Grace is one of those things I am pretty good at giving. Receiving? Not so much. I’ve really missed blogging, and a lot has been going on at home. Translation? My brain vapor-locked when I tried to come up with a blog topic. Hopelessly stymied, I did something dangerous… I asked some fellow writers for […]

Evil fascinates us, and has since the dawn of human consciousness. I continually emphasize that humans are story creatures, which is good news for writers, since we’re in the story business. Though not all stories face off evil directly, all stories must include conflict to be considered a story. Conflict isn’t, per se, evil, but […]

Transformation is an integral part all great stories. The trick, however, is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to show how a character has either progressed or regressed. Few things can be more disappointing than reading a story where SUDDENLY, POOF! The MC has some grand epiphany at the end how they really needed to […]

Self-discipline usually is one of those terms most people use in January when hastily scribbling out New Year’s Resolutions. Of course, that was before 2020 came along and tore a hole in the space-time continuum. Every day is now Monduesday. Ketchup is a vegetable and the past seven months have been like the IRS, TSA, […]

Humans are a story people, meaning we all share one thing in common—we LOVE a great hero. Yet, crafting a hero isn’t as simple as one might think. In fact, new writers generally serve up a ‘hero’ too soon. They fail to understand that the title—HERO—is something that must be earned. In fact, the harder […]

Story structure is a HUGE deal in all stories. The last couple of posts, I’ve mentioned memoirs and how they can utilize a variety of structures. This said, there are so many variegations for the memoir, that I just can’t do them all justice here. Since I am at least sharp enough to know when […]

Narrative style is the beating heart of writing. While our voice might remain consistent from a blog to a non-fiction to a fiction, narrative style is what keeps our work fresh and makes it resonate. Developing a strong narrative style is especially critical if we decide to write a memoir because the style will need […]

All great books are about the quest. What does the main character (MC) want? Desire is what propels the MC to step out of their comfort zone and dare to do something different. If Frodo and Samwise didn’t long for adventure, then The Lord of the Rings wouldn’t exist…or would have been a vastly different […]

Image courtesy of Kevin Wood via Flickr Creative Commons Character building is essential for telling stories that readers a) can’t put down and b) will never forget. Why am I now talking about character building, since I know I have a reputation for focusing a lot of blogs and classes on story structure? Stories, like […]

Finding our focus has never been easy. Many of us have always lacked direction and fallen short on “clarity.” We’d multitasked ourselves into a daily fugue state long before COVID and quarantines and Zoom upended our lives. Time somehow seeped through an unseen hole, leaking away one errand, email, trip, chore, or event at a […]