Author: Sandy Vaile
Previously published on the Writers in the Storm blog 02/11/22


​Every story has a beating heart that gives it purpose. It’s the vision that keeps all the working parts of a novel focused on what really matters, enabling the author to outline more easily and write a purposeful story.
​
But how can you be sure your story has one (and if it hasn’t, grab the defibrillator and shock it into being)?

Plots are the mechanism for moving characters through a series of events towards a goal. The heart of a story is its very reason for existing. The reason a specific author wants to tell a particular story. It turns a common idea into a unique journey, based on what interests the author and why.
​
At the heart of every story is a theme that runs throughout, which colours the characters and flavours the narrative and conveys the author’s message in a way that affects readers deep in their souls.

Author: Sandy Vaile
Previously published on the Writers In The Storm blog, August 2022.


One of the fastest ways to alienate readers is to get your facts wrong, which can feel like an overwhelming responsibility when writing a story. But how far would you go to bring authenticity and interesting elements into your story? 

If you’re writing anything longer than a short story, you are bound to need to do some research. 

I’m going to demonstrate how research can benefit all stories, and then we’ll peek over the shoulders of a few authors to discover the lengths they’ve gone to, in the name of fiction research.