Bethany Henry: Writing & Wellness

High five, writers! It’s time to celebrate your work! Celebrating our accomplishments as writers isn’t just fun, it’s vital. Celebrating Accomplishments as Writers Writing can often be a solitary and critique filled journey. It doesn’t always lend itself to praise from others, we do crazy things like specifically  ask others to criticize our work , and it is largely self-motivated which means we’re responsible for our own positive feedback. This can be hard at times! It can be hard to remember why we’re working so hard when the rewards are so few. It can be tricky to stay motivated and remember why we started. We aren’t always good at praising ourselves. But it’s important! Cultivating an attitude of joy and grace and remembering the passion and excitement we have for our writing is needed so we don’t burn out and give up. And really, we deserve recognition (even if just from ourselves) for our work. High Five to You! Whether you wrote a 50,000 word draft of a novel this past month...

Story structure is vital if we’re going to write strong novels that grab our readers’ attention and never lets it go. The midpoint of our stories often tests this structure. (Check out the earlier posts in the Story Structure series for a review of the hook, inciting incident, and key event.) The Midpoint Often called the “murky middle,” it is common to lose track of our plot and be thoroughly sick of our own story by this point. However, if we have a strong story structure roadmap to follow it can be much easier to keep our stories moving and grooving through the midpoint in order to build toward our climax. The middle of our story can be broken into three parts: pre-midpoint, the midpoint, and post-midpoint. Or call them whatever you want, I’m just trying to break it down a bit! This can be helpful so we don’t get too bogged down looking at act 2 as a whole and it can keep our story moving dynamic wise. The 3 Parts of Act 2 Part 1: Pre-midpoint, AKA Fun and Games As we enter...

Dear Overwhelmed Writer, I see the coffee you’re drinking just to make it through your day, a day that’s filled with more chores, bills, never-ending-laundry, and work than you know what to do with. I see you give all you have just to make it to your too-late bedtime. And I know you feel tired and that you’re not sure tomorrow’s going to be any different. I know it’s a struggle to even call yourself a writer because you aren’t sure you deserve the title. You think because you’re not writing daily or hitting word counts you somehow don’t measure up. Guilt grips tight because you haven’t met any of your writing goals and you aren’t sure you even want to make new ones.  Breath. It’s okay. You’re not alone. There are good days, good weeks, good months, and  then there are months when progress is minuscule . When we feel like we’re not enough. Times when our revisions show us how much needs to be deleted instead of how awesome we are. Times when the effort just doesn’t se...

The term “Self Care” has been thrown around a lot lately and for good reason: people are stressed, over-worked, and not sleeping nearly enough. We’re regularly flirting with the cliff side of  busy and burnt out.  We’re not sure what sustainability even means, let alone sustainable writing. The problem is that sometimes self care becomes just another item on our never ending to-do list that then hangs over our heads. When we finally make time to read a book (check), go on a walk (check), and take a bubble bath (check), we’re exhausted. Now I love the idea of self care. I have a list of self care strategies that I try to practice regularly. But sometimes we take the concept a bit too far. Checking more items off our to do lists won’t solve our problem. Our problem is in our life patterns- and adding more tasks to our list won’t fix that. And that’s why sustainability is important, because that’s the pattern we need in our lives. Sustainable  is defined as “a meth...

Story structure is what keeps our stories on track to create powerful stories that readers don’t want to put down. It’s the backbone that makes our books strong and cohesive.  We’ve already taken an quick look at the core elements of story structure and we’ve covered the hook and the inciting incident. Today we’re looking at the first key event, also known as the first plot point or the end of Act 1. Regardless of what we call it, it’s important! So let’s take a look. 🙂 The Key Event We’ve already kicked our story off with a killer hook and an inciting incident getting the main character involved in the action. Often this is followed by the main character learning more about the problems they need to solve along with more character and worldbuilding development. Then what? In order to keep the story building, we need a strong event that can solidify the main character’s agency in the story. We need something that will raise the tension and keep the stakes from being...

Nanowrimo is coming! Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it happens every November. Which will be here soon! Of course novel writing can (and should!) happen year round. But there is something special about writers new and experienced alike all coming together to work toward common goals. There is so much excitement and encouragement and a great community that can boost our spirits and our word counts.  Nanowrimo helped me finish my first novel-length project back in 2013. While it may not always be the best fit for everyone, I think it’s a pretty awesome program for a variety of reasons. 11 Reasons to do Nanowrimo 1. Advice and resources There is a huge amount of resources available on the Nanowrimo site, as well as lots of people eager to answer questions and be helpful. 2. Cool wordtrackers and badges I get excited to enter my wordcount each day and see my personalized graph rise as I write my novel. The graphs and badges are a fun way to motivat...

Understanding story structure helps us create stories that keep readers reading. Story structure provides a critical framework to make our stories powerful and engaging.  We’ve looked briefly at an overview of the core elements of story structure. Today we’re going to dig deeper into the inciting incident.  The Inciting Incident The inciting incident is where the main character is thrust into the action of the story. It occurs shortly into our novel,  some say around 10-12% if you’re looking for a number , but generally in the first few chapters. We’ve already started our story off with a strong hook where we caught our reader’s attention and introduced our main character and the world they live in. We basically have a brewing pot filled with potential. The inciting incident is the plot point that upsets the balance of things and pushes us into the main story. Our story has been set up and this is where it starts moving forward in earnest. So what does an i...

Story structure is the framework that makes a story “work.” When utilized, it can provide a firm foundation to make stories more powerful and allow readers to resonate with them.  We’ve looked earlier at an outline of the core elements that make up strong stories. Today we’re digging a bit deeper into a story’s “hook” and what it should look like in our writing. Strong Story Structure: The Hook The hook is where we begin our story! This is the first scene, maybe even the first sentence of our story. And it is critical for several reasons. Perhaps most obviously, the hook needs to engage the reader immediately. When picking up a new book, readers will usually only look at the first few pages, or possibly even the first few sentences, to see whether they think they’ll like it. Therefore, it’s extremely important to catch their interest quickly!  How to Catch a Reader’s Interest: Through action It doesn’t always need to be a life or death fight, but something happening can m...