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)
Witholding information to create a magnetic character (2)
Defining character through dialogue (2)
Using an image to show what the character is feeling (2)
Preparing for an unexpected turn (2)
Fictionalizing an historic figure (2)
Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
Advance Preparation (2)
Creating an unmoving presence at the center of a novel (1)
Rising action leading to a climactic scene (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)
Creating mystery in the first chapter (1)
Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
Using a flat character to add momentum to a narrative (1)
Retelling the Oedipus Myth in a gender-fluid and time-fluid story (1)
Understanding the effects of using white space and the present tense (1)
How extended dialogue can prepare for a moment of decision (1)
Staging a surprise ending (1)
A novel with contradictory parts (1)
Reinventing a well-known character (1)
A story within a story (1)
Developing character through visual transformation (1)
Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (1)
Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (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)
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)
Sustaining a core mystery (1)
Grounding a Novel in Historical Events (1)

After the Parade by Lori Ostlund

Jan 21, 2026

In the past few years there have been a spate of powerful novels that barely reach two hundred pages. I've discussed three of them here: Clear,…

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer

Jan 06, 2023

Most of the stories in Hilma Wolitzer's newly published collection were written in the nineteen seventies, but the humor and wit that electrifies each one feels timeless, and relative to our present,…

Megan Staffel

Megan Staffel

What I'm Reading

Writers' Toolbox

After the Parade by Lori Ostlund

Today a Woman Went Mad in the Supermarket by Hilma Wolitzer

Page & Story