<span class="vcard">Written Well</span>
Written Well

Psychological Horror Beat Sheet

Export All to RTF Copy All to Clipboard Section Your Notes Introduction of Protagonist (Approx. 0-2,000 words): Introduce the protagonist, highlighting their psychological state, their vulnerabilities, and the seemingly ordinary world that is about to become a nightmare. Dig Deeper The protagonist, a seemingly ordinary individual with a hidden trauma, a fragile mental state, or a predisposition to paranoia, is introduced in a world that initially appears mundane and safe. Their everyday life, their relationships, and any relevant backstory are established, along with any psychological vulnerabilities or anxieties that may contribute to their descent into madness. The Unraveling (Approx. 2,000-5,000...

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Building Magic Systems

My husband wrote a Business for Breakfast book about World-Building Space Opera. Recently, while we were going for a drive (as we do) and talking about the next B4B book he’s writing, he asked me if I’d consider writing a business book on how to create magic systems. I thought about it and decided that it wasn’t as big of a topic. Instead, I’m going to try to cover it all in a long(ish) essay. One note: There are exceptions to everything I say here. I’ll try to include those as well. I don’t want to come across as saying...

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Writing to Market — Keyword Interest and Bestseller Lists

In Writing to Market — Where to Begin, I talked about how I use Publisher Rocket’s category search function to identify potential categories to write in. We’re going to leave that program for now, and go to Amazon to look at the bestseller lists. Because nothing can kill a category quicker for you than a bad-looking bestseller list. As an example, let’s say you liked horror as a top tier category. And why wouldn’t you? It’s got a 41% pub percentage for a steady 12.5k in sales. The top books move big numbers. But let’s take a look at the...

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Writing to Market — Tropes, Tropes, Tropes

The theory of writing to market is that most people don’t want to read something completely new. They want to read something like the last book they enjoyed. A new story, but one that makes them feel the same way as they did the last time. Essentially, they want to read the same thing, but different. Strangely, this is not contradictory, and is fairly easy to accomplish. The way to do it is through tropes. Tropes Tropes are not quite cliches, but they are in the same ballpark. They are certain characters or situations that people are familiar with and...

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Writing to Market — Where to Begin

There’s a lot of confusion about what writing to market actually is. Let’s clear that up. Writing to market is actually a simple two-step process: you identify a good market, then you write a book that fits that market. Obviously, there is far more to it than that, but that is the basis of it. Find a market. Write a book for that market. And one must do both to successfully write to market. I have seen people find a great genre, then write a book no readers of that genre would enjoy. I have seen people write wonderful books...

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