Last week's article covered Five basic things you needed to define before you began that novel. What happens once you've outlined your project? Questions on how to develop the story begin to crop up!
This list will answer some basic troubleshooting issues you may stumble upon while constructing your novel or short story. Leave your own questions in the comments thread below and we'll try sorting them out in the next article!
1. What is the difference between a suspense and a mystery? Suspense is the pursuit of the hero/heroine with the threat of mayhem or murder; A mystery is solving a murder committed by an unknown person. A thriller jacks a suspense up a notch or two by utilizing dangerous items. Plane crashes, fast cars, and icy mountains. On the other hand, there are many types of mysteries from the cozy to the James Bond variety. If you don't understand all of these, you need to educate yourself.
2. How do you add conflict to your plot? Conflict is not an argument between two people, but rather those things that occur which keep the hero/heroine from reaching their goal.
3. What is the job of the antagonist? An antagonist is only helpful to your story if he/she continues to pursue and prevent the hero/heroine from getting what they want. So, the antagonist creates conflict, and the badder he is the more the reader will root for the hero/heroine (protagonist.)
4. What is the difference between past tense and present tense? It is recommended that a new writer write in past tense: She had, saw, ran, allowed, etc. Present tense is difficult to sustain because anything in the past is written in past tense, everything else is written in present tense: She has, sees, runs, allows, etc. When speaking of what she did yesterday, it becomes she had, saw, ran, allowed. This is confusing to inexperienced writers. Never mix the two, but settle on one and follow the rules.
5. What does omniscient mean? Omniscient or omniscience is the writing of your story from the camera eye or some say, from God's eye. The narrator can get in anyone's head and there is no POV character.
Have a Question?
If you have any questions leave a comment below this post and we'll try to have our featured tips writers help you ease them out!
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Velda Brotherton has a long career in historical writing, both fiction and nonfiction. Her love of history and the west is responsible for the publication of 12 books and novels since 1994. But she's not about ready to stop there. When the mid-list crisis hit big city publishers, she turned first to writing regional nonfiction, then began to look at the growing popularity of E Books as a source for the books that continued to flow from her busy mind. Those voices simply won't shut up, and so she finds them a home. Find out more at veldabrotherton.com
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