Craft fundamentals

Core techniques of fiction writing

A woman sitting at a desk, writing by hand on a sheet of paper

FeaturedKeep writing

Writing villains who believe they are the hero of their own story

The scariest antagonist isn't the one who knows they're evil. It's the one who's certain they're right. Here's how to write a villain with a case you almost believe.

5 min read

Black and white portrait of a solitary person sitting near a window, lost in thought

Craft

How much of a character's thinking can a scene hold

A thought earns its place when it adds what the action cannot. Here is how to tell interiority that deepens a moment from interiority that stalls it, with a simple test for cutting or keeping.

5 min read

A red pen resting beside a small open notepad on a desk, ready for notes and revisions

Craft

Theme isn't a message: let it emerge in revision

Start with a moral and you will write a sermon. Write the story first, then read your own draft for what keeps repeating, and sharpen that into a question the book can actually ask.

5 min read

Dense pine forest photographed from above, canopies emerging through thick grey mist that obscures the distance while revealing the trees closest to the camera

Craft

The difference between description and scene-setting

Inert description tells you what a room looks like. Scene-setting tells you what it's doing to the person standing in it, and only one of those is worth keeping.

4 min read

A magnifying glass resting on a plain blue background

Guide

What is a plot hole, and which ones actually matter?

Not every unresolved detail is a plot hole. Here's the real difference between a broken fact and a gap readers forgive, and which ones are worth fixing.

5 min read

A wall covered in yellow sticky notes organized under handwritten problem categories

Craft

Info dumps aren't a beginner mistake, they're a sequencing problem

Cutting an info dump for length rarely fixes it. The real fault is timing: readers reject information that arrives before they have a reason to want it.

4 min read

A hand holding a red pen poised over a blank sheet of paper.

Craft

Filter words are quietly distancing your reader

Filter words like she saw and she felt slip a narrator between your reader and the character's experience. Here's how to spot them, and when cutting them actually helps the prose.

4 min read

Dramatic storm clouds with sunlight breaking through

Craft

Why every scene needs a want and an obstacle

A scene where nothing is at stake reads like a summary no matter how well it's written. Here's the small structural fix that's usually missing underneath.

4 min read

A stack of printed paper pages on a desk

Guide

How many words should a novel be

There's no single right answer, but there is a real range for every genre, and missing it badly changes how your manuscript gets read before page one.

4 min read

1 2 3 NextPage 1 of 3