Ask Elnora--About the Seven Deadly Sins?--Lenora Worth

Hello, my name is Lenora and I'm a sinner. There, I said it. But thankfully, I write books where I can analyze sin and tweak sin a bit. I also write about characters who, gasp, actually don't always act in a Christian kind of way. I try to make my characters human (or at least they are that way by the end of the book.) :)

Today, I'll be teaching a workshop at my home chapter of RWA--NOLA Stars. My talk will be about The Seven Deadly Sins verses The Seven Heavenly Virtues. I also throw in The Seven Corporate Virtues and then add seven deadly habits verses seven caring habits. And to add yet another layer, I use seven original plots. This is like playing tic-tac-toe or working a cross-word puzzle. It's a fun way to connect the dots of plotting books. So let's say I take Pride and mix it with Prudence. Then I throw in feeding the hungry. Now I have a contemporary story set in an inner-city neighborhood or a historical story set along a wagon train trail. Or I could take Lust and pit it against Love and throw in a quest or a rebirth and now I have conflict. Or I can mix Anger with Courage and make it either a tragedy or a comedy. Now I just have to figure out that happy ending! The possibilities are many and it helps when you're stuck on coming up with a strong plot. This is a good way to use Biblical principles to strengthen the threads of a plot. And we surely want those Biblical principles running through our stories, right?

In my workshop, I will use an example of one of my proposals to break this down and show how I matched these elements up to create a plot. Fun stuff! But in the meantime, we can discuss this right here, right now. Do you like this plot technique? Do you hate it? Do you understand it? The way-smart Craftie Ladies here can add their own plot devices! And it's not even Third Friday Writing Day. But since I'm speaking on this subject, might as well share it here, too! What do you think?