Understanding The Plot Of Your Book

Understanding The Plot of Your Book

Sounds silly doesn’t it? ‘Of course I understand my book’, I hear you say, I would have said the same before. You might be right, but here is a very simple exercise/test to ensure that you do:

One line summaries.

Previously, these words invoked a feeling of dread in my soul but they don’t need to! It all changed once I started to follow this easy structure:

While struggling with their everyday life, Character finds the catalyst; BUT when the stakes rise they must learn the theme before the consequences ruin their life.

Let’s take The Hunger Games for example:

With her family on the brink of starvation, 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen must leave them and take her sister’s place in the Hunger Games, an annual event where 24 teenagers fight to the death until only one survives; But when she is hunted by a pack of elite, highly trained tributes, she must learn who she can trust and form an alliance before they kill her and her family are left to rot.

Well damn, that sounds dramatic and enticing, but it also lays out our characters life, wants and challenges all in a single (albeit rather long) sentence.

After writing my one line summary, I began to understand my plot in a much clearer light. I understand my theme, my focus and it allows me to ground my plot as I edit my manuscript. I only wish I’d known to do it before!

Whatever stage your at—drafting, editing, querying—I highly recommend you give this a try. Feel free to drop a one sentence summary of your WIP below as getting feedback is always really helpful! I’m there much could be done to improve the one line summary I’ve given above, so feel free to improve on that too.

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usefulness of khan academy

7/26/2017

during my junior year of high school, I was introduced to a phenomenal learning program called khan academy by a counselor of mine. i’m pretty sure most students have heard of it since it’s been around for ten years, but i’m not convinced about if it’s widely known of how useful khan acdemy is. beyond its surface subjects, you can find lessons for tons of subjects and tests (and it’s free!)

the novelties

math: includes collegiate level mathematics like multivariable calculus, differential equations, & linear algebra

science: cosmology & astronomy includes cosmo & astro and a little bit of environmental science & geology

science: health & medicine is great for an anatomy & physiology class, and the NCLEX-RN is also amazing for an anatomy class- great pair

science: electrical engineering is great for an intro to elec engineering

science: organic chem - speaks for itself

computing: learn how to code, program, and animate

grammar: I’m currently using the grammar section to prep for ACT English. great if you need to brush up on grammar rules!

econ: Macro, micro, & finance!

SAT: obviously can be used for SAT prep, but also for ACT prep! types of questions might be different but it’s great for practice in the ACT Math content areas- pre-algebra, elementary & intermediate algebra, trig, and plane & coordinate geometry

MCAT: I personally believe that the MCAT section on khan academy is a juggernaut- huge amount of resources in this test prep- review of bio, chem, and physics, has psychology & sociology lessons available, i used the MCAT section to understand positive and negative reinforcement and punishment in psych.

there’s also separate sections for AP Physics 1&2, AP Bio, AP Chem, AP US History and info on entrepreneurship! just remember that khan acdemy is not for in depth studying in most subject areas, it’s great for general or supplemental notes! i hope this helps someone! happy studying! :)

dropbox containing linguistics textbooks

contains 34 textbooks including etymology, language acquisition, morphology, phonetics/phonology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, & translation studies

dropbox containing language textbooks

contains 86 language textbooks including ASL, Arabic, (Mandarin) Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Hebrew (Modern & Ancient), Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovene, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh