On Writing Better: 43 Things I Learned from My Insane 2 Years of Study

A character should never get exactly what they want or what they're trying to get in a scene.

Instead, they either SHOULD get what they want BUT it has some unexpected consequence.

Or they should NOT get what they want AND it should have some additional unexpected consequence.

Braiding is One of the Highest Leverage Writing Skills

If you’re totally lost on what to focus on getting better at, focus on braiding.

Narrative-style writing (fiction and nonfiction) has four major components:

1. Action: Things happening


2. Dialogue: What people are saying


3. Description: The environment around the people and events


4. Interiority: The characte

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There are a TON of skills you need to get better at to write a good book.

Structure, story-telling, dialogue, description, scene, suspense, explanation, character-building, word choice, energy flow.

If you try to get better at everything at once, you’ll get overwhelmed and not make much progress.

Instead, pick one or two things and focus all of you... See more