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    The Gonzo Novelist's Down and Dirty Guide to Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush
    The Gonzo Novelist's Down and Dirty Guide to Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush
    The Gonzo Novelist's Down and Dirty Guide to Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush
    Ebook55 pages38 minutes

    The Gonzo Novelist's Down and Dirty Guide to Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush

    By Don Templeton

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    About this ebook

    This is the genre novel writing guide you've been looking for. Lean and mean with no fluff, filler, wazoo theories or politically correct clap-trap. This guide gets right to the point and teaches the beginning writer how to create a complete plot blueprint in 4-Steps. That's it. It doesn't take 500 pages to reveal this. The complete manuscript for this booklet weighed in at 37 full-length document pages. It won't waste your time. Based on the author's 50-plus years of writing and figuring out what works best for him, he will save you years of figuring this out for yourself. Each step of the process has an exercise attached so you can create your own plot as you read the manual. Also included is the secret to developing a distinct, unique voice and writing style in weeks, not years.

    This nifty little manual will teach you how to write a plot that literally explodes in your reader's face, keeping them glued to the page and not obsessing over what's going on in social media.

    Don Templeton is the author of five novels, this writing guide and an upcoming non-fiction title called "Acknowledging the Original Insurgent: Lucifer and the Origins of Unconventional Warfare." Don is a retired Green Beret and author/publisher. His fifth novel, the first book in an action-horror series called Special Task Force: GREEN MAJIK is available as an ebook here on Smashwords. It is called "Pretty Hate Machine."

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDon Templeton
    Release dateNov 16, 2019
    ISBN9780463664353
    The Gonzo Novelist's Down and Dirty Guide to Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush
    Author

    Don Templeton

    DON TEMPLETON is the pen name for the lead writer and founder of the publishing confederation, Blue Falcon Press. He is also the author of four Executioner novels published by Gold Eagle Books (#262, #264, #266, and #276). For the last 20 or so years, Don has been under deep cover inside U.S. Special Operations living the dream and spying on his primary subject matter: soldiers. Don is from the Hemingway School of Writers - a writer has to live his story before he can genuinely write anything of value. That means jumping into Life and getting into a fight with Life. Don has the life scars to prove his bona fides. He has survived 100-plus airborne operations (most of those mass tac with the 3rd Ranger Battalion of the Iran-Contra era), the meat grinder of Special Forces selection (twice - twice is his favorite number), the Q Course where he outwitted alpha boy tab protectors with superior gray man tactics, and went to war with the best ODA the National Guard ever fielded, the Happy Reapers. This background lends volumes of authenticity to the over-the-top novels he writes because he has lived this material. NOTICE: Don is openly looking for other crack pulp writers that want to contribute to this dark and beautiful Dream Time word painting.

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      Book preview

      The Gonzo Novelist's Down and Dirty Guide to Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush - Don Templeton

      The Gonzo Novelist’s Down and Dirty Guide

      To Plotting a Novel like a Well-Timed Mechanical Ambush

      By

      Don Templeton

      New Paladin Press

      Hot Springs, Arkansas

      Copyright © 2020 by Don Templeton

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      Step One

      Step Two

      Step Three

      Step Four

      Now That Shows A Certain Sense Of Style

      The Gonzo Novelist In Theory And Practice

      What Starting With A Bang Looks Like

      About The Author

      Introduction

      This short little how-to book represents 50-plus years of my own trial and error wrestling to find a process that works every time for planning a novel. Over the years, I’ve read a lot of books published by Writer’s Digest on the subject of plotting. Some were good. Some were wacky complex. Some were just pages and pages of theory and filler that took forever to get to the point.

      I did, in fact, find my cookie cutter formula that works like gangbusters every time. All I do is plug in my specifics and in 4-Steps; I have the blueprint for a novel.

      So without further ado, let’s get down to brass tacks. No filler. No fluff. No BS, just these 4-Steps that will take you to where you need to be in order to start the actual writing of your novel. It’s really not hard to write a good genre novel. The hard part is figuring out what exactly it is you are writing and why.

      This 4-Step process I use will deliver you from the shores of angst and despair and writer’s block into the ranks of writers who fill pages that are on target with no flying by the seat of your pants.

      You’ll know exactly what the hell it is you are doing.

      I guarantee it.

      So let’s begin.

      STEP ONE.

      So you want to tell a tale. What do you do? Just sit down and start writing it from the beginning? Do you even know where to begin?

      Well, the first step is a simple requirement...or so it would seem.

      Your task, O Jedi Scribe, is to write one stinking sentence.

      That's it. One sentence. Now to create that sentence, you're going to have to boil the entire narrative essence of your Epic Tale down to one sentence which focuses on the line of action and the character (or characters). When you achieve the objective, you will know exact what it is you are writing and why. They say the hardest thing about writing is knowing what to write. Your finished sentence will brilliantly distill what it is you are writing.

      Write a paragraph or pages of notes attacking your idea from every angle. Then take that raw material and slash it down to one perfectly worded sentence. Make mind maps if that helps you see your material.

      But when you are done, you will have a sentence that tells your story. If you've ever read TV Guide descriptions of what a show is about, this is exactly what you are attempting to do. In Hollywood, this is called the logline. In fact,

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