What I'm Reading

Book discussions with a focus on the writer's craft

Writers' Toolbox

Elements of craft discussed in this blog.

Defining character through dialogue (2)
Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
Preparing for an unexpected turn (2)
Fictionalizing an historic figure (2)
Writing about a sibling relationship (2)
Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (1)
Staging a surprise ending (1)
Using backstory to enhance the reader's empathy for a character (1)
Avoiding sensationalism in a novel about the abuse of boundaries (1)
Giving the reader more information than the protagonist has (1)
Maintaining two narrative timelines (1)
Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (1)
Rising action leading to a climactic scene (1)
Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
Retelling the Oedipus Myth in a gender-fluid and time-fluid story (1)
Using a flat character to add momentum to a narrative (1)
How extended dialogue can prepare for a moment of decision (1)
Reinventing a well-known character (1)
A story within a story (1)
Developing character through visual transformation (1)
Witholding information to create a magnetic character (1)
Developing a strong narrator presence through tone (1)
Sustaining a core mystery (1)
Hiding the narrative design (1)
Creating a guide character (1)
The long approach: Opening a novel with a sweeping introductory vision (1)
Creating a shadowed life: the slow trickle of an unsettled past (1)
Using an object to reveal and distinguish a character (1)
Setting up a reversal (1)
Using a first person voice to drive the narrative (1)
Withholding the novel's intention (1)
Using a small space to build tension between two characters (1)
Planting a seed of disorder within each character to grow into a believable chaos (1)
Setting a performance within a novel: what it can achieve (1)
Using mystery to define the limits of a character's experience (1)
Using an image to show what the character is feeling (1)
The Ticking Clock: Using the calendar to escalate tension (1)
Building a novel around a single theme (1)
Achieving transparency in scene and dialogue to reveal emotional turmoil (1)
Balancing a novel's emotional terrain through character (1)
Using plot to create false assumptions about what will happen. (1)
Connecting different characters through the unifying element of shared disorder (1)
Understanding the effects of using white space and the present tense (1)

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Mar 21, 2025

The protagonist of Kaveh Akbar's debut novel, Martyr!, wants to die. This is not, as you might think, the wish of an elderly man, or a person with a terminal disease, but the preoccupation…

After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley

Oct 17, 2024

Tessa Hadley's new collection of stories, After the Funeral, plumbs the depths of what we see, hear, and understand about our fellow human beings, dwelling on the private things people…

Megan Staffel

Megan Staffel

What I'm Reading

Writers' Toolbox

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

After the Funeral by Tessa Hadley

Page & Story