15 Things Your Characters Should Never Do

He lifted his leg and fired. With a whoop and a cry, she shot it out the back. They bent to examine their special organs. He couldn’t believe he was alive—he touched himself with gratitude. She knew he’d never get at the secret she was sitting on. If he couldn’t… Read more“15 Things Your Characters Should Never Do”

6 Things I Learned from Dashiell Hammett

I’m still studying Shirley Jackson, and if you don’t know why you can easily find out. I spent yesterday doing a scene-by-scene analysis of Chapters 5 and 6 of The Haunting of Hill House that turned into line-by-line—that’s how fast she switches gears in her most profound passages!—and at some… Read more“6 Things I Learned from Dashiell Hammett”

Bouncing down, down through holographic fiction

We’re talking about holographic fiction in three different articles on the magazine this week: Bouncing like a yo-yo. kaboing. kaboing. kaboing. Macrocosm. Microcosm. Macrocosm. Microcosm. Cosmology. Quantum physics. The holography of fiction. In the cosmology of your novel, you’ve got a Hook (big bang!), leading into Conflict #1 with its… Read more“Bouncing down, down through holographic fiction”

Bringing you the party from Nathan Bransford's blog

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. —Thoreau So I’m having a wild time over on Nathan Bransford’s blog, where my post “Everything You Need to Know About Writing a Novel, in 1,000 Words” went up yesterday. People have been… Read more“Bringing you the party from Nathan Bransford's blog”