What follows is the final section of Parts of Story: Plot . (Yes, I'm doing a happy dance !)  If you've been enjoying these ...

I've already discussed conflict and the importance of having goals, but a goal is useless without stakes. Stakes are the possi...

One of the most useful tools or techniques for writing engaging prose is the try-fail cycle. The try-fail cycle lies at the heart of ho...

In the previous chapter we discussed the structure of a sequel. Now lets talk about what a sequel does and how it does it. Jim Butche...

As Dwight V. Swain says in Techniques of the Selling Writer , sequels take the protagonist from the disaster of one scene to the goal o...

Now that I've talked a bit about genre and how important it is to know what genre, and subgenre, your book falls into, I'd lik...

When writing a scene, how much description is enough? All writers have certain things we do well--or at least, that we do better t...