Storytelling

“So… what happens in this story?” “People live their lives.” “And then?” “They keep living.” “That’s it?” “That’s everything.” This conversation encapsulates the bewildering beauty of slice-of-life narratives. They’re stories where “nothing happens” except everything that matters. What Is Slice-of-Life? Slice-of-life is a narrative genre that focuses on everyday experiences, mundane activities, and the small dramas of ordinary existence. There’s no quest. No villain. No ticking clock. No chosen one. ...

Romance is the most structurally demanding genre in fiction. Not because it’s formulaic-though it is-but because readers come with expectations about emotional experience. They’re not just reading for plot; they’re reading to feel specific things at specific times. Miss a beat, and you’ve broken an implicit contract. Deliver the beats with skill, and readers will follow you anywhere. The Non-Negotiables Before we dive into beats, understand the two absolute requirements of romance: ...

Stephen King, in his nonfiction book Danse Macabre, identified three distinct types of fear that horror can evoke: Terror - the finest emotion Horror - one step down Gross-out - the fallback when all else fails This isn’t a value judgment about quality. It’s a recognition that different types of fear work on different psychological levels and serve different purposes. Understanding this hierarchy-and when to deploy each-separates effective horror from cheap scares. ...

Brandon Sanderson, one of fantasy’s most prolific worldbuilders, articulated something that had been true of great fantasy for decades but rarely stated explicitly: Magic isn’t about being magical. It’s about being a tool for storytelling. And like any tool, magic systems work better when they follow certain principles. Sanderson codified these into what’s now known as Sanderson’s Laws of Magic. They’re not rigid rules but design principles that help you create magic systems that serve your story instead of undermining it. ...

Most stories treat setting as backdrop-a stage where characters perform. The action happens; the world just… is. But some stories do something different. The setting doesn’t just sit there. It acts. It has personality, desires, resistance. It shapes events as much as any character. This is setting as character, and when done well, it transforms worldbuilding from description into dramatic force. What Does “Setting as Character” Actually Mean? A setting becomes a character when it possesses these qualities: ...

In 1917, Russian Formalist critic Viktor Shklovsky introduced a concept that would fundamentally change how we think about art: ostranenie-defamiliarization, or “making strange.” His insight was radical: The purpose of art isn’t to make us comfortable. It’s to make us see again. We spend our lives on autopilot, perceiving the world through habits and categories. We don’t see a chair-we see “chair,” the concept. We don’t experience morning coffee-we execute a routine. ...

Ernest Hemingway had a simple rule for writing: if you know something well enough, you can omit it, and the reader will feel its presence like the bulk of an iceberg beneath the water. He called it the Iceberg Theory (or the Theory of Omission), and it’s perhaps the most powerful worldbuilding principle ever articulated. Show only the tip-10% of what you know. But you must know the other 90%. ...

Watch any great dialogue scene and you’ll notice something: characters almost never directly agree with each other. Even when they’re on the same side, even when they ultimately want the same thing, they resist, deflect, challenge, or qualify. This is called “The No Game”-and it’s one of the simplest, most powerful techniques for creating dynamic dialogue. What Is the “No” Game? The principle: Characters instinctively resist what other characters say, even in small ways. ...

The writing advice is nearly universal: “Make your characters three-dimensional! Give them depth! Show their complexity!” And then you look at some of the most beloved stories ever told-fairy tales, myths, adventure films, genre fiction-and realize: many of their characters are flat as paper. And it works perfectly. James Bond doesn’t have a meaningful character arc across most films. Indiana Jones is the same person at the end as at the beginning. Sherlock Holmes remains fundamentally unchanged across decades of stories. ...

Walter White cooks meth and poisons a child. Amy Dunne frames her husband for murder with sociopathic precision. Jordan Belfort defrauds thousands and revels in his own depravity. And we can’t stop watching. This is the paradox of the unsympathetic protagonist: characters who violate our moral codes yet remain narratively compelling. They shouldn’t work-but in the right hands, they become cultural phenomena. The question isn’t whether you should write unlikeable protagonists. It’s how to make them watchable without sacrificing moral complexity. ...