Author Archives: ptmichelle

About ptmichelle

P.T. Michelle is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY and International Best Selling author of the New Adult/Contemporary romance series IN THE SHADOWS, the YA/New Adult crossover series BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS, and the romance series: BAD IN BOOTS, KENDRIAN VAMPIRES and SCIONS (listed under Patrice Michelle). She keeps a spiral notepad with her at all times, even on her nightstand. When P.T. isn't writing, she can usually be found reading or taking pictures of landscapes, sunsets and anything beautiful or odd in nature. Come chat with P.T and other fans on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PTMichelleAuthor Sign up to be informed of new book releases via P.T.'s mailing list: http://bit.ly/11tqAQN

Writing Tips – Mini Story Arcs Within Your Story’s Arc

The other day an author had a post on his blog where he talked about writing a weekly serial and how he had to write such that he always left off at a part where readers were dying to find out what happens next. That way they’d come back the following week and read the next installment. I commented that I naturally wrote in chunks of 2,500 – 5000 words at a time, which turned out to be very helpful. My writing process has evolved over the years such that with those 2,500 to 5,000 words I subconsciously include a small story arc within each chapter.

I thought the subject would make a great blog topic. Typically when people talk about ‘story arcs’, they’re referring to the plot line of the book. The story arc usually follows a bell curve style like this:

Story Arc: Where the beginning of the story starts out ramping up, then it peaks in the middle and then by the end, there’s the story’s resolution, leaving the reader fulfilled by time they finish the book.

Within every book, each chapter also includes its own tiny story arc. Each chapter will follow a similar pattern as the main story arc with the exception of an up-turn on the tail-end of the bell curve like this:

Chapter Arc: The goal here is that each chapter has a ramped up beginning, heightened middle and then a ramp down until you get near the end where the plot jumps back up yet again. This is a “hook” to keep the reader engaged and turning the pages.

So back to my comment on the author’s blog where I said, “I naturally write to 2,500 to 5,000 words per sitting.” What I meant was, each time I sit down to write, I’m leaving off at a highpoint (either at 2,500 words (ie, the middle of the chapter (the peak of the chapter bell curve) or at the end of the chapter (the up-turn right after the bell curve’s decline). In both cases, that’s a highpoint in the small chapter arc.

If you put all the chapter’s side by side within the story’s overall arc, they’d look something like this:

As you can see, each chapter arc moves upward, building upon the overall story arc, then peaking before coming back down to the final conclusion in the book.

This is how I “visually” see writing a story in my mind’s eye. It helps me in terms of pacing and avoiding the dreaded “sagging middle”.  Hopefully you’ll find it helpful to think in these “visual” terms. 🙂

True Spooky Story, Cover art talk & Interview!

TRUE Spooky story about staying in a haunted Irish castle is up at Confessions of a Bookaholic!

COVER ART comparison with BEFORE and AFTER pictures is up at Ex Libris.

And Briana posted an interview she did with me on her The Book Pixie blog!

I hope you’ll check each of them out and leave a comment!

Reviews, Teaser Tuesday and Upcoming Events!

Whew, that’s a long blog post title. LOL!

NEW BKoD REVIEWS

Amazing book! “…This book was such an exciting page turner! I loved it! I was immediately hooked by this book’s unique storyline and awesome characters! The suspense kept me guessing until the very end and I LOVED watching Nara and Ethan’s relationship unfold. This was a very different type of YA book and was really entertaining! This is definately the type of story you will want to read over and over again!” ~ Branwen

~*~

Awesome concept and well executed “…Nara and Ethan are both interesting, layered characters. While their relationship occurs based on a paranormal connection, I was happy to see them spending time together and getting to know each other before declaring love and devotion, unlike in a lot of other books. Overall I was impressed with this book, and I would definitely read on in the series…”  ~ Click here to read the entire review on Book Labyrinth.

TEASER TUESDAY

Rebecca is currently sharing an intriguing snippet from BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS for her Teaser Tuesday post on her Kindle Fever blog.  Click here to check it out.

UPCOMING EVENTS (tomorrow!)

I have two upcoming guest posts. Both happened to also be on the same day, tomorrow Oct 19th. There will be GIVEAWAYS at both places, so don’t miss out! 🙂

Event: Want to hear my own personal spooky story? Then hop over to Confessions of a Bookaholic’s Haunted Halloween event tomorrow and read about my haunting experience in an 1600s Irish Castle. There will be creepy pictures too. *bwahahaha*. 😉

Event: I’ll be discussing book covers on Ex Libris’s blog tomorrow and how the cover for BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS came about, where I show before and after snapshots of the cover of BRIGHTEST KIND OF DARKNESS.