Category Archives: writing craft

This is one of those posts where I’m writing about something obvious, but writing about it helps me to internalize it. You can’t have a story without plot, and you can’t have a plot without conflict. Conflict is wanting what … Continue reading →

This post was originally written for Lauren Dane’s Writerly Wednesday. The first time I tried to write a novel (the one I started over and over and over again), I workshopped it with a very small group of friends. One … Continue reading →

A writer friend once commented that sometimes she needed a critique on plot and sometimes she needed a critique on character. And I think she was absolutely right. Characters make plot, of course. And plot affects character, giving them things … Continue reading →

It’s a pretty common observation that dialogue in a story is unrealistic. There are all sorts of linguistic studies that relate to “real life” dialogue. Here’s a pretty good introduction to sociolonguistics, for example. One of the things I learned … Continue reading →

The ultimate goal of sharing one’s writing is for the reader to “get” what you’ve written. Seen from that point of view, what you’ve written is less important than how the reader interprets it. So it’s important to try and … Continue reading →