Marginal Notes
Topical Index
Story
Everything I Need to Know about Story, I Learned from Buffy
Concealing the Bones of your Plot
A Look at how John leCarre Reveals the Truth to his Readers
Stephen King and Suspending Disbelief
Character
Being Willing to Hurt your Characters
Everything I Need to Know about Character, I Learned from Buffy
Building a Character through Other Character's Reactions
Creating Realistic Minor Characters
Getting into Other People's Heads
Taking Social Class into Account
Creating Sympathetic Characters in an Unsympathetic Culture
Jaime Lannister and Sympathetic Monsters
Techniques for Meeting your Characters
Focusing your Story on Offstage Characters
The Search for Faith and Goodness
Style
Thoughts on Creating Humorous Worlds
It's Not Nice to Misrepresent Mother Nature
More Thoughts on Keeping it Real
World Building through Architecture
Writing Life
A Look at Jennifer Weiner's "Swim"
Getting Through Your First Draft
The Non-writing Part of Being a Writer
Muntzing Your Way to Happiness
Writer's Clinic
Drawing Readers in With and Intimate Point of View
Hooking your Readers with Character
Balancing Character and Situation in your Hook
Yonder is the Castle of my Father
A Writer, a Shoe Salesman, and a Corpse Walk into a Bar