The Great Debate! Story vs Structure

So, here we are, Susie May and me, after the Christy Awards sitting in the Marriott Hotel with greats Ted Dekker and Steven James, fellow Christy Award nominees.

(Congratulations to Susie for her second Christy win! And to Ted!)

Among our company that night was Ted’s daughter, who is also a new, contracted author with Tyndale.

As talk goes among writers, we edged our way to talking craft. Steven James just came out with a book Story Trumps Structure.

I get what he’s saying. Books are about stories, people doing amazing things.

No one ever came up to me and said, “Rachel, I just thought of a great structure!”

All writers are dreamers of story.

But James contends too many writers get wrapped around the axel on structure and forget about story.

As you know, here at MBT, we are all about BOTH.

Research For Today’s Writer

I wanted to take a fresh look at how to research novels. I polled some of my writing buddies both unpublished and published and got some great ideas for researching.

Home Improvement?

If you’re trying to write a home improvement scene and are totally repair challenged, try Youtube.com.

Crazy Psychopath People?

This is obviously for people who write suspense. The FBI website offers research for you to profile your villain(s). Not for the faint of heart.

Local law enforcement

Social Media Minute—Basic Building Blocks for a Strong Online Platform

Anyone who reads this blog knows I believe it’s possible to build a strong platform through social media. I should, I did it. Beyond that, I’ve helped hundreds of other writers do the same things.

But with all the posts I’ve shared over the years, I haven’t lately laid out the basic building blocks, all in one place. Today I’m going to do just that.

Basic Building Blocks

Blogging
Facebook
Twitter
That’s all there are, just three. But when you work them together you can capitalize on the synchronicity that results, here’s how:

Use FOCUS to craft vivid scenes

I went to my first My Book Therapy (MBT) retreat in 2009 – the first-ever Storycrafters Retreat. I’m four years further along the writing road, on deadline for my fourth novel, and I often review things I learned at back then. One of my favorite MBT techniques is FOCUS, an acronym that helps you craft vivid scene descriptions.
FOCUS stands for:

First Impressions

Observations

Close Up

Simile (or Metaphor)