Q: Which is more important, character or plot?
A: Yes.
Or, to put it a bit less obliquely, you can’t really separate the two. Plot, after all, is characters doing things, and one of the ways characters are defined is by what they do and how they do it. I don’t have a grand unified theory of character, but I do have some thoughts on the subject — as what writer does not? — and like most writers who have thoughts, I’m happy to share them.
Continue reading “Chicken and Egg”
“Tell me if this is a stupid question,” my correspondent asked, “but how do you come up with the many different names needed for a story or novel? Is there a secret to making them sound somewhat realistic?”
Continue reading “Naming Names”
Most stories have two plots, the internal or emotional plot and the external plot. Which plot is the primary one depends upon the genre and the writer. Continue reading “A Two-Plot Problem”
The question of “embedded exposition” came up again the other day, and I said: Continue reading “It Has to Go Somewhere”
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