“Prose is architecture, not interior design.” – Ernest Hemingway Our words are in service to our story. When we get too flashy with our adjectives, we may distract and even confuse our reader in ways we might not be aware. In painting, a color is understood in relation to another color. A particular green will mean ...

There can be a real desire, especially for the novice writer, to have someone validate our work as soon as possible, even to tell us if we are, in fact, a writer. I have a friend, a successful Century City lawyer, let’s call him Arthur. In the ’70s Arthur was not only a successful young ...

“I find that when I am working I become like an antenna, and suddenly everything relates to my screenplay: a mentioned recipe, a joke somebody tells, a billboard that I see. It all becomes grist for whatever screenplay I’m working on.” – Wesley Strick, screenwriter of Cape Fear When we begin working on a new ...

I wrote the first draft of my first novel in just under 90 days. I’d been writing stand-up and screenplays for years, but very little prose. I had a strong sense of story, and a pretty clear first-person voice, but as a novelist, I didn’t know what I was doing — which, in retrospect, was ...

As you write each day, you discover your own process. You begin to see there is no “right way” to create and that your objective is simply to let the story live. The first draft is a near constant state of discovery. Some revelations may seem counter to the direction you thought your story was ...

“Don’t approach your history for its cautionary fruit . . . Tell your stories, and your story will be revealed . . . Don’t be afraid of appearing angry, small-minded, obtuse, mean, immoral, amoral, calculating, or anything else. Take no care for your dignity . . .” – Mary Karr (author of Lit) Our subconscious is ...

Not only is the Internet a storehouse of valuable information, and social media a way to stay connected to your friends and loved ones . . . . . . it’s also a time-sucking vortex bent on destroying your creative life and leading to guilt, shame and bewilderment. I’m half-joking. And also completely not. We ...

There are myths that prevent you from not only completing your novel or memoir, but keep you from even getting started. Some of these myths are concocted by the world out there, and some are vague terrors that dwell within. Here are a few: 1) I can’t be a novelist/memoirist without an MFA in fiction. Tolstoy ...

At the heart of every story lies a dilemma. It is not a question of whether or not your protagonist has a dilemma, but rather, how effectively it has been explored. By exploring your protagonist’s dilemma, you are led to the most dynamic version of your story. The protagonist’s dilemma is your story’s source, from ...

There is a structure to the universe. From the smallest atom to the forces that move the planets, there is a universal law that we live (whether consciously or not) in a state of surrendered acceptance to. Structure is an intrinsic aspect of our daily lives, not some rigid formula that exists somewhere out there ...

Einstein says, “You cannot solve a problem at the same level of consciousness that created the problem.” Writers often get stuck because they believe it’s their job to figure out a solution to their protagonist’s dramatic problem. It’s not. Here’s why. Your protagonist doesn’t have a problem. She has a dilemma. A dilemma is a ...

Creativity is our birthright. We live in a culture that is invested in our believing otherwise. I frequently hear folks talk of talent as though it were a finite commodity that one either possessed or did not, as opposed to an “inner intelligence” that could be fostered through hard work and persistence. Writing is not ...

This past Saturday night, my wife was reading House Beautiful when she said, “Al, one of your paintings is in here!” And there (see below) was a large painting I’d done about twelve years ago, hanging in the living room of a prominent Los Angeles designer’s home. And I felt disappointment. It’s not like I ...

Show, don’t tell—the mantra of every screenwriting teacher. Film is a visual medium in which character is revealed through behavior. As novelists, we are afforded the luxury of exploring the internal lives of our characters, but this can often be misunderstood by the novice fiction writer as “telling, not showing.” The novice writer can sometimes ...

Story structure is often taught by story analysts as plot, but it is really the DNA of our protagonist’s internal journey to transformation. Without a sense of a beginning, middle and ending, you are likely going to get lost, and by having a sense of how to proportion your story you will be more aware ...

Writers tell me frequently: “I have three ideas. Which one should I write next?” In the 90-day novel workshop, the first exercise we do is we write for five minutes, beginning with: “My story is about….” And the writer says, “But I don’t know which story to write about.” I tell them, just start writing. ...

Feelings Aren’t Facts I used to be amazed at the madness of my mind. One day, I think my writing is brilliant, and the next I’m cringing with embarrassment. It’s difficult to have objectivity when we’re in the middle of our story. For first-time novelists it’s particularly challenging because we have no evidence that what ...

“What does the market want?” I hear this question frequently from first-time novelists, as if there’s some secret, as if their job is to figure it out, so that they can fulfill the marketplace’s order, like they’re building widgets. We are the market — me and you, and everyone you pass on the street. If ...

We are full of paradoxes. We only love to the extent that we hate. We are constantly changing our minds, constantly renegotiating with ourselves and others. To be specific is to be curious about the truth of the human condition. In Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, he talks about how we have a tendency to ...

A fundamental understanding of transformation is crucial to having anything more than an intellectual relationship to structure. We have all read the books on three-act-structure. By the way, what lasting stories have any of these people written? I mean no offense in saying this, but it is important to recognize that no one has yet ...

We begin flush with excitement, thrilled at the opportunity to express something in a way the world has never known. As we go deeper into the story, the forest grows thick with ghosts from our past. We can become haunted by the ancient fear that we are not up to the task. Surely, we are ...

I remember one day over twenty years ago when I was bellyaching to a friend of mine about how nobody was buying my work. He looked me dead in the eye. “What’s your job?” he asked. “To sell my work.” “No,” he practically barked. “Your job,” he spoke slowly, “is to build a body of ...

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”– Howard Thurman There’s a difference between writing for our ideal reader and writing for our inner critic. The inner critic is like a 24-hour flu – it ...

The rewrite process can sometimes lead us into a rut. Our attempts to make our work as clear and specific as possible can begin to feel routine. Sometimes we need to mix things up and get a little dangerous on the page. David Bowie used to write songs by cutting out words and sticking them ...