100 Resources To Help You Write Your Novel

100 Resources to Help You Write Your Novel

The biggest challenge to writing a novel is enduring to the final two words—THE END. Between the first line and the last are questions, choices, doubts. Sometimes they get the better of us, sometimes and we quit before the draft is complete.

The following articles contain insights, inspiration, maps and methods, answers to questions, and myriad tools to get unstuck.

The Idea

Story arises from the impetus that starts the imagination on a quest to create a world in which the idea can grow in a movement toward meaning. Learn how to generate, recognize, and test your story ideas.

The Idea

Where Ideas Come From

Follow the Story

Keeping Confidence When Sails Deflate

What If?

What’s In A Title?

Storm Clouds

Wrong Turn

Obsession

Turn A Taboo

Cerebral Cinema

Heard It Through the Grapevine

Enter Stranger

Mad, Mad World

The Myth of Marital Bliss

A Picture’s Worth 1000 Words

Quotes for Writers

Photo Gallery Prompts

Theme & Premise

Theme is the tangential force that unifies story elements and instills those elements with meaning. From theme, the writer weighs in with a premise, and the story gains its philosophical, psychological, or spiritual spine. A well-crafted premise forces the writer to identify a main character, a central conflict, and a general plot. Like a mini-outline, the premise illuminates the story’s best course.

Understand the dynamics of theme and premise, learn how to differentiate and utilize the two.

Every Story Needs a Theme

Two Sides To Every Story

All-American Theme

How to Write a Story Premise

Plot Structure & Development

Story is a record of years, weeks, days, while plot derives and conveys meaning from a span of years, weeks, days. A hero wants something, goes after it despite opposition, and arrives at a win, lose, or draw. Unlike a chronicle of events (when someone says this happened, then this, then that) plot is dynamic. Plot is an interplay of forces coming together, pushing against each other, incrementally advancing while simultaneously coming to a boil, and ultimately achieving equilibrium.

Discover how to maximize the physics of drama.

The Physics of Drama

Plot Structure in Three Acts

Plot: The Inciting Incident

Plotting Your Novel’s Middle

Plotting the End of the Middle

Plotting the End

Something Happened

The Moment of Clarity

Filling the Emotional Void

Balancing the Plot Triad

Balancing the Plot Triad Part II

Creativity Abhors a Box

The Outline

An outline provides milestones along a story’s route and makes sure the writer hits his plot points while steering clear of detours. Of course, some wrong turns amount to genius, but an outline can help to identify what is genius and what is superfluous.

To Outline or Not To Outline

The Outline as Plot Development

Outline in Three Acts

Outlining The Ten Story Elements

Outlining The Ten Story Elements Cont’d

Creating Characters

Knowing what your characters need from you to take on a distinctive persona is integral to their creation and the success of your novel.

What goes into a great first line—a line so promising that readers commit to the next two chapters?

Characters & Plot

Memorable Characters

Identifiable Characters

Test of Time

The Character Profile

From Backstory to Front

The Heart of Character

Prince By Palace

Thoughts

Body Language

As A Man Speaks

Words Portray Character

Opinions

Actions

Through Another’s Eyes

Pressure

Character Check

A Unique Brand of Nice

Creating Funny Characters

The Fatal Flaw

Fatal Flaws in Literature, Film, & Television Characters

The Character Arc

The Enneagram Personalities

The Enneagram in Literature

By Any Other Name

Fiction’s Best Characters

Joseph Heller’s Yossarian from Catch-22

Anne Tyler’s Maggie Moran from Breathing Lessons: A Novel

The Lead

What goes into a great first line—a line so promising that readers commit to the next two chapters?

Your Novel’s All-Important Lead

Begin With Character

Begin With Place

Begin With Questions

Begin With Answers

Begin With The Problem

Begin With The Unprecedented

Pencil In a Title

7 Ways NOT to Begin Your Novel

100 Best Opening Lines

The Ending

What goes into a great ending—an ending so satisfying that readers commit to buying your next novel?

Endings Part I

Endings Part II

100 Best Novel Endings

Dialogue

The dos and don’ts of writing dialogue that will move your story forward while establishing characters.

Dialogue Part I

Write Between the Lines

Dialogue Is Adversarial

Internal Monologue

He Said, She Said

Dialogue Checklist

Humor

Everyone enjoys a laugh, but some writers are better than others when it comes to getting a chuckle from their readers. As E.B. White wrote, “Humor has a certain fragility, an evasiveness which one had best respect.” But understanding the patterns and repetitions that breach expectations, writers are able to craft the benign violations that tickle the brain and add to the texture of any genre piece.

Humor in Literature

The 1, 2, 3 of Humor

Humorous Imagery

Humorous Word Choice and Arrangement

Words With a Humorous Ring

Characters That Get Us Laughing

Humor Writing Exercises

Edits & Revisions

Editing is everything. Know what to look for and how to self-edit your novel.

Editing Your Manuscript

Editing Your Manuscript Part II

Re-Vision

Re-Vision Part II

Editing Checklist

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