The Writer's Compass

There is lots of advice around for writers, and The Writer’s Compass distils it all into simple concepts from which to construct a story map. A story map visually presents  the elements that comprise saleable fiction in map form, and a writer’s compass is an internal one that helps navigate around the story map.

The book shows how to construct a story map for your own work (either in graphic form or as a picture map), how to use it to drive your story forward, to improve it, and finally to polish it into saleable form.

As you navigate your map, the book gives all the help you need to find and develop ideas, to create characters that fit your structure and can carry the story forward, to write believable dialogue, and to adjust your tension and pacing to the ideal level (which is where the story map is particularly useful). It all gives your writing sessions a new discipline and purpose.