What if you don’t want to start your story at the beginning? Join Kim Kessler and me for a discussion of stories with nonlinear timelines.
Past and Present 1: Telling your story out of order Read More »
Every scene requires change, and every change must be incited by something that flows from the previous scene. If your character is just coasting along on the momentum of a previous inciting incident, it’s not a new scene, it’s just a scene that needs some cutting.
Inciting Incidents Read More »
For someone who’s been writing for five decades, it’s weird that I just learned how.
Anne Learns to Write Read More »
If you don’t know what your characters want and need, how are you going to move them through a story?
How well do you know your secondary and tertiary characters? A common early-draft issue is minor characters who act as mere props for the protagonist’s arc. Need a crisis for a main character? Subject a secondary character to an accident or illness. Need a contrast to your heroine? Pick a few top-of-mind traits (the nerd,
Worthwhile secondary characters Read More »
One of my editing clients posed this great question: Do you have any thoughts about when to write dialogue and when to just say “they talked about this or that” or “she told him about the project”? Why yes. Yes I do. Every time you use narrative as a substitute for dialogue, you’re telling. Dialogue
Dialogue or narrative? Read More »
On the Editor Roundtable Podcast, where we analyze movies for story structure, the question of subtext comes up a lot. Subtext seems easier to detect in a movie than in writing because film gives us actors’ expressions, background visuals and sounds, camera techniques, music. In a novel all you’ve got is text. Words on the
What is subtext, anyway? Read More »
I wish the “Show don’t tell” rule would die a fiery death. It’s an arbitrary, misleading decree, widely abused in writing groups where it gives pedants a footing for unconstructive criticism that they don’t have to justify. It can push inexperienced writers into breaking the equally-misunderstood brevity rule, because sometimes showing takes a lot more
The limits of “Show Don’t Tell” Read More »
A client in the early first-draft stage wonders whether he should spend time writing character backgrounds. It’s a good question. Personally, I have probably tens—maybe hundreds—of thousands of words in character interviews, backgrounds, childhood stories, 360-degree “performance reviews,” horoscopes… so you’re not going to hear from me that you shouldn’t do it. I’d just caution
Should you spend time writing character backgrounds? Read More »
