In 2014, I was researching best practices for writing scenes when I noticed something: they looked an awful lot like the best practices for a whole novel. The concepts were the same; they’d just been given different names. I wrote an article declaring plots were … read more »
You thought this episode would have a topic other than plot twists, but, twist, the topic is plot twists! On the one hand, everyone loves a good plot twist. On the other hand, plot twists tend to be one of the most contentious story decisions … read more »
Stories come in a wide spectrum of tones, from light whimsy to gritty nihilism. When tone problems occur, it’s rarely because the tone itself is invalid. Instead, tone issues are usually caused by story elements that clash with each other. Let’s look at why these … read more »
While stories use multiple methods of engaging audiences, conflict and tension are probably the most essential for longer stories. What we call pace is the timing and intensity of that conflict and tension throughout. A pace that’s too low will put an audience to sleep, … read more »
In 2014, I wrote a primer on the basics of conflict, with a few notes on tension thrown in. Whereas conflict is easy to spot and a central topic of most writing advice, tension is subtle and rarely defined even when it is mentioned. Given … read more »
In most speculative fiction stories, the heroes face down some kind of external conflict. These conflicts take many forms. In some stories, an advanced battle station is blowing up planets. In others, a bigoted politician plans to pass new laws targeting people who are already … read more »
Occasionally, the pressure to make our stories compelling can encourage practices that don’t actually give us the results we want. One such pattern is the hindrance character. Let’s go over what they are, the problems they can cause, and how to avoid them. Read more »
Plot and character, the eternal enemies. Everyone knows that if your story has a plot, it means your characters are one-dimensional clichés, and if you have deep characters, it means your plot is non-existent. Will these two wild kids ever reconcile? Yes, they will, because … read more »
In an ideal world, every story would function as a unified whole, with each aspect working together for maximum engagement. In the real world, many stories suffer from fragmentation: disparate elements pulling the story in opposing directions, leaving the audience bored rather than engaged. Fortunately, this … read more »
The oppressed mages trope is a personal bugbear of mine, as longtime readers of this site can no doubt attest. The trope is incredibly popular, even though it makes no sense. As with most popular things that don’t make sense, people come up with all … read more »
