Sunday's Links to Writing & Marketing Blog Posts

YOU CAN MASTER CLASSIC STORY STRUCTURE

By: Jerry B. Jenkins

Whether they’re wannabes, newbies, or veterans, whether they’re outliners or pantsers (writing by the seat of their pants—putting interesting people in difficult situations and writing to find out what happens, as Stephen King puts it), most tend to ask the same question wherever I speak on fiction writing:

Is there a formula, a structure, for fiction writing?

You’ll be happy to know there is, and that though it has the word classic in it, it’s not all that complicated and can be easily mastered. That won’t in itself make you a better writer, but it can sure make your job easier and more fun.

For sure, you ignore it at your peril.

I discovered it decades ago in How to Write Bestselling Fiction by Dean Koontz, and at the risk of hyperbole, it changed my life. I wanted to write bestselling fiction, so what better book, right? (Unfortunately, the book is out of print and has not been reprinted, so only rare, very expensive copies still exist.)

Fast-forward to the present and I have written more than 185 books, over two-thirds of those novels, have seen 21 of my titles reach The New York Times bestseller list, and have sold 70 million copies.

You don’t need any more evidence that Koontz’s formula works.

With full credit to him, it goes like this:

1. Plunge your main character into terrible trouble as soon as possible.
2. Everything he does to make things better makes them worse.
3. Make sure the last worst thing looks insurmountable.
4. Then your hero succeeds by taking action, based on what he has learned about himself in the midst of all the challenges.

Notes on the Points Above

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Read the full article HERE!

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If you missed my writing & marketing tweets and retweets yesterday, here they are again:

1. How to Evaluate a Kindle Deal Site Before You Buy a Promotion | Fix My Story http://ow.ly/NkrRz
2. You Can Master Classic Story Structure... A Guest Post by Jerry B. Jenkins - Storyfix.com http://ow.ly/NkrST
3. Smaller Ponds: How to Use Categories to Sell More Books | Fix My Story http://ow.ly/NkrUT 9 Tips On Writing A Great Description For A Non-Fiction Book | http://ow.ly/NkrWW
4. Self-published authors get extraordinary book cover design http://ow.ly/Nks0o
5. How to Create an iTunes Connect Account - Pub.ink http://ow.ly/NksbT
6. It Should be Easy For a Man Who’s Strong to Say He’s Sorry or Admit When He’s Wrong* | http://ow.ly/Nksth
7. What Happens After the Manuscript is Complete? | J.M. Ney-Grimm http://ow.ly/Nkt9Q
8. Should Authors Be on Instagram? Absolutely! - Social Media Just for Writers http://ow.ly/NktBN
9. 4 Tips To Writing Better Calls-To-Action: A Guide For Self-Publishers | http://ow.ly/NkutX
10. The Cadence Group |The Right Way to Price Your Book http://ow.ly/NkuFm
11. Finding Book Reviews « FundsforWriters http://ow.ly/NkvEd
12. What genre is that? http://ow.ly/NkvK7
13. The eBook Author's Corner: Author Blogs: What is Your Primary Blog Goal? http://ow.ly/NkBoM

Happy writing and running, Kathy