Master Fiction Writing

Momentum Without a Ticking Clock: How to Keep a Story Moving Across Decades

How do you keep a story moving when there’s no ticking clock, no looming deadline, and the plot unfolds across decades? This week’s episode comes from a question sent in

The Reveal Is Not the Secret: How to Control What Your Reader Knows

A great secret can give you material. The reveal is what turns that material into story. In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, I’m looking at how to control what yo

The Conversation Under the Conversation: How to Write Subtext

What makes dialogue feel alive? Very often, it’s what the characters aren’t saying. In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, I’m looking at subtext: the gap between wh

The Status Game: Who Really Has the Power in Your Scene?

Who really has the power in your scene? Status is one of the hidden forces that can make a scene feel alive. It shapes who controls the conversation, who needs something

The Hawksian Woman: What Writers Can Learn About Chemistry, Competence, and Equality

What makes some characters instantly compelling to one another? Sometimes it isn’t vulnerability, physical attraction, or even conflict. Sometimes it’s the moment one cha

The Human Cost of Magic, Monsters, and Machines

A magic system. A monster. A machine. A prophecy. A portal. A ghost. A dystopian regime. An impossible world. Speculative fiction often begins with a brilliant what if?

Why Romantasy Works: What Every Fiction Writer Can Learn From It

Romantasy is everywhere right now. Dragons, fae courts, morally grey love interests, spectacular special editions - and sales figures that have made the publishing indust

Stop Explaining What Your Character Feels

Sometimes the best edit you can make to an emotional scene is to delete the sentence that explains why it was emotional. In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, I’m l

The Queer Story Engine: How Queerness Changes What a Story Wants

What does this story want because this character is queer? That’s the question at the heart of this special episode recorded for ProWritingAid’s Write with Pride event.

How to Write Speculative Fiction That Stays With Readers

What if the impossible is the best way to tell the truth? Speculative fiction isn’t really about dragons, spaceships, magic or dystopias. At its heart, it’s about askin

How to Write Brilliant Argument Scenes

In the last episode, we explored why so many argument scenes feel artificial and discovered that arguments aren’t really conversations - they’re attempts to change anothe

Why Your Argument Scenes Don’t Work (And What Great Writers Understand About Conflict)

Why do so many argument scenes feel strangely lifeless, even when characters are shouting, interrupting each other, and making excellent points? Because conflict isn’t a

The Quiet Scene: Why Low-Action Scenes Still Need to Move

Quiet scenes are often where manuscripts go flat, not because nothing explodes, but because nothing changes. In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, Stuart Wakefield

The Phone Call Scene: Turning Distance into Drama

A phone call scene can look deceptively small on the page. Two people talk, some information changes hands, then someone hangs up, but if that’s all the scene is doing, i

Before They Say a Word: The Power of the Doorway Scene

A character walking into a room might seem like simple scene logistics, but an entrance can reveal far more than movement. It can show power, fear, desire, belonging, exc

Your Story Has to Change Its Mind: Why the Middle of a Novel Is Where the Real Book Reveals Itself

The middle of a novel is often where writers begin to worry. The opening had energy, and the ending may be in sight, but somewhere in between, the story starts to feel sl

Thriller: The Art of Pressure, Danger, and Page-Turning Dread

What actually makes a thriller a thriller? It isn’t just murder, spies, guns, plot twists, or car chases. In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, we take a deep dive

Does Your Protagonist Have to Change? Character Arc and Story Movement

Does every protagonist really need to change by the end of a story? Not always. In this episode, we look beyond the familiar “your character must change” advice and expl

How to Write Emotion Without Explaining Everything

Do your characters keep feeling sad, furious, lonely, ashamed, or devastated on the page... but the reader still isn’t feeling much? In this episode of Master Fiction Wr

Third Person Isn’t One Thing: How Narrative Distance Changes Everything

In this episode of Master Fiction Writing, we untangle one of the most confusing pieces of fiction craft: third-person point of view. Because “write it in third person”