How can we make life easier for writers and turn them into powerful storytellers?

Becca and I are both writers and we know this is a tough gig. There’s so much to learn and juggle to craft a compelling story: how do all the elements fit together? How do we know if our characters are strong enough and engaging enough? How can I make sure each word is pushing the story forward and gripping readers from the first page to last?

All great questions. After all, we want our fiction to really stand above the crowd so readers notice it. And this is why we created One Stop for Writers–having the right tools and resources on hand helps us craft stronger stories. If you like, watch the walkthrough where we take you through many of our tools and resources.

And, if you’re like us, you struggle with TIME. (I mean, do you ever have enough time to write? I don’t.) Every precious moment we do get to sit down with our story is really best spent actually writing. This is where OS excels. Becca and I have put all our knowledge of storytelling into tools that will help you as you write. The days of staring at a screen wondering what to write are over (and good riddance!).

If you need a creative partner to help you with all the moving pieces of a story, check One Stop for Writers out.

(We have a 2-week free trial, too.)

Oh, and if you are the sort who likes to be the first to know about new One Stop tools and resources as we add them, we have a newsletter!

Happy to answer any questions about One Stop, so just shout them out.

Happy writing,

Angela & Becca

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ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post What is One Stop For Writers? appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

Visual Structure Planning: Story Maps

Do the phrases “Story Structure” and “Character Arc” send adrenaline thrumming through your veins, or cause your stomach to drop in free-fall? Either way, it doesn’t matter! Story Maps is a structure-loving writer’s dream AND the answer to a struggling writer’s planning woes.

Most writers would agree that applying structure, either intuitively or through deliberate planning, results in a more powerful story. The problem is there are many types of structure models, and not all look at both inner character development (character arc) as well as the outer story events. Story Maps does both, and so we hope this will make things a bit easier, helping writers visualize as they plan so they know exactly where to go next in their story.

Adapted from the amazing Hollywood story expert Michael Hauge’s 6-Stage Plot Structure, we lead you through important turning points, providing guidance on outer events and inner character transformation.

The Story Map covers three character arc types: the Change Arc (inner transformation), the Static Arc (action-focus, little growth) and the Failed Arc (a tragedy ending).  As you can see below, at each Stage or Turning Point, you can access helpful plotting hints as you plan, and see an example of A Few Good Men broken down by structure points.

Once you finish filling in the structure pieces, you can transform your plan into a Map, or download it as a PDF. What could be easier?

Did I mention there’s a 2-Week Free Trial?

If you would like to test Story Maps for yourself, stop by and activate the trial.

Or take a tour of the site first! You’ll find our walkthrough below. Happy writing!

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ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post One Stop For Writers’ Structure Tool: Story Maps appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.

As some of you know, the heart of One Stop For Writers is our signature Descriptive Thesaurus Database. Visitors to this blog (and The Bookshelf Muse before it) have watched Becca and I create highly-sensory, real-life description lists for many different areas (Character Emotions, Traits, Settings, Symbolism, and Weather, to name a few.) Delving deep to understand these aspects of description allows us to write rich, compelling stories. So, when writers asked us to, we started turning a few into books.

Now we’re writers, and we love books! But the list format we use isn’t always an easy read in digital format and often requires a lot of scrolling to see an entire entry. We knew there had to be a better way.

Lucky for us Lee Powell, the creator of Scrivener for Windows and our former OS partner, is a genius. He could see how the right medium would turn our thesaurus collections into a top-notch resource that would be super easy to use.

At One Stop, each thesaurus is neatly organized and entries are easy to view.

A Helpful Tip guides writers into thinking about how an area of description can be woven into the story to do more, and show more. There’s a tutorial for each thesaurus as well, helping writers understand the power of specific detail and how it can be used in the story for maximum effect.

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Setting is a big area of description. So much more than a backdrop for a scene, it is loaded with opportunities to convey mood, foreshadow, and act as a tuning fork for symbolism and theme. And that’s just to start! Using sensory details when describing your character in a specific location is important for pulling readers into the story.

You might be wondering how authentic the description is for each of our Setting entries.

Well, whenever possible, Becca and I would visit the location ourselves so we could observe the sights, smells, sounds, textures and tastes first hand. The entire Setting Collection has around 250 entries. That’s a lot of research.

It wasn’t easy to visit some locations, but we were determined. As you can see in this photo…well, sometimes we had to go to great lengths to get exact detail.

(In case you were wondering, it is rather terrifying being arrested, even when it involves being set up by relatives with connections so you can get the “full experience” of being handcuffed and put into the back of police car!)

So, let’s just say the details in this particular entry are very accurate.

One Stop for Writers’ Thesaurus is the largest fiction-focused description database anywhere.

Our THESAURUS dives into each database and pulls forth the most story-worthy details to make brainstorming easier for you as you write. You’ll be able to strengthen your description, focus on the details that matter most, and have non-stop ideas on tap when you need them. Stop by and check it out.

This powerful show-don’t-tell database is only one tool at One Stop for Writers. Join Becca for a tour below and see how we’re helping writers write stronger fiction faster. SaveSave

ANGELA ACKERMAN

Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.

The post One Stop For Writers’ Descriptive Thesaurus Database appeared first on WRITERS HELPING WRITERS®.