The A - Zs of Mermaid Writing: The A - Zs of Writing

By Lindsey Owens

The handbook of all aspects of mermaid story writing. How to create the perfect Mermaid story and so much more. This handbook includes Mermaid name ideas, Mermaid descriptive words, how to write a mermaid story, how to build a mermaid world, and so much more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lindsey Owens
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215300541

Lindsey Owens

Lindsey is the author of the erotica fiction novel In the Dark as well as The Chocolatier and the new adult novel Fated Love. She also writes werewolf books, romance genre, some teen fiction, new adult fiction, fantasy, and paranormal stories. She has many more novels to come! She's just a girl who wants fun romance novels! Is that so much to ask? Not the same ol' same ol'? Not all love is slow and casual, some are fast paced and nearly overwhelming. Not all paranormal books have vampires! Not all stories have been told!  Seriously!? Lindsey took it upon herself to begin her stories for her own entertainment in the beginning of early 2000. She had not struggled with finding books that captivated her, no, instead stories began to form in her head. The more she read, the more she loved to write. Her romance stories began with her desire to write things down! More romance! More Paranormal Romance!  She lives in the South with her husband and children where she continues to put her thoughts to paper.

Book preview

Chapter 2

A Perfect Story

What Makes the Perfect Story?

To write any story, you need a few pieces and parts to put the story together. So, in order to create the perfect mermaid story in particular, we need to look at first how to create the perfect story in any form.

A perfect story should have a conflict and resolution. It should have tension and release, gains and losses along with setbacks and comebacks, and peaks and troughs. It should have characters with a desire, a need, and a problem.

There are two major writing styles; planners and pantsers. Those who plan to write out their story and those who just go at it and write their story.

Then you have the story...

Story Parts:

Premise

Plotting

Character Design

World Building - this is listed in Chapter 3.

The 3 parts of a Novel - The Setup, The Confrontation, and The Resolution

●  The Chapters, The Setting, The Plot, The Conflict, and the Resolution

Premise

A Premise is the foundation of which an entire novel is built on. A premise is what forms the basis of a theory or a plot. A basic statement upon whose truth an argument is based. Should be 1-2 sentences, short, hooky, and interesting. The premise is the concept of your book. 

Plotting

Plotting is something done differently for everyone, so if your plotting structure works for you... USE IT! But if not, you can find multiple plotting templates and ideas to use. Let’s explore some here.

The most common story structure I have found seems to be the 3-Act Story Structure. It is a classic structure used for storytelling with a clear beginning, middle, and end. Act 1 contains 25% of the story, Act 2 contains 50% of the story, and Act 3 contains 25% of the story. This structure is easy to break down into smaller sections to make a story easier and easier to write. 

You can try the classic 3-Act Story Structure, The Save the Cat by Blake Snyder, or even the Snowflake Method, whatever story structure you find of interest is a great start. 

Character Design

While world building is a controversial aspect of designing a story, especially if you have a non fantasy type story such as romance, the general consensus seems to be that you have to at least come up with a few things to create your character. One of the ways this is done is through a character sheet / character profile sheet / character mapping / or a character template. Each writer has their own qualities which are on those character sheets, but the simplicity and complexity is up to the individual author all together. 

In general, a main character / protagonist sheet should have a name, gender, age, role in the story, basics for their personality and physical description, their flaws and weaknesses, and their three most important pieces; want, need, and problem. In the external goal, these may be considered goals, motivations, and obstacles but overall they are essentially the same. In general, a side character / minor character / or victim character sheet doesn’t need to be as detailed as your main characters but the side character sheet should include name, role in the story, physical description, age, their want, need, and problem, and backstory. Then for an antagonist or villain character the information on your character profile could be just about the same as that on the main character / protagonist sheet but maybe you also want to include a few more specific details about being a villain or antagonist such as do they see themselves as a villain or how do they handle their subordinates. Once you have these key things for your characters you can begin to put together where these characters fit in the story. Remember to make names for your characters that are not similar and do not start with the same letters as much as possible to avoid confusion in the story. Below is a more in-depth list of character development items that can be included all depending on how deep a character sheet is needed or that you want to go. Also this may be more helpful for one type of genre versus