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)
Writing about a sibling relationship (2)
Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (1)
Sustaining a core mystery (1)
Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
Witholding information to create a magnetic character (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)
Connecting different characters through the unifying element of shared disorder (1)
Maintaining two narrative timelines (1)
Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
Rising action leading to a climactic scene (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)
Developing a strong narrator presence through tone (1)
Balancing a novel's emotional terrain through character (1)
Using plot to create false assumptions about what will happen. (1)
Withholding the novel's intention (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)
Using a small space to build tension between two characters (1)
Setting a performance within a novel: what it can achieve (1)
Hiding the narrative design (1)
Planting a seed of disorder within each character to grow into a believable chaos (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)
Fictionalizing an historic figure (1)

The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel

Jun 09, 2023

Jane has an unusual passion. She is a paleobiologist who believes that bringing the woolly mammoth back to life will stop the ice from disappearing in the Artic. The theory is that when this prehistoric…

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Sep 10, 2022

This novella by the Irish writer, Claire Keegan, is a small masterpiece. The story centers around Bill Furlong, a coal merchant, as he makes deliveries during the Christmas season in Northern Ireland…

Megan Staffel

Megan Staffel

What I'm Reading

Writers' Toolbox

The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

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