‘Developing Your Plot Updated’ is a class I wrote and taught eight years ago. Now you get to learn it all for free, with the new things I’ve learned in the past eight years and through ten self-published books. I’ll give YOU Free Plotting Lessons right now in this blog post, right from the class.
Developing Your Plot Updated – Cast of Characters
First, there’s me, the teacher character, Andy Zach. If you’re not familiar with my biography on this site, you can go to Amazon, Square, or to Goodreads and find out about me and my books.
Then there’s you, one of many student characters. What have you written? Are you writing? What will you write? Please share your plot/novel/work ideas with me and the class by commenting below.
You MUST comment to participate in this class–or I’ll send the zombie turkeys after you!
That’s my big turkey stick. The carrot is, I will give a free ebook of Zombie Turkeys to one of the commenters!
Start commenting – NOW!
Developing Your Plot Updated- Where Will You Go with Your Idea?
You’ve got your great idea for your novel. What’s next? Authors fall into a spectrum of two approaches. First, there are plotters, who plan out the plot of their book and then write to that plan. Then there are ‘pantsers’, those who sit on their pants and type away until a book emerges–or not. Then there are endless variations between the two. I’m firmly in the first group. If you want to learn the pantser approach, find another author! I can’t even imagine how I’d write that way, and I’ve got a good imagination.
Let’s take my first novel, Zombie Turkeys.I created a chapter outline of the book on my first day of writing it duringNaNoMo.
Free Kindle edition of “Zombie Turkeys”. Click to download.
Get Your Free Zombie Turkeys Before It’s Too Late! It’s never too late for zombie turkeys to show up; they’re diurnal. But in three days it’ll be too late for Free Zombie Turkeys. Click the book cover below to get it now.
What is about? A comical zombie turkey apocalypse where the turkeys regenerate rather than rot.
It’s about Sam Melvin, a high school graduate pursuing a story to his possible death.
It’s about Lisa Kambacher, his editor, driving him onagainst the zombies to vault her small town newspaper into prominence.
Get Your Free Zombie Turkeys–have a look inside
Have a taste of Zombie Turkeys, read by your’s truly, Andy Zach, on my Youtube channel.
Get Your Free Zombie Turkeys – Listen to Reviewers
This one is definitely NOT a turkey!, July 18, 2017
‘He felt great, he was full of energy. He had many hens to breed with, and he was the leader of a great flock.’
Sam Melvin is a reporter with the Midley Beacon, it’s a tiny local paper – with an online presence – run by its penny-pinching editor Lisa Kambacher. When Sam sees the two turkey hunters on the slab in the local mortuary, he knows he has a story to cover and he sets out to do so with great gusto. As the zombie turkeys multiply, Sam and Lisa are the leading media team on the ground and the Midley Beacon goes international, solving their financial woes and syndicating their work across the globe. But it’s not all good news. After all, there are those people-killing zombie turkeys heading into town…
This was a book I picked up with trepidation as it seemed all too possible it would be a ‘one trick pony’ stretching a single joke to beyond breaking point across the length of an entire novel. Wrong! It is like a bowl of potpourri on the sideboard of life – lots of subtle blending examples of humour – many of them very American so I suspect there were even more than I noticed, handicapped by my British perspective. This is a book that takes ironic comedy to a whole new level – maybe ‘steelic’ comedy…? Humour is a very personal thing, but this book hit me right on the funny bone.
‘Wanted badly: .30-06 carbine. Will trade hunting dog or wife for it.’
This is a well-written book which takes a totally deadpan approach to a thoroughly – hysterically – funny sequence of events. It is dark comedy, so avoid if you are squeamish. The pace of the book rolls along in a perfect, unhurried way – screaming up into the action sequences and taking time to enjoy the more delicious moments of humour.
The story itself is a lot deeper than many real zombie books and the explanation for the zombie phenomenon is as clever as it is satirical.The characters are well portrayed, deep enough to engage with and care about, but not so deep you get distracted from what they are doing by their personalities. They are the agents through which we see the events unfolding rather than the focus of the story. But the humour is subtle, all-pervading: like the idea of the survivalist organic turkey farmer, part of a network of such, living off grid – except for ordering things from Amazon on his wife’s credit card of course…
‘The most disheartening thing was, she’d stab one through the heart. It’d drop fifteen feet to the ground with a satisfying thud. Then it’d stagger to its feet five minutes later and fly back up fifteen minutes later.’
The downside is that maybe some of the humour is lost on a non-US reader. There were a couple of moments I thought ‘Huh?’ then decided it was probably a reference to something outside my cultural parameters. The only other criticism I had was that it maybe played the theme along a tiny bit too far and perhaps had a few scenes been a bit shorter, a bit less detail on the way the plague spread, or a couple of turkey attacks left out – it might have been a sharper read. But these are very minor nit-picks against the whole.This is a book I can recommend wholeheartedly to anyone who enjoys slow-boil satire and does not mind a few gory giblets thrown in the mix. If you want a good comedy read, you should gobble this up!
Did Someone Say “Gobble”?
Watch another video of a gobbling turkey:
Next, take a gander at this one:
What Can Top Getting Free Zombie Turkeys?
Maybe some cranberry sauce? How about a sequel, My Undead Mother-in-law? You can get it on Kindle by clicking here:
New Book Coming! Get It by clicking here!
My Undead Mother-in-law, Chapter 5 Icon
Or you can have a print book shipped to you by clicking on the chapter icon ==>
What Happened After Jesus Was Born? For the 3rd Day of Christmas you’ll enjoy this Christmasy excerpt from my non-fiction book, The Gospel Medley.
What happened between the shepherds’ visit to the manger and the wise men’s visit to the house? In this last of a two-part series, you’ll find out! Plus, you’ll read another momentous prophecy and testimony about Jesus soon after His birth.
That’s not all–my other twenty-five gifts are below for your reading pleasure, not just this one gift! You don’t have to unwrap them–just click on them.
Let me know what you think by clicking here or emailing me at [email protected]. As always, everyone who responds with a comment or email will get a free book from me.
36 There was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher (she was of a great age, having lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, 37 and she had been a widow for about eighty-four years), who didn’t depart from the temple, worshiping with fastings and petitions night and day. 38 Coming up at that very hour, she gave thanks to the Lord, and spoke of Him to all those who were looking for redemption in Jerusalem. 39 When they [Joseph and Mary had accomplished all things that were according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth.[1].
[1] Joseph and Mary eventually returned to Nazareth but moved to a house in Bethlehem by the time the wise men visited. Since Herod died in March of 4 BC, this episode had to take place before then but after Jesus’s birth. “All these things” included the circumcision (nine days) and the purification (thirty days) plus at least three days for travel and three days back. At least two months passed before they fled to Egypt. We know the wise men visited them while they resided in Bethlehem. After their flight to Egypt, they returned to Nazareth.
What Happened After Jesus Was Born? The Next Episode in Jesus’s Life
The four icons of the four gospels
The Flight to Egypt
Matthew 2:13–23
13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise and take the young child and His mother, and flee into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, for Herod will seek the young child to destroy Him.”
14 He arose and took the young child and His mother by night, and departed into Egypt, 15 and was there until the death of Herod;
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”[1]
Herod’s Slaughter
16 Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked by the wise men, was exceedingly angry, and sent out, and killed all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all the surrounding countryside, from two years old and under, according to the exact time which he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then that which was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet was fulfilled, saying,
18 “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children; she wouldn’t be comforted, because they are no more.”[2]
19 But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, 20 “Arise and take the young child and his mother, and go into the land of Israel, for those who sought the young child’s life are dead.”
21 He arose and took the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in the place of his father, Herod, he was afraid to go there. Being warned in a dream, he withdrew into the region of Galilee, 23 and came and lived in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets: “He will be called a Nazarene.”
Footnotes from This Section
Back cover detail
[1]Hosea 11:1 – “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.”
[2]Jeremiah 31:15 – Yahweh says: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
What Happened After Jesus Was Born? Conclusion
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This one is definitely NOT a turkey!, July 18, 2017
