plotting & planning
all our free writing craft resources on crafting your story’s structure!
How to Pick the Perfect Protagonist
Stories are about change—specifically, they are about how characters change. Characters are the heart and soul of any story, which means that we should develop the story around them—starting with your protagonist. [...]
How Plot + Character Intersect
As readers, we’re engaged in a story’s plot because we know what the main character wants and why—and we’re dying to find out how far they’ll go to get it. We’re not [...]
How to Structure Act Two
It’s so fun to start a new story. You’re in the honeymoon phase, crafting characters that make your heart twinge and throwing challenges their way to make them squirm. You’re exploring [...]
How to Build A Magic System
I love magic. When magic is well-designed, I feel it, picturing myself as a user, unleashing its power through my fingertips alongside the characters. To me, reading a well put-together magic system [...]
Create Killer Character Goals
Imagine reading a story where the protagonist doesn’t want anything, doesn’t care about anything, and you have no idea what motivates them. [...]
Writing Isn’t Always Fun
There’s a reason our online writing program is called Tenacious Writing. We may love writing, we may love [...]
Painting Pictures with Description
As writers, we can clearly see our own story in our minds-eye, and it can be so [...]
