Helping Writers Become Authors

Quick! You’ve got less than a minute to convince me your story is worth my time. What do you tell me? You’ve got to pique my curiosity with mystery and potential, while still conveying the bulk of the plot, theme, and general tone. “No problem!” you say. But when you sit down to actually figure out how to pitch your novel in such a stellar way, you may realize that conveying ...

For years, in my book Creating Character Arcs and elsewhere, I’ve taught the Lie the Character Believes as the central premise of character arc. The Lie the Character Believes is the limited perspectiv...

A flawed character becomes likable when audiences trust the character’s honesty more than they judge the character’s mistakes.

Memorable characters come in many shades—everything from Heathcliff’s murderous manipulation to Steve Rogers’s aw-shucks idealism. Sometimes, the

What is a story? One easy answer is that it is a narrative composed of a beginning, middle, and ending.

Today, we’re talking about how to write satisfying endings, but allow me a quick rabbit trail: A while back, someone asked me to write a post about why the Second Act was even a thing. Admittedly, my first response was a sort of spluttery, “Uhhh… because it is