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Consider Using Episodic Fiction Plot Structure – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Oct. 21, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Consider Using Episodic Fiction Plot Structure
One powerful way to write a novel is episodically. Called episodic fiction, it breaks from the traditional introduction-rising action-climax story structure by presenting an anthology of brief stories or anecdotes usually about a single character, set of characters, or place. READ MORE

Writing Advice: How to Overcome Writer’s Block
There are many reasons people get writer’s block – their mind is preoccupied, the environment they’re writing in isn’t conducive to creating, the idea they’ve come up with isn’t particularly good, a lack of imagination or skill to develop the story, coming to the laptop with no idea to write about, and many more. My new book, Overcoming Writer’s Block, helps you understand the cause of your writer’s block then goes into detail on strategies for overcoming each one. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Speed up Story by Curtailing Dramatic Narration
Sometimes events in a story must be summed up, that is told rather than shown. When doing so, the author makes use of dramatic narration. Typically, the dramatic narration (aka summary narration) compresses time between scenes. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: What are the Steps in the Publishing Process?
How does the written work get moved from editing to publishing – how does that process work? The details of the process are different for everyone, but every aspiring book writer follows the same general steps. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Does a Self-Published Author Need to Incorporate?
When self-publishing a book, you essentially are starting a business. So should you incorporate? Most authors will say the general answer is “no.” LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Where to Find Reviewers for Your Book
When other readers and writers give good reviews of your book, it will translate into additional sales. Perhaps even more importantly, it increases your name recognition, raising anticipation for and sales of your next title. The challenge then is to find reviewers. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “The Marks of the Feather” by Imee C. Nudas
Last year, I had the privilege of editing multiple drafts of Imee C. Nudas’ fantasy long poem, The Marks of the Feather. Imee came up with a winner! Written in decasyllabic quatrain, the story of Maximus and Layna begins tragically when they are cursed by a dark spell. While their lives seem forever changed and their fate determined for the worst, nothing would prepare them for when their paths cross. Suddenly, they find themselves enthralled in a magical world bewitched by each other’s wondrous gifts and indelible mark. But will the mark be powerful enough to alter their fates and vanquish the dark spell they are under? CHECK IT OUT

$25 Off Your Next Edit!
For being a newsletter subscriber, please take $25 off your next edit with Inventing Reality Editing Service. When scheduling your edit, be sure to mention you’re a subscriber and give the email where you received this newsletter. Minimum order of $200. Offer expires Oct. 28, 2025. SCHEDULE EDIT

My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of both aspiring and published writers and offers a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of a novel, the Storytelling 101 Quick Read series, four children’s books, more than 25 bestselling hiking guidebooks, and even a book of poetry. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Do You Need Extra Services a Print on Demand House Offers?

As you go through the self-publishing process, you might find the array of tasks before you overwhelming – design a book cover, get a photo of yourself, proofread the manuscript, format the text, upload the text, pen a cover blurb, write then send out press releases, etc. etc. etc. – and you’re a writer, not an artist, marketing professional, or book publisher. Given this, you’re probably relieved to see self-publishing houses offer such services.

But which of those services do you really need? And are they a good deal?

You probably need some of the services that self-publishing houses offer. Unless you have experience working with publications beyond writing, you simply may not have the expertise to put together a professional-looking book. The good news is that even if lacking such experience, you still can do it on your own by reading guidebooks, such as this one, so long as you are willing to make the time commitment.

Still, you have to know when you’re out of your league. For example, I’ve designed some of my books’ covers and contracted designers to handle the rest. While I can do basic design work, the more sophisticated the artwork, the less capable I was of pulling it off. For those complex projects, I searched out design experts with the necessary skills and software.

But needing some of the services that a self-publishing house offers doesn’t mean you need to purchase them from a self-publishing house. Such houses typically charge more than what freelancers would (Full disclosure here: I offer some editing and self-publishing services as a freelancer.). In addition, many self-publishing houses don’t offer the most personal service; after all, they have hundreds of clients on any given day who need work done, so often templates that don’t best meet your needs are used and little contact with you beyond generic-sounding emails occurs. Further, you probably aren’t getting the best expertise when going with a self-publishing house. Their employees tend to be straight out of college, and while they may know their self-publishing house’s systems really well, ask yourself who you want designing your book cover – someone with several years of experience or someone who started a few months ago and uses a template?

The downside of not going with a self-publishing houses’ suite of prepackaged services is that you now become a general contractor. Finding freelancers requires you to shop around. First you’ll need to identify some freelancers. A simple Google search or going to websites where you can bid for freelancers’ services (such as Elance or Guru.com) is a good way to start. Next, when soliciting bids, you need to clearly state for freelancers what you want them to accomplish for you. Be specific when explaining yourself. Consider asking freelancers to answer a few questions about themselves – such as years of experience, seeing a portfolio, how they charge for services, turnaround time, and references – to help you make an informed decision. Finally, while how every author arrives at a final decision of who to contract always is a personal matter, consider balancing the elements of cost, experience, and meeting your specific needs. In short, don’t make a decision solely based on who’s the lowest bidder. Proven experience almost always trumps cost if you want a quality product.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past 15 years, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

Writing Affirmation: A Real Writer Doesn’t Quit

The moment you write – even if not a published author – you are a writer. The moment you stop, you cease to be one. And by “stop” I don’t mean pause for the day so you can sleep, cook or shower. I mean when you give up on writing, thinking you’ll never master the craft and that no one ever will read your work.

Those thoughts are self-fulfilling prophesies. Of course, you’ll never master the craft of writing – how can you when you’re not writing? And of course no one ever will read your work – how can they when you haven’t yet published your writing?

The key to success in any endeavor is persistence. Basketball players succeed, for example, because they constantly practice shooting the ball. Attorneys succeed because they research the law until they find the argument that best supports their client. Musicians succeed because they keep working on a melody until they develop one that is breathtakingly beautiful.

Writers succeed because they keep writing.

Will you persist or give up?

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Web Text Demands Different Kind of Writing Style

Most people read websites by scanning. That is, they don’t read every word but skim over the page, searching for words that are of interest to them. Once they find those words, their reading may slow to include every word, as if they were reading a magazine article or a novel.

Indeed, website visitors read only about 20% of the text per page, according to one study.

This then demands a different approach to writing than what you’d find in print (such as newspaper, magazines and books), where people are more likely to read a passage word for word. The challenge is to write as tightly and crisply as possible so that the website text is easy to scan through.

When writing for the web, follow these basic guidelines:
• Every word counts – Be succinct and specific by using fragments, short sentences and writing in the active voice. Every word used must carry useful information: Readers expect immediacy and utility when they come to a website.
• Bulleted points rock – Such points, like this list, are easier for website readers to scan.
• Create the tone that your reader would expect from your site – Visitors to a site for a party clown expect corny jokes. Visitors to a site for attorneys expect sophistication and no-nonsense professionalism. At the same time, you must be understandable … many people needing your service probably do because they don’t know much about what you’re the expert at.
• Short is better – Studies show that the idea word count for page is between 30 and 1,250 words. Any more and people typically skip the bulk of the text.
• Think search engine – Keywords must be included so that your website can be found on a search engine. With so many websites out there to choose from, you must embed in your web pages signposts that bring traffic to your site; those signposts are keywords. At the risk of being simplistic, if you sell T-shirts, that word needs to be in your text.
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Check out some of my book marketing guidebooks:

Great Writing Quotes by Author P.G. Wodehouse

I know I was writing stories when I was five. I don’t know what I did before that. Just loafed I suppose.

I never want to see anyone, and I never want to go anywhere or do anything. I just want to write.

I just sit at my typewriter and curse a bit.

It has been well said that an author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo.

I should think it extremely improbable that anyone ever wrote for money. Naturally, when he has written something, he wants to get as much for it as he can, but that is a very different thing from writing for money.

Every author really wants to have letters printed in the papers. Unable to make the grade, he drops down a rung of the ladder and writes novels.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

How to Write a Press Release for Your Book

If you’re trying to promote your book, you’ll almost certainly want to write a press release.

A press release is an article you send to mainstream media (such as newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations), bloggers and website editors to bring attention to some newsworthy event. In your case, that event may be the release of your book, an award it receives, or your scheduled book reading at the local coffeehouse.

Should you want to increase book sales, you’ll need to find ways to reach a great number of people in one shot. A newspaper article or interview on a blog is an excellent way to accomplish that. But to get a write-up about you or the book, you need to let the media, bloggers and others know that you exist. A press release helps you achieve that.

Unless you actually send a press release promoting your book and you, you’re very unlikely to receive any attention. Why? Because almost nobody knows about you or your book.

A well-written press release general contains these basic elements:
• Contact information – This lists how the press release’s recipient can communicate with you. It gives your name, snail mail address, telephone number, email and website address.
• Release date – Sometimes you want to advise the media of an upcoming event but ask that they withhold the information until a certain time; the media often appreciates this as this gives them time to write a news story and plan coverage. If you want reporters to wait to release information, write “EMBARGOED UNTIL (GIVE DATE).” If the media is free to use the release as soon they set eyes upon it, write “FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)
• Headline – In four or five words, tell exactly what the press release is about in a compelling manner. Try to connect the wording to the media outlet or reporter you sent it to by listing a geographical area or topic that they cover.
• Subhead – This is a second headline that either elaborates on the main headline or adds information that would be of interest to the media person reading it.
• Dateline – Appearing at the beginning of the press release’s opening paragraph, the dateline gives what city the news originated from and the day it was written.
• Lede – This is the opening paragraph of the news article you’ve written. It typically gives the who, what, why, when, where and how of the news article
• Text – This is the bulk of the press release. It tells what the book is about, biographical information about the author, and offers quotations from the author or others relevant to the news even being covered, such as the bookstore manager where you’re having a book reading or the head of the organization that is giving the book or the author an award.
• Book specs – This is a bulleted list that tells the following about your book: date it was published; publisher; ISBN: 978-0-615-51220-4; price; pages; cover: (hard or paperback); trim size; website URL
• End – Center the “###” after the book specs list to indicate the press release is finished.
• Captions for any photos – Also known as cutlines, these tell about any photo that was sent with the press release. Make sure the name of the photo given in the cutline matches that of the sent photo.
• Contact information – This repeats the contact information provided at the press release’s beginning. This is done to ensure that the media can easily find how to reach you (which is what you want them to do!)

For a sample press release (in this case, announcing the publication of a book), see the one I wrote for my book, “Hikes with Tykes: A Practical Guide to Day Hiking with Kids.” The release itself was published exactly as written by several media outlets and generated reporter phone calls from as many more.

Remember that each time you send a press release to a different reporter or media outlet, you probably need to revise a little of it. Media and bloggers look for releases that are very specific to their markets, whether that be geographic in the case of newspapers or topical in the case of bloggers. Gearing each release to the recipient increases your chances of garnering attention. In addition, update the date provided in the dateline as well, using the day of the week that you actually send the press release.

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My name is Rob Bignell. I’m an affordable, professional book editor who runs Inventing Reality Editing Service, which meets the manuscript needs of writers both new and published. I also offer a variety of self-publishing services. During the past decade, I’ve helped more than 400 novelists and nonfiction authors obtain their publishing dreams at reasonable prices. I’m also the author of 80 books including the Storytelling 101 writing guidebooks, four nonfiction hiking guidebook series, and the literary novel Windmill. Several of my short stories in the literary and science fiction genres also have been published.

Check out some of my book marketing guidebooks:

Consider Using The Journey for a Mythic Plot – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Oct. 14, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Consider Using The Journey for a Mythic Plot
One of the most common plot forms in modern fantasy and science fiction novels is the mythic structure. Often called a quest, in the mythic structure the protagonist undertakes an expedition that carries some moral significance or deeper meaning. Typically our hero seeks some definitive object, which usually is symbolic of some abstract moral ideal; this object sometimes is referred to as a grail, a treasure or an elixir and in modern stories often is called a grail substitute. READ MORE

Writing Advice: Using a Writing Process When Writing Nonfiction
One of the biggest mistakes aspiring authors make is denying that they’re following a process when writing a book. These writers often say they write “from the seat of their pants.” Yet, every writer goes through five basic steps if they finish and publish their nonfiction book. Understanding those five basic steps can help authors identify why they’re having trouble writing. Maybe their book idea isn’t very good. Possibly they haven’t thought through it enough. Maybe they’re not revising it efficiently. My book Following a Writing Process for Nonfiction takes you through the five steps of the writing process. Among the many topics covered include brainstorming story ideas, outlining the book, drafting it, revising, and formatting. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Different Levels, Kinds of Editing Exist
Not all edits done by an editor are equal. Depending on your ability as a writer and the number of drafts you’ve taken a manuscript through, you will require a different type of edit. Knowing the four general kinds of edits can help you better determine and then communicate to an editor the type of service you need. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Add Social Sharing Links to Your Ebook
One great way to generate ebook sales is word of mouth. You can get readers who liked your title to spread the word via social media simply by including a few social media links at the back of your ebook. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: Improve Story’s Pacing by Deleting Authorisms
Sometimes when writers just can’t think of what to put on the page, they resort to an inappropriate technique known as an authorism. An authorism – coined by American writer Thomas M. Disch – occurs when the writer places his or her physical environment, mannerisms and prejudices into the story. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Why You Want Reviews Written About Your Book
By getting the word out about your book, hopefully people will then talk and write about it. This largely will occur when reviews of your title begin to appear. Such reviews might run on blogs about your genre or subject matter (hence the importance of sending such media a press release to make them aware of your book), on the Amazon.com or Goodreads pages for your book, or even in published periodicals. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Castooli County to DC: Monster Hunt” by Mark Policinski
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of editing this political thriller story, which would make for a perfect election year read. Mark Policinski’s Castooli County to DC: Monster Hunt tells the story of two different worlds. One is the hard life of Capitol Hill, where Joe Hickcock, top aide to the next President of the United States, is dogged by an evil that is with him every day and who he knows excruciatingly well. The other world is a bucolic county in Michigan where Sheriff Arthur Bract must confront and solve a most hideous murder. The two worlds are not disconnected. CHECK IT OUT

Follow Heinlein’s Rules to Land Big Book Deal

Getting published via traditional means requires a lot of hard work and self-discipline. A long road runs between having an idea for a story and actually seeing it on a bookstore shelf or within a magazine’s covers.

Science fiction great Robert Heinlein said writers only needed to follow five simple steps to ensure they were published authors. These steps since have been coined “Heinlein’s Rules.” Heinlein often joked that he had no qualms about sharing these “secret” steps as most people lacked the self-discipline to actually work through each one.

The rules are:
• Rule One – You Must Write
• Rule Two – Finish What Your Start
• Rule Three – You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order
• Rule Four – You Must Put Your Story on the Market
• Rule Five – You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Hugo winner Robert J. Sawyer once wrote that if you started with a hundred people who wanted to be published, fully half of them would give up on writing at each step. By the time you got through Rule Five, that would leave just three of the original hundred still writing!

The moral is if you want to become published, you must stick it through the entire process. Don’t give up – that, after all, is the quickest way to remain unpublished.

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Check out some of my self-publishing guidebooks:

Great Writing Quotes by Author James Baldwin

One writes out of one thing only – one’s own experience. Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from this experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give. This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.

Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but most of all, endurance.

Artists are here to disturb the peace.

This is the only real concern of the artist, to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art.

When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.

You cannot describe anything without betraying your point of view, your aspirations, your fears, your hopes. Everything.

An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else can tell, what it is like to be alive.

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Check out some of my writing guidebooks:

Three-Act Structure Offers Alternate Story Plot – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Oct. 7, 2025

Plotting Your Book: Three-Act Structure Offers Alternate Story Plot
One common way to think about how a story is organized is the three-act structure. This approach dates to Aristotle, who stated that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. READ MORE

Following a Writing Process for Fiction
One of the biggest mistakes aspiring authors make is denying that they’re following a process when writing a short story or a novel. These writers often say they write “from the seat of their pants.” Yet, every story goes through five basic steps if the author finishes and publishes it. Understanding those five basic steps can help authors identify why they’re having trouble writing a story. Maybe their story idea isn’t very good. Possibly they haven’t thought through the story enough. Maybe they’re not revising it efficiently. Following a Writing Process for Fiction describes the five steps of the writing process. Among the many topics covered include brainstorming story ideas, outlining the story, drafting it, revising your drafts, formatting, and how to troubleshoot your story to find which step you need to spend more time on. SEE BOOK

Writing Tip: Which Story Setting to Use? Backdrop vs. integral
All stories contain a setting – a time and a place in which the plot occurs – but not all settings are all that important to a story. READ MORE

Self-Publishing Tip: Co-authors Can Form ‘General Partnership’
If you’re among those who’ve just co-authored a self-published book, you’re probably wondering exactly how to handle this as a business. The good news is that you can treat your joint venture with much the same ease as you could if an author who’s a self-proprietor. READ MORE

This Week’s Podcast: How to Stay Focused on Writing One Book
Sometimes inspiration strikes for an entirely different book than the one you’re working on. Unfortunately, this can create the problem of stopping one book and starting a new one so that your original work never gets finished. LISTEN TO PODCAST

Book Marketing Tip: Use Consistent Name Across Your Author Platform
As creating an author’s platform – that is, setting up all of the tools you’ll use to get word out about your book – pay close attention to the name you use. All too often, the social media sites for an author utilize different names, which can make you difficult to find. READ MORE

Client Spotlight: “Van Cortlandt Park” by Don Kellin
I edit fiction as well as non fiction manuscripts. One of the former I had the pleasure of working on was Don Kellin’s Van Cortlandt Park. A mysterious 65 year-old recluse lives in a drywall build-out in a basement but often spends the night sleeping on a blue tarp in a clearing in Van Cortlandt park’s bushes when the heat in the basement is oppressive. Something in his past makes life unbearable. Several men and women, leading separate lives, facing separate crises, drawn together by fate, attempt to rebuild their future, and this man will change all of their lives forever. CHECK IT OUT