4 Questions to Ask When Writing Flashbacks
If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here. Two commonly misinterpreted canons of story can…
Backstory
How Backstory Creates Story, Part 2: Building Forward
You can “build forward” in your writing to create fully integrated characters and stories: begin with what you already have…
How Backstory Creates Story, Part 1: Mining Backward
Both Succession’s creators and the uniformly brilliant actors who portray the Roys and their vicious little circle of cronies take…
Past, Present, and Future: Your Characters—and You—Live in All Three
The writing you do today—every day—is an amalgam of the writing you have done every other day before it, the…
How to Transition into a Flashback
If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here. One of the most common questions I…
Starting Your Story in the Right Place to Hook Readers
Story openings can be vexing—it’s tricky to give readers enough of a hook to invest them while avoiding layering in…
How to Weave in Backstory without Stalling Out Your Story
(This article originally appeared in Writer Unboxed here.) Your characters don’t just spring to life at the beginning of your…