Character Conflict: The Subjectivity of Goodness

A pet peeve of mine is when all of the nice characters approve of each other, when they all have a similar set of values and understandin...

Toy Bingo

Don't Assume

I do not accept, and will never accept, that writers or readers of a problematic, troubling, or controversial work are automatically terr...

Questionable Material

Writers are not responsible for morally condemning the immoral actions of their characters. I’ve seen writers who think that they need ...

Books We Love To Hate

It is good when a book promotes critical thinking (and that includes books that you think handled a topic wrong ) because it opens up di...

Writing Texting

When my characters text in stories, everything is always spelled out with punctuation. I realize it’s not how a lot of people actually ...

Practice

Every single piece of writing you create, even the non-creative work, is practice. A journal, a letter to a friend, a blog post, a scho...

Putting In The Time

When someone looks at a piece of writing (mine or otherwise) and says that they could do better, my first thought is, "Then you shou...

Writing and Age

I’ve been writing for two decades. And by writing, I mean practicing and training and learning and pulling my hair out to try and get bet...

When Badguys Don't Lose

One of my favorite books is The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery (of Anne of Green Gables fame). It's the story of a young woman, Va...

Writer Bias

How can you tell the difference between a story with deeply troubling opinions, themes, and character actions and a story where the write...