conflict

Award-winning editor Brenda Chin has worked in the romance industry for more than 32 years. Throughout her many years with Harlequin, she had the opportunity to work with some of the best writers in the business, often buying their first book. Brenda is offering her expertise to help authors go...

Homework Even if you haven't done Monday or Wednesday's homework, no problem. If you want to catch up, check out the previous homework threads. Answer one or all of the questions. 1. Have you ever used cliffhangers at the end of a book? How did that work out? 2. Do you have a way of whetting...

Lecture 3 Sorry this is bit late this morning. A meeting ran longer than I expected. So, let's get started. :) Welcome back to the class! Today we're covering tips for building overall conflict so that you can get readers to continue the series without cliffhangers. Story Conflict Drives...

Do you want to write a story your reader can't put down? In this workshop we'll examine what conflict is and how uncertainty and failure build drama and tension in your story. Week One--What is Conflict? A. External Conflict B. Internal Conflict Week Two--Increasing External Conflict A...

Homework Even if you haven't done Monday's homework, no problem. :) If you want to catch up, check out the Lecture 1 homework. Answer some or all of the questions. 1. What is your overall story problem (or main conflict) to be resolved for the series? 2. What is the main conflict to be...

What makes a great romance novel is the inner conflict that the lovers experience. Yet, working out our characters' inner conflict can be intimidating! But, it needn’t be. In this workshop, we’ll talk about: What inner conflict is Why inner conflict is important How to create inner conflict...

Conflict is the reason stories happen. Conflict is keeping a romance from blossoming, a hero from reaching his goal, a villain trying to stop a hero, or even a killer from being stopped. Nine times out of ten a book falls flat because the conflict is non-existent and in this one-week course...

Lesson 10: The middle It’s now time to devise a plot where the characters will take the reader from opening to ending. This is achieved by using a series of incidents, the specific happenings in the story. But how do you come up with these incidents? Begin by re-reading your premise. Now ask...

This example of the Three-Act Structure is from my class about the Heroine's Journey. Three-Act Structure ACT I 1. Perfect World: the character is stuck in a world that has stopped his/her inner growth 2. Realization/Betrayal: the character is pushed to make a decision after something...

Dialog: Lesson 7: Dialog that Gives Information Please analyze the following dialog: Manny pushed his plate away and faced his wife. “Did you know that Debbie, our niece, is turning eighteen in a couple of days?” “Of course, I did. Her parents, my sister and her husband, Eric and Sandy, have...

Dialog: Lesson 4: Creating Good Dialog When I was first learning to write dialog, I always heard the following advice: write the way people speak. That made sense to me. So I figured what a better way to learn how people speak than to eavesdrop. Here’s what I heard when I decided to do that...

Without conflict there is no story. Your characters have to grow and they have to be challenged. They fall in love, break up and make up until the HEA or HFN. How do you keep the tension and conflict as they go through their story arc? What keeps them going and what conflicts do they have to...

Lesson 4 Using Time to Add Suspense Time is often forgotten by a lot of authors, yet if used correctly, it can add that edge-of-your-seat suspense authors want to achieve in their writing. Consequently, a wise author will, whenever possible, add the element of time to increase the tension in...

Lesson 3 Developing the Threat How you develop the threat or conflict you’ve created has a lot to do with keeping the readers glued to your pages. One sure way to make sure this happens is to always surprise your readers. If he suspects something is going to happen and it does, this will slowly...

Lesson 2 Establishing a Threat Suspense is such an important technique that in order to correctly establish it, you, as the author, need to weave it into your story even before you set pen to paper or as in today’s case, fingers to computer keys. Ask yourself, what is the threat that the...

We combine Premise and Story Arc into the first course. The premise forms the foundation and a way to test the story idea which leads to creating a story arc. Here's the description of the course: You have an idea for a novel, but it takes more than a vague idea to have a viable story premise...

**Note: this lesson was originally written for my Braiding Conflict to Climax class. Even if you’re writing a book where the only external conflict is the one between the hero and heroine, (or hero and hero, or heroine and heroine, or hero, heroine and hero, etc., etc.) the core point is that...

Hi, folks! I'm so pleased you decided to join me this weekend. I'd like each of you to introduce yourselves and give me some idea of what you want to get from this class. To give you an idea of what I have planned: I'm going to be posting a pair of character and plot planning sheets designed...

Without conflict, there is no story. Plots are built of blocks of conflict—internal, external and romantic. In this lesson, Angela discusses tools you can use to brainstorm your conflicts and design characters who butt heads.

BEYOND THE HEROINE’S JOURNEY LESSON #7 – “Twins” Pamela Jaye Smith The nature of the universe is duality -- light/dark, up/down, positive/negative, constructive/destructive, etc. Likewise human nature is infused with duality – animus/anima, self/shadow, friends/lovers, kind/cruel...