Writing

You’ve felt it before: reading a book where nothing major happens on the page, yet you can’t stop turning pages. No explosions. No shocking revelations. Just a character walking across a room, thinking. And somehow it’s riveting. That’s micro-tension-the sentence-level creation of unease, anticipation, or curiosity that makes prose compulsive even when the macro-level stakes are quiet. It’s the difference between: “She walked to the door and opened it.” And: ...

“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. ...

Stories don’t move at constant speed. Sometimes you slow down to show a conversation in real-time, word-by-word. Sometimes you compress a month into a sentence. This is the art of scene versus summary-choosing when to zoom in with vivid detail and when to zoom out for narrative compression. Master this, and you control pacing like a dial you can turn at will. Defining the Terms Scene: The Close-Up A scene unfolds in real-time (or close to it). You show: ...

Every screenwriting book tells you the same thing: stories have three acts. Act 1: Setup (establish character, world, conflict) Act 2: Confrontation (escalating obstacles, rising stakes) Act 3: Resolution (climax, falling action, denouement) There’s a problem though. Most of your favorite movies don’t actually follow this structure. Or rather, they follow it so loosely that calling it “three acts” is misleading at best and creatively limiting at worst. Let’s be clear: the three-act structure isn’t wrong. But it’s not a rule-it’s a retrospective description, not a prescription. And treating it as gospel might be why your story feels forced. ...

Every story makes a promise in its opening pages. Not explicitly. Not with words like “this will be…” But through tone, genre signals, pacing, and the questions it raises, your opening creates expectations about the kind of story this will be. Break that promise, and readers feel betrayed-even if the writing is brilliant. Keep it, and readers trust you enough to follow anywhere. The Unspoken Contract When a reader picks up your story, they’re asking: ...

Most storytelling advice tells you to start slow: establish the ordinary world, introduce your characters, build context before introducing conflict. The Fichtean Curve says: screw that. Start with a crisis. Then another crisis. And another. And another. Keep escalating until you reach a climax, deliver a brief resolution, and you’re done. No leisurely setup. No patient worldbuilding. No gentle easing the audience into the story. Just: Crisis. Crisis. Crisis. Boom. ...