Martin Stellinga Posts

May 22, 2015 / Writing

Perseus

I wrote about the seven-point story structure a few weeks ago. I already hinted at other ways to look at a structure. Joseph Campbell introduced the Monomyth in 1949 in his book the Hero of a Thousand Faces. Campbell was not actually describing a way to structure stories, but doing a comparative analyses of various myths and finding an archetypical underlying structure.  Knowing what this structure is can help you recognize strengths and weaknesses in your own stories, and is interesting to know, even for non-writers. Below, I’ll describe what the monomyth is and how you can use it.

May 15, 2015 / Smells

Weapons

To become a better author, you need to know when your writing smells, and what it smells of. Have you ever heard of Chekhov’s gun? No, not the one from Star Trek, the writer. Let’s discuss it, because it can make your story reek.

May 8, 2015 / Reviews
May 1, 2015 / Writing

WritingWide

When I started writing a novel for the first time, I didn’t really know what I was doing. I made a list of cool events that led to what I considered a cool ending, then started writing. That was back in the days of the dial-up modem, when you couldn’t look up a thousand articles about writing on your smartphone.  I had little knowledge about how to structure a story. I learned a lot since then, and actually finished a novel-sized story.

I experimented a lot with different ways to set up a story structure. There are a lot of ways to do that. You can follow along the lines of the monomyth, use the five-act structure, or any number of other structures. Today I’ll talk about the seven-point structure, which is a more detailed version of the three-act structure.

April 24, 2015 / Reviews

Reviews

It’s that time of the month again, no not that, the other thing: reviews. I’ve seen and read things this month, and will now force my opinions on you.