Author: Judy L Mohr

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A glowing padlock sits at the center of layered circular tech patterns, surrounded by a grid‑like digital background that evokes cybersecurity, data protection, and secure communication.

We Let Them In: Is Privacy Dead?

Protecting oneself on the internet is something that I'm highly passionate about. There are so many ways to get into big trouble within our online interactions that I've made it a personal mission to understand the true nature of the dangers out there.

This is the world that my children have grown up in. They have never known a life when the internet didn't exist. Social media in its various forms has become a massive part of the way they're expected to interact with the world at large, and it's my job, as their mother, to ensure that they know how to navigate this internet-based world safely.

With the increase in internet dependency within our daily lives, there are certain questions that have started to leak to the surface of my consciousness. Almost everything that we do is now online, with very few exceptions.

Sure, you have social media, YouTube and blogs, and TV through the internet means that we can watch what we want to watch when we want to watch it. However, you also have online banking, and you can buy your groceries online. I can pay for my car registration and file my taxes online. I order replacement gas bottles for the house through an app on my phone and I can report issues regarding water leaks or other hazards in my neighborhood using a different app.

My children were expected to submit their homework assignments online. They were even required to sit major exams using online tools. When they were still in high school, I got their report cards sent to me through an online website.

My husband gets his payslips online, and I get paid by overseas clients through online services. Even my royalty checks come in through online payments.

Everything about our world has shifted to online.

New Zealand, as a whole, has become a near cashless society, with EftPos found almost everywhere you go. Those payments go through the internet. Sure, I do have some cash in my wallet, but not much. Everything of importance is bought and paid for using online means.

Yes, this shift to an internet-based society has, for the most part, made our lives easier, but has it really made it safer?

How has this push to doing everything online affected our sense of privacy and security?

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The Traditional 3-Act Structure: Part 1

Most writers have a natural instinct when it comes to story structure and plot. We do so much reading, or we see so many movies, that understanding pacing is just part of our makeup. Even new writers, still learning their craft, have this instinct.

We know that if we have action scene after action scene, eventually we need to have a calm scene that gives us the chance to breathe. We know that there needs to be those moments of reflection, looking at what has happened. But if we spend too much time dwelling on the past, we'll need an explosion to get things going again.

And there will also be those moments when a character decides to risk all and just go for it—damned the consequences.

As writers, we follow a story structure with the instinct of knowing where the rise and fall in the action needs to be. However, when something is off in the pacing of a story, that's when all the discussions come out about one of countless number of story structure models out there and the analytical tools associated with it.

As a developmental editor, it is my job to look at story structure and pacing on the macro and micro levels. If pacing is off, for whatever reason, I delve into the mechanics of a manuscript and tear that structure apart to find out why things don't work. Much of what I do on this particular front is instinct, simply because every story is different. However, there are some commonalities within the beats of a story, which has given rise to models like the traditional 3-act structure.

In today's post, I want to start breaking down what is involved in the traditional 3-act structure. There are three posts involved in this series, with each post focusing on a different act.

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We Let Strangers In: Internet Bullies

Have you ever been in a situation where you have given your opinion on something based on your knowledge and expertise only to be shot down by one ignorant fool? Have you ever had that experience on social media? And have you ever found that when you chose to ignore the ignorant fool on social media that they kept coming after you—attacking your character? And, to top off the whole experience, did you need a friend to step in and handle it, for fear that you would just explode on public channels?

I would be surprised if I encountered anyone savvy with the social media world who hasn't experience the troll attack at least once. It seems like a rite of passage to the internet world. For the most part, we're able to ignore the trolls, because they're after some strange definition of self-gratification, enjoying taking everyone else down into the dark hole of hell. But what if the troll is actually a stranger that we have openly let into our lives, influencing us?

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The Traditional 3-Act Structure: Part 2

Much of what a writer does when crafting a story is based on instinct, weaving in the rise and fall of action. But when looking at story structure specifically, one need to recognize that every story is different. There is no strict formula that can be applied.

Tools like the traditional 3-act structure are only diagnostic tools, designed to help us understand why something might not be working.

In the first post of this Traditional 3-Act Structure series, we introduced the importance of this structure as a whole, and began breaking it down. We looked at the first act (The Setup) and the first point of No-Return. Today, let's get into the nitty-gritty of Act 2.

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The Traditional 3-Act Structure: Part 3

There is a natural instinct that exists among most writers about where to put the tension beats in, where things need to change, and when the reader needs a break from all the action. That is because most writers read a lot, or watch a lot of movies, or... Well, we just spend a lot of time in a fictional world somewhere. When we do that, we start to see the patterns, even if we don't understand the formula being applied to those stories.

The traditional 3-act structure is just one of countless number of models out there on story structure. Over the past few posts, we have been breaking down the traditional 3-act structure into the nitty-gritty, getting to the root of why it works the way it does.

In Part 1 of this series, we examined the elements of act 1, including the inciting event and the first transition point, what I called the first point of No-Return. In Part 2, we looked at the first half of act 2, heading into the midpoint, and we discussed what is meant by the A-story and the B-story.

In the final installment of this series, we're going to look at the final transition point for the manuscript and what the working components go into act 3.

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