Tag Archives: plot

A Course in Decision-Making

Late Last Night Books

Writing is full of decisions. Did a writer make the best choice of words, plot points, structure, characterization? Recently, a writer friend asked me and other writers to respond to the questions below. How would you respond?

  1. Question: At what point is too late to introduce a new character? An editor who looked at her book before said everyone needed to be introduced somehow before the sixth or seventh chapter. But when she tried to do that, it seemed cluttered and disorganized. She has read many books, great books, where characters come in much later. Is there a rule about this?
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Who? What? Why? Character, Plot, and What compels Us To Turn the Page

Late Last Night Books
1 MAY 2014 Who? What? Why? Character, Plot, and What compels Us To Turn the Page

5/1/14 – WHO? WHAT? WHY? GUEST BLOGGER SHERRY AUDETTE MORROW ON CHARACTER, PLOT, AND WHAT COMPELS US TO TURN THE PAGE

On two occasions last December the UPS guy knocked on my front door with packages from Amazon. Each contained a book I had read about and was eager to read, but had not purchased — Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize winner The Goldfinch and Julian Barnes’s 2011 Man Booker Prize winner The Sense of an Ending. A mini-plot emerged in the minutes it took to carry these boxes inside and slice the tape that sealed them: What was in the packages? Who had sent these books? Who even knew I had wanted to read them?