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4 Questions Agents Might Ask In A Pitch Session
FOUR QUESTIONS AN AGENT MIGHT ASK YOU DURING YOUR PITCH SESSION 1. Are you working on anything else? This is one of the standard...
by Matthew Bayan
Nov 2, 20172 min read
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ACT FIRST, EXPLAIN LATER - Part Two
ACT FIRST, EXPLAIN LATER: Part 2 In part 1, the focus was on the inciting incident that kicks off a novel or movie and how not to clutter...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 26, 20172 min read
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Act First, Explain Later - Part 1
"Act first, explain later." - James Scott Bell I saw this on a blog and immediately thought, "Simple and brilliant." James Scott Bell is...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 24, 20172 min read
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Is a Picture Really Worth a Thousand Words?
Is a Picture Really Worth a Thousand Words? Let’s turn this equation around. Does it take a thousand words to describe a picture? See the...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 22, 20173 min read
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Will The Holidays Take A Bite Out Of Your Novel?
USE THE HOLIDAY SLUMP TO YOUR ADVANTAGE Halloween, then Thanksgiving, then Christmas and New Year. The next three months will suck you...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 21, 20172 min read
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Elements of Story - Motive
Elements of Story – Motive Every good story needs to start with a question which then needs to be answered by the end of the story. A...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 19, 20172 min read
22 views
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Writers! 3 Steps to Showing, not Telling. Turn blah to wow.
In writing, we have 3 main forms: Description - We TELL what something looks like, sounds like, etc. Summary - We TELL about something...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 12, 20173 min read
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There's No THERE There.
There's no THERE there. How to engage readers with active verbs. Whenever you see "there" you usually have a passive verb. Except when...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 7, 20171 min read
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Don't Judge a Book by its Cover? Get Real.
Yes, we all know that as writers we want our work judged by its literary quality. Yes, we know that publishers rarely consult us on what...
by Matthew Bayan
Oct 2, 20171 min read
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The Magnificent 7 - Elements of Story - Conflict and Motive
A novel is a dramatic story told dramatically. Drama is not about sitting around having a pleasant chat. Drama involves conflict....
by Matthew Bayan
Sep 19, 20172 min read
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Getting Drunk With Gene Roddenberry
In these many years since the explosion of the Star Trek universe, Gene Roddenberry has taken on a mythic stature. Not undeserved in some...
by Matthew Bayan
Sep 8, 20173 min read
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The Magnificent 7 - Elements of Story - Characters Part 2
The Magnificent 7 – Elements of Story – Characters Part 2 In a previous article, I talked about the need to make main characters not...
by Matthew Bayan
Sep 3, 20174 min read
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7 ELEMENTS OF STORY (3/7) - CHARACTERS
7 ELEMENTS OF STORY – CHARACTERS In any story, we need at least one main POV character, usually the person we want the reader to identify...
by Matthew Bayan
Aug 29, 20172 min read
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ON A LIGHTER NOTE - BUILD AN IMAGE
How did Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and others forge their brands? Click here: http://tinyurl.com/yb86wwnv and visit matthewbayan.com often...
by Matthew Bayan
Aug 23, 20171 min read
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READY, SET, QUERY, PRAY!
THE QUERY CHECKLIST So you’ve done your research, created a list (or a spreadsheet if you’re a paragon of efficiency and organization) of...
by Matthew Bayan
Aug 19, 20172 min read
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ELEMENTS OF STORY - SETTING THE TABLE #writing #writingtips #novels #editing
ELEMENTS OF STORY - SETTING THE TABLE Normally, when we think of setting, we consider it to be where the story takes place: New York in...
by Matthew Bayan
Aug 15, 20172 min read
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The Magnificent 7 - Using the 7 basic elements of story - #writing #writingtips #novels
7 basic story elements 1) Title 2) Setting - 3) Characters – Outside the bell curve 4) Conflict – Multiple characters and conflicts =...
by Matthew Bayan
Aug 6, 20173 min read
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Why Writers Need To Be As Tenacious As Weeds
Every writer is either in this situation or has been. Interesting read. Click on the picture or use this URL: ...
by Matthew Bayan
Aug 4, 20174 min read
8 views
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7 THINGS SCREENPLAY AGENTS WANT TO SEE
Here's an excellent article to help you get into the movie business. Though the thrust of the article is about getting a screenplay...
by Matthew Bayan
Jul 21, 20171 min read
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Try This To Write Engaging Characters
Can't seem to get your main character to be interesting, to jump off the page? Having problems with other characters who seem too...
by Matthew Bayan
Jul 19, 20171 min read
30 views
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