What's the difference between a soap opera and a Greek tragedy? Both are fictional stories about the suffering of likeable, or at least attractive, heroes. There is an inevitability to their plots--they're not necessarily formulaic, but everyone can pretty much see where things are headed. Neither of them promises nor delivers a happy ending. Yet …
Setting: Don’t Get Lost
Creating a rich and fascinating setting for your story is fun. It's so much fun. And it can be rewarding, too. The more work you put into your setting, the more detail and depth, the more your book will come alive--if the backdrop seethes and breathes, your characters will feel more real, more anchored, and …
Pacing: Good News and Bad
Pacing might be the most important skill a writer can develop. Pacing is the tempo of your story, the sense of time passing, the sense of things happening in a smooth, organic order. Pacing is everything. Pacing is crucial to plot. It's how you build suspense--how you make your reader care about what happens, and …
Writing: Character Motivations
Every character in your story should have a clear motivation. They need a reason to enter the scene, and something they want to accomplish before the scene is over. This goes for a walk-on character who only has one line just as much as it goes for your protagonist and antagonist. If a character has …
Writing: The Power of Broad Characters
Everyone claims to like deep, nuanced characters. People who feel real and rich and alive. There's only one problem. They're wrong. If you think of your favorite characters--frankly, any characters you can remember off the top of your head--you'll think of broad, two-dimensional, larger than life heroes and villains and grotesques. Darth Vader. Tarzan. Wily …
Writing: Little, Big
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