Boring beginnings?  Sagging middles?  Flat endings?

Both plotters and pantsers need well-structured stories.  Plotting with panache—confidence, flamboyance, courage—will cure what ails your story.  Learn the plotting secrets that keep readers turning pages and preventing reviewers from using deadly adjectives—boring, sagging, flat—to describe your masterpiece.

We will analyze the structure of JAWS (#1) and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Please view these movies if you haven’t seen them.

Patricia Grasso is the author of 18 historical romances that have won various awards: National Readers’ Choice Award, New England Readers’ Choice “the Beanpot”, Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice and KISS Awards, as well as B. Dalton and Bookrak Awards for bestselling first-time author.

Everyone’s heard the so-called rules of point of view (POV): stick to one POV per scene; don’t switch POV mid-scene; always use the POV of your main characters; never start your story in the POV of a character the reader will never see again. Katy Cooper believes there’s only one rule when it comes to writing fiction: Everything you do has to serve your story. As for for POV, she thinks the so-called rules are good guidelines to follow…but not every time. Join her as she talks about instances where writers didn’t follow the guidelines, why those instances worked and how you can use POV to strengthen your story.