If you ask your readers too many questions, they may end up feeling let down or even abandoned.

Few articles are written about how to get fictional characters to act. This article explains how to do it.

Reciting tales has been a part of human life from the earliest discovered cave drawings until the present day.

I offer only the fun bits. Enough for you to be popular at parties, but not sufficient to pass a college course in literature.

A story that is not relatable is of little use to anyone no matter how clearly it is written.

Critiquing other people’s manuscripts of fictional works is fun for me because I start off with a declaration saying, “My comments are my...

When I’m reading a story, and one character says to another, “We’ve talked about this,” my mind is thrown from the story.

If you want your readers to hate your scenes, make every character behave foolishly.

If you’ve spent any time studying the rules of writing fiction, you’ll know that stories must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Howeve

Why am I having difficulty picking ten villains? I believe it's because fiction must be entertaining, and that includes its villains.

My twenty-one-year-old son asked me to pick my ten favorite movies of all time. He didn’t tell me why, so I cannot tell you the reason.

If you accelerate or decelerate unevenly while driving a vehicle, your passengers will feel jerked around. Don’t jerk your passengers.

The last forty times my wife and I watched movie trailers at a theater, she whispers to me, “They’ve shown too much.”

Given the growing number of satirical (humorous) websites that provide highly realistic but fake news articles, I thought I would try my...

When your prose is effective, your readers will become someone else in a different time and place.

If you want to immerse yourself in a creative and unique atmosphere that sends you far away to a distant land, then listen to a soundtrack.

The world will not accept you as an author any more than those whom you know personally.

I was surprised when I heard many authors express their fear of writing dialogue. “Dialogue is easy to write!” I said to myself.

Deciding to write a unique novel is like deciding to write a better one. You must ask yourself, “Unique in what way?”

If my mother were to haunt me from the next world (which would be a surprise because she is alive), I know what her incantation would be.

For years, critics kept telling me my stories didn’t have enough conflict. Reviewers would write, “Your characters have it too easy.”

If you want your young children to learn to write well, encourage them to draw.

Every author has what literary experts call voice. It took me years to realize that voice simply meant the author's unique writing style.

As you write every sentence of your story, read each one aloud and ask yourself, “Is this sentence easy to read, and is it enjoyable?”