Authors from A to Z: W

Authors from A to Z is a posting challenge hosted by

Heather at Proud Book Nerd. The challenge is simple: each day for the month of June (except Sundays) share your favorite authors whose last name corresponds to the letter for that day.  
For more info, click the photo.

How I'm participating in the challenge:

This year I am going to try to highlight just one author each day that I am really taken with. If I can't come up with one, it may be a book, a song, or a surprise!

W = Writing (Plot and Structure)

I write. Pretty obvious, yes? Well, when I started out, and by started out I mean got serious about finishing a novel and possibly doing something with it, I was pretty clueless. One of my biggest issues was structure. My story ideas usually start with a character or an image and rarely is there a plot of any kind to be found and I didn't have the faintest idea what story structure really meant. I would write pages and pages, a scene here, a character sketch there, but never get any closer to my goal.

Then my friend Meg lent me a book called Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. The book is part of the Write Great Fiction series and is all about exactly what the title says. Not only did this book help me figure out what I was lacking and what I needed to think about when crafting a novel, but it was also humorous and completely engaging, not dry or boring like I would expect a reference text to be. And if you want some added awesome, follow James Scott Bell on Twitter because he has lots of great insight to offer and does so often.

So if you are a writer and you struggle with plot or structure (or even if you don't), this is a great resource to pick up and learn from. And if something else is more worrisome for you, like dialogue or revision, there are more Write Great Fiction titles out there waiting to be help.