Handling Exposition - The Editorial Department, LLC

How Ken Follett Masterfully Handles Plot, Characterization, and Historical Storytelling in THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH
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How Ken Follett Masterfully Handles Plot, Characterization, and Historical Storytelling in THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH

Behind The Bestsellers

How Ken Follett Masterfully Handles Plot, Characterization, and Historical Storytelling in THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH

If you’ve read any of Ken Follett’s work, it probably comes as no surprise that he was able to turn his own personal fascination with cathedrals and how they’re built into a damn good novel. But from a fiction technique viewpoint, what he’s done with The Pillars of […]

By Ross Browne|2025-02-12T22:19:40+00:00September 14th, 2022|Behind The Bestsellers|Comments Off

The Role of Mystery in Fiction An editor's take on the value of mystery in all genres of fiction

[by Peter Gelfan]

Unlike nonfiction, fiction’s motor doesn’t run on information, but on its opposite: mystery.

I’m not talking about mystery as a genre, but as the essential quality in all fiction that cultivates curiosity, stimulates the imagination, invites participation, and generally keeps readers reading. Every step of the reader’s journey should be fraught with questions, not only […]

By Peter Gelfan|2024-01-06T21:03:15+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off

What Writers Can Learn from Lee Child & Jack Reacher A lesson in handling exposition in mystery and suspense novels

Exposition: a discourse of information. (Often necessary, but also challenging to handle skillfully.)

In an earlier post for mystery writers, I talked a little bit about the value of resisting the urge to lecture your readers on what you might have learned in the course of researching your story or what you might know from your own in-the-trenches […]

By Ross Browne|2024-01-19T23:26:21+00:00|The Writer’s Craft|Comments Off