Tag: writing craft

Craft & Voice

Nobody in a Bar Answers the Question You Asked

Ask a man in this world a straight question and he answers a different one. The fact that he won't answer is the answer. On subtext and how people really talk.

Craft & Voice

How to Keep a Secret From Your Own Reader

The secret to suspense isn't hiding things from your reader. It's hiding them from your narrator. On single-anchor POV and why the gap is the engine.

Craft & Voice

The Woman in the Doorway Is a Lie

Backlit, cigarette going, trouble in a good dress — and no interior at all. Why the femme fatale is the genre's laziest furniture, and what to write instead.

Craft & Voice

Why I Don't Show You the Murder

Somebody dies in every one of these books. You almost never see it happen. Why the cut away from the kill is scarier than the kill.

Craft & Voice

How to Write a Simile That Draws Blood

Most similes are a writer clearing his throat. Here's how to write the kind that hits sideways and stays.

Craft & Voice / Inside Moldeth City

Nobody in My Books Can Quit

Every book, somebody tries to get out. Nobody does. Not cops, not cells — the loan you can't repay. On debt as the engine of a crime series.

Craft & Voice / Inside Moldeth City

Why My Characters Aren't Named Tony

There's a list over my desk of names I can't use. Tony's on it. Why the famous names do your work for you — and why that's a problem.

Craft & Voice

Bad Guys Have Reasons: Writing Villains Who Aren't Cardboard

The worst thing you can do to a villain is make him evil. How to write bad guys with reasons — and why the real villain is the system.

Craft & Voice / Inside Moldeth City

Gravy, Not Sauce: Why the Small Stuff Carries the Whole Book

Call it "sauce" and the reader who knows closes the book. Why the small, specific stuff carries the whole novel.

Craft & Voice

The Mob Movies Lied to You

No speeches. No guns waved over dinner. What the mob movies sold you was opera. Here's the uglier, quieter truth.