Friday, March 07, 2014

Once Upon a Paragraph

Gary Provost, a writer of writing books, said in How To Tell a Story that 90% of books have some form of the following plot:
Once upon a time, something happened to someone, and he decided that he would pursue a goal. So he devised a plan of action, and even though there were forces trying to stop him he moved forward because there was a lot at stake. And just as things seemed as bad as they could get, he learned an important lesson, and when offered the prize he had sought so strenuously, he had to decide whether or not to take it, and in making that decision he satisfied a need that had been created by something in his past.
How very clever! He's got all the elements, from inciting incident to black moment to character growth all in one paragraph. :-)

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