This time I thought I’d do an analysis of Murder, She Wrote, one of my all-time favorite TV shows. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s about Jessica Fletcher, a retired schoolteacher-turned-mystery-author who goes around solving murders. Some of those murders take place in her beloved hometown of Cabot Cove, while others occur when she Read more

For some writers, point of view (POV) comes naturally. They hear their character’s voice in their head and know exactly whose perspective the story needs to be in. For other writers, POV can be a minefield where it’s impossible to know which point of view to choose. In fact, it might feel like you have Read more

I’ve been doing these three-act analyses for many months now, and it recently occurred to me that I hadn’t yet tried the model out on allegorical fiction. This is why today I thought I’d do an analysis of Animal Farm by George Orwell. Not familiar with the three-act structure? No worries. Read this article for Read more

I’ll admit, at first I was skeptical about dictation. To be honest, the idea kind of intimidated me. But after taking a Dictation Boot Camp led by my friend Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer, I decided to give it a try. In fact, I’m actually doing it right now as I write this Writer Fuel.  I think Read more

A lot of people are nervous—and with good reason—that Artificial Intelligence (AI) might take away opportunities from human writers. After all, why should publishers pay humans to produce material when they can get a GPT to spit out something similar for free? What is it that can differentiate human writers from the bots? Two things: Read more

In fall of 2003, I got a copy of The Artist’s Way and decided I was going to work through it step-by-step. I completed the twelve weeks, and the effect on my creative life was nothing short of transformative. Yet, one thing tripped me up along the way and kept me from continuing the program Read more

It recently occurred to me that it would be interesting to see if the three-act structure worked with one of Shakespeare’s plays. After all, the structure has held up when looking at novels and movies of various different genres, but I have yet to use it to analyze anything by Shakespeare. To find out if Read more

Are we too “domesticated” to write truly great stories? This might seem like an odd question, but bear with me. I’ve been incredibly blessed over the course of my life to travel all over the world. While I did get to check out some of the resorts, my favorite travel stories seem to always involve Read more

Schadenfreude is a word that many of y’all might not have heard of, yet we’ve all felt it. Interestingly enough, it can be a great tool to keep our audience interested and breathlessly wanting more. What is schadenfreude, other than a fifty dollar word we can toss around to impress friends and colleagues? Schadenfreude—a combination Read more

Stakes, bizarrely enough, are a key ingredient missing in many stories. If the characters don’t have skin in the game, why would the audience? The bigger the stakes the better the page turner. Whether on the page or on the screen, what keeps audiences enraptured the most? What makes us spend an entire weekend inhaling Read more