Tag Archive for ‘plot’
Guest Blog: Julie Metz – Some Thoughts on Memoir and Fiction
The memoirist Julie Metz, who is now working on a novel, writes: When I wrote my memoir, Perfection, the story of my discovery of my husband’s secret life only after his sudden death, my focus was on careful recall aided by journals and letters. And yet, since I love reading fiction, I wanted my memoir to “read” like a novel. After many failed attempts, I found a structure for the factual narrative that allowed me to recapture my own state [...]
Short Chapters
Anna Karenina is more than 800 pages long. So why does it feel shorter than many 300-page books? As I read this novel recently I noticed that Tolstoy cuts his long scenes into short chapters, usually no more than two or three pages. He often ends a chapter in a moment of suspense – a door opens, a provocative question is asked, a contentious group sits down to dinner, characters who’ve been circling each other finally begin to talk – [...]
Writing Tip #2: Four Basic Elements
A novelist friend has an index card with these four words on it taped to the wall above the computer in his study: CHARACTER CONFLICT CHOICES CONSEQUENCES Sometimes it helps to remember: it’s that simple.
