Craft fundamentals
Core techniques of fiction writing
Craft
Show, don't tell is bad advice half the time
Show, don't tell gets treated as an absolute rule. It isn't. Here's how to tell which moments in your novel actually need to be shown, and which ones are better told.4 min read
Craft
Pacing: the sentence-level lever nobody talks about
Structure sets the outline of pace, but sentences set the felt experience of it, and most craft advice skips past the level where a reader actually notices speed.4 min read
Guide
How to write an opening line that hooks a reader
An opening line is not there to be quotable. It sets a contract with the reader about what kind of attention to pay, and most fail by promising the wrong thing.4 min read
Guide
What purple prose means, and how to fix it without going flat
Purple prose isn't just 'too many adjectives.' Here's a precise definition, a real before-and-after rewrite, and how to fix it without stripping your voice bare.4 min read
Guide
How to write an unreliable narrator
Naivety, self-deception, bias, deliberate lies, altered perception: five sources of unreliability, how to plant the gap between what's said and what's true, and where the technique breaks.5 min read
Craft
The case for writing a bad first draft
Perfectionism doesn't fail novels for lack of talent. It fails them by revising sentence three before sentence four exists. The two jobs have to stay separate.4 min read
Guide
Present tense vs past tense: which should your novel use
Past tense narrates after the fact and lets a story breathe. Present tense removes that distance and raises the stakes on every page. Here is how to actually choose between them.5 min read
Craft
The difference between tension and suspense
Writers use these words interchangeably, but they run on different mechanics: one depends on a secret the reader is given, the other on a fight neither side will walk away from.5 min read
Craft
Chekhov's gun, and when it's fine to ignore it
The rifle on the wall doesn't always need to fire. A case for leaving some planted details alone, and a clear test for the ones that actually owe the reader a payoff.5 min read