Writing

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

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1. It’s Good.


2. It Can be Better.

It’s a little trite, but try it out next time you’re feeling hard on yourself. If you’ve gotten some way into a creative project, the odds are it’s not terrible. It’s probably not where you want it to be or where you’ve imagined it can be, but it’s hopefully at least decent. And it can be better.

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.

People who are stuck often ask themselves, What am I supposed to do next? That question often comes from a place of paying attention to your thoughts, not your body. You’re too busy being slammed by your feelings to read what they’re telling you.

But how do you pay attention to your body, how do you parse your feelings, how do you reach that sense... See more

Remember, the creative act is all about long term progression. The only way to improve is through the consistent completion, and release of work. So learn what you can from your current project, click publish, and then start again.

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... See more

But in my opinion, the best way to get more comfortable asking “dumb questions” is to ask them more, because then you’ll see the benefit and become addicted. I learned this skill at school because I noticed the deep sighs of relief from classmates when I sacrificed myself by asking my teachers or professors the dumb question we were all thinking.... See more

the creative process typically involves three steps:

1. Collecting: Gathering interesting ideas


2. Connecting: Drawing connections and organizing materials


3. Creating: Producing something new