Archive:
Fiction
Nothing makes your hero more heroic than a worthy opponent. So don’t shortchange your villain. Spend every bit as much time crafting him as you do your lead character, if you want your story to work. (Though I will use male pronouns throughout, this applies equally if your main character is a heroine or your […]
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Writing a compelling story, especially if you’re new at this, can be grueling. Conflicting advice online can overwhelm you, making you want to quit before you’ve written a word. But you know more than you think. Stories saturate our lives. We talk, think, and communicate with story in music, on television, in video games, in […]
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Great page-turning stories live or die by their plots. “I took the dog to the park” doesn’t interest me. “You won’t believe what happened when I took the dog to the park” interests me. I want to know what happened, so I’ll stick with you as long as your story holds me. To keep me […]
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If your story starts with anything foreboding—creaking floors, snuffed-out candles, or threatening skies, you’re implying danger or terrible trouble ahead for your main character. Masterful storytellers foreshadow such things with disquieting clues of what’s to come. What is Foreshadowing? And Why is it Important? Foreshadowing is a literary device authors use to lay a foundation […]
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The wildly popular phenomenon, National Novel Writing Month, starts November 1 every year, and you’re urged to write an entire 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. Wouldn’t it be great to actually finish a novel in 30 days? That very idea has inspired millions of writers from all over the world to embark […]
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