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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

It's Been Real, and It's Been Fun.

 Hey, y'all!

All good things must come to an end, and the time has come for me to say goodbye to Quilltree. Lately, my priorities with my writing have shifted, and I'm focusing less on articles about the craft and more on honing my skills and making my own work as good as it can be. I also have a lot of non-writing-related stuff happening in my own life--including university classes, church commitments, and work.

Never fear! I'm not disappearing from the Internet entirely. In the interest of publishing my long-form fiction someday, I'm maintaining my platform on my email list and my official author website, as well as on social media--if you'd like to continue following my writing journey, find me on Instagram and Pinterest as @averyryannekuhn.

All of my past articles, including the Christian Writers' Reading Challenge and my Advent writing prompts, will remain accessible for as long as anyone wants to read them. I hope to revise and adapt the Reading Challenge into a better-organized form and repost it to my website someday, so stay on the lookout! As for my Advent writing prompts, I'll continue to post those on Instagram during the holiday season. I'll also send out a special Christmas short story to my email list, so if you want to see exclusive content from my fantasy worlds, click the link in the paragraph above!

Thank y'all so much for these great years of blogging and readership, and I hope to see you all in my other Internet nooks!

~AR Kuhn

Monday, May 27, 2024

Which Plot Structure is Right for Your Story: Freytag's Pyramid

 If you're a pantser trying to plot your story for the first time, this series is for you. I'll make 3 posts total discussing 3 popular plot structures: Freytag's Pyramid, the Hero's Journey, and the Three-Act Structure. Today we're starting with the most basic of these, Freytag's Pyramid.

Freytag's pyramid is taught in creative writing and literature classes everywhere because it's so straightforward: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution.

Let's take a closer look at each of these steps.

  1. Exposition - The story starts with your character's life in their normal world. ("Normal" doesn't mean boring--your character's normal world may be quite exciting or miserable. Nor does "world" imply they travel to another planet--"world" is akin to "circumstances" here.)
  2. Inciting Incident - Something happens that forces your character to take action and leave their normal life behind.
  3. Rising Action - As your character grapples with the main conflict and adapts to the new world, they must solve problems, fight battles, and make friends. These small conflicts prepare your character for the final showdown.
  4. Climax - Your character faces the main villain or is forced to solve the main conflict once and for all. The character must apply the lessons he's learned throughout the story to defeat evil.
  5. Falling Action - Your character returns to their normal world, which is a journey all its own.
  6. Resolution - Your character lives in the normal world once more, much changed by their experiences in the story. They'll never be the same again, and hopefully, that's a good thing.

Some pros and cons of Freytag's Pyramid:

Because Freytag's Pyramid is easily visually represented, it's often the first structure writers learn, and it's a great jumping-off point for beginners. Freytag's Pyramid may be right for you if:

  • You don't like to plot in detail before you write.
  • You prefer to plan major scenes and plot points before you start but leave the rest to be discovered.
  • More detailed structures overwhelm you.
  • You're writing a story for the first time and just want the practice.
  • Having a detailed, cohesive plot isn't your first priority, but you still like to have a plan.

More resources on Freytag's Pyramid:

Next week, I'll cover the Hero's Journey, from which Freytag's Pyramid is derived. Fantasy lovers and adventure writers, be sure to check it out because the Hero's Journey is incredibly popular in your genre--think The Hobbit. ðŸ˜ŠðŸ—¡️

*all graphics are my own

Monday, May 20, 2024

3 Tips for Staying Organized as a Writer

 Hey, y'all! Any perfectionists in the crowd today? (You know who you are.) If so, this post is for you, and even if you're not quite as uptight about organization, I bet you can still benefit from these quick tips for organizing your writing life.

Organization and productivity go hand in hand. The better organized you are, the easier it is for you to accomplish your goals. Here are three ways you can organize your writing process to increase your productivity.

  1. Set Goals and Deadlines. I get it. We're a bunch of tired, stressed-out students, and more deadlines sound like the last thing we need, especially over summer break. But think about NaNoWriMo. Thousands of writers can complete a novel in a month because they set a goal and stick to it. Deadlines motivate us to achieve our goals in a timely manner. So, if you want to write more this summer, set yourself a goal for the week or month and ask a friend or family member to hold you accountable. Your goal can be a specific word count, a certain amount of progress in your story, or the completion of a task, such as finishing an outline. Whatever goal you set, make sure it's achievable for you in your unique situation.

  2. Use Organizational Tools. A wide variety of online tools are available for free to help you organize your life, including your writing life. Use organizational tools to schedule your goals, outline your projects, and make checklists for different projects. Your weapon of choice could be as simple as Google Calendar, but sites like Notion, Trello, and Milanote offer lots of free features and visual elements to help you put your writing in order.

  3. Find People to Hold You Accountable. As I mentioned above, asking another person to hold you accountable helps you stick to your deadlines. Writing doesn't have to be lonely--it's easier and more fun when you have a community. If you're part of a writing group or online writing community, ask your fellow writers if anyone would like to be accountability partners. You can discuss your goals together and root for each other, sharing your achievements.
I hope these tips help you organize your writing life and increase your productivity this summer!

Monday, May 13, 2024

Sci-Fi Setting Prompt

 (inspired by this Wikipedia article)

Setting: A world bombarded by constant solar storms where electricity is gathered and used from the aurora's current. What other effects would the solar storms have on the world? How might the inhabitants design workarounds for issues that arise?



Monday, May 6, 2024

Two Kinds of Character Development

Character development: The most fun and grueling part of writing. Our characters are our little guys--we love to give them names, cool outfits, and plenty of trauma. Characters give both authors and readers a chance to roleplay as someone brave, powerful, and important. We all want to be the main character.

However, characters often give writers big headaches. First-draft characters can be like soda: They go flat quickly. It's not enough to have an awesome name and be an awesome person--Sir Flamelight Ironhammer III must also be human (even if he's an elf or dragon), relatable, flawed, and most importantly, changed by the end of the story. This calls for character development.

But what is character development? One of the problems with the term is that it's used consistently (or rather, inconsistently) to mean two things. In one sense, characters develop like a Polaroid picture as the reader gets to know who they are and what they would do in certain situations. On the other hand, characters develop like business professionals, gaining new skills and growing as an individuals--becoming someone different and hopefully better. Let's call the Polaroid-type development "character revelation" and the business-type development "character growth," and I'll give a brief overview of the characteristics of each and some techniques for development.

Character revelation occurs constantly in good stories. Everything the MC does reveals something about who they are as a person, both in general and in the moment. In general, characters reveal a voice and personality that remain consistent throughout the story--the character is "in character," so to speak. In the moment, character revelation manifests in three ways.

  1. The "characteristic moment" in the opening scenes. In this scene, the character often makes a small but interesting decision that illustrates who they are. This moment introduces their overarching personality, but also traits specific to the first half of the story, such as their flaws and the Lie they believe.
  2. The character's struggles. As the character faces conflict and the failure of their old habits, struggle scenes show their reactions, revealing new facets and deeper layers of personality. Often the character is more self-aware in struggle scenes, which deepens the reader's understanding of who they really are. Gradual backstory reveal often contributes to struggle scenes.
  3. The "new self" at the story's end. This scene may mirror the opening characteristic moment or reflect back to an important event or choice earlier in the story. The character demonstrates a new, improved personality, revealing their changed self to the reader.

Hold up! Isn't this overlapping with character growth? Of course it is--the whole point of stories is that the characters grow. Anything to do with the character will connect to character growth on a basic level. However, the key difference between character revelation and character growth is that revelation is all about showing the reader who the character is and who they're becoming. The keyword is reaction. Character revelation asks questions about how the character would act in x situation, given that y has occurred and z is on their mind. Character reactions to the plot make up the bulk of character revelation.

Character growth, on the other hand, focuses on what it takes to make the character change. Character growth has to do with causes, and revelation with effects. This is the character arc writers slave over before they begin writing. What Lie does the character believe, what flaws must they overcome, and how will such a stubborn, lazy character ever change? Here are three quick tips for brainstorming character growth.

  1. Make a list. Figure out your character's fear, flaw, and desire. What are their positive traits? What are their negative traits? (Hint: Almost every positive trait has a negative flipside, and vice versa. It's like Aristotle's Golden Mean, with something bad on either end. Confidence is good--cockiness is bad. The two can coexist in one character.) This list will help you far more than your character's eye color or favorite food ever will.
  2. Find a template. I use a character arc template based off of the 3 Act Structure, which is heavily character-centered. Find a character arc template that works for you--KM Weiland has some great ones, and there are so many internet sources for writers that have great free content for character growth! Don't make things hard for yourself by trying to reinvent the wheel. Find a template you like and modify it as needed.
  3. Do whatever it takes. As I mentioned above, characters are lazy and stubborn--after all, they're human. (Or at least, relatable for humans.) Characters do not want to change. Change is painful and it's a lot of work, and characters will do anything to avoid it. They'll rationalize bad behavior, make cowardly decisions, and live in utter denial before they decide to make a change. So, you need to push your characters to their breaking point--physically, emotionally, and morally. What is one thing they will never, ever do? Okay, great. Now what will it take to make them do it? What is your character's one weakness, their sore spot, their line in the sand? Think like a supervillain--you know you want to. Will they change if it's the only way to save their friends and family? Will they give up their misguided want if it means getting the girl? Focus on character motivation. Give them a reason to change, and make it a darn good one.

Character revelation and character growth go hand in hand to shape your character into someone great. Take advantage of both techniques to craft a character your readers will follow all the way to The End.