Modernity is myopic. We tend to assume that everybody in the past, deep down, thought in the same way we do, with the same essential premises. Further, we’re terrible at logical (or strategic) empathy, at seeing people through their own
Writer’s block is a pain and a half. You don’t want it, I don’t want it, and we’ve both had it more often than we like to remember. You sit down, you stare at the page, and you realize that
Tom, Dick, and Harry are all very fine names, but we generally need more than those three. For one thing, the romance between Prince Tom and Princess Dick is going to look a bit odd on the page. For another,
If you’ve read much G.K. Chesterton, you’ve probably realized that some of his stories are better starting places than others. Father Brown, generally speaking, is a much gentler introduction to his style and philosophy than Manalive or The Man Who
As we discussed last week, while law provides a problem, justification alone provides an answer, at least for the real world. As our stories are reflections of the real world (seen in the failure of the antinomian answer in both
Redemption arcs have a difficult problem: how do we deal with the (often horrific) history of the character being redeemed? It’s a real-life problem too. How do we deal with the man who is repenting of a long history of
A distinctive, compelling character is a central part of most good stories, and therefore it’s a difficult goal to achieve for us writers. As a result, we as authors spend a lot of time worrying about how to make our
When I write a story, I sometimes realize that my plot requires a new character. This secondary character,1 therefore, is created as a facilitator of plot (including character arc); he gets the protagonist from point A to point B, or
We’ve all heard the adage, “Show, don’t tell.” It’s practically the first thing any creative writing course teaches, after the formatting requirements, and I’ve made a pun off it myself. It’s sound advice, but like all short-form bits, it’s not
If ChatGPT wrote a novel, would it be art? In order to answer that question, let’s refer to the definition of art I provided last time, as well as our knowledge of how ChatGPT (and other text/ image generators) actually