I used to believe that to write a selling tale you had to just focus on the characters. I thought that the people that occupied my mind and spilled onto the pages were enough- they satisfied me.
Often as storytellers we must choose between a character driven or plot driven story; in the past I've always gone with character. These were the choices given and to me there was no mixing the two. At least that was my understanding of the types of written stories. If we must make a choice then it will be character driven, I stated, since I believed that plot driven ones were too difficult. There were the subplots, the twists, the turns, and the climax and as a fairly new writer I just couldn't grasp it all. But, I'm a reader as well as a writer and soon I began to see that some of the most enjoyable stories written are what you consider plot driven. Being the determined astrological goat that I am I had to add writing plot driven novels to my list of things to beat. So, I studied and studied, printing out articles and blog posts, reading books and even attempting to write plot driven material myself. Now I'm at a point where I feel that it's starting to pay off. My current WIP (Lady Agape & The New Dimension) is allowing me to combine what I've learned and after outlining for this approx. 22 chapters, 93,000 word first self-published project, I see that climax is the one thing I skipped over . . . it's barely there, I'll be honest. Now how can you write a plot driven piece of work and not have a strong climax? I don't know but I designed one with my outline. Meaning, I now have to redo the final 25% of my project jiggling the story once more making that draft #3. This is a fact that doesn't scare me. It's just a short hand of re-writing. I used to wonder how people kept at an outline and didn't lose their creative impulse. Now I see that the same drive is there and with outlining you save yourself having to write the entire manuscript over. Therefore, I will happily write in a climax, a soul gripping one as a matter of fact. I will go back and redesign a few key parts leading up to this point. But most of all, I will no longer say that I am just a character driven writer because I have found the glory of writing about a plot. I used to believe that plot driven stories were too hard, now I know that they're no harder to write than character driven stories. -Thanks for listening Sabrina-Louise Andielle
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AuthorOne of those writer folk telling stories, reviewing the writer's adventure, and presenting the hero's journey. All wrapped in Spirit, the Kingdom of God, the Sanatana Dharma, the Tao, the Way, or the Absolute. Archives
February 2020
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