fiction writingThe briefcase everyone wants, the formula they would kill for, the MacGuffin drives the plot while barely mattering itself. The characters care intensely; the audience never has to. What matters is the chase and the choices it forces. Hitchcock named…
fiction writingPolitical fiction is really about power, who has it, who wants it, what happens when it shifts, and the best of it never tells you what to think. It puts you inside a system and lets you feel how it…
Character DevelopmentGive them a goal, a flaw, a backstory, send them on a journey, and you get a character with traits instead of a psychology, brave but reckless, wounded childhood that explains it all. They function and stay flat. Real characters…
Character DevelopmentLaughter is hard to earn on the page, tears harder, but fear is the steepest climb of all, because it is physical, and you are trying to trigger a racing heart with nothing but ink in a quiet room. That…
fiction writingLong before Silicon Valley discovered it, science fiction was living in the metaverse, Stephenson named it in 1992, Williams spent four novels there, Cline built a bestseller on it. Virtual worlds are one of the genre's deepest veins. Here is…
Character DevelopmentEvery other genre borrows the real world; fantasy builds its world from nothing, which means you are always doing two jobs at once, telling the story and constructing the place it happens. Most fantasy novels die where those jobs collide.…
fiction writingMetafiction is a story that knows it is a story, where characters notice they are characters and the narrator comments on the act of writing. Instead of maintaining the fourth wall, it demolishes it. It is far older than the…
fiction writingI have written civilization-ending apocalypses and survived Northridge and multiple wildfire evacuations, so I know destruction from both the keyboard and the evacuation route, and the gap between the two is exactly what separates effective catastrophe from forgettable spectacle. Here…
CommunicationThe smartest leaders I work with are often the worst communicators, and it is no accident: they built expertise so deep they forgot how to explain it to anyone who lacks it. They know everything and cannot make you care.…
fiction writingPlotters plan every scene; pantsers discover as they go; both produce hits and failures. I land in the middle, outlining the headers, writing the climax first, then improvising the rest. What matters is finishing with a structure that holds. Here…
Character DevelopmentThe food scenes that stay with you were never about the food. What a character eats, how, with whom, and what they push away quietly tells the reader about class, culture, psychology, and power, no exposition required. A meal is…
fiction writingChoosing a point of view feels easy until you are 150 pages in and realize you have been head-hopping, or describing things your narrator could never see. POV consistency breaks at novel length precisely because it looks trivial. Here is…
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
Four short, practical guides on writing, publishing, and selling your book, plus the occasional note when there's something worth your time. No fluff, no daily inbox clutter. Drop your email and they're yours.
We use MailerLite to manage our list and send these emails. Your address is used only to send you what you signed up for. We will not sell it, share it, or use it for anything else, and you can unsubscribe anytime.
