It seems to me that there are six general ways to open a story. The first way, as I discussed last week, is with description . The sec...

Have you ever written a boring scene? Of course! We all have. It’s called a first draft. Today, though, I’m talking about scenes that ha...

Today I want to take a look at Michael Bay's movie The Rock and examine how Bay uses conflict to keep our eyes on the screen. ...

I’m always looking for new ways to include conflict in a story. As you know, a basic theme of any story is the conflict that exi...

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

This post concludes a series I began in my last post: What is a Scene?   Conflict E.M. Forster, in Aspects of the Novel, writes...

Jim Butcher describes a scene as the place "where all the plot in your book happens. Any time your character is actively pursuing ...

Suspense. Every story needs some. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of wat...

What is suspense? That's the question I'll be looking at today. Specifically we'll cover the role of the following in creat...

Yesterday I mentioned I'd read The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby.  Well. Truby ha...

Chuck Wendig has written what is, I think, his best post on writing so far, and since he has written quite a few fantastic posts that...