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Showing posts 11 to 20 labeled Story Structure (21 total)

What Is Romance? (December 24, 2015)

Romance is the promise of happiness. Love stories give people the dream of safety and stability with someone who cares. More »

American vs. East Asian Storytelling (December 17, 2015)

Cultural differences make it harder to identify with East Asian protagonists than we do with Western ones. More »

The Hero's Journey (November 7, 2015)

If you're not familiar with The Hero's Journey, a.k.a. the Monomyth, it's a model of a common narrative arc found in myths and fairy tales across world cultures. More »

What I Learned from Bridal Mask (October 9, 2015)

I recently started watching one of the highest rated and most recommended Korean dramas of the 2010s, Bridal Mask (or Gaksital), starring heartthrob Joo Won as the titular superhero. More »

A Story vs. Stuff That Happens (October 11, 2014)

When we writers critique each others' queries or manuscripts, there's one piece of advice that's both the most common for us to dole out and the most infuriating for us to hear: "None of this is the story. Tell us the story!" More »

Truth: The REAL Backbone of Comedy (July 26, 2014)

In October of last year, I wrote a post called "Tragedy: The Backbone of Comedy." After showing how the basic structures of tragedies and comedies are the same, which is fairly "duh," I said, "A simple switch in tone and mood can flip one to the other." More »

Weak Endings: Why You Write Them, How to Avoid Them (June 13, 2014)

There are several reasons that weak endings are so common in literature, popular or otherwise. More »

What I Learned from Bianca Goes to NYC (February 26, 2014)

I was interested enough in Bianca Goes to NYC to pay for it—yes, pay for it—instead of waiting on the holds list of my local library as usual. And I liked it. I really did. But I'm disappointed because I could have loved it with a few rewrites. It was so, so close to being great, but it settled for okay. More »

Two Signs of Faux Conflicts (November 27, 2013)

We all know that conflict is the basis of story. Right? Right. Without conflict, a plot is just a flat series of events. With conflict, a plot is a meaningful series of events constituting rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. A story without conflict is boring. Many would say it isn't a story at all. More »

Tragedy: The Backbone of Comedy (October 23, 2013)

In eighth grade English, we sampled Shakespeare by reading Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream. I remember exactly two lessons from the semester. More »