A working curriculum on the craft of fiction

Novelist

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.

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  1. Take your own notes

    Not a transcript of mine. The sentence you wrote in your own hand, in your own words, is the one still available to you six months from now, when the draft is going badly and the page is open.

  2. Engage with your own set

    Argue with these. Keep what survives contact with your own pages, cut what doesn't, and write down the convictions you turn out to have had all along. The list that matters has your name on it.

  3. Repeat until second nature

    Not by saying them — by coming back to them. Keep going to workshops. Keep reading new books. Getting this to be second nature is a deliberate effort.

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: 57 sections and 45 quick checks in all. Every unit lists what's inside it, whether or not you have a key yet.

00freeStudyWriting challenges patience — these books are read, re-read, argued with, and read again ten years later. Everything else here was taken from them.Inside · 6 min read
  1. The shelf
  2. Other references
  3. Read it. Then read it again.
  4. Read it with someone
  5. Why you’d commit to this
3 quick checksstepper01lockedStructureA story is how we manipulate our brain's immersive survival simulator to deliver catharsis.Inside · 8 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 ringscrollytellingvideo02lockedCharacterReaders don't need to like your character — they need to believe them, care about them, and invest in what they want.Inside · 6 min read
  1. Interest meets obstacle
  2. Believe, care, invest
  3. Save the cat — but know why it works
  4. Problem versus conflict
  5. Assembling an arc
  6. Weiland’s six archetypal arcs
2 quick checksstepper03lockedImmersionWe 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 · 11 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. and 2 more
6 quick checksbefore/after editsline-edit labPOV comparison04lockedSentencesTrust is won or lost one sentence at a time — and every technique that wins it has a name.Inside · 16 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. What Strunk actually said
  7. and 2 more
7 quick checksannotated passagesbefore/after editsline-edit lababstraction ladder05lockedDialogDialogue 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 checks06lockedMagicLimits 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 checks07lockedHumorComedy is structure wearing a funny hat — and the jokes worth keeping are the ones that pay off something.Inside · 14 min read
  1. Keystones and confetti
  2. Trivial tragedy
  3. Curve the language
  4. Seven premises that keep working
  5. Inappropriate enthusiasm
  6. A moment of beautiful clarity
  7. and 1 more
7 quick checkssteppervideo08lockedCritiquesA critique is a diagnosis, not a verdict — and giving one well teaches you more than getting one.Inside · 9 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 editsstepper09lockedCraftA professional is someone who writes whether inspired or not — and who has checklists for the days when taste fails.Inside · 14 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. and 2 more
7 quick checkssteppervideo

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.

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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 an honest way to get every single one.

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