The Writership Podcast is a great medium for studying scenes, but it's not so great for learning about entire stories. Writing a scene that works is a vital skill, but even if you execute solid scene after solid scene, your story could still leave readers feeling unsatisfied for several possible reasons—and they might not be able to tell you why. To support your writing in 2019, the Captain’s Blog will feature a new weekly series on story-level craft to help you focus on the big picture.
Not every tool works for every writer, and not everything I share will resonate with you. I’ll draw on a wide range of resources, including my Story Grid training and a wide variety of other writing courses and books. My goal is to provide as many ways as possible for you to access and understand stories and how they work. The truth is, we need to experiment to discover what works best for us and the way we work. There is no one right way to write a story; there is only the way that works best for you right now. I’ll use short stories, novels, and movies as examples to help us uncover the differences between stories that work and those that don’t.
I’ll begin by exploring what stories are and why we need them because understanding both will help you get clear on how to execute the story you long to tell so you can share it with the world. But don’t worry, I’ll keep it practical too. I don’t want you just thinking about story in general, I want you planning, drafting, and revising your story. With each post, I’ll include an exercise, similar to the editorial mission for the podcast, so you can apply the topic discussed, no matter where you are in your writing journey.
Your First Mission
What questions do you have about story-level craft? What topics do you wish someone would cover? What are your biggest challenges when it comes to planning, drafting, and revising your stories? Leave a comment below, or drop me a line at hello@writership.com, and I’ll do my best to shine a light on these areas.
If the story-level craft series sounds good to you, be sure to join the crew using with the form below. That way, you won’t miss any posts. The first installment arrives on Monday, January 14.
Join the Crew
If you enjoyed this post and want more from Writership, join our crew. You'll receive our newsletter and a free copy of Cast Your Net with Writership, a collection of 25 exercises to inspire your fiction.
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