What I'm Reading

Book discussions with a focus on the writer's craft

Writers' Toolbox

Elements of craft discussed in this blog.

Writing about a sibling relationship (3)
Fictionalizing an historic figure (2)
Using the structures a character creates as a window into the character (2)
Preparing for an unexpected turn (2)
Defining character through dialogue (2)
Witholding information to create a magnetic character (2)
Retelling the Oedipus Myth in a gender-fluid and time-fluid story (1)
Staging a surprise ending (1)
Using backstory to enhance the reader's empathy for a character (1)
Avoiding sensationalism in a novel about the abuse of boundaries (1)
Giving the reader more information than the protagonist has (1)
Maintaining two narrative timelines (1)
Making a character come alive through visual details (1)
Rising action leading to a climactic scene (1)
Preparing for the extraordinary by evoking the mundane (1)
Using a flat character to add momentum to a narrative (1)
How extended dialogue can prepare for a moment of decision (1)
Reinventing a well-known character (1)
A story within a story (1)
Developing character through visual transformation (1)
Understanding the effects of using white space and the present tense (1)
Creating an unmoving presence at the center of a novel (1)
A novel with contradictory parts (1)
Advance Preparation (1)
Using objects to create time markers in a fluid timeline (1)
Changing the point of view to add emphasis (1)
Setting a performance within a novel: what it can achieve (1)
Hiding the narrative design (1)
Creating a guide character (1)
The long approach: Opening a novel with a sweeping introductory vision (1)
Creating a shadowed life: the slow trickle of an unsettled past (1)
Using an object to reveal and distinguish a character (1)
Setting up a reversal (1)
Using a first person voice to drive the narrative (1)
Withholding the novel's intention (1)
Using a small space to build tension between two characters (1)
Planting a seed of disorder within each character to grow into a believable chaos (1)
Sustaining a core mystery (1)
Using mystery to define the limits of a character's experience (1)
Using an image to show what the character is feeling (1)
The Ticking Clock: Using the calendar to escalate tension (1)
Building a novel around a single theme (1)
Achieving transparency in scene and dialogue to reveal emotional turmoil (1)
Balancing a novel's emotional terrain through character (1)
Using plot to create false assumptions about what will happen. (1)
Connecting different characters through the unifying element of shared disorder (1)
Developing a strong narrator presence through tone (1)
Creating mystery in the first chapter (1)

Mothers and Sons by Adam Haslett

Oct 15, 2025

I always look forward to a new novel by Adam Haslett. I've been reading his fiction for years, and his latest novel, Mothers and Sons, like Imagine Me Gone (2016), and You…

Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett

Mar 06, 2021

I just finished reading Adam Haslett's 2016 novel, Imagine Me Gone, for the second time. I expect I will reread this magnificent novel every few years, and right now, I'd like to talk about…

Sisters by Daisy Johnson

Feb 21, 2021

Johnson explores the ambivalence in sibling relationships in this short novel about a mother who escapes with her two teenage daughters to a beach house after an unspecified horrific event at their…

Megan Staffel