In August 2011, I did a month-long blog series titled, Build Your Own Austenesque Novel. The first post was part of the Austenesque Extravaganza hosted by Meredith at Austenesque Reviews. Each week, we looked at a different part of building a story: the set-up, or basic story premise, conflict, character, and change. In the last week, I challenged my readers to take the next step and actually write their own novel.
Even though all my examples in this series came from Austenesque novels, it could easily be translated to other genres. The core principle is this: Plot = Conflict that forces your Character to Change.
Here are the individual entries:
The Set-up
Conflict
Character
Change
The Hard Part
If you're an author interested in writing an Austenesque novel, please also come join us at Indiejane.org. We've got a great community of Austen lovers, both readers and writers, who would love to meet you.
If you're an author looking for motivation to write your novel, have you considered participating in National Novel Writing Month? (nanowrimo.org) It's a global challenge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. When you average that out, it's 1667 words per day or about 5-6 pages. Essentially, it gives you a reason to sit down and write on a regular basis.
