Writers' Toolbox

Elements of craft discussed in this blog.

• Fictionalizing an historic figure (2)
• Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
• Writing about a sibling relationship (2)
• Preparing for an unexpected turn (2)
• Defining character through dialogue (2)
• Witholding information to create a magnetic character (2)
• Retelling the Oedipus Myth in a gender-fluid and time-fluid story (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)
• Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
• Rising action leading to a climactic scene (1)
• Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (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)
• Understanding the effects of using white space and the present tense (1)
• Creating an unmoving presence at the center of a novel (1)
• A novel with contradictory parts (1)
• Advance Preparation (1)
• Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (1)
• Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
• Setting a performance within a novel: what it can achieve (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)
• Sustaining a core mystery (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)
• Developing a strong narrator presence through tone (1)
• Creating mystery in the first chapter (1)