Craft Articles

Varieties of Omniscience

Using an omniscient narrator? It may help to be aware of these two dimensions, which account for the varieties of omniscient approaches.

A Glossary of Assorted Writing Craft Terms

I’ve put together a series on YouTube that attempts to define, clarify, or otherwise demystify various writing craft terms. Here, I’ve listed the terms I’ve already examined, and I’ll post additions as more videos are published.

Why Most Writing Rules Can Be Broken

Almost every writing “rule” can be broken. I offer three meta-principles for why that is and some thoughts on how we should approach the rules if they can be broken.

Tools for Big Picture Editing of Your Novel

Tools for helping you see the big picture of your novel or memoir

The mountain of editing/revision can be daunting, particularly for long-form stories. Here are four tools you can use to gain perspective of the big picture.

Dramatic Prognosis: a tool for designing strong plots and improving weak ones

The dramatic prognosis is the calculation the audience makes about the hero’s chances of reaching the goal. You can examine the dramatic prognosis within your story in the planning stage or in the revision stage; it may be helpful in highlighting where the story is lacking.

What Is a Beat, Anyway?

If you read about writing craft, you’re going to come across the word “beat” on occasion. But this is a term that even within the realm of creative writing has at least three different meanings. Let’s break them down here.

What Does the Inciting Incident Actually Do?

The inciting incident is often misunderstood. Even seasoned writers sometimes make claims that there can be multiple inciting incidents or that it can occur before the story even begins. But I would argue that most of those claims are rooted in a misunderstanding of the role the inciting incident plays within a story.