Clik here to view.
Deals, Decoys, and Dirty Tricks for your Characters
Your hero’s trapped by his enemies, no way to run or fight—unless he can take what those goons really want and use it against them. Your villain needs to slip past the police lines to work his sinister...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Does your villain need more evil?
Is your story good enough? In fact… you’ve probably been exploring and sweating to make your protagonist more real, more dynamic, and the supporting cast just as compelling as you need. But, could it...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Two Laws of Backstory (and why Superman breaks both)
It’s one of the hardest moments in writing—knowing that even though you’ve picked a perfect character or an ideal plot complication, you have to write in so much more to justify it. But with so many...
View ArticleConflict – or How Many Sides to the Dark Side?
Did The Phantom Menace have it right? —Yeah, a cheap shot, nodding some less-than-stellar Star Wars. But if the question is what makes a character evil—or rather, what makes him move against other...
View ArticleWorth Fighting For – choosing stakes for characters
When I’m first putting my sense of a story together, there’s one question that can turn the different pieces into a whole, sometimes faster than any other choice I make. And that is: what does a...
View ArticleDark Fantasy – or Just Dark Enough
For me, every hour could be Halloween. My mind never goes far from what makes the stories I love work, and for me the ultimate sweet spot of genre is a kind of dark fantasy adventure. I’ll live and die...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Review: Between Two Thorns
How many sides should a story view a conflict from? I’ve just finished reading one that takes a challenge as simple as winning freedom, and spins out a whole set of different viewpoints—Between Two...
View Article
