Cal's [Writing] Craft Book

How to Use This Book

This book won't fix all your writing problems, instead it's to share the tools I use to fix mine. 

I've spent a lot of time in writing communities over the years gathering advice and lessons from all kinds of writers. I'll be crediting the folks I learned specific techniques from and I'll include a chapter with a list of people that are worth looking up if you want to see more from them.

The only absolute I've encountered in writing is: 

TELL INTERESTING STORIES.  

That's it. That's what keeps people coming back when you post a new chapter, or has them turn the page if you publish your story in print. Everything else that I'll be sharing comes back to that one rule. Interesting characters can carry a reader through a story with lower stakes, while a high stakes story (aka the plot is super interesting and grabs you) will carry a less interesting character. 

An interesting story is made up of different things, but the easiest parts to focus on are: 

1) Plot (Story, Pacing, Stakes and Structure)
2) Characters (Character arcs and growth, Character's Roles in the story, Motivations, and Concepts)
3) Overall story concept (ex: World-eating lobsters invade to take revenge for Red Lobster restaurants)
4) Voice. That thing that's so hard to explain, and figure out.

So that's great, but how do we learn how to tell an interesting story? 

It's part practice and also part learning how to keep things we aren't as good at from getting in the way. You could have the most interesting concept in the world, but if nothing happens in the first ten chapters, you'll lose most readers before you get to show off your world-eating lobsters. 

Think of it as going for a walk. Maybe there's a beautiful waterfall ahead that you want to get to, but if the path is covered with venomous snakes, most people won't think getting to the waterfall is worth it. We want to 'clear the way' for the reader to enjoy the interesting parts of our book.

I'll be breaking chapters up into sections, to keep things a bit organised. If you want to focus on one aspect of storytelling, feel free to skip to that section without reading the whole book in order. I'll be adding chapters in different sections as I go, so make sure to add this to your library so you don't miss any updates.

Sections:
1. Getting Started
2. Plot
3. Characters
4. Revisions
5. Editing (Yes, it's different from Revisions)
6. Marketing
7. Resources

Got suggestions for stuff you want to see me cover in this book? Comment HERE.