Blogs

In the winter of 1878, a Cree man named Swift Runner arrived at a Hudson’s Bay Company trading post in Alberta, Canada. He was emaciated, nearly dead from starvation. He said his family-his wife and six children-had all died during the harsh winter. He’d buried them in the snow. He was the only survivor. The authorities were suspicious. Swift Runner showed signs of starvation, but not as severe as someone who’d watched his entire family die of hunger should show. ...

A man is waiting for his wife outside a restaurant. A woman approaches him. She’s smiling, clearly recognizing him. She starts talking as if they know each other well. He has no idea who she is. He politely engages, trying to figure out from context clues who this person might be. A colleague? A neighbor? Someone from his wife’s social circle? The woman seems confused by his confusion. She touches his arm, says something about “the kids.” ...

In 1975, a 49-year-old woman was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Kentucky. She told doctors she was transforming into a wolf. She could feel her body changing. She saw fur growing on her hands and face. Her teeth were becoming fangs. Her face was elongating into a snout. She dropped to all fours. She howled. She scratched at the floor. She tried to bite staff members. When shown her reflection in a mirror, she saw a wolf staring back. ...

Bad dialogue is characters talking at each other, exchanging information the writer needs us to know. Good dialogue is characters doing things to each other with words. Dialogue isn’t just communication-it’s action. Every line should move something forward: plot, character dynamics, tension, understanding, or emotion. If you can cut a line of dialogue without losing anything, it shouldn’t be there. The “Dialogue as Action” Principle Traditional writing advice separates: Action = physical events (fights, chases, building things) Dialogue = characters talking (conveying information, feelings) This is wrong. ...

In 1903, Daniel Paul Schreber, a senior judge in the German court system, published a 450-page memoir titled “Memoirs of My Nervous Illness.” The book described in meticulous, articulate detail how God was transforming him into a woman. Not metaphorically. Literally. Through divine rays that penetrated his body and rewrote his nervous system. The transformation, Schreber explained, was necessary because humanity had been destroyed. He needed to become female so he could be impregnated by God and repopulate the Earth with a new race of humans. ...

Brain Chemicals: The Neurotransmitters That Shape Your Reality You wake up feeling unmotivated. Coffee kicks in, and suddenly you’re ready to tackle your to-do list. An hour later, you’re riding a wave of focus. By afternoon, anxiety creeps in. Evening arrives, and you feel calm, content, even happy. What changed? Not your circumstances. Not your willpower. Your brain chemistry. Every thought, emotion, and behavior you experience is the result of chemical messengers called neurotransmitters communicating between billions of neurons. These molecules don’t just influence your mood-they determine how you perceive reality, make decisions, form memories, and experience pleasure or pain. ...

There’s a horror story that has circulated online for years, known as “The Russian Sleep Experiment” or “The Soviet Sleep Experiment.” The story goes like this: In the 1940s, Soviet researchers sealed five political prisoners in a chamber and used an experimental gas to keep them awake for 15 days straight. By day five, the subjects became paranoid and stopped talking to each other. By day nine, they were screaming. By day 15, they had mutilated themselves and were begging the researchers not to let them sleep. ...

Imagine waking up one morning absolutely convinced that you are dead. Not metaphorically dead. Not feeling empty or numb or depressed. Actually, literally, medically dead. You can see yourself breathing. You can feel your heart beating. You can touch your skin and feel warmth. But your brain insists, with total certainty, that you are a corpse. You try to explain this to your family: “I’m dead. I don’t exist anymore.” ...

A woman looks at her husband of 30 years. She recognizes his face. She knows it’s him. The features, the voice, the mannerisms-everything looks exactly right. But she knows he’s not her husband. She’s absolutely certain. This person is an imposter. An identical copy. A replacement. Her real husband has been taken, and this lookalike has been put in his place. She knows how it sounds. She knows it’s irrational. But the certainty is overwhelming. ...

“Call me Ishmael.” Three words. No context. No explanation. Yet you’re already wondering who Ishmael is, why he needs to be called that, and what kind of person opens a conversation this way. That’s the power of a great first sentence-it doesn’t just start a story, it creates an immediate contract between writer and reader. This sentence promises something. It asks a question without words. It makes you lean in. ...