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Save the Cat!: Not Just for Screenwriters
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We'll be back to our regularly scheduled program next week. Keep an eye out for the continuation of our February Poetry Month (focusing on Novels-in-Verse). Stay warm!
I’m always trying to tell myself to do less and trust the reader more. Trust that the actions of your characters will speak for themselves. Have them do kind things and you won’t have to describe them as kind. The reader will understand it, because the reader is smart. And it’s always much more exciting to figure something out than to be told it.
Writing about a lived experience, especially a difficult one, can be challenging. As much as you may want to share exactly how the events unfolded in reality, it’s okay to take some creative liberties. Ultimately it’s more about figuring out the story and focusing on communicating the wants, conflicts, and lessons learned through your lived experience. And in doing so, you may find yourself feeling a little freer from the past.
You can communicate so much using dialogue alone. Try telling your story in dialogue only and seeing what happens. Even if that doesn’t work for the final version, it might help you to find a character’s voice or learn something new about them.
Anne-Marie Strohman (co-editor) writes picture books, middle grade novels, and young adult short stories and novels. She is a teacher, an editor, and a scholar. She is an active member of SCBWI and holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Find her at amstrohman.com and on Twitter @amstrwriter