Blog Archives

Short Fiction

Posted on Sunday, November 14, 2021 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

Short fiction is any fiction that isn’t a novel. I know you think that isn’t very helpful. I know. Short fiction can vary from a single sentence to what isn’t a novel. So, you ask, what’s a novel. Unfortunately, my…

Story Structure

Posted on Sunday, January 24, 2021 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

A well structured story is a good story. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t have good structure, then the project will collapse. No one will read it. They might start it, but they won’t finish it. As authors,…

Tagged with: 3 act, 5 act, five act, stories, story structure, three act, writing, Writing Techniques
Posted in General Opinion, Writing Techniques

A Word About Scenes

Posted on Sunday, September 20, 2020 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

The dictionary defines a scene as a place where an incident occurs, or a sequence of continuous action in a play movie opera or book. I would go farther and say a scene is the basic building block of a…

Tagged with: scene, scenes, stories, Story, writing, Writing Techniques
Posted in General Opinion, Writing Techniques

Starting with a Character

Posted on Sunday, August 9, 2020 by pebblepup — 1 Comment

OK, a character has popped into your head and you’ve fleshed her out into a full character sketch. Now what? Write a story around the character. How to do that? Well, ask your character. Ask the character about his ambitions.…

Tagged with: characters, fiction, Novel, plots, short story writing, stories, writing, Writing Techniques
Posted in General Opinion, Writing Techniques

Conflict

Posted on Sunday, March 29, 2020 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

Conflict drives a good story. You can’t really tell a good tale without some kind of conflict in it. It doesn’t have to be a violent conflict. You can write a short story about two people trying to live their…

Tagged with: Conflict, stories, Story, writing, Writing Techniques
Posted in General Opinion, Writing Techniques

The Mugging

Posted on Sunday, October 27, 2019 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

“Lana always cuts through the park.” Marcella Stewart moaned. “She needs to stop. That mugger makes it so dangerous. He’s killed ten people already.” She paced the floor in front of Serena Wells who wondered what Marcella wanted her to…

Tagged with: fiction, ghost, ghost story, ghosts, Halloween, short stories, short story, stories
Posted in Writing Fiction

A Word About Settings

Posted on Sunday, August 13, 2017 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

Setting is an integral part of your story. Without setting the characters and the action are taking place in a vacuum. Life doesn’t take place in a vacuum. We have buildings, gardens, parks, beaches and other places where action takes…

Tagged with: fiction, setting, stories, writing, Writing Techniques
Posted in Writing Techniques

Scenes

Posted on Sunday, July 16, 2017 by pebblepup — Leave a comment

Scenes are the building blocks of stories. They have structure of their own. They have beginnings, middles, and ends. Except for the first scene in a story, the beginning of a scene should hook the reader, just like the beginning…

Tagged with: goal, scene, scenes, stories, Story, writing, Writing Techniques
Posted in Writing Fiction, Writing Techniques