David Farland: Story Doctor Writing Tips

For some authors, it is enough to try to make big bucks, but most of us would like to deliver a powerful message at times,

If you are producing anything—toy dolls, bread, vacuum cleaners, or novels—there are some variables that you have to work with. Ideally, a publisher would like

Once I was rewriting a scene, listening closely to the sound and rhythm of the words in a passage, looking for ways to strengthen it,

I woke up this morning feeling great. A week ago, I decided to self-quarantine out of an abundance of caution, and pretty much everyone else

This week, the United States is going into a two-week quarantine in an effort to fight the Covid-19 virus. If you examine the data carefully,

There is an old saying among people who produce goods: consumers want things done cheap, done now, and done well—but as a creator, you can

1. Dialogue Tags Don’t Match the Dialogue.

Some people in the industry say writers should only ever use “said” and “asked” as dialogue tags. This is because it forces the dialogue itself to do the work. Personally, I’m not wholly against alternative dialogue tags (“groaned,” “cried,” “yelled,” “lamented,” etc.) when used in moderation. I think they can be particularly effective when the dialogue itself, and the context of the story, can’t portray the way that it’s said. For example:

When you release a new book, it shouldn’t just be another book–#32 in your pantheon—it should be an “Event!”  It should be something that readers

I’ve been to or visited a number of writing groups. Some were very effective, while others were a waste of time.   You often get

When you’re creating a well-rounded character, one of the great secrets behind understanding the character comes from understanding the character’s secret, often hidden, motives. You

Yesterday my first granddaughter was born, so I drove up to Provo to see her.  It was pretty much a perfect day—excellent driving weather, the

Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I was in charge of the writing workshops for Dragoncon. We had nearly 100,000 people coming to

Ernest Hemingway once wrote a long article in which he compared writing to boxing. As his career progressed, he imagined that each novelist was like