Hello, everyone! Today, we’re going to talk about Awesome Moments in writing. These are my favorite things to write. They often, but not always, come at the end of the book, but they tend to come at high points in the story structure, especially turning points at each quarter of the story. I meant to write and post this last week, but I got mixed up, so here we are.
In other news, my laptop is on its last leg. I’ve already ordered a new one and am waiting for it to come in. It’s possible that the existing one will die before the new one comes in. If that happens, the blog will be on hiatus until I’m back online. I’ll post on social media if that happens. Thanks for hanging out.
Drawing from the Well
I had a good writing week. I got another chapter down and made good progress on the next one. After that, there’s one more in the arc I’m working on and just one more after that. I’m itching to cross the finish line. I’m making it to wakefulness early in the morning more often and that’s helping propel me to completion. I can’t really work on it at night anymore because of the aforementioned life-support-laptop. We’ll get there, though. On top of that, I crossed another big milestone this week:
Pages 327
170,366/176,451 Words
Filling the Well
Look at that, I’m back on track. It was a killer reading week. I finished The Crown’s Fate (great), listened to Dorothy Must Die (also great), and read two short stories: Also, the Cat (fantastic) and Liminal Spaces (great). I really enjoyed my reading this week and even made a little progress on Stone of Tears, which I haven’t read any of in a while. It’s a big fat book that I really want to get through. Beyond DMD, I’m listening to its sequel, The Wicked Will Rise, and am almost done and ready to head into Yellow Brick War. This Oz-sequel-twist-retelling is so fun and really adds to the depth of the Oz world.
6/100 for #ProjectBookworm2024
World of Warcraft Patch 10.2.5 Seeds of Renewal launched last week. It has been a lot of fun so far seeing storylines closed out. Blizzard is doing a good job rounding things out before moving onto the next expansion. And that’s the first time they’ve done that since Legion, so it’s quite satisfying.
Well Chat
By the time we got to January 30, 2019, I was starting to implement some structure on the blog. I covered one of my favorite topics: Moments of Awesome. So let’s talk about what these are, why they can be important, and why I still love them!
I LOVED writing this post. I went deep with examples, images, and explanation. Moments of Awesome may be my favorite trope. Ever. Of all time. Seriously.
So, I love Moments of Awesome. I’ve written them before. I’ve read tons of them. I seek them out. All good. What could have possibly changed in the last almost five years since this post?
Context.
What I have learned is that the moment itself isn’t awesome without support. If you don’t set up the moment of awesome properly, it will flop because it won’t feel earned to the reader. I tend to toe the line with this. I want moments of awesome to be a surprise. They still need to make sense. As I continue writing my Tidestone Cycle series, I have to make sure to set up those pivotal and critical moments properly. I can’t just have a dragon pop out of the ground. The ground has to be established along with the fact that there’s a dragon in it, why, and how it could get out. The How might not be entirely explained. It might just be hinted at. There has to be enough connection for the MoA to work. This gets even more complicated when you’re writing a series. The longer the series, the more difficult this becomes. That’s why it’s so important to do as Stephen Covey says and begin with the end in mind.
What do you think of Moments of Awesome? How do you set them up in your writing? What’s the best and worst one you’ve read? Let me know on social media. Have a great week.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG