20. Writing Mechanics: Structure

This week Kelly and JJ get into WRITING MECHANICS, or How to Write a Book. Starting with Structure, they discuss what makes a good story: beginnings, middles, and endings. Also, TV show recommendations.

Show Notes

Beginnings must answer the Who (characters), the What (premise), and the When (setting). Middles must answer the Why (the point of your book). Endings must answer the How (resolution).

• A Plot Chart!

• JJ wrote a series on Beginnings, Middles, and Endings at her blog

• Browse our Beginnings, Middles, Endings, and Structure tags

• Inciting Incidents: A Breakdown by JJ

• Midpoints: A Breakdown by JJ

• A previous podcast episode about beginnings

• Start With a Change, Not Just Action by Jodi Meadows

• Common Problems With Beginnings by Jodi Meadows

• Beginnings: Action and Change by Jodi Meadows

• What happens in the middle? by Jodi Meadows

• The Point When Everything Changes by Susan Dennard

• Crafting an Ending that Sings by Susan Dennard

• Endings by Jodi Meadows

• Outlining on Excel…(yes, that’s right, Excel) by Kat Zhang

• Fiction University by Janice Hardy*

• Helping Writers Become Authors by K.M. Weiland (and podcast!)

Books Reading/Discussed

• The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling

• Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

• Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

• Poison Study, Magic Study, and Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder

• Illuminae by Amie Kaufman* and Jay Kristoff

What We're Working On

• Kelly is working on her freelance career and credits and her professional website

• JJ is also working on career stuff; she recorded an interview with Jenn Baker of Minorities in Publishing and working on some things for Disability in Kidlit. She's also working on her newsletter, if you guys want to read part I of "the long shitty synopsis" of Wintersong (as detailed in her origin story post).

Off Menu Recommendations

• Lost

• Battlestar Galactica

• The original Star Wars trilogy

• Dawson's Creek

• Felicity

• ReBoot

• Gargoyles

• My So-Called Life

• The Tanis podcast

• Ever After

• The live-action Cinderella

• Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella

That's all for this week! Next week we'll be covering another segment of our WRITING MECHANICS series: VOICE. Stay tuned!

* PubCrawl alumna