by Marg McAlister | Characters, Plotting
“What does your character want?” It seems like a simple question – yet it is one that can cause untold problems for some writers. They fuss and fiddle about with all manner of MINOR things that the character wants, and totally miss the big one! What...
by Marg McAlister | Characters, Plotting, Writing Fiction
How do you actually begin a novel – by working out the plot, or starting with a character? And which is best? The answer is probably pretty much what you expected: no one method is “best”. In fact, many authors have begun their first novel by working...
by Marg McAlister | Plotting, Characters, Viewpoint
Whenever you sit down to plot a story (or even to think about a story) one of the first things you have to ask yourself is this: “Whose story IS it?” It seems like a simple question – but your story can succeed or fail depending on how you handle...
by Marg McAlister | Mystery and Crime, Plotting
If there’s one thing that really annoys readers of mysteries, it’s being able to guess who the villain is by page 30. This happens for a variety of reasons, including: the author being so determined to ‘play fair’ that she makes it too...
by Marg McAlister | Plotting, Mystery and Crime, Writing Fiction
Here’s a quick question for you: what’s easiest to write – a ‘woman in jeopardy’ story or a police procedural? If you are (or have been) a police officer, then ‘police procedural’ might be the answer for you. If you know...
by Marg McAlister | Mystery and Crime, Plotting
Some time ago I happened to critique several scenes in one week for a writer. In two of them, she’d made life much too easy for her characters. In the first scene, complete strangers offered the children shelter and food. In the second, one of them needed to...
