A working curriculum on the craft of fiction

Writing Beliefs

Not rules — beliefs. These are the working convictions behind how I write: what a story owes its reader, what characters are for, why magic needs limits. Each belief argues its case, credits the writers who earned it, and links deeper into the library.

Start with Study Your account

Study and this page are open to everyone — Study is also where the whole library lives. The other units need an access key.

Curriculum

One shelf, nine beliefs

Study comes first because everything after it was taken from those books. Then the beliefs, in the order I'd teach them — 53 sections and 42 quick checks in all. Every unit lists what's inside it, whether or not you have a key yet.

00 free Study Writing challenges patience — these books are read, re-read, argued with, and read again ten years later. Everything else here was taken from them. Inside · 7 min read
  1. The shelf
  2. The whole library
  3. Read it. Then read it again.
  4. Read it with someone
  5. Why you’d commit to this
 3 quick checksstepper 01 locked Structure A story is an interruption of a pattern — structure is how you promise the interruption, progress it, and pay it off. Inside · 7 min read
  1. Promise, progress, payoff
  2. The chiastic circle
  3. The wheel inside the circle
  4. Frameworks are overlays, not laws
  5. Endings
 2 quick checksscene/sequel ringchiastic ringscrollytellingvideo 02 locked Character Readers don't need to like your character — they need to believe them, care about them, and invest in what they want. Inside · 7 min read
  1. Believe, care, invest
  2. Save the cat — but know why it works
  3. Problem versus conflict
  4. Assembling an arc
  5. Weiland’s six archetypal arcs
 2 quick checksstepper 03 locked Sentences Trust is won or lost one sentence at a time — and every technique that wins it has a name. Inside · 15 min read
  1. Put the engine at the front
  2. The period is a stop sign
  3. Control the pace
  4. Climb the ladder before you write
  5. Prune
  6. Break the rules on purpose
  7. Your turn
 6 quick checksannotated passagesbefore/after editsline-edit lababstraction ladder 04 locked Magic Limits are more interesting than powers — a magic system is a promise about how problems get solved. Inside · 3 min read
  1. Sanderson’s Laws
  2. The spectrum
 2 quick checks 05 locked Immersion We don't get lost in a story to escape reality — we do it to rehearse reality. Point of view is the machinery that lets us. Inside · 15 min read
  1. The chain
  2. Point of view is four dials, not three options
  3. The three ways to break the dream
  4. Calibrate the reader against your hero
  5. What the dream is about: three deaths
  6. Three ways to deliver an emotion
  7. Undercutting: why labels numb
  8. The bill for immersion
 6 quick checksbefore/after editsline-edit labPOV comparison 06 locked Dialog Dialogue is action wearing words — its job is to build tension, not to relieve it. Inside · 3 min read
  1. Bell’s tricks
  2. Name the technique
 4 quick checks 07 locked Critiques A critique is a diagnosis, not a verdict — and giving one well teaches you more than getting one. Inside · 11 min read
  1. Big picture first. Always.
  2. Earn the eye before you use it
  3. A revision, in public
  4. The two questions that find most problems
  5. Taking it
  6. Giving it
 5 quick checksbefore/after editsstepper 08 locked Humor Comedy is structure wearing a funny hat — and the jokes worth keeping are the ones that pay off something. Inside · 12 min read
  1. Keystones and confetti
  2. Trivial tragedy
  3. Curve the language
  4. Seven premises that keep working
  5. Inappropriate enthusiasm
  6. Balance, and the roller coaster
 6 quick checksstepper 09 locked Craft A professional is someone who writes whether inspired or not — and who has checklists for the days when taste fails. Inside · 15 min read
  1. Write hard, then edit cold
  2. Design the day
  3. My actual pipeline
  4. Borrow the newsroom’s checklists
  5. Checklists for reading someone else’s draft
  6. Exposition, and the ten-thousand-word rule
  7. The last habit
 6 quick checksstepper

Tool

The Story Circle

A chiastic story circle with seven framework overlays, from Harmon to Save the Cat, built as a draggable planning tool. The Structure belief walks its logic; the tool lets you plan with it.

Open the tool

Unit 00

The books behind the beliefs

Every conviction here traces back to a book, a lecture, or a checklist by someone who did the work first. Study is the shelf — all of them, what each one gave me, and a free and legal way to get every single one.

Open Study