You need to know more about the setting than you will use in the story. It’s harder to invent a setting than to research a historical setting. A map of the setting keeps it consistent. Using places I’ve been is…
Blog Archives
Setting 2: Invented places
Tagged with: Cliché detector, Outline, Planning, Setting, Story development, Tripod
Posted in Story development, Wednesday Pontification, Writing
Posted in Story development, Wednesday Pontification, Writing
Setting 1: Real places
Plausible settings help readers suspend their disbelief. Choose a setting that is distinctive and illustrates the theme of the story. Describe the setting through a few details. Collect places where a story can be set and consider which details to…
Tagged with: Cliché detector, Outline, Planning, Setting, Story development, Tripod
Posted in Story development, Wednesday Pontification, Writing
Posted in Story development, Wednesday Pontification, Writing
Outline: the story skeleton
We’re getting very close to the first draft now. There’s one more thing to do and one more choice to make. The thing we need to do is to convert the chronology into an outline. As I said a few…
Tagged with: Cliché detector, Outline, Planning, Plot, Story development, structure
Posted in Story development, Writing
Posted in Story development, Writing
Character Mapping
So far, the characters have been stick men who lurch their way through the chronology. I do the chronology first because I need to know what the characters are going to do before I can build the people likely…
Tagged with: Characters, Cliché detector, Microtension, Planning, Robots, Story development
Posted in Story development, Writing
Posted in Story development, Writing
The Cliché Detector
Now we have a basic framework for the story, standing on the three legs of the story tripod. Before going any further, we need to engage the cliché detector. This is a piece of mental equipment that’s extremely valuable to…
Tagged with: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Cliché detector, Planning, Story development, tropes
Posted in Story development, Writing
Posted in Story development, Writing
 | DJ Cockburn on Greater Minds: Richard Feynman… |
 | Anonymous on Greater Minds: Richard Feynman… |
| DJ Cockburn on Greater minds: Alfred Hitchcoc… |
 | Bartolomeu Dias on Greater minds: Alfred Hitchcoc… |
| DJ Cockburn on Happy Retail Season |
Cockburn's Eclectics 