Comments on: Does Your Novel Have a Problem? (It Should)

By: janicehardyauthor

janicehardyauthor — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 15:37:22 +0000

In reply to lfox328. Oh good! Glad it was helpful :) It always makes my day to hear I helped a fellow writer.

By: Jenny Hansen

Jenny Hansen — Fri, 05 Mar 2021 06:25:38 +0000

In reply to janicehardyauthor. Exactly! Many, many thanks. :-)

By: lfox328

lfox328 — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 13:09:41 +0000

Thank you, thank you! This was just what I needed to read to get a long-stalled, partially written book back on track. I cannot thank you enough.

By: janicehardyauthor

janicehardyauthor — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 11:15:27 +0000

In reply to dholcomb1. Thanks!

By: janicehardyauthor

janicehardyauthor — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 11:15:05 +0000

In reply to christopherlentzauthor. Good start! What I wanted to know from that, is why Vivienne is so desperate to know that past, and what was so important to her to find to risk so much. That goal is what will drive your plot, and I suspect the reason she needs that goal is your character arc :)

By: janicehardyauthor

janicehardyauthor — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 11:11:46 +0000

In reply to Jenny Hansen. You're welcome! I'm so happy the exercise helped you pinpoint your problem. This is why I love this template. Even if you can't fill it out, it usually shows you exactly what you're missing so you know where to put the brainstorming efforts :)

By: dholcomb1

dholcomb1 — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 04:59:30 +0000

great ideas!

denise

By: christopherlentzauthor

christopherlentzauthor — Thu, 04 Mar 2021 02:48:32 +0000

I gave it a whirl. Still rough, but an excellent focusing exercise.

Vivienne is desperate to know her great-grandmother’s dark past, because Grammy Pearl has never talked about her life in Hiroshima during WWII. Vivienne risks losing her elder’s love by running away to walk in her footsteps—using Grammy Pearl’s long-hidden 1945 diary as a guide—before the old woman’s dementia erases the difficult decisions and unimaginable choices that sparked her life-changing secrets.

By: Jenny Hansen

Jenny Hansen — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 21:44:44 +0000

Janice, this was a great exercise for me to walk through. I have one book that has bothered me for a long time because I know it has flaws but I wasn't sure which way would plow me through them the fastest.

Your template shows me that not only am I not clear enough on what my protagonist risks, but that I also need to show her specific actions to resolve the problem earlier in the book. It's very clear to me when I walk it through a template like this.

So, THANK YOU!

By: Jenny Hansen

Jenny Hansen — Wed, 03 Mar 2021 21:40:23 +0000

In reply to tiffanyyatesmartin. Thanks for sharing, Tiffany!!