Mapping Your Story Arc: The Story Goal

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

What is a Story Goal? A story goal – often called a quest or mission – is a key component of any novel’s story arc. It is what drives the narrative forward and keeps the reader turning pages. Most stories open with a stasis (a sense of what the...

Mapping Your Story Arc: The Inciting Incident

Monday, April 25, 2022

What is an Inciting Incident? The inciting incident is a key component of almost every novel, but you may not be familiar with the term or even sure whether you’ve written one! James Scott Bell writes, ‘The power of your story is directly proportional to...

The Eight-Point Story Arc: Worth Thinking About?

Friday, September 11, 2020

Discovering the Arc During my creative writing degree, we were taught about Nigel Watts’s 8-point story arc. As a writer of literary fiction, I was hesitant to consider a formal structure when planning my own novel. I didn’t want it to be formulaic or...

The Seven Basic Plots

Friday, June 14, 2024

In 2004 Christopher Booker published his momentous book, The Seven Basic Plots. It is reputed to have taken him 34 years to complete. Through an extensive analysis of stories originating from around the world, he stipulates that all stories can be reduced to seven...

Oliver

Thursday, December 12, 2024

Katya has reviewed a number of manuscripts now and the service received is always consistently first rate. The critique from Katya is very constructive. Katya obviously has a wonderful knowledge of what works and what doesn’t and is able to suggest things that...