There are three basic ways to get multiple plot points and payoffs into a story: you can do it on purpose in the first draft, you can do it by accident in the first draft, or you can do it in the rewrite. Putting in plot points
Read more →When I was in grade school, one of the first writing assignments we got was to write a paragraph describing something, usually a single object. As I progressed in school, the assignments increased in length and complexity, from a single object to a room, from a room
Read more →Narrative drive is the thing about a story that makes it a compulsive read. It what creates the just-one-more-page/scene/chapter syndrome, the I-stayed-up-til-three-a.m.-to-finish condition, the thing that makes certain series like eating potato chips. And it has absolutely nothing to do with action, and very little to
Read more →Everybody gets 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. That’s 168 hours, total. Nobody gets any more; nobody gets any less. Yet somehow one of the first things that gets asked when I talk to a bunch of would-be writers is “How do you make time
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