?

When you are using the source material as more of a jumping off point than a roadmap, you do have more freedom. But you still need to honor the original and not contradict it, wherever possible. Otherwise, your credibility will waver and your new version will fight against the original instead of feeding off it.

The Wicked Movie

I finally made it to the movie theatre last week to see the film adaptation of Wicked. Like with any other adaptation attached to a property I care about, I went in with both excitement and apprehension. (And I was there with my Oz-obsessed friend, so I was really worried about what he would think!)

I found from the opening number and images, I was already comparing it to the stage show. I missed the wall of sound that you get in live theatre with a full chorus singing something like “Good news! She’s dead!” I was fascinated by Ariana Grande’s choices during the song and loved that we got to see her expressions in a much more detailed way that I ever could afford with the live version.

I knew that they had added a lot of material – as the entire musical is about three hours and this was the same length with only the first act. So, I was extremely curious to see where that time was added. And I felt like some of the choices were successes and some didn’t work as well.

One thing that did work was the addition of some pieces that filled in the backstory and lore. An example is the play that original cast Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth performed during “One Short Day” that explained the Grimerie. Film allows for changes in locations and scenes in a way that live theatre does not and this was used well throughout the film.

One thing that I felt didn’t work was breaking up songs to include more dialogue. As someone who has had every word of the soundtrack memorized for the past 20 years, it not only didn’t allow me to sing along in my head with the same ease, but it also felt like it often upset the emotional progression of the songs. This was especially true during “Defying Gravity”, which felt like it was climbing up and then crashing down several times instead of building to those last notes.

Coming out of watching the film, I found myself feeling like it was a success, in that John Chu and the thousands of other artists on the film used their medium to their advantage. While I personally might have cut back on some CGI additions, it was amazing to see them maintain some of the feel of the 1939 film with real sets and elaborate costumes. Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo also clearly had amazing respect for the source material. Ariana perfectly blended taking cues from Billy Burke and Kristin Chenoweth’s versions of Glinda and finding something that was her own. Cynthia’s physicality, from her nails to some of her postures, was a love letter to Margaret Hamilton.

At the end of the day, while I might not have agreed with every choice, I could see there was intention behind it. They weren’t trying to change things just to change them, but instead were bringing their version into their own medium, time, and experiences. It felt like theirs as much as it felt like something fans could embrace.

I am currently working on my own adaptation and I have found some new inspiration. One of the things I loved the most is that the political themes of Maguire’s book were more at the forefront. For my own adaptation, I want to highlight how the struggles faced by a single woman in Austen’s time are not the same as a single woman today (but how there are some parts of that experience that are still the same).

I believe that when we’re storytelling today, we’re all working a little in adaptation. Everything within a story has likely existed in some form before. What makes your story unique is how you infuse yourself, your voice, and your experience into the story you’re telling. So, how are you going to craft your version?

Happy Writing!

-jess

I know, that sounds impossible, but it’s the truth. Because I was layering my stories within contemporary frameworks, I considered myself a contemporary novelist. I was also writing about eras I’d actually lived in, which didn’t really feel historical. First was the Indie Sleaze era of the 2010s, which was when I cut my figurative teeth, and then the grunge era of the 90s, when I was technically alive.

Most of the details of those two books came from my own memories, with a few Google searches to verify dates and moments I couldn’t quite place, lost to the annals of my own mind. I had direct access to those historical events because I’d lived them, so I didn’t necessarily think of them as being “historical.” Part of that was also me refusing to acknowledge that the 90s were, in fact, thirty years ago. Ouch.

When I started developing the next book, The Virtuosos, the story that materialized was from a vastly different era, the 1830s in France, and I knew I had to do some serious research. This would be Historical with a capital H. Writing a Historical novel is surprisingly similar to writing Science Fiction or Fantasy. Even though the world you’re writing in is technically the same as ours, everything about it is different, from the customs to the clothing to the politics to the money. It’s impossible to just start writing without understanding exactly what lifestyles people were living in that era and the historical context leading up to it.

I decided to take a course in Historical Literature, which you can find on Coursera if you’re interested: https://www.coursera.org/learn/historical-fiction?msockid=2463dc0ce8e564570957c8d1e94f65a2 I was taking this seriously. I’ve always loved reading historical fiction and watching period films and shows, so I started rewatching my favorites, searching for the small details that felt important to each story.

For example, the small camera zooms in Pride and Prejudice (2005), that bring a level of modernity to the film.

One of the important aspects about writing Historical fiction is that you’re never just writing in one time period. Your audience is time traveling, and so you need to contextualize every moment so it feels momentous to the contemporary reader.

You need to understand what your reader is looking for, and be able to provide that experience on two different levels.

1. It needs to feel authentic to the time the story takes place in.

2. It also needs to feel real to the reader who might be reading now, or even in the future.

It’s difficult to get inside the mind of people you have no direct access to, and so when I started researching the 1830s, I knew I needed to understand not only what was going on at that exact time period, but also the 30 years before it. After all, who influenced the people who influenced my characters?

I decided to play with a group of Romantic Era artists, so I began learning everything I could about the real-world artists of that time. I started with Frederic Chopin, George Sand, and Franz Liszt, but then I needed to understand their inspirations, which spurred me on to learn about Beethoven and the Young Romantics of England like John Keats and Lord Byron, and then Mary Shelley, which led to the Lake District Poets like Coleridge, and the list goes on and on.

For me, the question wasn’t “how much research is enough,” but instead “how do you know when to stop researching?” How do you stop yourself from spiraling down a Wikipedia rabbit hole and not actually, you know… writing?

Because research doesn’t mean much if there isn’t an actual novel to house it all.

I quickly realized I needed to develop the story at the same time as doing my research, and this actually opened up a whole new world for me. As I was learning the customs and history of the time, I started adding those details to my characters, which provided inspiration for the next plot points. Oh, the French Revolution just happened? That better play a part. Oh, artists were transitioning to pieces about freedom and nature and expression? My characters better be doing that, too. Life becomes art becomes life, a cycle of research and creation that builds and builds on each other.

I could have spent years researching the Romantics. There’s just so much rich history and drama within this sub-group of artists and writers, but I knew my story had to have a specific point-of-view, so I finally decided to settle on 1830 in Paris, with a Finnish Protagonist to drill that specificity even further. The story wasn’t just about history anymore, I’d added my own personal stakes. How does a Finnish writer settle into Parisian society? How does she decide what art to create and for which audience?

I chose the time of multiple French Revolutions, and I couldn’t accurately tell my story without including the political upheaval of that era and how it would have affected my characters. Just like a fantasy novel, I had to build out an entire world. What did daily life look like? What were my characters’ goals? What were their dreams, and what were their struggles?

I began to build out the lives of these characters, figuring out when they would have been born and how their childhoods would have gone. Using my research of real artists of the era, I could piece together some of the common struggles of that world. Most importantly, I had to weave the stories of women who would not have had as many rights at the time, especially if they weren’t royalty.

I think that no matter what kind of story you want to tell, you have the responsibility of telling it honestly and accurately, and that includes representing how the world really is or was. It would have been untrue of me to show a historical world where my characters weren’t dealing with the real struggles of the day. How George Sand had a male pseudonym to sell her novels. How class struggle became so much a part of everyone’s lives that they revolted against the monarchy.

In order to take your research seriously, it’s important to be organized, and if I could go back to the start of this project, I would begin with a list of all the things I needed to know in order to tell my story.

When does the story exist?

What is the current political climate?

What led to this political climate?

When was the Protagonist born?

What happened during their childhood?

What has led to their status quo at the beginning of the story?

What is happening in the lands surrounding your setting? How could it affect your story?

Who are the important people of this time and what were their struggles?

Which artistic movements were happening and how were they inspired?

Will you include real people, or fictionalizations?

Most importantly, don’t miss the story within the research. Just like in building a fantasy world, it’s easy to get lost in Wikipedia clicks and Youtube rabbit holes, but research doesn’t write a novel. We must, at some point, start writing, and you will never know everything. You will always write yourself a note along the way that says “could this have happened here?”

You can always fill in the blanks on the next draft.

-L.

During the 12 Days of Craftmas, we’ll be gifting you a free resource every day to help write the best possible novel you can.

Follow us on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky for a chance to win a FREE StoryCraft Workbook as well as a live feedback session to talk through your novel!

Look, we can admit that while we are both Plotters to the core, we understand there are some people who don’t like to completely outline every scene that’s going to be in their first draft before sitting down to write. No writing path or style is right for everyone and part of the process of learning to write is figuring out what method works best for you.

That being said, we have never worked with a writer who didn’t discover something and learn a lot about their story by first working through the most basic Narrative Structure. So today, our gift is our Worksheet dedicated to helping you map out the major beats of your story.

Storycraft Worksheet Narrative Structure

132KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

During the 12 Days of Craftmas, we’ll be gifting you a free resource every day to help write the best possible novel you can.

Follow us on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky for a chance to win a FREE StoryCraft Workbook as well as a live feedback session to talk through your novel!

If you have those moments when you feel like you care more about what is happening to the characters in your book than you do with situations in your real life, you know it’s a good read. And usually what you’re eagerly flipping through pages to find out is the answer to that story’s dramatic question.

I love using dramatic questions to help understand the structure and stakes of a story. What is the question that your story is trying to answer? In an adventure story, it might be whether or not the protagonist is going to succeed in a mission. In a romance, it is if and how the main couple are going to fall in love. And, most obviously, in a mystery the question is “Who dun it?”, whatever “it” might be.

When I’m working through my outline and the different plots that a story will have, I give each of them a dramatic question. And every scene that I write will be created in service of finding out one or more answers.

Dramatic questions are closely linked to your protagonist’s wants and needs. You can frame them in a similar way to how you would frame your logline. (If you’re not familiar with loglines, we have a whole post about that!) You can form your dramatic question by filling in the blanks:

Will [the protagonist] overcome [their flaw/obstacle] to achieve [their goal]?

My current project is a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and I can use this framework to not only form the main dramatic question of the piece, but all of the side plots as well. Here, it becomes “Will Anne fight for her love of Fredrick and win him back?” This question speaks to her fatal flaw – that she is not able to stand up for what she wants within her overbearing family and social circle.

I don’t stop at just the story’s central question. I also use this tool to inform each of my book’s subplots. For this book, it is set in society groups in today’s New York City, and starts with Anne’s family filing bankruptcy on their hotel empire. The secondary plot is all about Anne finding her own place within the world of hospitality and stepping out of the shadow of her frivolous family. So, my secondary dramatic question becomes “Will Anne find her own place within the world of hotels without the interference of her family?”

The secondary question draws on some of the same flaws and obstacles – Anne is not great at standing up for herself and comes from an elitist background that doesn’t align with her personal goals and values. But by articulating this second pathway, it helps me to determine what scenes need to be included in this story to see that plot line through.

Dramatic questions also work well with a lot of the other tools that we use in the StoryCraft process for outlining. You can turn each dramatic question into a line on your Subway Map to compare the progress of all of your plot lines and balance the momentum of your story. You can also build out a Story Clock for each dramatic question to see if they develop and resolve at a steady pace throughout your story.

But mostly, what dramatic questions do is force us to get to the root of our stories and what the stakes are going to be for both the characters and readers. If you’re going through the agenting process or writing blurbs for your book as a self-published author, you will need to be able to answer the question “Why should someone invest their time in reading this book?” The dramatic questions often speak to that and what your readers will care about within your story’s universe.

So, what are the dramatic questions for your story? Let us know why we will keep turning those pages. And allow these questions to build up as you’re working through your draft. What might be difficult to articulate before you start writing might become very clear as you get to know your characters and the journeys they are on.

Happy Writing!

-Jess

During the 12 Days of Craftmas, we’ll be gifting you a free resource every day to help write the best possible novel you can.

Follow us on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky for a chance to win a FREE StoryCraft Workbook as well as a live feedback session to talk through your novel!

A big part of my writing journey over the last few years has been learning how to manage the way my mind works. My thoughts spill over at incredible speed, and it’s easy to get lost in the waterfall of ideas and characters and scenes. Sometimes it’s exhausting. But when I found my way through it, something magical happened. I found my voice, and I found my process.

Every creative mind has pros and cons, and there isn’t one way to write a book. Trying to take a one-size-fits-all approach is sure to end up in frustration. I might have twenty ideas running through my head at any given time, but someone else might have just one. The tools that work for me might not work for everyone in the same way, but in my experience, there’s common ground in figuring out how to harness the magic of your potentially-chaotic mind.

If you’re like me, then the struggle isn’t finding an idea, it’s choosing which idea to focus on (and then sticking to it). The allure of the shiny new thing on the horizon is usually more exciting than finishing the thing you’ve already started, and what I’ve discovered about this is the importance of finding a level of obsession with your WIP.

Yes. Obsession. When I’m on the other side of the table talking to writers, I can tell when someone is obsessed with what they’re working on, or if they’re just moving through the paces and trying to write anything. There’s a certain glimmer in a writer’s eye when they’re talking about THE book, not just a book, and I believe this is the key to getting through to the end and having it matter to readers.

It’s really important to LOVE the novel you’re writing, and not just because it makes the writing that much more interesting. The reality of crafting a novel is that we’re going to need to do many, many passes of this work to make it the best it can be, so the concept has to be something we’re (hopefully) not going to hate by draft six. If you sign a publishing contract tomorrow, you’re going to need to work through multiple rounds of edits. Are you ready for that?

Okay, I’ll call out the proverbial elephant in the room. At some point, you’ll probably hate your novel. This is, unfortunately, the reality of a long-term project. But there is something we can do to make this proving ground less arduous. If the core idea is as strong as possible and aligns with who you are and your writer’s voice, you’ll have a better chance of getting through without getting so frustrated that you give up completely.

We’re angsty people, writers, and that’s just part of the process. We’re digging into our minds and traumas to create entire worlds, and that’s not an easy task. Any time you’re getting frustrated with yourself, remember that what you’re doing is incredible. You’re incredible.

If you followed the StoryCraft Novel Challenge, you’ll know how strongly we feel about choosing the right idea and developing it from inception, and there are good reasons behind that. Both of us have come across the wall of writer’s block because we didn’t do the work ahead of time, and both of us have broken that wall by using this process.

So, how do you choose the right idea? Do you have an idea? A list of ideas? Is your idea strong enough to carry an entire novel’s worth of story? Are you obsessed with the story you’re brewing?

There are a few different pieces that build an idea, and everyone starts in a different place. You might have a character to start, or you might have a setting. You might have a plot point, or a scene, or an emotion. Wherever you start, it’s important to build on it as much as possible before you start writing the novel to make sure you have everything you need to keep it going.

There’s nothing worse than getting halfway through writing the first draft and figuring out that, actually, this concept is half-baked and doesn’t have the legs to be a full piece. I’m writing from experience, because I’ve been there. Multiple times. It’s the worst.

I started working through what would become the StoryCraft Process because this kept happening to me. Why could I write 20,000 words with ease, but then I kept getting stuck? How could I push past this invisible barrier? What I discovered was that I wasn’t actually developing entire ideas because I had no structure and no strategy.

I was developing my characters, my worlds, and my inciting incidents, but I wasn’t developing midpoints and climaxes and resolutions as strongly as I needed to. I was writing half-finished ideas, so no wonder I was getting stuck. Once I started developing my stories using this process, everything changed. Suddenly, I was drafting with ease.

Here is the core foundation of what I’ve discovered:

A Flawed Character, an Inciting Incident, Rising Action/Objective, and Stakes.

Who is the story about, what is the change that sparks the journey, what is the goal that tethers the reader and makes them want to finish the book, and what will happen if we don’t reach that goal?

We like to call this exercise a Developmental Logline, and it’s one of the first steps of the StoryCraft Process.

Loglines are typically used in the Film and TV World to concisely describe a story in as few words as possible. Using a Developmental Logline when you’re building out your idea helps to distill the core elements of the story. You need (at least one) flawed Character to act as the reader’s anchor for the book. You need an Inciting Incident to spark change and set us on the journey. You need Rising Action to amplify conflict and keep it interesting, and you need stakes to highlight what will happen if the Character fails.

Let’s break this down using a real-world example.

In Pride and Prejudice, the story is centered around Elizabeth Bennet, who, along with her sisters, needs to be married if she hopes to have a future. Her parents aren’t rich enough to support her for the rest of her life, so a marriage is paramount to survival. These are the stakes for this world, and even though they might not seem as life-or-death as something like The Hunger Games, they feel this critical to the Bennet sisters.

The Inciting Incident is the arrival of Mr. Bingley and his cranky friend Mr. Darcy, which sets the story in motion. Moment by moment, the need for the Bennet girls to secure a marriage becomes more dire, and the stakes rise.

If we look at The Hunger Games, which is more of an action-based story, Katniss is a loner in District 12 just trying to provide for her family. The Inciting Incident is Prim’s name being called at the Reaping, propelling Katniss into the Hunger Games. The Rising Action is built into the Games themselves, and the stakes are clear–if Katniss doesn’t win, she dies.

These two examples really showcase the importance for each of these elements from the conception of the book. It doesn’t matter whether you’re writing an action-packed adventure book or a simmering romance, there needs to be Rising Action coupled with stakes that matter to the characters.

When we use something like a Developmental Logline to outline our stories, it helps to figure out the base while the story is still in its fragile beginning state. We might not have all the pieces to the puzzle yet, but ensuring we at least have the foundations from the very beginning will give us something strong to build upon.

Writing a novel is hard work, and while we all define our processes the more we write, there are still multiple drafts to be written. We still need to love this idea enough to push through the hard days. We need to get to the end.

What I’ve found is the most helpful to me on my writing journey has been frontloading as much of the work as possible so that when I’m in my draft, all I’m doing is exploring. It’s so much harder to keep pushing when you hit a roadblock halfway through and your creative brain is already tired from all the work you’ve done to get this far.

Beyond that, though, is making sure I’m focused on the right idea. It’s not just an idea that feels right in the moment, but one that feels right every day (or most days). This is harder to talk about than it is to figure out, but you’ll know it when you feel it. If you’re struggling to stick with one idea through to the end, it might not be the right idea. You might need to be a little more obsessed.

Ideas will come and go, but building those ideas into great stories is what will set you apart as a writer. For me, it was exploring the worlds of creative women with traumatic pasts in complex relationships, and that may change as I step forward into new eras of my life. The difference has been one of intensity. I know I’m working on the right book when I can’t stop thinking about it even when I’m not writing.

It’s not always easy to stay focused, especially when you have tons of ideas, but the first step is having a plan to see you through. Consider it a lantern to guide you through the darkness. When you can see where you’re going, it’s so much less murky. Develop the idea, develop the right idea, and follow the muse.

-L.

And if you find you’re getting lost in the darkness, give the StoryCraft Novel Challenge a try. It’s a six-week bootcamp starting from idea and building to a complete outline for your book. It’s a great way to try out a new process and see which tools work for you <3

Over the next 12 days, we’ll be sharing resources to help you craft the best novel possible using the process we use ourselves as both writers and publishing professionals. These are the tools we’ve developed to push past writer’s block and build our own novels.

Day 1 is 10 questions to ask before you start writing your novel. We believe the best process is setting yourself up for success, and part of that is understanding what kind of book you’re writing and why.

In order to stand out, we can’t just write a novel. We need to craft books that speak to readers and stir up excitement. This means understanding the landscape and writing books that feel amazing not only to us as writers, but also to our potential readers.

We’ve compiled a list of 10 questions you should be able to answer before you start writing. These will help you build out the best foundation and save yourself drafts.

Storycraft Worksheet 10 Questions

139KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

During the 12 Days of Craftmas, we’ll be gifting you a free resource every day to help write the best possible novel you can.

Follow us on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, or Bluesky for a chance to win a FREE StoryCraft Workbook as well as a live feedback session to talk through your novel!

We hope you’ve enjoyed this inside look at the StoryCraft process and that it’s been helpful in developing your next novel. But we’re not done. The outline is just the beginning, and now it’s time to write our Zero Drafts!

You can unlock the full StoryCraft process, including a unit on publication and editorial, with our Beta course StoryCraft: Writing Your Novel. For a limited time, get the course for $150 off with SCBETA.

For the ultimate experience, pair it with the StoryCraft Workbook which features over 100 pages of amazing exercises to develop your novel to the best it can be!

We’ll be continuing the process on our personal accounts: Follow Jess and Theo.

We can’t wait to see the amazing novels you’re going to write, so continue to use hashtag #StoryCraftNovelChallenge to keep the community updated on your progress and build your writing team!

Stay tuned for our next announcement regarding the StoryCraft Writing Community… Coming Soon! 

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo

Creating habits requires training your brain to associate the work of writing as a positive activity. So, if you’re constantly dreading whenever you have to write, you’re probably not going to have a good time. We need to work deliberately and slowly to build our process so that writing is an enjoyable task as often as possible.

How do you even get started? The first step is to create a plan. For this project, we want you to designate a regular, consistent writing time. Make sure it’s a time you can commit to, whether it’s an hour a day or twenty minutes twice a week. You don’t need to completely overhaul your day, but instead carve out a creative space for yourself that becomes a regular part of your existence.

The next step is creating achievable goals. This means starting out as small as possible. If you don’t know what an achievable writing goal is for you, try a few writing sessions and see how much you get done easily. If you’re regularly writing 500 words, then your goal per session can be 500 words. If you’re struggling to get words down at all, then start your goal out as just sitting down in the chair. This way, you’re achieving the goal just by taking time, and slowly, you can build on this.

The important part about this is that you’re training your brain to always tick the box. Often when trying to carve out new habits, writers create lofty goals that they never or rarely reach, and this is actually training your brain not to get work done and to hate the process.

If your goal is always achievable, then after a week or two weeks of regular writing, it won’t seem like such a big deal. You always hit your goal, right? So sitting down to write changes from an obstacle to a regular part of your process.

Remember, this is a marathon, not a sprint, so if you can only fit in a half-hour session once a week, that’s totally fine. You’ll be surprised at how much work you can get done as long as you work consistently, and more often than not, once you sit down and get into your flow state, you’ll actually want to keep writing because you’ll be inspired and ready to go.

We’d love to hear your plan for writing this novel! Share your designated writing time with us using hashtag #StoryCraftNovelChallenge. 

We’ll be writing along with you the entire time, so make sure to follow us to see the process in action!

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo

@jess.debruyn and @l_theodoora

First of all, don’t panic. Writer’s block is such an intrinsic part of the writing process that we all go through it at some point. When you hit a block in your writing, it can come from a variety of different places, so it’s important to look inside yourself to figure out where your block stems from.

1. Life is getting in the way - Whether it’s psychological or physical, sometimes life happens, and there’s nothing we can do about that. If you’re too stressed or dealing with major events, it’s okay to take a little break and come back to writing when you’re in a better place. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Very few of us have ever been able to write consistently when dealing with a crisis. Do what you can when it feels right to you. The book will always be waiting.

2. You’re trying to write a perfect book - This is one of the most common sources of writer’s block. So many of us are perfectionists, and it’s really hard to embrace being messy in the drafting process. The reality is that the Zero Draft, as we call it, is simply a sketch. It’s not supposed to look good, so don’t stress yourself out to write something good. If you’re getting stuck because you don’t feel you’re writing well enough, then try embracing writing something bad. You will have subsequent drafts to fix it. Write “good enough for now.”

3. You’re trying to edit and write at the same time - Writing and editing are two different skillsets, and you can’t do them both at the same time. If you’re not drafting freely, you’re going to get caught up. It would be the same as trying to add fine details to a painting when you’re supposed to be getting down the base coat. You need that base coat in order to finetune later. Writing should be just writing.

4. Something is wrong with the story - Sometimes we can’t push forward because an element of our story just isn’t working. When this happens, it’s helpful to go back to the outline and try to figure out if there’s an easy fix. Is the emotional journey strong enough? Do you actually have enough story to sustain an entire book? 

5. You’re burned out and need inspiration - Part of the writing process is being inspired and resting, and when we try too hard to work work work, it can burn out our creative mind completely. When this happens, it’s important to rest, read, watch great films, play video games. Do the fun things that bring you inspiration, and go back to your wishlist. Are you actually writing the book you set out to write?

As writers, we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves, but remember that this is hopefully just one of many, many books you will write. The more often you write and work through drafts, the easier it can be to let go of the perfectionism and allow yourself to get down a base coat.

The real writing happens with re-writing, so for now, look at your Zero Draft as simply another part of your outline. The Zero Draft is simply a sketch or a blueprint. It might not even look like a novel, and that’s okay. Do what you need to do to get the words down so you can take space and come back to it fresh in revisions.

You can’t edit a blank page, but you also need a complete draft before you can start editing.

Our online course, StoryCraft: Writing Your Novel features our complete process as well as some critical discussions about the craft and how to work through blocks. You can join the Beta for $150 off with SCBETA.

Share your tips for Writer’s Block with hashtag  #StoryCraftNovelChallenge, and tomorrow, we’ll talk about setting good habits.

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo

We like to think of an outline as a strategic plan for your novel. It’s not going to be perfect, but it will give you a basic blueprint for your story so you can focus on the words inside. Instead of rewriting an entire draft when you decide to make a major story change, all you have to adjust is the outline. 

When you get to the professional stage of your writing, outlining becomes so much more important. If you sell a book on proposal and have a set amount of time to write it, you won’t be able to hammer out multiple drafts to get it right. Having a plan will save you time and make the process so much more enjoyable.

It is not more artistic to write without a plan. If you can sit down without doing any work ahead of time and forge a strong, tight draft, then that’s fantastic, but the reality is that most people can’t do that, or they can do it once or twice, and then get stuck and think the problem is their brain instead of their process.

We know this from experience. Sometimes, the first book or two come easily (maybe when you were younger with less daily responsibilities). But then life gets in the way or we’re juggling too many things at once. When balancing writing with working one (or more) jobs and families or other personal priorities and obligations, having a plan helps. We’ve found it makes the entire process less stressful and more fun, and also makes the actual drafting process feel more organic.

When you get to focus only on writing the best scene as opposed to also navigating where you’re going, the act of drafting can be so much less stressful, because writing should be fun and enjoyable. If you’re sitting down every time and dreading putting words on the page, something is wrong with your process. But there’s not something wrong with you.

For this book, your outline will mark out every chapter you have planned as well as what needs to happen in the chapter physically and the narrative purpose. It can be as simple or as detailed as you like. 

In the StoryCraft Workbook, we have a dedicated exercise for your outline which gives you all the fields you need to fill in.

Spend as much time as you need getting your outline right, because it’s so much easier to change an outline than it is to change an entire draft.

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the biggest obstacle every writer faces: Writer’s Block.

Don’t forget to use hashtag #StoryCraftNovelChallenge to share your progress and connect with other writers!

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo

To create a Story Clock, you’ll want to draw a circle and mark out the four corners: Beginning/End, Inciting Incident, Midpoint, and Climax.

We have an amazing exercise for this in the StoryCraft Workbook.

Using the clock as a visual tool, plan out when all your major story beats happen via percentage. These might need to be estimates for the first version, so just make your best guess.

Once all the major beats are in, use two different colors to mark out the beats that need to be set up and the beats that need to be paid off. Draw lines across the clock and check if your setup or payoff is symmetrical. They don’t have to be, but it can be helpful if you don’t have a setup or payoff to place them directly across from each other on the circle.

Now that you have a complete Story Clock, take a look at your pacing. Are there any gaps? Any sections where too much is crammed together? Does the story look like it’s organized well, or is it messy and scattered? 

Use this as a baseline to determine where there might be opportunities to adjust the pacing, create setups or payoffs, or add/remove detail. Dynamic stories often have consistent, balanced Story Clocks, which showcases a tight narrative that will keep the reader hooked.

Are you ready to work on your full outline? We’ll get into the hows and whys tomorrow. Use hashtag #StoryCraftNovelChallenge to share your Story Clock! We can’t wait to see them.

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo

One of the issues some writers have with outlining is that they just want to start writing, but the risk of starting the draft before you’re ready is that you get stuck somewhere along the way. Getting stuck can derail the entire book, so it’s important to find a middle ground to make it all the way through.

This is where writing the big, emotional scene (your midpoint), is an amazing part of the StoryCraft process. It allows you to dive into the writing experience and have fun without risking the entire trajectory, and it also provides a ton of inspiration and clarity about what else still needs to be figured out.

To get started, think about your midpoint and the big emotional moment that needs to happen here. Don’t worry about setting anything up or paying anything off, just tap into the core emotions. Figure out where the scene needs to start and end, and then write with abandon.

Allow yourself to explore the world and the characters, as well as all the pivotal emotions that have been simmering up until this point. Tap into what you love about writing.

Afterward, you’ll probably find you’re inspired to fill in the blanks up until this moment. What do you need to set up to get here? Are there new threads you hadn’t thought about before? Revelations about the voice?

Next week, we’re going to start our official, chapter-by-chapter outline, and then we’ll be off to the races! For now, let yourself steep in those creative juices, because we’re in the home stretch and soon we’ll be drafting.

This is just one of the exercises from the StoryCraft Workbook, which has over 100 pages of amazing exercises designed to build the best version of your novel. 

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo

Your hook is the way you introduce readers to the world of your story, and generally serves as the metaphorical carrot that motivates someone to choose your book over someone else’s. It’s the element of your plot that would make someone say “ooooh,” and add it to their TBR list immediately.

It’s not enough anymore to write a great book with an exciting story and deep characters. You need to have that special element that makes you stand out among the giants of the publishing world. Finding this will come from your authentic voice as a writer and what your book has to offer that no other book does.

This is a great place to try ideation exercises to give yourself options. What are a few different ways you could introduce your readers to the world and characters, and which is the most compelling? Maybe it’s right in the middle of the action, or immediately following a devastating phone call. The more options you have, the more likely you are to find the best hook.

Work with your writing groups and feedback team on options here as you develop the idea. Getting feedback from trusted writer and reader friends can really help to tune in to the most exciting version. If you present three different hooks, which is the one that garners the most excitement?

Again, don’t worry if you don’t find the perfect version right away. Beginnings are often the last piece of the literary puzzle, but we need a starting place in order to figure out the rest. When in doubt, think about your ending. If you know where your characters end up, then think about the exact opposite of that for the beginning.

If you’re looking to dive deeper into the StoryCraft Process, you can access the Beta for our online course StoryCraft: Writing Your Novel for $150 off with SCBETA.

Use hashtag #StoryCraftNovelChallenge to share your progress and connect with other writers, and tomorrow, we’ll do our first real exploration of the prose of our novels. 

Happy Writing,

Jess and Theo