Every novel. Every script. Every story of substance. Somewhere in its middle, there’s a moment. A choice. A fracture. A truth. It might be small: a whispered confession. Or it could be huge: the shot rings out, the body hits the ground, the spaceship launches. But it’s the scene that changes the story. The turning point. More…
On Writing
Dec202025
Rolling Stone – Unskippable: Drag Your Readers Past the First Chapter
You get one shot. That’s it. One chapter. One page. Sometimes just one sentence. If your reader isn’t hooked, they’re not turning to the next page. They’re closing the book, backing out of the Kindle sample or walking away from the shelf. More…
Dec52025
Rolling Stone – Authors: 5 Ways to Build Villains That Are Real Monsters
If you want your book to stick with readers long after they’ve finished it, don’t just build a stock antagonist. Build someone that readers can’t stop thinking about. More…
Nov42025
Rolling Stone – Ordinary Things: Subversive Storytelling
Readers come to the page looking for escape — but what hooks them isn’t the strange, it’s the familiar made strange.
There’s an apocryphal anecdote about Hemingway being challenged to write a complete story, with all the emotional impact of one of his own short stories, in just six words. Hemingway offered a tale of an ordinary object:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn …Read More