The Importance of Book Title Some writers and authors believe writing query letters is harder than writing the book itself. For me, choosing a title for a manuscript is even harder than both! My meanderings on the book titles started while watching Malcolm Gladwell’s writing course in Masterclass. Gladwell […]

What is Story Question? Every writing craft book or blog, on the chapter of Act I, teaches us about the importance of introducing the protagonist and other characters, establishing the story world—so the reader cares for the protagonist, and, last but not least, pin down the Plot Goal—what the protagonist wants to achieve. However, not

            What is Middle or Act II? Do you happen to watch a movie or read a book whose Protagonist changes overnight? And you found it unrealistic. If I tell you a story of (a) a poor orphan who became (b) a rich man, would you believe this story? Or,

In the previous post, we looked at the concept of narrative structure and the three-act structure. This post is devoted to the 1st Act. What is Setup or Act I? Have you heard that agents/editors give a book’s manuscript only a 10-page-opportunity? For picture books, the chance shrinks to a few first sentences! It sounds

              This blog post is about one of the most important elements of storytelling; character arc. Before discussing types of character arcs, I would like to invite you to rethink the difference between Narrative Arc and the Character Arc: Narrative Arc vs. Character Arc One of my biggest confusions,

    What is the narrative structure? When someone wants to tell a story, how should she organize the story segments—characters, dialogue, conflict, scenes, etc? As far as we know, Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, is the first person who tried to answer this question. In his book, \textsl{Poetics}, he wrote: Aristotle was the first one,

What is an Inciting Event? Compare the two texts below. Which one is a story? and: If I want to expand the latter to a manuscript, I need to add some scenes about its event—enemy attacked village—; about the enemy, threatening the village and finally the brave fight of the person. What if I want

        We all know that the first line or the first page(s) of the book ought to introduce compellingly the character(s) and, preferably, show the setting of the story. Do, merely, those elements hook the reader and persuade him/her to turn the page, investing time and emotion in the story? What makes