An Experiment in Writing – Part 30: What Happens Next?
Joseph Carrabis -
May 7, 2025
Experiments in WritingPlotStoryCraftingStoryTellingStyleWorks In Progress

As noted in previous experiments, these missals are for my benefit and it’s great if you also benefit, and I’m doing them really to remind/teach myself how to write better.

Case in point, this one.

I got stuck – note, stuck, not blocked. To me, getting stuck and getting blocked are two entirely different things, and there’ll be an experiment about them soon – in Fains I and couldn’t get beyond where I got stuck.

Fortunately, I’ve studied with smarter and wiser people than I and learned from them.

They may disagree with the latter.

This experiment may help both Plotters and Pantzers. Let me know.

 
Think I’m onto something? Take a class with me, schedule a critique of your work, or buy me a coffee.
Think I’m an idiot? Let me know in a comment.
Either way, we’ll both learn something.

Get copies of my books because it’s a nice thing to do, you care, you can follow along, and I need the money.

All Experiments

#Experiments in WritingFains IPlotStoryCraftingStoryTellingStyle

2 Responses

  1. An Experiment in Writing – Part 31: Who Haven’t I Written About Lately? – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog says:
    2025-05-14 at 1:51 pm

    […] experiment follows up An Experiment in Writing – Part 30: What Happens Next? as it can be used as a second step (kicking it up a notch?) if “What Happens Next?” […]

  2. An Experiment in Writing – Part 32: Let the Characters Do the Work – Joseph Carrabis, Author Blog says:
    2025-05-21 at 3:48 pm

    […] this experiment the end of an arc beginning with An Experiment in Writing – Part 30: What Happens Next? and continuing with An Experiment in Writing – Part 31: Who Haven’t I Written About […]

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Experiments in Writing
1 – This is How It Begins
2 – Openings
3 – More on Openings, Closings
4 – More on Closings
5 – More on Openings – Establishing Voice, Atmosphere, Setting, and Narrator
6 – Authenticity
7 – Inciting Incidents
8 – Worthy Antagonists
9 – Final Conflicts Worth Reading
10 – Action Scenes (finally)
11 – Language and Word Choice
12 – Overwriting, Toing and Froing
13 – Exposition via Dialogue
14 – Exposition via Character Revelation via Deep POV
15 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 1 – Character Voice
16 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 2 – Author as Character
17 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 3 – Author IS Character
18 – Character Voice, Author Voice Part 4 – Author Voice
19 – Plotlines, Timeslines, Throughlines
20 – Plotting, Pantzing, and Procrastinating – The 3Ps Every Author Should Know and Love
21 – More on Exposition via Dialogue – Holmeses&Watsons
22 – More on Plotlines, Timelines, and Throughlines
23 – Into the Mythic
24 – A Little More Into The Mythic, and The Rule of Three
25 – Accidental POV Shifts
26 – World-Building via 1stPPOV
27 – How to read as an author
28 – Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone Teaches Writing
29 – Character via Exposition
30 – What Happens Next?
31 – Who Haven’t I Written About Lately?
32 – Let the Characters Do the Work
33 – Writer’s Block versus Writer Stuck
34 – Editing
35 – Write Moments and Feelings
36 – Timeline and Plotline Convergence (an Example)
37 – Time Manglement
38 – Subjectively Objective and Objectively Subjective
39 – The First Word
40 – Blurbs, Pitches, and But-Then-Except
41 – An Example of “The First Word”
42 – Technique versus Craft
43 – A Humbling Experience – Robin Wilkey Gregory’s Killing Time
44 – What’s a ‘Flaknoc’? (revealing anything through character interactions)
45 – Drinking the Sand
46 – Atrribution via Action (and a little bit more)
47 – Overwhelmedness
48 – An Experiment in Writing – Part 48: Eating My Own Dogfood (more on reading like an editor, critiquing your own work)
49 – An Experiment in Writing – Part 49: Write/Be/Do What Interests You
50 – Match Narrative Voice to Character Voice
51 – Marketing is a Four-Letter Word
52 – Subtlety
53 – An Example of Poor Story Crafting
54 – You’re not Stephen King, Nora Roberts, JK Rowling, Dan Brown, … so get over it
55 – Backcover copy and Blurbs (again)
56 – Creating Tension, Building Tension
57 – More on Character Voice (Showing Change through Tone, Language, Behavior)