Never Say You Can't Survive: How to Get Through Hard Times by Making Up Stories

It’s a way to discover new aspects of your own mind and create personas that you get to inhabit for a period of time.

character who’s chasing after something unrelated to the search for a plot widget is more interesting.

The sooner I can see a character going through changes, the better—because often, your characters are only as compelling as the changes they go through.

When I realize my mind is sliding away from some aspect of a character, that’s usually where the really good stuff is.

A good scene should probably feel as if things are cooking, and like the story is going someplace, even if you don’t yet know where.

Mistakes are awesome, especially if they lead you in a surprising direction.

But at least there’ll be little moments here and there where people say something revealing, or their personalities shine through. And maybe I’ll notice that Marjorie and her sister don’t really get along, and that’s a thread I can try and pick up again in later scenes. The bad version of a scene nearly always contains the seeds of a better version

It’s amazing how often a character just needs a foil, or someone to bounce off, to start going through some changes.

There are two major ways a character can change: their opinions and feelings can shift, or their circumstances can. Or both.