Truth Is the Arrow, Mercy Is the Bow: A DIY Manual for the Construction of Stories

IT’S INTIMIDATING TO ASK that we know our characters as well as we know our beloveds, but it’s the right aspiration. If a character is proving prickly on a first date, we should be open to considering anything that might help us understand why: romantic history, intimacy issues, the model of love learned from parents.

We should approach our characters with a passionate curiosity, asking not just What would they do in this situation? But Why are they behaving in this way?

Plot, in other words, resides in establishing a clear chain of consequence. Not this happens and this happens and this happens. But: this happens, therefore that happens. And because that happened, this next thing happens. My scenes needed to expose hidden truths (Recognition), upend expectations (Reversal), escalate tension, and instigate further

the people I’m reading about (I don’t really think of them as characters) are behaving precisely as their motives dictate. Even the ones who act cruel and destructive have constructed a worldview in which their actions are justified, even heroic. The author’s job isn’t to absolve any of her major characters, but to reveal them in sufficient depth t

alienation is not a natural human resting state; it’s a response to thwarted desire. Our duty as writers is not to erect lovely monuments to the lesser defense mechanisms but to dismantle them. Our characters must yearn and act upon their yearnings.

dayenu—it would have been enough.

My hero needed to act in ways that changed his fortune. Aristotle (that asshole) was even more explicit. This change, he observed, should be accompanied “by Reversal, or by Recognition, or by both. These last should arise from the internal structure of the plot, so that what follows should be the necessary or probable result of the preceding action

HOW TO MANAGE CHRONOLOGY

Plot shouldn’t just spur external action. It should expose the internal conflicts that plague your characters.