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

the more a story is focused on plot widgets, the more your hero ought to be making stuff happen, rather than being a bystander.

Sometimes, I’ll throw in a dozen plot devices and see which one sticks—and by “sticks,” I mean “generates some good moments and causes the characters to come alive.”

people getting creatively blocked because they don’t feel like they’re allowed to write the book they want to write.

increasingly find it helpful to think in terms of “options become constrained,” rather than “things get worse.”

There’s the you that’s standing outside the story and thinking of ways to make life miserable for these people, and then there’s the you that’s inhabiting them and going through their desperate struggle with them. These two parts of yourself aren’t really at odds, they’re both weaving a story together—and this actually makes you feel bigger,

active characters make for better storytelling most of the time, but it can be downright therapeutic to make your protagonists the (inept, fumbling) masters of their own fate.

the ideas that look coolest on the surface are also the ones that have the most clear-cut implications.

You can figure out the ways you’re likely to screw up as a writer, and maybe screw up a little better. Plus you might get to glimpse the ways that your particular brain is a little wonky at turning blobs of information and sensory detail into a smooth narrative, which in turn can help you troubleshoot when the real world gets glitchy. (Is it your