Fiction lives or dies on craft. These articles cover the work of writing a story people cannot put down: character, plot, pacing, and dialogue. The skills that turn a good idea into a book a reader finishes at two in the morning.
Fiction WritingThe self-publishing routine of drafts, beta readers, editors and proofreaders can't turn a first novel into a professional book. Why the first novel is practice, what each step can and can't do, why second novels sag, and how to work…
Crime FictionElmore Leonard wrote westerns before his ad agency shift, got turned down eighty-four times on his first crime novel, and then spent forty years proving dialogue could carry a book. His ten rules all do one job: keep the author…
Character DevelopmentFyodor Dostoevsky survived a staged execution, four years in a Siberian prison camp and a ruinous gambling habit, then wrote his greatest novels in monthly installments for money he'd already spent. The deadlines didn't hurt the books. In several cases…
Cold WarIan Fleming failed as a soldier, a banker and a stockbroker, found his footing in naval intelligence, and wrote Casino Royale at forty-three in about five weeks. Every Bond novel after it came from the same quota: 2,000 words a…
Fiction WritingStephen King wrote Carrie at a desk between a washer and a dryer, and his wife pulled the first pages out of the trash. Fifty years and 400 million books later, his method is still a daily quota, a three-month…
DialogueElmore Leonard's 10 rules of writing all keep the writer out of sight so the reader stays in the story. I follow most of them and break a few on purpose, from short teaser prologues to long descriptions of places…
Fiction WritingA good prologue works like a TV cold open: a short scene that hands the reader a question and walks away. A bad one is a history lecture before the story starts. Here's how to tell them apart, with examples…
Fiction WritingHilary Layne of The Second Story argues that explicit sex is dragging fiction down. Part of the case holds up: sex is optional, motion-by-motion scenes rarely earn their length, and a market that sells on heat lets the story slide.
Character DevelopmentMary Sue started as a one-page joke in a 1973 Star Trek fanzine. Here's the story behind the parody, how the name spread, what a Mary Sue really is, and when the label is fair.
CreativityToo many beds. Lovers to enemies. A curse only your enemy's kiss can break. Reverse tropes flip one part of a familiar story pattern, and they run on six repeatable moves you can use on any trope, including the one…
Character DevelopmentReal people run on spite, envy and grudges as much as noble causes. The big goal drives the plot, the petty one shows who the character is. Here's why petty motivations make characters believable, and how to give your characters…
Fiction WritingGenre fiction outsells literary fiction because it delivers what readers came for. Calling it poorly written usually confuses taste with skill, and many literary classics are genre books in disguise.
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