Podcast Notes:
-Mood first, plot second.
-Mood comes from passion. Passion, for lack of a better definition, is more than a feeling. It’s either a culmination, accumulation or plethora of feelings. It is denser, more intense, burns brighter; thus has more potency, in this case, for writing.
-Once you got the mood on lock. In this case: the blizzard theme. You will see that, actually, the rest of the plotting, characters, themes, symbols and motifs ALL follow automatically. Your brain and authentic writing voice just needs an anchor to lathc on. That anchor is your north star, compass, roadmpas, the thing, the Big Idea, the MacGuffin. Have one great thing in the story or work towards that great thing and all the smaller things will serve that big thing and will fall into place all by itsel.
-Cover design, the colors etc, the title, the blurb, and the first line and paragraph and page and chapter ALL work together in unison. The more you get this, the better you’ll be able to hook your readers for pages and pages on end, all the way to the end.
-Jump straight in the story. In Medias Res, in the middle of the action. No throat clearing, no getting ready for the story. Just tell the damn story.
-Use numbers, counting, open loops and make the reader hungry. From the get-go the reader is toying with the title and main high concept thriller concept: What is the 61 hours? Is it a countdown? if so, of What? That’s not three days. It’s less. Who is the countdown for? On and on, and so forth.. People love lists. People love numbers. People love counting. Be upfront and honest about your numerical trick, let the reader know, be in on the first part of the magic trick and lead them down the rabbithole, all the way to the big revealement of what the secret is. Dont waste the reader’s time. Start hard and attack it from the cover, from the title, from the very first line.
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