Learn to plot your novel using the saddest book ever written.
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- Опубліковано 13 чер 2024
- Are you having problems trying to plot your novel? I used to find it agony. As the old joke goes, I would sit at the keyboard until beads of blood appeared on my forehead.
But then I discovered a simple technique for plotting that was enormously helpful. It has to do with the frequently misunderstood difference between plotting and story.
Take a look. If you find it helpful, make sure you grab ‘Gateway to Narnia’, my free, ten-part, novel-writing e-course:
www.malcolmpryce.com/youtube
My video on how to use causality in constructing a plot:
• How to write a Page-tu...
Another gut punch. I will need to watch this again after I've recovered. Thank you so much for this series.
My pleasure! hope you recover quickly :)
It's taken me this long to learn you're the author of the Louis Knight series! Kudos for nor blowing your own trumpet. Just signed up for your writing course too 🙂
Oh thanks! Do you think I should mention it on here somewhere?
@@TheOxfordWriter Yeah. Just a link in the blurb would be low-key but there for anyone looking.
Thank you for your incredible work.
I’ve recently experienced some intense Jack Nicholson-like moments. Before reaching for the metaphorical bat, I was reminded of Brother Doubt and the insightful anecdotes you’ve shared. On a serious note, it’s quite scary to find myself frozen, sometimes for more than a day.
Yes, staring at the same sentence is painful.
Now, I remind myself that it’s okay to step away. Adopting the mindset that “the story will fix itself” has been immensely helpful. The brain is always at work, even if we’re not aware of it. My mantra now is, “I will not be like Lot’s wife.”
Another valuable proverb is from a professor here in LA who told me: ”You can fix a problem in your story with one sentence.” Maybe not his exact words, but it works for me.
Thank you for your kind words
It strikes me that in each of the first four stages here, the pressure increases on our hero. He starts out stuck in a rut. Then he's moved to heave himself out of it by the sudden prospect of something he needs, the flip side of which is some consequence he needs to avoid. He's already in jeopardy in stage 1, in danger of wasting the rest of his life just playing out a losing hand. Stage 2 tightens the screw by threatening to foreclose any possibility of turning his regrets to good account unless he acts immediately. Stages 3 and 4 just keep turning up the heat on the poor guy, until it seems hopeless, and an ordinary person might not see any point in continuing. But he's not ordinary. He's so special, we wrote a book about him. So he perseveres and breaks through, and in some unexpected way he gains what he was so sorely lacking in Stage 1. It's interesting to me that the smaller cycles of tension and resolution within the stages are encompassed in a greater overall cycle.
I guess if you're writing a TV series, and you know you're renewed for another season, Stage 5 lasts about ten seconds before you drop the hero in the grease again and say "tune in next year!" Sneaky Pete, for example-- between seasons 1 and 2, that poor character didn't get to breathe easy for half a minute of screen time.
Sorry to go on and on. This is all just engrossing to me!
It's good to see another video from you!
Your stuff continues to be a great help and here I think I'm on the right track with my plot. It concerns a young wolf who learns the leaders of his pack are not his birth-parents and that the outsider she-wolf who eats with the ravens is his birth mother. She dies saving him from a mountain lion, but before she does, she tells him his father's name and that he went north. Why did he only appear at night to her and why didnt elope together? So he wants to know why his father left his mother to wallow at the fringe in anonymity instead of finding their own territory. The first thing that happens when he gets to the north lands is he finds a she-wolf is being chased by 4 warriors. Let the chaos ensue.
If I ever make it to publishing I'll have to put a mention of all the teachers who helped me learn how to write. Thanks again for your lessons. You know, I have the same predicament. All my romantic adventures ended in heart break and I'm probably not going to have a life partner. I realized something else though. Life is a love affair with the universe, and she is the most magnificent lady of them all. The best is to dance with her and make it count before the referee in the sky blows his whistle.
Beautiful sentiments - good luck with the writing!
Thank you so much Malcolm for explaining the difference between story and plot; that was a gem for me. You always have such wonderful methods of teaching such difficult concepts and I truly appreciate your videos and newsletter. Happy Christmas! May you be blessed with a 13-week Adult Cityzone and South Oxfordshire bus pass to continue your messages using "A Round Oxford". LOL.
Thanks! I cheat with the bus bit, I mostly cycle.
I signed up for the e-course. I'm sure not going to be the one to let the human race down.
This video appeared in front of me and, knowing nothing at all about the channel, I assumed the video must be about Jude the Obscure. I'm happy I was wrong.
I enjoyed this video ❤ Thank you!
You are so welcome!
Very entertaining and illuminating, thanks so much 😊.
My pleasure, glad you liked it
Thank you for these videos. Pardon my less than professional interests, I will NEVER be a writer of interest to anyone. I enjoy writing the way my mother in law enjoys painting the sea side, as a novice having an enjoyable hobby. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't want to become better at it and improve. My little stories are for my family and friends, and being the people I care most about in the world, I am eager to make reading my art pleasingly cohesive for them.
That's the best part about writing: it can be for one, for some, or for all.
Absolutely nothing wrong with that!
Classy!
Great stuff, very much enjoyed.
I'd give it an older-fashioned 40's-ish title like PASSAGES IN THE NIGHT, and feel there should be a secondary female character that leads Rick a bit astray before he snaps back to what he must do (but this leaves a slight note of of wistfulness too). AND, PLEASE, bring back the Claude Rains character at some key moment (which pays something off in a selfless act, as "beautiful friendships" do). Maybe HE is the one who helps Rick snap back to the real order of the day at a low point in Rick's journey).
Thanks for the video! .
Good thinking - Claude Rains should visit him in the police cell. At the end of Casablanca he says (or implies) he is going to join the army too, so they obviously have a lot of shared history
In fact, Rick probably saved his life in Indo-China and now he is returning the favour
NB: You are still in the Struggle Phase (or perhaps the Spiritual Crisis Phase [since you mention that the timetable is the saddest book ever written]) of your life's story. However, since you, like all of us, are in a timelock, your situation seems desperate, as if time is running out. Nonetheless, there is still time for 'The Universe' to reveal the woman who was made just for you, and your quest for happiness may still be fulfilled. Question: Are you spending as much time on your quest for "The One" as you are on telling us how to write stories?
It's the writer's job to expose his belly and say here, this spot, this is the spot that if cut could lay me open. It's poor form for the reader to then make the cut.
@@bigheartedgal833 Thank you for cutting me, reader.
Sorry to trouble you again. Please explain to me how to access the gateway to narnia. Is it free or subscription based.
Sorry to hear you are having problems, I’m not sure why.
Click on this link,
www.malcolmpryce.com/youtube/
it will take you to a page on my website where there is a sign-up box ‘Your free ecourse’ at the bottom of the page. Put your email address in and click ‘Make me immortal.’
You should get ten emails, one per day, with the content of the course.
If this still doesn’t work, please email me: malchemy@malcolmpryce.com
Great explanation. BTW You never found her because the universe creates women just for themselves. You might need an AI partner if u want one created just for you.
Yes, this!