You can have the greatest story concept in the world, but unless you have conflict you won’t have dramatic tension.

Basically, your line of conflict is the obstacle course you put your main character through so she wins her goal or mission and regains control of her life. That’s from Spielberg. Remember his definition of story? Someone loses control of his life and then regains it.

Conflict, obstacles, loss of control. These engender dramatic questions that create dramatic tension. The story problem, the outside conflict, tells your reader what to worry about. Soon enough he will discover the protagonist’s inner conflict, his ghosts and hidden demons.

Good storytellers learn how to think about their story. Stories evolve, in our minds or on the page. I don’t believe this process can be hurried. I like to take my time, noodling my story through after inventing intricate, conflicted characters who embark on an adventure.

Any creation is a god-like act, and creating characters is totally god-like. Most writers turn the act around. They perceive the character in a flash and then embark on a voyage of discovery, trying to figure out who and what this character is and what makes him/her act or react in certain ways. Perhaps this is going about the job backwards. Here’s how I start. Continue reading →

Making time to write, as opposed to finding time, has long been a theme of mine, as any of my students can tell you.

If you are really serious about being a writer, (as who of us are not?), you make necessary changes in your life. IMO, the most important change is making sure you are prepared to write when the moment comes. Warning: These suggestions might not work for you. Use what you can. Continue reading →

Written at the farm December 24, 2005

I spent a most enjoyable hour or two yesterday, curled in one of my lounge chairs here at the farm with a printout of the synopsis of a historical that has bugs in it. The original date of the document was 1993, so I’ve been working on it since then, at intervals of five years or so. I travel with a laptop. The first thing we do is set up a work station for me. We have a neat little printer that lives in a cupboard out here. Continue reading →

I have no idea how a flash drive works, but I can tell you how flash technology has improved my life. My flash drives have 100 to 200 megabytes of memory. They keep my data safe and are remarkably portable. Nice, because I go to the farm every four to six weeks to write. Also nice when I have to run from a hurricane. Continue reading →

A piece of fiction begins with words on paper and gives the illusion of reality. You have an envelope of imposed imagery that contains characters and shapes their world. Readers must be swept into that magical place called suspension of disbelief. They know the story was conceived by some writer, but willingly accept its truths. Continue reading →