Blog

I don’t know George R. R. Martin, and I would not presume to speak for him. I am, however, willing to speculate about his motives and processes. It seems to me — and I could be wrong — that Martin is a fan of the father of the High Fantasy genre, J.R.R. Tolkien. That...

One idea isn’t enough. If you’re writing fiction, you need two or more concepts in order to have a viable premise. But they can’t be just any old concepts. Preferably, they should be ideas in opposition to one another or which interact in such a way to generate plot...

Too much is made in writing how-to literature of the main character’s Want, the motivator which propels him through his story. In describing this force in terms of a desire, would-be writing gurus are doing their readers a disservice. Most heroes, I would argue, are...

I’ve written three essays on plot, all of which can be found on this website. In the first installment, I gave my definition of the term “premise”, and it goes a little something like this: “…it is the springboard or gist upon which a plot can be built. It’s the true...

There’s an old axiom: “drama is conflict”. Without conflict, you have two guys in an empty room with nothing interesting to say or do. If you want a story, you need to get the two guys mad at one another. Allow me to clarify with a charmingly folksy definition of...

I’ve concluded that plotting for plot’s sake is a mathematical exercise doomed to yield soulless results. Starting with plot and ending with plot isn’t storytelling, it’s puzzle-making. There is now and always has been a market for these sorts of puzzles — the Mystery...