What is a story? One easy answer is that it is a narrative composed of a beginning, middle, and ending. Today, we’re talking about how to write satisfying endings, but allow me a quick rabbit trail: A while back, someone asked me to write a post about why the Second Act was even a thing. […]
July 13, 2026 by 21 Comments Point of ViewWhy Multiple POVs Can Make Readers Love Your Characters More
Multiple POVs—should you use them or should you not? That’s a question with huge implications for your story. It will influence everything from structure to pacing to character arcs. Most importantly, it will have a huge influence on your readers’ experience of the story—for better or worse. More genre books than not use multiple POVs to […]
July 6, 2026 by 24 Comments How to Become a WriterWhy We Need Heroic Stories: The Courage We Borrow From Fiction
A hill I will die on: we need heroic stories. That may seem super obvious. After all, the word “hero” has become all but synonymous with “protagonist.” They are not, however, the same thing. A protagonist is the structural driver of the plot (just as the antagonist is the structural obstacle to that driving momentum). […]
June 22, 2026 by 2 Comments CharactersWriting Masterclass: Alchemizing Plot, Character, & Theme for Powerful Fiction
Truly resonant stories give us the feeling that nothing about them is accidental. The plot, character arc, theme, symbolism, and even the setting all belong to the same deeper pattern. Everything connects. This is what I’ll be exploring in my Story School class Alchemizing Plot, Character, and Theme, which originally premiered during last year’s WorldShift […]
June 15, 2026 by 5 Comments PodcastHow to Write Mythic Fiction: 7 Practices to Reconnect With the Lost Art of Mythmaking
What is mythic fiction, and how can we write it? Earlier this month, I shared a post about how to write mythic fiction, in which I discussed the difference between adapting inherited myths (i.e., just retelling the old symbolic stories over and over in “new” ways) versus creating our own myths. My suggestion was that […]
June 8, 2026 by 2 Comments CharactersHow to Choose the Right Character Arc for Your Story
Learning how to choose the right character arc is one of the most important decisions you’ll make for your story. Whether you’re writing a Positive Change Arc, a Flat Arc, or a Negative Arc, the arc you choose will shape everything from plot structure to theme to emotional resonance. Choosing the right character arc is […]
June 1, 2026 by 11 Comments Writing InspirationHow to Write Mythic Fiction: Stop Borrowing Old Myths and Start Creating New Ones
If you’ve hung around here for any length of time, you know I tend to talk a lot about “archetypal” and “mythic” fiction. But what do those words really even mean—and why are they important? And why might we want to learn how to write mythic fiction? Many contemporary writers are interested in writing mythic […]
May 21, 2026 by Leave a Comment Writing ResourcesWriting Resources for Writers: 20% Off Books, Classes, and Tools for a Limited Time
The longer I study story, the more I understand it less as a collection of techniques and more like a single pattern expressed in many different ways. We talk about plot, character, and theme as if they are separate tools, but in practice they are all part of the same deeper structure that shapes not […]
May 18, 2026 by 30 Comments PodcastThoughts on How the Marketplace Is Shaping the Stories We Tell
What is story? As someone who studies plot structure—and the shape of story—I find it an interesting thought exercise to consider the many ways in which the marketplace is increasingly shaping modern writing culture and even storytelling itself. Is story a process or a product? Is it an experience, an archetype, a communication, or a […]
May 4, 2026 by 27 Comments PodcastThe Emotional Toll on Writers in the Modern Landscape (And Why So Many Are Burning Out)
How we doing, fellow writers? Are you hanging in there? Everywhere I look in today’s creative landscape, I can’t help but sense that more and more writers are burning out, and my opinion is that this isn’t caused simply by too much work with too few vacations. At least some of the strain is coming […]
