What I'm Reading

Book discussions with a focus on the writer's craft

Writers' Toolbox

Elements of craft discussed in this blog.

Writing about a sibling relationship (3)
Preparing for an unexpected turn (2)
Witholding information to create a magnetic character (2)
Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
Sustaining a core mystery (2)
Advance Preparation (2)
Defining character through dialogue (2)
Fictionalizing an historic figure (2)
Using an image to show what the character is feeling (2)
Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (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)
Reinventing a well-known character (1)
Avoiding sensationalism in a novel about the abuse of boundaries (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)
Creating mystery in the first chapter (1)
Grounding a Novel in Historical Events (1)
Making use of the direct address form in a novel (1)
Addressing moral issues (1)
Giving the reader more information than the protagonist has (1)
Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (1)
Using backstory to enhance the reader's empathy for a character (1)
Planting a seed of disorder within each character to grow into a believable chaos (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)
Hiding the narrative design (1)
Using mystery to define the limits of a character's experience (1)
Staging a surprise ending (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)
Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)

Field Notes from an Extinction by Eoghan Walls

May 28, 2026

Field Notes from an Extinction is the Irish writer Eoghan Walls' spellbinding second novel about a nineteenth century ornithologist who studies the last auk colony on an uninhabited island…

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Jan 01, 2022

As I work on my next novel, I have been thinking about the many ways a writer can keep a mystery alive through hundreds of pages. Clare Chambers' extraordinary new novel, Small Pleasures is…

Megan Staffel

Megan Staffel

What I'm Reading

Writers' Toolbox

Field Notes from an Extinction by Eoghan Walls

Small Pleasures by Clare Chambers

Page & Story