Jenny Lee Wright

Characters look out a rainy window when they have been given no events to experience, when the emotional plot is over developed

Plot fails when action happens to characters, and characters are not emotionally engaging with action

Plot happens when what characters feel causes them to act, or when what happen to the character causes them to feel

Readers look for evidence of the world, that the world is real - a child’s scrape, dust on the statue, the smell of the food in the kitchen

When short stories or novels fail, it’s because they’ve broken the rules they’ve set up for themselves

The problem with a gesture like eye rolling - it’s not that it is cliche, it’s that it doesn’t actually change anything, it doesn’t move the story forward, all you can do is be annoyed by it

Characters without agency, can still have reaction and action, even if they can’t change their circumstances. They don’t have to change their life, but they can change their relationship to the story.

Writing in third person works for characters who are unable to be observant or tell their story - e.g. children have extraordinary inner lives but are unable to articulate it through vocabulary or aren’t interested in conveying it

Writing in first person is best for characters who are compelled to tell their story