On its most fundamental level, a novel is nothing more or less than the dissemination of information. As such, the writer who understands exactly how and where to share information is a writer who understands the most fundamental skill of storytelling. That’s why info dumps are such a big, bad deal. They’re peanut butter in […]
February 28, 2016 by 46 Comments Structuring Your NovelHow to Create Awesome Scene Arcs That Surprise Readers
There is a secret to writing good scenes. And since scenes are the heart of story itself, it’s ultimately one of the most important secrets to writing good stories, period. You may be surprised to learn this secret is not scene structure (in the classic sense of goal / conflict / disaster / reaction / dilemma […]
February 15, 2016 by 94 Comments How to Become a Writer5 Important Ways Storytelling Is Different in Books vs. Movies
These days, everyone is writing movies. Including novelists. Not screenplays, mind you, but even if you’ve never touched a Celtx program and will never see your story on the big screen, you’re still writing movies. Our society is saturated by visual storytelling. It’s the cool kid on the block, da boss. Whether we’re talking Hollywood movies, TV shows, […]
July 1, 2015 by 43 Comments NarrativeWant to Level Up Your Fiction? Take the “Dramatic Irony” Challenge!
There’s good fiction and there’s good fiction. There are stories that get the job done and entertain readers. And then there are stories that take everything to a new level. Naturally, we’d all like our own stories to be part of that second category! And how do we do that? One of the subtlest ways […]
June 7, 2015 by 29 Comments Most Common Writing MistakesMost Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 41: Inferring Non-POV Characters’ Thoughts
These, days, writers have to be clever. There are so many guidelines we need to observe in order to make our plots, characters, and narratives as vibrant and powerful as possible. As this series on most common writing mistakes attests, there are so many things we try not to do in our writing. The problem […]
May 24, 2015 by 43 Comments ThemeStories That Matter: 5 Necessary Factors for Weighty Fiction
What is weighty fiction? I would argue that it is, almost unto itself, the definition for stories that matter. It’s the opposite of fluffy fiction (which isn’t to say there’s anything wrong with fluff–we all enjoy a fair share of that as well). Most authors want to write something that matters. Even if we’re never going to […]
April 26, 2015 by 119 Comments Beginning Your BookFind Out if Your Prologue Is Destroying Your Story’s Subtext
You hear it all the time: prologues are evil. (And writers everywhere commence howling.) Now I’ll grant that “evil” is a slight exaggeration. We might call them “dangerous” instead, except that word is pretty ironic, since one of the chief reasons a prologue is so dangerous is because it allows authors to play it waaaaay yonder […]
April 22, 2015 by 34 Comments DialogueAn Easy Way to Immediately Improve Your Character’s Action Beats
This week’s video shows you how to take your dialogue’s action beats upon a notch by focusing on symbolism and subtext. Video Transcript: A novel cannot live on dialogue alone. Dialogue may be the most fun part to write; it may be the most fun part to read. But you can’t build a whole story […]
January 18, 2015 by 95 Comments DialogueGet Rid of On-the-Nose Dialogue Once and For All
Know what sets apart the okay writers from the great writers? Subtlety and subtext. This is true in absolutely every area of storytelling, from narrative to plotting to character development. But the lack of subtlety and subtext is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in dialogue. I’m talking, of course, about on-the-nose dialogue. When I pick up a potential […]
August 27, 2014 by 3 Comments CharactersJohn Ford on Creating Marvelous Characters With Minimum Effort
This week’s video shows how a little subtext can make vivid characters out of your entire cast. Video Transcript: A few weeks ago, we talked about how we do not want ciphers in our stories. We want fully fleshed-out, rounded, dimensional characters—people who feel real enough that maybe we could see them in the coffee […]
