Love Interest

Read 2 John, 3 John, Jude

2 John 1:6 "And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it."

Stories don’t have to be category romances to have romance in them. A protagonist usually has a love interest, no matter what the genre.

Even television shows and movies provide romance for their characters. Love is a part of living and plots seem pretty empty without it.

But when the story is something other than a romance, the love interest becomes a subplot. Often the girl and guy get together at the end, along with the rest of the happily-ever-after resolutions, but them not getting together could provide a motive for the protagonist’s actions.

Getting Ideas

Read 1 John 1-5

1 John 1:1 "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;"

“Where do you get your ideas?” is a question writers are asked and a question writers ask each other. The answer is, we get our ideas from everywhere.

We might be reading the newspaper and something catches our imaginations. It might be we have an idea about the article itself or something in the article, a tidbit that sets the ideas flowing.

It happens when reading magazines, listening to sermons, reading book or movie titles, hearing snatches of conversations, in our dreams, and everywhere else. It’s when we stop reading, listening, or paying attention because we have gone on the journey of “what if.”

Movies

Read 2 Peter 1-3

2 Peter 1:5 "And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;"

When we think of writing a movie, we automatically think of movies that are shown in theaters. But there are other movie markets: made for television movies and direct to DVD movies, for instance.

Even some You-tube videos are created as mini-movies. Most movies have a three-part structure.

Act 1 is the setup act where the characters and situation are introduced. Act 2 is where the tension builds as the characters try to solve the story problem, just like in books, and Act 3 is the climax where the showdown between good and evil takes place and the situation is resolved one way or another.

Tragedy

Read 1 Peter 1-5

1 Peter 1:24 "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:"

Tragedy has a big impact on everyone’s life and that’s why it’s a popular topic to write about. We might write an essay about how a tragedy has changed us.

We might write an article about someone who has endured tragedy and made a positive impact because of it. We could write about a tragedy that a community has been through and how readers can help.

For our fiction, a tragedy might be the motivation or an end for our characters. The type of story we want to write will dictate the enormity of the tragedy and when it takes place in the story since different genres handle tone and content differently.

Transitions

Read James 1-5

James 1:16 "Do not err, my beloved brethren."

Nearly every type of writing needs transitions. Both fiction and nonfiction rely on transitions so readers aren’t jarred by abrupt changes and can easily follow the piece.

Nonfiction transitional phrases might include words like finally or next. Sometimes the transition might be a word in the last sentence of a paragraph repeated in the first sentence of the following paragraph.

Fiction transitions usually involve marking time, for instance later that day, or after he left. Other times an extra space between paragraphs or a new chapter may mark the transitions.

History

Read Hebrews 10-13

Hebrews 10:32 "But call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions;"

Some writers keep track of what historical event took place on a given day. We can write fillers for publications about something related to the publication’s subject matter for the time period the publication covers, for instance when the microwave oven was invented for a cooking or women’s magazine.

Writers interested in history might want to do a longer piece on a milestone anniversary of a historic event, for instance a fifty years anniversary. We might even write a book—even a children’s book—that offers more detail and tells the whole story of the historic event or how an invention came into existence.

Historical fiction is another way for history-savvy writers to go. While doing research, we might come across a little known historical fact that sparks a story idea, or might get so caught up in the era we’re researching, we can’t help but imagine a story of people who lived then.

Detail

Read Hebrews 7-9

Hebrews 9:19 "For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,"

Our stories appear so clearly in our heads, we can’t believe readers can’t picture the scene. We’re like the two year old who sees his reflection in the mirror and believes we also see him when he hands us the mirror to look into.

So we have to make sure we give out the details of our scene, our characters, their actions, and motivations. We have to describe the setting well enough that the readers see what we see in our imaginations.

We have to find actions for our characters to take that clearly represent their personalities. And we have to give our characters a chance to think through their situation in order to give detail to their motivations.