Some of you may recall the presentation I gave in Cardiff last year on making compelling characters, or been on one of courses or other workshops.
Well, you can now read the book!
At the Society of Authors' Jo McCrum's clever suggestion I've now published the book of my writing course.
Making Readers Care with Psychology and Structure: The Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Totally Gripping Novels, Film and TV Scripts is about how to write a 'page-turner' – a compelling narrative with in-depth characters that ‘jump off the page’.
I came to it by considering deeply how to think about the reader and what they want, and how to make them care about what you're writing so that they ‘can’t put it down’. I guess that's its unique selling point.
Packed with practical exercises, I hope this book will help you get the best from your story, whatever genre, novel or script it is, to uncover inside it the seed of the perfect narrative that's waiting to be found.
I evolved the method using techniques from teaching hundreds of hours of creative and script-writing workshops, working with my students as they went through drafts.
It includes the 10 Steps To A First Draft system. This is the quickest way to arrive at a first draft, from the initial idea to thinking of every scene as a series of dramatic beats. It saves time and frees authors to write fewer drafts while concentrating on style – the exact words used.
Topics include:
- using psychology to create flawed characters
- the four story types
- the four endings
- the 'but' equation
- the storyline
- the hero's journey
- character development
- on dialogue
- honesty and writing
- planning a scene
- beats and how to use them
- suspense
- pacing
- humour
- editing
- openings
- submitting your work
- ...and much more.
You can get it here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07PJTN9BK
If it’s useful, please consider leaving a review - you know how Amazon works! Thank you.
