Dive Deeper to Understand Your Protagonist’s Why
It's axiomatic that your fictional protagonist needs a goal; otherwise, you won't have much of a story to tell. But even the strongest goal will...
Susan Orlean: The First Reader You Have to Win is Yourself
During an interview with Lit Hub Radio's Threshold podcast, Susan Orlean talks about the risk of telling stories that don't have an obvious built-in...
What All Writers Can Learn from Horror
There's a lot more to horror stories than horny teenagers and machetes. In a new blog post, Kristen Lamb talks about the lessons writers...
Learning to Create Tension from The Comfort of Strangers
One of the key elements of great suspense or psychological thriller stories is a sense of disorientation. When a protagonist doesn't know if they...
People Don’t Think That Way: Examples on Writing Deep POV
In a post on Writers in the Storm, Laurie Schnebly Campbell examines deep POV, offering both a definition and good examples of how to...
Sherlock’s Violin: Humanize Your Sleuth With Hobbies
We all have hobbies and interests, so why shouldn't your fictional detective? Hardboiled crime fiction is rife with private eyes who like booze and...
Pain Means It’s Time to Go Deeper
In a new "Writing Wednesdays" post, Steven Pressfield shares an inspirational quote from Olympic gold medalist swimmer John Naber. When asked the difference between...
Use Cultural Taboos to Add Depth and Detail to Your Historical Fiction
In a long article for Lit Hub, Aimee Parkison shares how researching cultural taboos, particularly customs that forbid women from participating in certain behaviors,...
Emotions Are Your Gateway to Story
Maya Angelou once said, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget...
Psychological Thrillers Start Close to Home
In a post on CrimeReads, author Nicci French - a pseudonym for the writing partnership of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French - say that...
