A Writer Reads, Always

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to […]

Well, I wasn’t expecting THAT!

This whole month, I want to talk about the relationship between writing and reading.  I’ve talked […]

Freytag’s Pyramid

In 1863 Gustov Freytag, first known as a playwright and later a novelist, published Die Technik […]

Well, Darlings, You’re Weighing Us Down . . .

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill […]

This Thing’s Important, Right?

One of my favorite books from the Children’s Lit classes I took in college was Treasure […]

Villain Under Construction: Villain Arcs

We’ve been talking character arcs at SNW, so I wanted to bring out once special kind […]

Ready, Set, Goal!

Have you set goals for the coming year?  Most of us look at a new calendar, […]

Dross and Hero Stuff

Can we be brutally honest?  As a writer, you simply cannot be a nice person – […]

To Wiki or Not To Wiki

So before I started teaching writing, I was a Youth librarian.  And as everybody says, you […]

I’m Definitely NOT in a Story, Right?

Last month I talked about character self-awareness in the psychological sense. But today, I want to […]