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THE WRITER’S CRAFT explores various principles, techniques, and guidelines to help authors of all genres improve writing and storytelling craft.

Chekov’s Gun: More Lessons from the Harry Potter Series Principle Two: Chekov had a gun; Trelawney had a prophecy

This blog is part of a series. For part one, click here.

This week we’re talking about Harry Potter. No, not the much-anticipated book that’s releasing next week (although I, for one, already preordered it.) We’re talking about the books that started it all, and the lessons that authors can apply in their own Works In Progress.

Principle […]

By |2025-02-12T22:35:13+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off on Chekov’s Gun: More Lessons from the Harry Potter Series Principle Two: Chekov had a gun; Trelawney had a prophecy
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Five Great Storytelling Lessons from Harry Potter Principle One: Plant the seeds early, but plant them loosely and let them grow

It wasn’t so long ago that everyone was talking about The Boy Who Lived and his son, Albus, the main protagonist of the 2016 addition to the Harry Potter series. In anticipation of the (unexpected) new addition, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, we decided to re-read the entire series, all 3407 pages […]

By |2025-02-12T22:30:35+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off on Five Great Storytelling Lessons from Harry Potter Principle One: Plant the seeds early, but plant them loosely and let them grow
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A History of the Great Divide: Literature vs. Genre Fiction Breathing life into a post-modern Prometheus

literary coffeeI was once involved in a near knockdown drag-out fight that began with my assertion that John Irving’s The World According to Garp was a great piece of “literature.” The wine-swilling MFA fiction writer seated across from me at the bar took […]

By |2024-01-06T22:47:23+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off on A History of the Great Divide: Literature vs. Genre Fiction Breathing life into a post-modern Prometheus
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Writing with Voice Editor Shannon Roberts on building your authorial voice in unexpected ways

[by Shannon Roberts]

Confession: When I first started writing, I copied.

Not ideas—not consciously anyway—but voice

Initially I modeled my work after one of my (at the time) favorite bloggers and web-comic writers, Jerry Holkins. I started to fold in some Terry Pratchett and I sampled from […]

By |2024-01-06T21:48:36+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off on Writing with Voice Editor Shannon Roberts on building your authorial voice in unexpected ways
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Authentic Voice Elements of Craft: One editor’s take on an author’s technique

[by Peter Gelfan]

Fiction readers are very demanding creatures.

They want their made-up stories to be as close to truth as possible—sort of like vegetarian meat. If they have to pick between two gritty detective novels, one by an ex-cop and the other by an MFA who has always lived in the nice part of town, […]

By |2025-06-25T18:12:29+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off on Authentic Voice Elements of Craft: One editor’s take on an author’s technique
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Characters: Making Them Real Tips on making your characters convincing and memorable from editor Renni Browne

Most fiction writers begin a novel or short story by coming up with characters firmly in mind and then building a story around them—or by coming up with a plot and then building characters to play the various roles it requires. It’s not really that simple, of course: an unruly character may at some point dictate a […]

By |2024-01-06T21:52:55+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off on Characters: Making Them Real Tips on making your characters convincing and memorable from editor Renni Browne
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