Two sea god brothers meet for the first time in 100 years.
How do we make their reunion as exciting as we envision it in our heads?
Let’s find out by editing a viewer’s story together!
Category: Story Surgeon
It’s time.
We’ve been training long and hard for this moment.
Let’s open up the first chapter of Fifty Shades of Grey, then try to stitch it back together healthier than before!
Fight scenes may be cool in movies, but they’re notoriously hard to write in books.
So how do you write one that’s just as exciting as anything you’d see on the screen?
Let’s find out by editing a viewer’s fight scene together!
Will the Story Surgeon and Novel Nurse be able to save an injured story?
Many beginner writers think that “editing” means running spell check, grammar check, changing a few words, and then calling it a day.
But that couldn’t be further from the truth!
Editing is a long, long road paved with blood, tears and sweat.
One of the hardest things for beginner writers to overcome is making sure that you’re SHOWing your readers a story, not just TELLing them one.
For horror, this is doubly important. No one wants to be told, “You’re scared now.” We want to see things happening on the page that make us wet our pants.
One of the hardest parts of writing a story that doesn’t get talk about often enough is getting to the final draft. What separates the 5th, 6th, 18th draft from the final one?
There’s no one single answer to that question, but a big part of it comes down to scalpel-level editing.
The beginning of the story is the most fragile part. The reader isn’t invested yet, so it doesn’t take much for them to lose interest and go back to YouTube, Netflix, video games, or staring at the rotating plate of instant mac and cheese in their microwave.
It’s incredibly important to make sure that the beginning of your story is as healthy as possible. If it’s not, then it’s time to call the Story Surgeon so they can operate!
Imagine a story that has one of the coolest hooks you’ve ever heard of: the devil brings someone back to life, but they’re haunted by the vengeful spirit of someone they accidentally killed in a car accident. If they can survive the spirit’s attacks for seven nights, then they get to return to their body.
Sounds pretty interesting, huh? Well, that’s the premise of one viewer’s story… except they started writing it and ran out of steam. Now their story is on life support!
Thankfully that’s where the Story Surgeon comes in, ready to operate!
Sometimes you have an idea for a story but don’t know where to take it, or you have a chapter that’s killing you, or you just have no idea how to even start.
That’s where the Story Surgeon comes in! On the stream, I asked viewers to submit any stories they had that were on life support and in need of emergency operation. We’d take a look at them, operate, and prescribe some medication.
The first Story Surgeon patient was kittyashley, who only had a couple ideas and didn’t know how to turn them into a developed outline/plot.
Thankfully, that’s exactly what the story surgeon specializes in!