Thursday, March 23, 2017

#GiveAway - CREATING STORIES by Hank Quense

It’s a pleasure to be participating in the Blog Tour for
CREATING STORIES by Hank Quense through MC Book Tours.
CREATING STORIES 
by Hank Quense 

There is a tour-wide giveaway is for five (5) eBooks of CREATING STORIES and three (3) print copies of the author’s MOXIE'S PROBLEM (U.S. entries only). The prizes are courtesy of the publisher. The giveaway will end at 12 a.m. (EST) on Tuesday, April 18. Please use the Rafflecopter below to enter. 

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Do you have a story in you? Do you know how to write it or how to tell it? Well, CREATING STORIES has the answers. In addition, Hank is offering a tour-wide giveaway featuring of five (5) eBooks of CREATING STORIES and three (3) print copies of the author’s MOXIE'S PROBLEM (U.S. entries only). See how you can enter to win below. If you don’t want to wait to win a copy of CREATINGSTORIES, Hank is offering a special ‘half price’ sale that will only be available during his tour (March 20 through April 14).

Hank, the author of more than twenty books, tells you how to write your story. He believes that stories come from the melding of three elements: getting ideas, story design, and story-telling. Ideas have to come from the author. CREATING STORIES covers the last two.

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About the Book: 

The book concentrates on developing characters including such rarely discussed requirements such as a dominant reader emotion and the character's biography.

Plots are also covered in depth and a number of graphics are included to illustrate complex points. Another topic discusses subplots and how to utilize them and how to nest them within the main plot.

A separate chapter discusses the relationship between the plot and the
emotional arcs.  
Other topics covered are character arcs, scene design, point-of-view, writing voice.


Published by Strange World Publishing
AVAILABLE April 1, 2017 
$8.99, 9947 KB, 105 Pages 
Genre: Fiction Writing 
ASIN: B01MZ6E3EM

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Excerpt: 

From the Foreword of Creating Stories
If you're reading this book, you must have an interest in writing a story.  What kind of story doesn't matter.  Whether you intend to write a short story, a play, a script, a novel or even a memoir, this book will help you get it done. 
“How can that be?” you ask.  Simply because a novel, a script, a memoir, a play, a short story are all stories.  And no matter what type of story you have in mind, each needs a set of common elements such as characters, plots, scenes, settings, character arcs and more. 
The only difference between the types of stories listed above is the output.  What the manuscript looks like, in other words.  The manuscripts for a novel and a play will look very different, but the process of producing the manuscripts is exactly the same.
If you skim the book you’ll see a lot of material, perhaps a daunting amount of material.  If you’re a beginning writer, don’t panic; you don’t have to master all the material in one bite.  The best approach is to concentrate on one aspect at a time in your writing.  Once you’ve become adept at that aspect try another one.  To begin, I’d recommend focusing on character building.  Second, master scene design.  After that, go where your curiosity takes you.
Let's put that issue aside and dive right in.  Stories are the result of three separate creative processes:
Creative ideas
Story design
Storytelling techniques
I can't help an author with the ideas, but this book is about the last two, the story design process and storytelling.
This book is primarily aimed at the writer trying to master the craft of writing stories and telling those stories in a way that will hold the reader's attention.  It will also be useful to experienced writers as a refresher course to correct the slovenly writing habits that we all fall into over time.  This includes me.  I'm constantly searching for (and finding!) defective writing habits that I have developed over time.
The premise behind this book is that stories don't pop into the author's head fully formed.  Another premise is that one can't write a story from a single idea.  Creating a story requires the author to come up with a number of ideas and then package those ideas inside the story.
The author needs ideas on characters, plot events, setting and scene design to mention a few areas.  Coming up with all these story ideas is easier for some people and harder for others.  Thus, a story is the product of many hours of patient work on the different facets that are needed to build a compelling story.  In some cases, you may spend as much time in thinking as you do in writing.  This is especially true in the design stages of the project.
What is story design?  To me, it's the process of developing all the story elements, characters, plot events and so forth before beginning the storytelling process.  Only after I've completed all the design work will I start writing the first draft.  More about that later.  In the case of my novel — Falstaff’s Big Gamble — the story design work took three months.  Only after that time did I start to write the first draft.
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If you have any questions or comments on this material, leave a note and I'll respond.
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About the Author: 


Hank Quense writes humorous and satiric sci-fi and fantasy stories. He also writes and lectures about fiction writing and self-publishing. He has published 19 books and 50 short stories along with dozens of articles. He often lectures on fiction writing and publishing and has a series of guides covering the basics on each subject. He is currently working on a third Moxie novel that
takes place in the Camelot era.

He and his wife, Pat, usually vacation in another galaxy or parallel universe. They also time travel occasionally when Hank is searching for new story ideas.

You can connect with Hank on his Amazon Author Page. You can check out the schedule
and follow Hank’s tour by clicking HERE


Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to check out Hank’s book.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

4 comments:

  1. Helpful tips on writing. I especially like that the author recommends you concentrate on one aspect at a time in your writing rather than trying to look at the whole picture at once. Crystal, thanks for being a part of Hank's tour.

    Mason
    MC Book Tours

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  2. Thank you for featuring Hank's book today, Crystal. He's a great writer and it's thrilling to witness his success.

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  3. Joylene, you're making me blush. Thanks

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  4. Crystal, thanks for helping out with my blog tour.

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