Something I’ve discovered about myself over the years is that I rely on being busy to get me writing. It’s a lot easier to write for an hour when I have a busy, but predictable, day than when I have nothing else to do. For the last year or so, I’ve been quite busy,...

With our empty buckets, our ready shovels, we could choose to scoop the moist sand, construct a castle, hollow a moat, perhaps, given time, raise battlements. A retinue of crabs could stand guard, protect us from the angry surf, until they are swept away or bribed by promises of mild summer. Our policies, benevolent...

It’s easy to say “this is a writing job” when the title is “writer,” but many more jobs are primarily about writing. These days, many “journalists” are writers who rely on published accounts to rewrite stories (and hello, fellow bloggers!), and “social media manager” probably involves a lot of writing as well. It’s hard...

Sometimes, the words won’t come. Here’s my advice: accept it. But don’t accept it and just stop. Accept it as a symptom. Maybe you need more sleep. Maybe your plot is weak, and you need to figure out how to fix it. Maybe a problem at home or school or work is weighing on...

Dramatic irony is when the reader knows things the characters don’t. It abounds in literature and film, from horror (he’s right behind you!) to drama and romance. Dramatic irony can also destroy a good story when there’s poor justification for it. If two characters who are typically honest could clear up the major plot...

If you’re writing a mystery, it’s generally the case that you’ll hide details from the reader. And it’s inevitable that some details will be omitted (a novel that omits no details will never be finished). But sometimes you want to hide things from readers for other reasons. In my own writing, every character has...

I considered writing this post in invisible ink to work by demonstration, but realized it would not be searchable if I do so. You’ll have to settle for regular “ink” (pixels, for most readers). Most people will have an image of magic spring to mind when it’s mentioned. This might be stage magic or...

I struggle to write dialogue. I’m not a particularly talkative person in real life, at least with most people. And dialogue should, in theory, serve to either move the story forward or reveal it. Because I struggle, I’ve read a number of guides that promised to teach me how to write dialogue. Some of...

In narrative writing, there are always at least two perspective’s: the writer’s and the reader’s. Works with one first-person narrator may add only this third perspective, but writers can add more perspectives without adding more points of view. Let’s suppose we’re writing a single first-person scene involving more than one character. The main character...