Eight Lessons from the Edit
If you want less pain the next time you work on a novel, you have to learn lessons from the […]
how-to
Six Essential Elements of Story
The closest I can give you to a writer’s cheat sheet: the six essential elements of story. Among the many
Three foundations of plot: Promises, Progress and Payoffs
Three foundations of plot: Promises, Progress and Payoffs. These are Brandon Sanderson’s three P’s from his 2020 BYU writing course
Fantasy Genre Tropes We Love and Hate
Reading more widely, I shouldn’t be surprised at the number of fantasy genre tropes we love and hate. A trope
Watching the Word Budget
Long-form or short-form, a writer’s always watching the word budget. At a writer’s seminar, master of short stories Mary Robinette
Readers want the Emotional Layer
At this year’s Worldshift writers’ event, author and coach Trisha Jen Loehr described how readers want the emotional layer in
Five elements of Universal Story
There are five elements of Universal Story that are the foundation of every successful novel. So says writer and coach
Seven More Must-Have YA Tropes
I may have accidentally included seven more must-have YA tropes in my new novel. All genre fiction works through tropes,
The Midpoint of Freytag’s Pyramid
I accidentally hit the midpoint of Freytag’s pyramid. It sounds like a plane crash, but it’s a story-telling device that
Reveal Character through Objects
More than descriptions of how they look, or what they say, stories can also reveal character through objects.