Fiction is about specifics. In real life, you may get away with being ridiculously vague: “Gimme that thingamajig over there.” But the only reason this works is because the specifics are already staring both you and your listeners in the face. In fiction, however, you must hit the specifics and hit them hard. Years ago, […]
February 17, 2010 by 37 Comments CharactersWhat Steve McQueen Can Teach You About How to Write Characters
One of the best ways to learn how to write characters that live and breathe in their own right is to study the great actors. How are they infusing life in their characters? What are they doing in their performances that transforms seemingly mundane roles into unforgettable personalities? The 1960 western The Magnificent Seven is […]
January 31, 2010 by 54 Comments Story Settings4 Setting Questions That Will Deepen Your Characters
In the best of stories, setting is an inherent key, not just in bringing to life the scenery, but in helping you deepen your characters. As such, it isn’t something any author can afford to overlook. Answer the following setting questions to find the weak points in your setting construction and help you use it to […]
October 4, 2009 by 16 Comments DescriptionGood Writers Are So Lazy, They Make Readers Do All the Work!
This is a guest post by Jason Black. Read any half-dozen writing blogs, and they’ll be full of advice on how to craft dramatic scenes, how to write realistic dialogue, how to create vivid settings, and all that jazz. Add in the need for a compelling hook, character arcs, rising tension and stakes, and it […]
July 12, 2009 by 43 Comments Narrative5 Ways to Use Pacing to Write a Powerful Story
Pacing is like a dam. It allows the writer to control just how fast or how slow his plot flows through the riverbed of his story. Understanding how to operate that dam–how to pace your story–is one of the most important tasks an author can learn. Without this skill, you end up writing stories that variously lack […]
July 5, 2009 by 22 Comments DescriptionDo You Have the Two Necessary Skills for Using Details to Bring Your Fiction to Life?
Most of the time when we think of great stories, we think of just that: stories. We don’t often think about the bits and pieces that make up the composite whole, the 206 different bones beneath the polished flesh, the mosaic chips that form the complete picture. But it’s these bits, bones, and chips that decide whether a story […]
