On Writing

Who are your literary forebears?

The Oglala Lakota holy man Nicholas Black Elk (1863–1950) taught that humanity is fundamentally interconnected with all creation, and that we are united by a Great Spirit that lives within every aspect of the natural world—people, animals, the waters, and the green.

Whether we recognize it or not, writers are also interconnected with other writers, our living peers and those who came before. Every writer is first a reader, and then becomes a reader inspired to emulation. We each have a unique, unreproducible voice, but we are also part of a stream of writers that includes authors we have read and many we have not, but whose work shaped our culture and ways of writing, and showed what was possible in our creative world.

Where do you fit in this long storytelling tradition? Just for fun, trace your writing lineage along whatever branches you choose – writers in your genre, writers who look like you, writers who have a similar background. Imagine yourself as one part of this great whole and feel their work inside you as well.

When I consider the writers who inspired me to become a writer or leant something to my POV or tone of voice, a few names come to mind:

• Alex Raymond
• Charles Schulz
• Franz Kafka
• Max Frisch
• Ethan Mordden
• Marge Piercy
• Patricia Highsmith
• John Irving
• Sylvia Plath

That may seem a disjointed – and possibly unhinged – collection of writers, but each of them left a mark, from my love of epic fiction to my bent towards melancholy and empathy for characters for whom life never quite seems to work out. They helped me explore questions of identity, sexuality, violence, and politics, and influenced my habit of (mostly) true confession.

There are others – John Preston, Andre Gide, Agatha Christie, Margaret Atwood, too many poets to name – but those who made the list either are a special influence or were simply the first of their type to enter my world. There are others I wish I could name – Ray Bradbury, John Waters, Kurt Vonnegut – but as much as I love them, I can’t hear their echoes in my voice.

Whom do you consider part of your writer’s family tree? Do you extend off a single branch or were you – like me – cross-pollinated from multiple sources?

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them.

Writers are archaeologists, constantly digging into the past. Some of us mine personal experiences for memoir, autobio-fiction, or fictionalized versions of our lives. Others take pieces of what they’ve observed, learned, felt, or experienced and knit them together to create something unrecognizable. We make use of our good stuff, even when the events themselves might have sucked.

Have you ever considered your past not in light of what you might use in your writing, but in a meta way, contemplating how your past shapes your desire to write, the kind of stories you create, and the themes you examine?

100 writers can take the same premise and create 100 different stories. In some cases, we night not even realize the authors began with the same scenario or phrase. Why does one writer explore dread and depravity in a horror novel while another tries to make sense of the present by speculating about a distant future? Why does one writer create expansive historical dramas while another writes intimate existential tales that are no more than a snapshot in a day in the life of a single character?

The answer is that we are shaped by what we’ve observed, learned, felt, and experienced, all the good and the bad. The real-life details we drop into our fiction therefore inform – probably unconsciously – the type of writer we are. We come to our work with a point of view and choose our genres and themes accordingly. We assert: This is what it means to be alive. This is how we experience and understand life. Here is a lens that will help you navigate and understand existence.

Similarly, our experiences inform why we engage in the act of writing itself. We need an outlet for our feelings. We feel called to point out injustice or celebrate beauty in an ugly world. We want to entertain. We want to reveal. We want to escape. We want to control the process and the outcome. We need a happy ending. We want to have a conversation. We need to be heard. We need to feel alive.

Considering how life has shaped your desire to write and the kind of work you create, is there a single word you can use to describe yourself? You might express this as I am ­­­­­­­­__________ or perhaps as I need ­­­­­­­­__________. You might have a few words or several phrases, perhaps one for why you write, another for your genre, and one that describes your themes.

To the question of why I write, my first phrase is I need to know.

I grew up in a family that did not communicate. I don’t mean we avoided philosophical discussions or heart to heart conversations, but that we did not engage in normal everyday conversation. Our parents didn’t ask us about anything. They didn’t tell us anything. Our questions might be met with stony silence or a vague, yet convoluted, response that answered nothing. They didn’t give us advice on how to navigate life. As my sister often jokes, they didn’t teach us to say “please” and “thank you”. They kept secrets and expected us to do the same. We were not to discuss what went on in our house.

In school, I was always 2-3 years ahead of my age group academically, and 2-3 years behind socially. Observing the other kids, it was clear they knew things I didn’t. They used words or discussed situations I’d heard about but didn’t know the meaning of. But I couldn’t ask anyone for this information. The kids would have laughed and the adults wouldn’t have answered. Most of the time, I didn’t know the questions to ask. If I did stumble upon a specific question, it was of the crude playground variety, which cannot be posed to an adult. I was smart enough to know that much.

Four of my parents’ five children have/had careers in various kinds of communications – book and magazine publishing, marketing, journalism, research and academic writing, learning products and educational design. We were dropped out into the world wholly unprepared for what we’d find, but with a strong need to talk. To be heard. To communicate.

I write because I need to know things, and there’s no one to ask. I write to view the world from different angles. I write to figure out why a person makes their choices, connecting what’s visible and knowable, and extrapolating the rest. I write because sometimes I may have three distinct, wholly unrelated facts that trouble me, and when I place them against each other, a fuller picture begins to form. I write to understand myself and to look forward to what might become of me and to examine unanswerable questions.

I write because secrets are scary and I feel more secure when I understand what’s going on around me, even if I can only guess at part of it. I know where I fit in. I can imagine what someone else may be going through. If I don’t have facts, at least I have theories. I can work with that.

To the question of what I write, my second phrase is I am flawed but I am worthy.

I don’t write through a lens of any particular genre. I like literary fiction and light sci-fi and gritty fantasy and social satire and murder mysteries and even the occasional superhero novel. When I was younger, I leaned heavily into literary fiction. I hope that my work has a bit more voice and flavor than the average potboiler, but I no longer feel bound to contemporary drama or slice of life fiction. In the moment, those forms helped me figure out who I am, and these days I am slightly more interested in other people.

However, my protagonists are of a type. They are not always likeable. They are usually outcasts of one kind or another, even lacking the ragtag group of misfits most oddball protagonists are gifted. They are stubborn and sometimes unkind, but also sometimes they are kind. Their attempts to do good often backfire or fall short. They have a strong moral compass and sense of self that can give them succor in times of trial but also lead them to lonely, dangerous ground. They have a code. They have faith. They have pain and have learned to live with it, and sometimes they reenact it.

My heroes fuck up. They might lash out in anger or act selfishly. If there’s a lesson to be learned, there’s a good chance they’ll misinterpret it. Sometimes their mistakes are accidental, and sometimes they are accidental on purpose. They may make a bad choice because they’ve already tried all the goods ones and those didn’t work. Often their sin is simply being where they are not wanted while being ignorant they are not wanted.

My heroes get lost. They don’t belong. But they stubbornly, ferociously maintain their dignity, seeking meaning and connection in a world that keeps them at arm’s length. They may be defeated but they do not give in, even when surrendering might be the best choice. When doubling down is an option, they’ll take it. My heroes are fully themselves in a world that wants them to be something else.

The type of story world is irrelevant. Only their role matters. These are not stories I could have written when I was younger. These are tales of scars.

I write about lost, messy people because I am sometimes lost and messy. Perdidi, perdidi, et iterum perdidam. I fuck up, I have fucked up, and I will fuck up again. Perhaps not as grandly as my fictional protagonists, but still. Like them, I can act out in anger or selfishness. I can be capricious. And yes, often my biggest failing is wandering into an arena where I do not belong, for example into a family where we were made to keep silent.

Mistakes do not define us. We are more than the sum of our worst hours. And being different does not render us less than. It doesn’t matter that we are flawed. It doesn’t matter that people don’t like us. We are worthy and we have stories.

Do you have a word or phrase in mind? Or a few words? Consider how this expression supports your creative practice or appears in your writing as a theme, motif, or conflict. Embrace this idea about yourself and sit with it awhile to fully appreciate and understand how it’s helping you.

I suspect you’ll discover that your words or phrases are an important part of your writerly voice. This strong concept of yourself comes through in the kind of stories you choose to write, the themes you explore, and how you craft your sentences and scenes. Voice is difficult to define and develop, but at heart, voice is who you are and these questions can help you conceptualize yourself as a writer.

Take a few moments to celebrate yourself. These inquiries go to the core of who you are and why you create. They are part of what makes you you. These concepts are why your stories are uniquely your own.

Whatever you write, no one can do it like you can.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

The great danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it. —Michelangelo

This past year or so, I’ve been working to reactivate my moribund capacity to dream big. Bear witness: I’ve never given up on writing. I love writing. It brings me joy, it keeps me sane. I am myself when I write. I have stories and stories and stories – some of them not finished and some not particularly good – packed away.

But I long ago gave up on making money writing short stories or novels, what we used to call having a career in writing. I’m old enough to remember an era when novelists earned real advances. And if the halcyon days when F. Scott Fitzgerald could buy a mansion selling short fiction died with him, in the 1980s and 90s a story might still be worth the time it took to write it. However, I learned early on that this gold wasn’t intended to pan out, for a variety of reasons.

Other dreams died harder. When I started college, I envisioned late night discussion on art and literature, opportunities for creative collaborations, DIY theater and open mics in old warehouses and smoky bars. Aside from some rare moments, this life also didn’t manifest, also for a variety of reasons. Though tempted, I’ll resist oversharing. Life, bad choices, bad luck. That’s all it was really.

So I trimmed back. I shrank my dreams. But the funny thing about dreams is that they can never be too small. There will always be more to cut. The less space you make for them, the less they need. When you don’t ask for much, the world is very happy to accommodate. This is also true of lovers.

But it’s time for me to light a small fire under those dreams. Not the money dreams. I’m not mental. Ok, yes, I have an Oscar speech ready, but I’m not crazy. But the others? Good friendships and camaraderie with fellow writers, long talks about craft and story theory, creative team-ups, sharing my work, creating things in the real world? Those dreams are worth cultivating.

A year ago, I took a few baby steps towards that life I’d always envisioned. I wondered if I were too late, if the curtain had come down before I found my seat. But on the other hand, I’m a smart guy. I learn from mistakes. Not always quickly, but I work it out. I thought it was worth a shot.

So far, so good.

I’m having bigger dreams now. Not the big dreams of my youth, but bigger than I allowed myself even a few years ago. And the funny thing about dreams is that they can never be too big. There is always room to grow. The more space you give them, the more they need. The dreams I have today are modest, but I’m giving them their room and I’m confident they will expand.

And the greatest part? Every day when I sit down to write, I feel inspired. I’m ready. I’m anxious to get to work on whatever is next. I’m excited to meet with my writers group every month and – being greedy – am thinking about ways I can have more.

I’ve said before that I feel like I’m starting Act I at an age when I should be on Act III or IV. But also, I’m a bit wiser now, a lot more jealous of my time. I’m more focused. I have a stronger vision of myself, a lot less ego, and the rewards I’m chasing are internal. I appreciate this experience so much more. As a man once said, This is the best drink of water after the longest drought in my life.

We should all dream big. What dreams would inspire you to create something every day? What would you do if you spent your life creating at your highest level?

Think of your biggest creative dream – no matter how crazy – and how it would feel to commit to fulfilling it. What does your most outrageous and positive writing life look like? What would you be doing if you were living all-out?

If you were confident you could not fail, what would you do?

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

It looks remarkably like yours.

About a year ago, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered if we were entering a cultural phase in which heroes acted like heroes and where the antihero may not have as much appeal.

Nosferatu I’m not. In the last nine months, the world does not seem to have begun craving good people.

Not that we don’t still need actual heroes. You might even be tempted to create one of your own. But what makes a hero? Where do you start?

One place is with your writer’s credo.

What is a credo?

A credo is an authentic statement of moral beliefs or intentions that guide your actions or, for our purposes, your creative writing.

You may have seen credos in action in the business world. For example, a statement of beliefs may guide a business plan and attract like-minded investors and employees. Religious texts provide credos for their followers, who may also have their own personal credo for putting their faith into action.

In All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum presented his credo for living in language even children can understand: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess! Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

In Bull Durham, Kevin Costner’s Crash Ryan had a slightly more colorful statement of beliefs:

Credos in action

In A Game of Thrones (the novel), George R.R. Martin uses the back matter to document the credos of each of the major families of Westeros.

Ours is the Fury. Winter is Coming. Hear Me Roar! As High as Honor. Family, Duty, Honor. Growing Strong. We Do Not Sow. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. Fire and Blood.

Unlike the writer’s credo I’ll discuss below, these family statements are boiled down to simple 2 to 4 word statements of character. But despite the simplicity, these statements drive the goals, ambitions, choices, and actions of these families. Buried within them are these families’ beliefs about family, honor, strength, success, and loyalty.

It’s not necessary to do so, but you might be able to compress your writer’s credo down to a short simple statement you can pin up over your writing space.

But first, you need to figure out what that is.

The writer’s credo

What is a writer’s credo? It can be anything you want it to be, but generally it will contain the values you seek to promote and defend in your work. This can include your purpose in writing and your creative philosophy.

You may already have the foundation for a credo, even if you don’t realize it. Do you believe that love wins out over fear or that might makes right? Do you write to entertain or to illuminate? Do you believe stories raise questions or provide answers? Do you believe we must or must not write about certain topics? Even if you have never written down the answers, they reside in your subconscious, ready for you to access in your writing.

Maybe it’s time to put this to paper.

Where to start

Write a few simple statements beginning with “I believe…”

You might be tempted to start your list with something profound. That’s great if you have something in mind, but if you don’t, that’s an easy place to get stuck. We can’t all be Maya Angelou. Start with the surface layers. If nothing comes right to mind, lean on a few clichés to get your gears turning.

• I believe that honesty is the best policy.
• I believe that hard work is the key to success.
• I believe that what goes around comes around.

Keep going. Get your base value statements out first. Then broaden your discovery.

• What makes a good father or mother?
• Should you stick by family no matter what, or is it ok to walk away?
• What gives life meaning? Does anything? Or is life a random sequence of events that amount to nothing?
• Are humans responsible for themselves or are we responsible for each other?

You may dive a bit deeper and explain why you believe these things. Why is honesty important? Why should we honor family? What did you experience or learn that brought these values into your life? If you want to create an “official” credo, you might not include your stories, but write them down anyway. Go where your heart takes you.

What do you believe about faith, patriotism, death, love, morality, justice, crime, bodily autonomy, consent, freedom, responsibility, childhood? Consider not only statements of belief but the very nature of those concepts. In addition to your moral values, document your intellectual, spiritual, and artistic values. There’s no minimum and no limit – write down as few or as many statements as you wish.

• Why do you write? What is your creative philosophy?
• Do you write to entertain or create connection?
• Do you write about the way life is or the way it should be?
• Do you want to disturb or reassure?
• Do your stories have a conclusive or ambiguous ending? Why?
• Is it more important for your readers to see themselves or be exposed to people and experiences different from them?

I frame these as either/or questions, but in many cases, the answer can be both!

As you deepen and refine your credo, focus on what you feel strongly. You may (correctly) believe that pineapple goes on pizza, but unless you’re willing to die on that hill, you can leave it out, as well as other moral values that aren’t as important. Listen for what stirs you. What topics bring up the deepest emotional reaction – anger, scorn, affection, reassurance. Look for those and explore them. If one of your “I believe…” statements sounds weak, revise it or cross it out.

Your credo will change over time. The belief system of a young writer who has recently left home may evolve as that writer ages and becomes a parent. A teenager may have strong beliefs about fairness, autonomy, freedom, sex, conformity, peer pressure, bullying, the nature of education, and the future. His older self may be more concerned with concepts of security, meaning, legacy, tradition, responsibility, safeguarding, family, and regret. If you ever revisit your credo, you might find that your perspective has evolved, and that certain strong beliefs don’t motivate you anymore. That’s ok. You are a work in progress. Your writing will naturally reflect the evolution of your values.

A helpful roadmap

In several posts on Writer Unboxed, literary agent Donald Maass addressed the writer’s credo in an indirect way. Maass doesn’t use the word “credo” but he does suggest that writers should clarify their view of the human experience and what they wish to accomplish with their work. I found both helpful in clarifying what I write and why.

In his first article, Maass urges writers to take a “moral inventory” and suggests a series of questions to get you started. For the purpose of this inventory, the questions are either/or. You can choose only one answer, and cannot answer “both”, even if that is sometimes accurate. Here are a few of the questions:

• What factor most produces success, security, and happiness: Randomness and luck, or effort and reward?
• Which better describes you: warrior or survivor?
• What is the better goal: to do justice or to practice forgiveness?
• What is better to have: individual freedom or group cooperation?
• Which is better to have: faith or reason?
• Works of fiction should primarily show us: how we are or what we should do?

When you’re done, you should have a list of concepts that reveal how you see yourself and the human condition. Maass says the final question is especially important to your writing, as it reveals your unconscious intention: Do you create mirrors or arrows? Do you want to show your readers the way people are or the way we should or could be?

Maass dives into the differences between mirrors and arrows – which he calls Stories of Fate and Stories of Destiny. He categorizes the answers to his twelve questions as either mirrors or arrows, and suggests that, from a craft perspective, it’s important to pick what kind of story you’re telling and which answers best fit that story. A strategy of picking some from Column A and some from Column B will likely result in a tale with a muddy message. Maass also offers some advice for putting this into practice in your writing, but for the purpose of a credo, the questions are the point. You can find the rest here, and may be inspired to add some of your own.

In a follow-up article, Maass continues discussing how to put these dichotomies into practice in your writing, particularly when deciding your story’s purpose and its intended effect. Generally, Maass argues that when your purpose is unclear, the effect on the reader is weak. You may write a story about the nature of evil or justice or equality, but if your reader does not understand your definitions of those concepts, your story may fall flat. The reader might not grasp your point and may even believe that you were arguing for its opposite.

You should never assume that the reader will intuit your purpose. If you want your reader to know what is good or bad, what should be feared, or what should be hoped for, you need to feel that strongly in yourself and express it clearly on the page.

“What produces a strong effect for readers is not your story’s plot circumstances. It’s you. Your outrage, inspirations, problems and comforts. Your heartbreaks, hopes, humiliations and laughter. Your insights, lessons, and self-knowledge.” – Donald Maass

A credo can help you define your values in strong terms that carry through to the page. Maass offers suggestions – including more questions – to help you dig deep into your psyche to identify what angers or scares you or inspires defiance or hope. What makes you furious? When have you felt helpless? When have you felt terror? Those kinds of questions can point you toward specific values and the reasons those emotions were triggered. Again, Maass approaches the topic from a craft standpoint, but the exercises can help you create your writer’s credo.

Why write a credo?

Some writers find that a credo gives them a greater feeling of purpose when they write and can contribute themes and concepts to their work. A credo can connect you more intimately to your creative work, ensuring that you focus your limited time on what matters most. Does your writing reflect your values or what you want to share? Are you crafting stories that create the effect you wish to see in your reader? A credo provides both a compass and a measuring stick, pointing you where you want to go and a way to compare your results to your intentions.

A credo can prompt creative inspirations. As you write your belief statement, characters, scenes, and stories may present themselves. The act of identifying your most important values can point towards new ideas and concepts you haven’t explored. Are you stuck in the middle of a story with no way out? Consider whether your story reflects your values and if it would benefit from a stronger examination. Find the compass and the guideposts in your credo and apply them to your writing.

You may feel more confident in your writing and more excited to work on your next project. You may find it easier to express yourself, guide your stories, or talk about your writing with others. You will have a clearer statement of your values, which you have examined and selected with purpose, and a chance to explore and test them in your writing. You may find that your writing has greater depth, purpose, and meaning. You might find yourself thinking more deeply and realize you have more to say than you believed.

Writing a credo can connect you to parts of your inner life that you’ve neglected or not yet discovered. You may uncover hidden beliefs, or even biases and resentments. You might hit some emotional roadblocks that need bulldozing. You might embrace new ideas or concepts. You might even identify strong beliefs that conflict, such as the conundrum of having tolerance for everyone’s beliefs, except those whose beliefs you find intolerant. Writing your credo provides you the opportunity to reconcile and align conflicting values into a whole.

A credo is worthwhile only to the extent that you want one, and the results are only as good as the effort you put into it. No one will ever see it. There’s no reward for writing one, except for what it can bring to your creative work.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them.

Mastering dialogue is hard work, but the right scaffolding can help.

Writing naturalistic and compelling dialogue is fiction is both critical and difficult to master. Unfortunately, there aren’t any reference books to tell you exactly what your characters should say or how.

Dialogue takes time to master and even successful bestselling authors don’t always get it right. Any writing coach will tell you that you should not try to create dialogue by replicating real-life conversation. Rather, dialogue is stylized conversation that only sounds natural.

You will also hear that characters should never – or very rarely – say what’s on their mind. Base declarations of need should be saved for highly emotional moments. A character who is trying to earn his father’s respect should not say in dialogue, “Dad, I’m acting this way so I can earn the respect you have withheld my whole life.” If that’s your opening scene, you might as well have your characters leave the haunted house and end your story right there.

While no one can truly teach you to hear or write dazzling dialogue, there are a few tricks that can help you craft dialogue that complements your story, builds emotional tension, and keeps the reader engaged. Here are two that have helped me.

Sentence structure

In Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for the Page, Stage, and Screen, Robert McKee shares 300 pages of excellent advice on writing sharp dialogue, including more than a dozen specific examples of film and play scripts utilizing these techniques. One specific piece of advice caught my attention, because it focuses not on juicy word choices – which can’t be taught – but on sentence structure, which can.

In his section on the flaws that can derail your dialogue, McKee discusses mistimed or miscued dialogue exchanges, and shows how sentence structure – the literal order of your words in your sentences, arranged for emphasis – can make the difference between flat or confusing dialogue and dialogue that sings.

You may have read craft advice describing dialogue as a tennis game. One character lobs a piece of conversation at another character, who hits it back, setting up the first character to respond. When dialogue is cracking, the characters may volley long strings of conversation, like two well-matched, highly skilled tennis players. What you don’t often see is what that looks like on the page.

McKee does provide such an example, demonstrating how properly structuring your sentences to place your volleys at the beginning and end of each piece of dialogue can create a compelling action/reaction chain as your characters engage in a verbal back and forth.

McKee quotes a brief passage from John Pielmeier’s play (and later film) Agnes of God. In the story, Sister Agnes, a young nun, has given birth to a child that is found dead next to her bed. Agnes is accused of murdering her baby, but insists she is a virgin. Prior to the birth, Agnes also showed evidence of stigmata, a wound in her hand mimicking the wound of Jesus Christ on the cross. The court appoints a psychiatrist to examine Agnes and determine if she is mentally fit to stand trial. In the following exchange, the doctor discusses Agnes with the convent’s Mother Superior. Note the bolded text.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Of course not. Look, I know what you’re thinking. She’s an hysteric, pure and simple.

DOCTOR: Not simple, no.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: I saw it. Clean through the palm of her hand, do you think hysteria did that?

DOCTOR: It’s been doing it for centuries. She’s not unique, you know. She’s just another victim.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Yes, God’s victim. That’s her innocence. She belongs to God.

DOCTOR: And I mean to take her away from Him. That’s what you fear, isn’t it?

MOTHER SUPERIOR: You bet I do.

DOCTOR: Well, I prefer to look upon it as opening her mind.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: To the world?

DOCTOR: To herself. So she can begin to heal.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: But that’s not your job, is it? You’re here to diagnose, not to heal.

DOCTOR: That is a matter of opinion.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: The judge’s… (opinion.)

DOCTOR: Your opinion. I’m here to help her in whatever way I see fit. That’s my duty as a doctor.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: But not as an employee of the court. You’re to make a decision on her sanity as quickly as possible and not interfere with due process of law. Those are the judge’s words, not mine.

DOCTOR: As quickly as I see fit, not as possible. 1 haven’t made that decision yet.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: But the kindest thing you can do for Agnes is to make that decision and let her go.

DOCTOR: Back to court?

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Yes.

DOCTOR: And what then? If I say she’s crazy, she goes to an institution. If I say she’s sane, she goes to prison.

In this exchange, the bolded words trigger the conversational volley between the characters. Each character begins her piece of dialogue responding to what the other character has said and ends by lobbing the argument back into play. By placing the emphasis of each character’s argument at the end of the segment, Pielmeier weights the dialogue to its most important information and sets up the other character’s next line of speech, creating the “tennis game” effect that keeps a scene popping.

To test this method, we can rewrite some of the dialogue to bury the emphasized information within the dialogue string. Notice how this slows down the exchange, muddies the delivery, and decreases clarity.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: I saw it. Clean through the palm of her hand, do you think hysteria did that?

DOCTOR: It’s been doing it for centuries. She’s just another victim. She’s not unique, you know.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: Yes, God’s victim. She belongs to God. That’s her innocence.

DOCTOR: And I mean to take her away from Him. That’s what you fear, isn’t it?

A slight movement of a few sentences completely throws off the pacing. In lines three and four, Mother Superior and the doctor respond to the what the other has said in the previous lines, but not the last thing they said. By burying the key information in the middle of the sentence, the additional text – unique, innocence – is rendered irrelevant and the scene loses its crackle. The dialogue feels clunky and unnatural.

Emotional hierarchy

In his section on dialogue in Anatomy of Story, John Truby says that dialogue ebbs, flows, and escalates in the same way as your overall plot and individual scenes. For example, in dialogue, a main character may state a desire for the scene. A second character speaks against the desire, creating opposition. The first character responds to the attack. The dialogue continues, escalating to confrontation or resolution.

Truby suggests a trick that can help you put this into practice, particularly in highly emotional or turning point scenes. As with any technique, you shouldn’t overdo it. However, this one may help you create key moments that require hot, emotional dialogue.

The hierarchy looks something like this: desire > plan > state of being

• The dialogue begins with the characters discussing a desire. Character A wants to take an action. Character B speaks against it.
• As the conflict grows, Character A proposes a plan. Character B tears it down.
• When the scene reaches its peak emotional moment, attacks become personal, accusatory.

In his book, Truby shares a snippet of dialogue from the film The Verdict. In the scene, an attorney lays out a goal of winning a large settlement in court case. His client attacks the plan, angry that his lawyer turned down an offer that would have resolved the case. The attorney sets out his plan for winning. The client shifts to attacking the attorney on a personal level, accusing him of not caring about the people he’s supposed to be helping.

When working in harmony with your story, the final stage – the accusation or revelation about a character’s true nature – directly connects the dialogue to your character arc and theme. In The Verdict, the client’s accusation is accurate. His attorney is unethical and a drunk. In fact, he took the case expecting an easy settlement and quick commission. However, the case stirred a desire to change and now represents his make or break moment. The client’s accusation strikes at the attorney’s weakness and need, while also heightening the stakes of the outcome of the court case. The attorney must win the case to prove that he cares and is capable of winning.

These scenes don’t have to be lengthy or complicated. The above scene segment escalates through desire > plan > state of being in about 160 words, but that brief exchange sets the stage for what follows – the high stakes arguments in court and the attorney’s redemption.

Neither of these techniques will tell you what to write or how to develop an ear for snappy, idiosyncratic dialogue. But studying and practicing both can help you build scenes with high emotional stakes and dialogue with clarity and tight pacing.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

Inside every writer, there are two competing factions. Not wolves, but inclinations. We have both the desire to fit in and the desire to break the mold, the instinct to follow the rules and the drive to think for ourselves. The wish to be popular and the desire to be great. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is stacked like a pyramid, but sometimes the layers conflict. The safety of community may ask that we eschew personal fulfillment. An apotheosis may require we leave the community.

This is the conflict through which true believers become heretics and heretics become saints.

In writing, there are rules – the methods and techniques that make a successful story. What to do and what not to do. We want to learn the magic formula – the tricks and tips that transform an unknown writer into a bestselling author. I haven’t experienced it, but I bet having 100,000 readers generates a damn fine sense of belonging.

But at the same time, we want to be recognized for our unique talents. We chafe when someone suggests we write to formula. We don’t want to be merely successful, but respected. We want to be known for our creativity, the originality of our writing, and our keen insights. We have to understand the rules of grammar, spelling, and syntax, or we risk looking foolish. But also, we admire the writers who take risks, who play with language, who fashion new words from old, who break molds. As a rule, writers love eccentric writers. Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Anne Rice. Who doesn’t want to live freely and write with a bit of style?

In Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves, sections of prose are typeset to force the reader to turn the book sideways and then upside down in order to continue reading. In other places, the text is set in backwards type, presumably asking the reader to hold the book up to a mirror. The design mirrors the experience of exploring the haunted house in the title, as well as various characters’ descent into madness.

This technique isn’t for everyone. The novel is described as post-modern. A cranky reader (ahem) might be tempted to describe it as post-intelligible. But as an object of art, it’s a stunning accomplishment by an writer with vision, who decided not to follow what we’d likely consider to be the most basic rule for writing a novel: that the reader be able to read it. Mark Danielewski is definitely a heretic. On the other hand, his second novel was nominated for the National Book Award, so he’s at least been considered for sainthood.

You may not wish to create an impenetrable slab of writing, but do take a few moments to acknowledge both sides of your mind. Appreciate the fact that there are rules of good writing and repeatable steps to success, as well as your soul’s desire to color outside the lines. Reconcile your inner saint and heretic.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

Taking a creative leap of faith and showing up for yourself and your work are much easier if you love what you do.

It seems that for every writer who loves writing – the process of writing, not simply holding a book in their hands – there is another who does it only begrudgingly. They gripe about the time commitment or proofreading or having to work through a scene when they’re not sure what should happen next. Like Barbie working out an algebra problem, they think writing is haaaaaarrrrd.

This is not unlike how many people feel about relationships. All that communicating and compromise and feelings? Yuck! Sure, Valentine’s Day is great – photo ops! – but then you have to slog through the next 364 days til it comes round again.

Are you a writer who believes writing is a grind? Do you often paraphrase Hemingway’s quote about opening a vein and bleeding onto the paper? Do you relate to Dorothy Parker’s lament that she hated writing, but loved having written?

Maybe – just maybe – you should take an opposite approach to your writing for a bit. Remind yourself that you don’t have to write today; you get to write today. Enjoy the challenge of figuring out what happens next. Marvel at the cornucopia choices you get to make – from subject to theme to character to setting – to make this quilt. Get excited about entertaining someone or sharing what you know. Embrace your creativity as joyous, fulfilling, and fun.

Don’t pour out blood onto the paper, pour out love.

Now, it’s axiomatic that love hurts. Opening yourself to the possibility of loving anything comes with the very real likelihood that your love will be rejected or will someday end. It might feel easier to shut yourself off from the possibility, but on the other hands, the rewards are unimaginable.

Love is liberating. Love creates joyous experiences and creates wonderful memories. And what is writing but an expression of love?

You must love other people enough to listen to, observe, and learn about the human condition, and the world enough to notice its beauty and the emotional resonance that differs from place to place. You must love your characters enough to portray them vividly, in all their complexity. You must love your stories enough to want to share them. You must love yourself enough to commit to your creative practice, set aside the time, and continue even when the work is hard.

Of course, we won’t love everything, every day. But without love of some kind, your writing will feel flat, unalive.

Today, take a few minutes to fall in love. If you need a prompt, pick something you already love and commit it to memory. Choose anything – a person, a piece of art, a kind of food or material, a place, a plant or animal, or a sensory experience. Describe your choice in detail. Examine why you love it. Consider what memories and emotions it evokes.

Love something and remember this feeling the next time you sit down to write.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

As a highly-motivated goal setter and a usually reliable goal achiever, I’m always curious about whether and how other creative people set goals. I wish I could be one of those laissez-faire writers who wanders through their day being as creative as they feel like, for a few hours or not. Unfortunately, I have to work for my supper, so my opportunity time is reduced by half. If I allow a few hours to pass without being creative, the day is lost.

That’s not to say I don’t have bad days or skip days. Some days I feel burned out from work or don’t feel well, common afflictions I feel are beneath me, but alas. Occasional travel days and holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving are also usually a wash. But on average, I spend a good amount of time writing every week; the exact number of hours per day may vary.

What other people say

In a post on Writers in the Storm, Jenny Hansen talked about her goals for 2026. Every year, the WITS bloggers choose a single word of intention for the year –such as Renew, Reset, or Joy – to act as their guiding star. I’ve tried that, but I never remember the word, so apparently this does not work for everyone. I suppose writing it down would help.

You’ve probably heard of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals. That approach can steer you in the right direction, but may be too structured for creative work. Writing a novel takes as long as it takes. However, it’s also good to be specific about your intentions and to ensure they are reasonably achievable.

I like setting enough goals that I have a roadmap for my year, with some wriggle room if I want to make a detour or if life gets in the way. This doesn’t work for everyone, but I need some structure or I find it difficult to decide what to do next. Worse, if I’m working only from a vague list, I will veer into busy work or research, or work on easy tasks rather than tackling something more meaningful, but difficult.

However, I add the wriggle room because I also need the space to play and the occasional time off. Also, when my deadlines are too strict, missing them feels like a bigger problem than it really is. There have been a few Januarys when I’ve missed some self-imposed deadlines and felt like I’d blown the whole year, when in reality A – I had 11 months to catch up and B – nobody cares.

In her post, Hansen also notes that most New Year’s resolutions fail for these same reasons. Goals are too vague, there’s no plan of action, and we have an all-or-nothing mindset that keeps us from continuing when we fall short.

In Atomic Habits, James Clear recommends starting small by picking one tiny, easily achievable goal – on par with making your bed every morning or drinking a glass of water at noon – and building forward. In his habit tracker app Atoms, Clear suggests defining the mindset you want to develop or end state you want to achieve, and view your actions as strategy. For example, you goal may be “Be more creative” and your strategy is “Write for one hour every morning before work.”

In her post, Hansen shares some insights she learned from a life coaching seminar: Our brains like solving problems as much or more than they like to-do lists. This is another way of saying it’s easy to get lost in the forest when we are looking at trees.  A long list of tasks may be more daunting than helpful, but remembering why you’re doing them may help keep you motivated.

As with Clear’s advice above, it’s helpful to define the end state you wish to achieve as you create your lists. “Post to Substack on Sunday night” is a useful task, but it you attach it to the end state of “Be more connected to my community”, the task may feel more meaningful and less like drudgery.

How I track goals

My two big picture goals for the year are finishing the next draft of my novel and keeping up with my blog. To keep track, I have a daily word count goal and I have a schedule of what I’m supposed to write and when. The word count is simply an estimate of how many words I think I need to finish the book and write 60-70 blog posts, divided by 365. The schedule reminds me that I can’t just tap out words, I have to actually finish chapters and posts. I also can’t jump to a new project when I feel stuck. I could, of course, but then I risk ending the year with a lot of words written, but nothing substantial to show for it.

The dual goals have other benefits. Hitting my word count goal gives me a pleasurable dopamine spike at the end of each writing session, even better if I exceed it. Checking off chapters and posts – usually on Saturday or Sunday – gives me a sense of accomplishment and forward motion at the end of the week, adding motivation and momentum for the start of the next week, which can be dreary.

It also helps to break down big goals into component pieces. The novel is easy, of course – chapters are excellent sub-goals. When I open a new chapter, I start by breaking down the scenes and beats, including any new character or setting descriptions. I like being able to jump around. If I don’t have any particular inspiration for an opening sentence or paragraph, I skip to set building or conversation, whatever gets me into my writing head space.

My blog goal is posting every Monday, so that breaks down easily as well. I also work better when I have an idea of what I’m going to write before I start, so I keep lists of topic ideas or series to run through. Sometimes topics get moved from one week to another, or bumped altogether if I’m not feeling it.

I don’t know how your brain works, but my brain loves checking items off a list. Seeing the word count roll and the check marks accumulate motivates me to jump onto the next piece of writing. And if I finish my novel or work ahead on my blog, I get to – not have to – start writing something new.

Your turn

Do you set goals this way? How do you keep track of your progress?

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

A few weeks ago, I gave myself a report card for my 2025 writing year, which means it’s time for new goals for 2026. I don’t always hit every goal, but posting them publicly keeps me accountable. Saying it out loud ensures that I do something to move the ball forward, even if I don’t reach the pitcher’s mound. Did I say that right?

Goals

Finish my WIP. This is a spillover goal from last year. As I wrote in my performance eval a few weeks ago, I was on track to finish a ready-to-share draft of the novel until I got bogged down in the muddy middle. I cut, consolidated, replaced, and reshuffled, and now feel optimistic that my plot can carry me through the most difficult part. If not, I have a year to fix it, plus I already fixed it once, so I have a decent grasp on what it might take to pull the wagon out of the ditch, should we run off the road again. I have a daily word count goal, but the important task is finishing, not merely adding up words.

Maintain my blog and newsletter. I closed out 2025 with about 70 blog posts and that sounds about right for this year. I’ve already drafted out topics for a good portion of them, which is half the battle. I may mix in some creative nonfiction along with the craft and creativity posts, but don’t hold me to that. We’ll file that under stretch goals.

Networking and social. I will continue my weekly writing meetups and see about adding an in-person social time, if I have any takers. My monthly networking meetup is going great and I fully expect us to continue meeting. I would like have more social time but here is where time starts to crunch. In a perfect world, I would like to have a small dedicated critique group and I should (I hate that word) spend more time interacting on my social accounts. Let’s call the first 2 solid and achievable goals and the latter 2 optimistic stretch goals.

Reading. Reading isn’t exactly a writing goal, but as the man says – if you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write. I have 80 books on the TBR list for next year, ranging from the highbrow – Sartre’s Being and Nothingness, a collection of seven of Joan Didion’s books, the complete poems of Robert Lowell, and a translation of the Nag Hammadi (Gnostic) scriptures – to the slightly breezier Complete Stories of Kurt Vonnegut and Patricia Highsmith’s Diaries, with some murder mysteries, graphic novels, and craft books to break up the heavy lifting. I’m very much looking forward to re-reading Ethan Mordden’s Buddies series and John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I could probably guess which books on the list won’t get read in 2026, but since I choose the books, that would be cheating. I should get through most of them.

Stretch goals

As the name implies, these are projects I’d like to work on, but won’t prioritize unless I blast through the more achievable goals. Ideally, these will be at the top to the list next year.

Draft book 2. I have a good outline for my next book, a follow-on novel to the WIP, set in the same world but with an entirely different cast. I don’t anticipate writing both books this year, but if I finish the first by the end of summer – eminently doable – then I could finish an ugly NANO-ish draft by the end of the year.

Stage book 3. I know what my next-next book will be, an expansion of a novella that I wrote a few years ago that needs more room to breath. If I need a break from – or between – book 1 and 2, I can work on what I call my Rationale document – a big picture review of the protagonist and the antagonism, what I’m writing and why, what I want to say, and what I want my readers to feel while and after reading the novel. It’s not quite an outline, though much of the document will find its way into an outline. Think of it as a vision board in a Word doc.

Art time. Every year I write down art time and every year I don’t set aside time to do any art. However, as you may recall, I spent a good chunk of September painting and setting up my craft room, so I have a drafting table, an easel, a kitchen table, and a writing desk glaring at me every time I pass by. I have paper. I have pencils. I’ve had some of my inks and paints so long they’ve probably gone crusty, but that’s ok. I like doodling and maybe I’ll get some time this year.

That’s a lot

And that’s ok. I know my priorities: the Top 3 are the WIP, my blog, and the networking group. The stretch goals are just that – fun things to pick at if I need a break or win the lottery. Compared to the Top 3, they aren’t vital to a successful year. I’ll report back next December.

What are your creative goals for 2025?

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them. Need more content? Join my mailing list!

Over the summer, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered whether we were shifting into a cultural phase wherein audiences would crave the concept of heroism – actual heart-on-the-sleeve, morally upright, sacrificing for the greater good heroism – rather than the cynical, manipulative, trust no one, ends-justify-the-means type of protagonist that has been much more prevalent these past years.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed an uptick in craft bloggers addressing anti-heroism. Topics tend to cycle – and occasionally bunch up together so tightly one might assume the writers are following each other and swiping ideas – so we were probably due for another round of articles on the antihero.

If only so many bloggers didn’t get it completely wrong.

Over and over, I see craft writers conflate anti-heroism with character flaws and likeability, which are irrelevant to the question. Yes, an antihero may, in fact, be quite unlikeable, but he may also be charming, and neither is germane to the role. Rather, other elements govern the antihero. Let’s explore.

What is likeable anyway?

The first problem with using likeability as your threshold for anti-heroism is that everyone has their own definition. The traits you admire may grate on someone else’s nerves, and vice versa. I love Gwenyth Paltrow and Hilary Clinton. I think Prince Harry and Meghan are the only two sane, relatable members of the Royal Family. I am probably very lonely in these assessments. The list of people I find insufferable is lengthy, but I won’t name names. Two in particular would get me run out of Substack on a rail.

Likeability also changes with the times. Katherine Hepburn was box office poison for years, and Bette Davis a demanding bitch. Now you will more commonly hear them described as self-assured, iconoclastic, and feminist icons. Was Jay Gatsby a romantic dreamer or a deluded social climber with a toxic obsession for Daisy? Was Don Draper stylishly cool or an emotionally repressed misogynist? Is Scarlett O’Hara a strong-willed survivor or a spoiled shrew complicit with slave culture? It depends on who you ask, but also when.

Flawed protagonists are not antiheroes

I have also read articles aligning the flawed protagonist into the antihero camp. If having flaws is the sign of an antihero, then no one is heroic. In more censorious times, a flawed character would be considered less than ideal, because heroes were not allowed to have weaknesses, other than the “cares too much, works too hard” variety of non-flaws. However, these days we are more enlightened and understand the value of well-rounded characters. Nobody likes a Pollyanna.

A character can be cowardly and still make sacrifices for others. Another might be crude but always willing to stand up for what’s right. A character can be pompous or self-centered, but have a strict code of honesty. We might not like these characters, but we cannot call them antiheroes.

Confusing this characterization can also lead to some amusing declarations, such as one by a recent blogger who described Holden Caulfield as both unlikeable and an antihero, because…he smokes cigarettes. And uses bad language.

No, seriously. That actually happened, in a magazine I assume pays good money for articles. In fact, that writer used “flawed protagonists” and “antihero” nearly synonymously, which should have warned me off, but it gave me a great example of “what not to do” so no harm done. Unless swearing does make a person unlikeable, in which case I’m in serious danger.

Likeability is not a sign of heroism or anti-heroism, and even if it were, your audience’s opinion of your protagonist is out of your control (see above re: Hilary Clinton). You can make an educated guess, but in the end, you have no idea what anyone considers positive.

A hero may be someone you’d want to know or not. A character may be well-liked but not a hero. Personality has little to do with behavior. Remember, people described Ted Bundy as charming and former co-worker Ann Rule found him “kind, solicitous, and empathetic.” Yet, his victims would not consider him the hero of the story.

Protagonists aren’t necessarily heroes

This is a good point to note the difference between protagonist and hero. While we can generally use these terms interchangeably, there are important distinctions. Your protagonist is simply the character who drives your story. Most often, we consider the protagonist a hero, but you may write from the POV of a villain, or your character might not be any kind of hero or villain at all.

As with Holden Caulfield or Leopold Bloom in James Joyce’s Ulysses, your protagonist – literally “the one who plays the first part” – may simply embark on a journey with no special moral conflict. Like Gregor Samsa, your central character may be a passive victim of misfortune, embodying no virtue or moral ideal. With such characters, there is no context against which to frame them as heroes or antiheroes, even if one is a filthy smoker.

Morality has entered the chat.

In order for there to be an antihero, we must first define the hero. As noted, a hero is more than simply the protagonist. The hero as archetype embodies an ideal, and so, rather than personality, the heart of any heroic character or journey is a deep moral belief, question, or dilemma. Naturally then, the role of the antihero also centers on morality, but in a different orbit.

As always, your mileage may vary, but my definition of an antihero is someone who:

• Does good things for a morally bad reason
• Does morally repellant things for a good reason

Good acts, bad reasons

In the first category, we might start with Han Solo, who begins Star Wars as simply a hired pilot but later agrees to continue the journey to the rebel base – something good – but only because there may be a reward attached. He becomes a hero only later, when he risks personal sacrifice to join the attack on the Deathstar. In later seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Spike fights vampires and demons not because he’s made a moral choice, but because a science experiment has rendered him unable to harm humans, and he likes fighting too much to quit. Later, his motivation evolves – he wants to help Buffy because he’s fallen in love with her – but his cause remains selfish. If the Slayer quit her mission, so would he.

In the real world, Jordan Belfort (the title character in The Wolf of Wall Street) began giving motivational speeches on corporate ethics after a stint in jail for financial fraud schemes. Similarly, Frank Abagnale (the central figure of Catch Me If You Can) became a security consultant, also after doing time for forgery and theft. Were their post-pokey efforts meant to compensate society for years of wrong-doing, or were they motivated by financial and reputational gain? I know what I’d guess.

Bad acts, good reasons

An easy example is Dexter Morgan, the killer of serial killers, meting out justice via morally repugnant deeds. Like Dexter, the protagonists of the Dirty Harry and Death Wish film series pursue a harsh form of justice, but use vigilante tactics and brutality.

In How to Get Away With Murder, Viola Davis’ Annalise Keating lies, covers up murder, frames innocent people, and twists the justice system, mostly in service of the moral goal of protecting her students and loved ones from harm (Let’s set aside the fact that the potential harm is due to their own actions and that the truth would have served them far better). Though Annalise is one of the few cast members who doesn’t kill anyone, she remains the most morally conflicted character, engaging in antiheroic behavior to serve her personal moral code.

Ambiguous choices

Sometimes, a clever writer can play the greyest of morality cards and leave the audience guessing as to motivation. In Game of Thrones, Jamie Lannister breaks his vow (a bad thing) and slays King Aeris II (also bad) but does so in order to prevent the Mad King from burning King’s Landing to the ground at the end of Robert’s Rebellion (positive motivation). Or…maybe he slayed the Mad King (a positive act long overdue) in order to save his own skin (enlightened self-interest) and further his family’s trek to the throne (cold ambition). Margaery Tyrell manipulates Joffrey’s emotions, taming his violent and capricious moods (a good thing) but does she act on behalf of the people, who need a kind, attentive king after Robert and Aerys II (positive motivation) or to seal their marriage and bring her family into the royal line (selfish motivation). Possibly both were in play, along with some please-don’t-shoot-me-with-the-crossbow self-preservation.

The show allows the audience to speculate, and perhaps even the characters themselves aren’t sure of what drives them from one moment to the next.

Likeability is irrelevant

Whether you strive to portray a character as likeable or not is a matter of personal preference, dependent on the story at hand and the mood you wish to evoke. However, personal charm is irrelevant to the creation of an antihero, who operates under his own code of moral conduct, outside the bounds of conventional behavior. Mix a few immoral acts, dedicated self-interest, and a hefty dose of one or several of the Seven Deadly Sins, and you’ll be well on your way to creating one of your own.

Know anyone who’d like my blog? Please forward today’s post! I’d love to hear from them.

Need more content? Join my mailing list!