Fictionary is a story-development and editing methodology designed to help writers understand how a novel works as a whole—and how individual scenes contribute to the larger story.
Rather than focusing primarily on grammar, punctuation, or sentence-level editing, the Fictionary approach looks at the underlying structure of a novel: character, plot, setting, scene purpose, conflict, pacing, and the reader’s experience.
For a beginning novelist, that can be especially useful because it provides a practical way to think about a story that may otherwise feel too large or complicated to manage.
Why I Use It
I became a Fictionary Certified StoryCoach Editor because I wanted a more disciplined way to think about story.
The method gives me a practical framework for developing a novel from its earliest stages and, later, for evaluating a completed draft.
It helps turn broad questions such as these—
Is the story working?
Is the protagonist changing?
Does this scene belong?
Is the conflict strong enough?
Is the story moving forward?
—into questions that can actually be examined and answered.
I use that framework in my own novel writing as well as in my work with beginning novelists.
What It Means for a Beginning Novelist
You do not need to know anything about Fictionary before beginning the year-long novel program.
We use its principles gradually as the novel develops.
Early in the process, that may mean thinking about the protagonist, the central story question, major turning points, conflict, and the overall shape of the story.
Later, the same framework becomes useful for examining individual scenes, character development, pacing, story structure, and revision.
The purpose is not to force every novel into a formula.
It is to give the writer a way to understand what the story is doing and to make deliberate decisions about how to strengthen it.
A Framework, Not a Formula
Every novel is different.
Different stories require different choices, different pacing, different structures, and different kinds of characters.
Fictionary does not replace judgment, imagination, or the writer’s own instincts.
What it provides is a framework for asking useful questions.
That matters because writing a novel involves hundreds of decisions. A good framework can help a writer see those decisions more clearly without taking the story away from her.
My Certification
I am a Fictionary Certified StoryCoach Editor.
That certification reflects formal training in the Fictionary approach to story development and structural editing.
It is one part of the framework I bring to my own fiction and to the small number of beginning novelists I work with through my year-long, in-person story-coaching program.
The method matters.
But the novel comes first.
Where to Go Next
If you are considering the year-long novel program, you can learn more about how the program works, the role West Hollow plays in it, and whether it may be a good fit for you.
Learn About the Year-Long Novel Program →
