Some writers find that they don't know their themes until they've finished the first draft (I am one). They then rewrite with an eye toward balancing….

There are two wrong reactions to a rejection slip: deciding it's a final judgment on your story and/or talent, and deciding it's no judgment on your ….

Changers are characters who alter in significant ways as a result of the events of your story. They learn something or grow into better or worse peop….

Characterization is not divorced from plot, not a coat of paint you slap on after the structure of events is already built. Rather characterization i….

You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion..

Technology is Darwinian. It spreads. It evolves. It adapts. The most dangerous wipes out the less fit..

What characters do must grow out of who they are, and who they are is, in turn, influenced by what you make happen to them..

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader..

In commercial fiction especially, everything in the story usually contributes directly to the plot The shorter the story, the truer this is.

Every paragraph should accomplish two goals: advance the story, and develop your characters as complex human beings..

Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent..

Religious reverence for one's own job, even if the job is worth doing, is a sexual turnoff..

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect..

Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up..