5 more Scrivener templates

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Screenshot of open Scrivener template showing the new template sheets.
5 new Scrivener template sheets for your enjoyment.

I might have previously mentioned that I love templates, and you might ask why. I love them because they make world-building easier, not in a ‘this is how things must be done’ way, but in a ‘here’s some questions to get you started’ way.

Sometimes, when I’m in the thick of creating a story, or the world it’s going to be set in, I have an idea for a something (generally a plant, animal, person or thing). This something often plays an important role in my developing plot (or world), and while I may know a few details, such as its name and function, the nitty-gritty can elude me. 

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Beat sheet to the rescue, pantser-style

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The 7-point plot system, applied to Hero-Fink.
The 7-point plot system really helped me to nail my plot.

A few weeks ago, I was at the half-way point of my first draft and having trouble with my plot. After ten months of steadily pounding away at the keyboard and chipping at the word count, I was increasing asking myself “what the $#*! happens now?” Although I knew what was going to happen at the end of my story, I didn’t know:

  1. how I was going to get there, or
  2. how all of my subplots were meant to tie in.

And frankly, it was driving me batty.

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Scrivener templates for you and me

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Scrivener - Snowflake layout w QuickReference
A new project using the Snowflake Method template. As you can see, I like to be organised and I really, really, like templates.

This week, I decided to take a break from my frustrations (otherwise known as a first draft) and trial the Snowflake Method of writing a novel. I even found a great Scrivener template to start me off.

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Meet Fink

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Meet Fink. He’s the size of a horse, has a tail, six legs and is Hero’s best, if not only, friend. Weighing in at six-hundred and twenty-two kilos with twenty-six claws and a mouth full of pointy teeth, most people find Fink intimidating, but underneath all that fur beats the heart of a teddy bear. … Read more

Review: Goldrush by Steven Lochran

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Goldrush by Steven Lochran
I love superheroes, and those sunnies are cool too.

I just had to read this book; when I saw it on Kobo.com the want drove me crazy. It drove me so crazy that when I discovered my local library didn’t have a copy but one of its sister libraries did, I drove half an hour to pick it up. Like I said, crazy.

What, you may ask, drove me so crazy? Well, I would answer, I have this thing for superheroes… Plus it had a really cool cover (so I’m shallow; sue me). You can see the original art (which is even cooler) here.

Some sort of cross between The Incredibles and X-men, Goldrush is a classic superhero story where a reluctant hero (Sam) must embrace his special powers in order to save the world. I liked Sam’s reasons for not wanting to use his powers/be a superhero, although, until they were explained in full, those reasons were a little wishy washy. I particularly liked how Lochran made these reasons feel real (when he did explain them fully) by putting names and faces to the people who were injured when Sam first used his power.

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Alanna of Trebond – a childhood hero

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Alanna, the Lioness
Alanna, the Lioness

I first devoured the Song of the Lioness series when I was ten; to say that it was my favourite set of books ever is to understate the case. Alanna, the series protagonist, was my childhood hero, and not just because she had a magic sword and a talking cat. Alanna was my hero because she was doing something forbidden and getting away with it.

It wasn’t an especially bad thing that she was doing, like selling drugs or stealing, she was just doing what the boys did – playing with swords, riding horses, going to war – and if that meant she had to lie about her gender, well, that only added to the tension.

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Wildlife of the weird and wonderful kind

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Mogwai from the Gremlins films
Spawns monsters when wet.

On Jørn, Hero’s world, people live in vast floating cities, far out of reach of an airborne toxin known as Pollen. Pollen is only toxic to humans, leaving much of the planet unexplored and its surface teeming with all sorts of weird and wonderful wildlife.

For Hero, being a xenozoologist and going down to the surface to see and study that wildlife seems like the culmination of a dream, even if she does have to be bundled up in an envrio-suit to do it.

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Pledged by Gwynneth White

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The cover of 'Pledged' by Gwynneth White
I love this cover, it’s simple yet eye-catching.

Pledged, a paranormal-romance for young adults, makes a good first impression. The cover is well designed, the book trailer impressive and the blurb intriguing, however the story, while good, wasn’t great.

Immediately engaging, with excellent descriptions of place, I felt that the story moved too quickly and that too much happened. Seth and Erin, the protagonists, seemed to spend all of their time jumping from one event to another with little or no time for the reader to take a breath and really get to know them. Perhaps, if the plot hadn’t had so many twists and turns, and so many characters, White could have spent more time involving us in Erin and Seth’s plight. As it is, White has us following three romances (one of which is love/lust triangle, making it doubly complicated) and two father–son relationships, which is too much for a single book.

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