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Your Protagonist Must Solve the Story’s Problem – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Aug. 12, 2025
Plotting Your Book: Your Protagonist Must Solve the Story’s ProblemAmong the big mistakes novice writers make is they don’t allow their protagonist to solve the story’s central problem. READ MORE 200+ Writing Prompts That Lead To StoriesYou’re stuck on what to write so check out some writing prompts to spur your creativity. But they don’t help…
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Great Writing Quotes by Author Maeve Binchy
I once tried to write a novel about revenge. It’s the only book I didn’t finish. I couldn’t get into the mind of the person who was plotting vengeance. Always write as if you are talking to someone. It works. Don’t put on any fancy phrases or accents or things you wouldn’t say in real…
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Three Potential Ways to End Your Story – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for Aug. 5, 2025
Plotting Your Book: Three Potential Ways to End Your StoryIn every story, there comes a turning point or an ultimate moment in which the situation has become so intolerable that the main character must take a decisive step and emerge victorious. This scene is known as the climax. There are three possible ways the story can for…
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Great Writing Quotes by Author Julian Gough
The novel cannot submit to authority. …it’s the reader who gets to sit on that mountain, in the sunshine, reading a perfect, finished piece. … The writer is, always, down in the valley, struggling with imperfect draft after imperfect draft. (The novel) … is written against official language, against officialdom, and against whatever fixed form…
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How to Write Your Story’s Penultimate Scene – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for July 29, 2025
Plotting Your Book: How to Write Your Story’s Penultimate SceneIn every story, there comes a turning point or an ultimate moment in which the situation has become so intolerable that the main character must take a decisive step and emerge victorious. This scene is known as the climax. READ MORE Master the Craft of WritingYou’ve written…
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Great Writing Quotes by Author Richelle E. Goodrich
What I’ve learned about writing is that sometimes less is more, while often more is grander. And both are true. By small and simple sentences, great books come to pass. The bigger the dream, the better the story. Reality and fantasy are not two separate spheres but one whole. They are like a world’s atmosphere…
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Use Pacing to Maintain Sense of Tension in Story – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for July 22, 2025
Plotting Your Book: Use Pacing to Maintain Sense of Tension in StoryAs developing your story, maintaining a sense of tension is vital. Without dramatic tension – a feeling of uncertainty in the reader about how the main character will solve (or even if he will resolve) the central problem – the story will be flat and…
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7 Great Tips for Revising Your Manuscript
You’ve written a first draft of your novel or short story, but reading it over, it feels like a mess! Even worse, you’re a little overwhelmed about exactly how to fix it. Here are seven great tips to help you get started on revising your manuscript. Click the linked title for the full article: • You…
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Great Writing Quotes by Author John Dufresne
A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety. … my first literary heroes were the Romantic poets, so I began to get serious by writing poems. I have notebooks full of them that I cherish but am afraid to look at. As a writer you can and should expect to hear conflicting…
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Use Pacing to Maintain Sense of Tension in Story – Inventing Reality’s Newsletter for July 15, 2025
Plotting Your Book: Use Pacing to Maintain Sense of Tension in StoryAs developing your story, maintaining a sense of tension is vital. Without dramatic tension – a feeling of uncertainty in the reader about how the main character will solve (or even if he will resolve) the central problem – the story will be flat and…
