Write Better Stories The Power of Two Different Views

A 0:0:53-long dose of inspiration


Whether you’re a fan of high drama or prefer subtle conflict, exploring how two characters can see the same situation differently is a surefire way to add depth and intrigue to your storytelling.
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Writing Prompt: Weather Happens

A 0:00:47-long dose of inspiration


Our characters don’t exist in a vacuum (well, except for the occasional sci-fi character shoved out of an airlock…and they don’t tend to exist for very long). Today’s prompt encourages you to think about the weather and how it might affect your characters’ plans.

The Writing Shell Game

Every time I’m in a city I see a man drawing passersby into a shell game.

He’ll have a tiny card table set up. three folded cards on top, or three tiny cups, and he’s shuffling them around, talking fast, and convincing someone to play ‘guess where the ball is now’.

It’s deceptively simple: just follow the ball, and win some money.

We all think we can do that. But the secret is that we are playing a different game from the operator of the con. We expect him to play fair. He knows that the game is to cheat. We only find the ball when he wants us to.

I’m always astonished that there is anyone left in the world who thinks they can win at a shell game.

Pick a Method, Any Method

The writing world is rife with shell games. Someone promising us the perfect system for drafting, for revising, for getting published…but the truth is, they are not promising a system that will work for us, only what worked once or twice for them.

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