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Author Archives: Melanie Anne Phillips
Do You Want To Change Your Audience?
Do you want your story to bring your audience to a point of change or to reinforce its current view? Oddly enough, choosing a steadfast Main Character may bring an audience to change and choosing a change character may influence … Continue reading
Posted in Propaganda, Writing Tip of the Day
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Avoid Writer’s Block with “Nonsense”
StoryWeaving – Write Your Novel or Screenplay Step By Step Step 2: Nonsense! If you already know what your story is about want to get right to the details, you might want to jump ahead to the “Finding the Holes” … Continue reading
Posted in Writer's Block, Writing Tip of the Day
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Who’s Behind This Blog?
Who’s behind this blog? Hi, I’m Melanie Anne Phillips – Owner of Storymind.com, creator of StoryWeaver, and Co-creator of Dramatica. I have two grown children, two grandchildren, and recently turned 65. For 25 years I’ve taught creative writing and story … Continue reading
Posted in Announcements
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Choosing Your Main Character’s Resolve
The Main Character represents the audience’s position in the story. Therefore, whether he or she changes or not has a huge impact on the audience’s story experience and the message you are sending to it. Some Main Characters grow to … Continue reading
Posted in Dramatica Basic Concepts, Main Character
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Finding Your Story’s Core
By Melanie Anne Phillips Every story has a core – that concept at the center that pulls all of the story elements into a cohesive whole, establishes meaning and message, and provides the story with an overall identity. There are … Continue reading
Posted in Dramatica Basic Concepts, Story Structure
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A World About Inspiration for Writers
Inspiration can come from many sources: a conversation overheard at a coffee shop, a newspaper article, or a personal experience to name a few. And, inspiration can also take many forms: a snippet of dialogue, a bit of action, a … Continue reading
Posted in Creative Writing, StoryWeaver Software
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Writing Con Men, Shady Businessmen, and Seedy Politicians
Characters, as with real people such as con men, shady businessmen, and seedy politicians, will often use statistics to paint a false, yet plausible, picture. For example, one such character might state that 12% of all high-school dropouts were beaten … Continue reading
Posted in Building Characters
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About Your Story’s Title
A writing tip from Dramatica Story Structure Software What’s in a name? Having at least a working title will help you start your story, even if you ultimately change the title. The title of your story may or may not … Continue reading
Posted in Story Development
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The Four Stages of Story Development
A writing tip from StoryWeaver Story Development Software Authors differ in many ways in how they approach the creation of a story, yet there are four stages in the process through which each author must travel: 1. Inspiration 2. Development … Continue reading
Posted in The Story Mind
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