The Chopping Blog

The quality we’re striving for in fiction maybe above all else is authenticity. We want our work to have the ring of truth to it.

The emotional draw of a story comes less from explosions and arguments, and more from the interplay between plot and character—from the way a character's inner life is woven into the events they move through.

Mysteries deal with difficult emotions: violence, fear, betrayal. But they do it in a contained structure.

Mysteries look backward, while thrillers look forward.

Our brains are incredibly powerful tools, but they’re like muscles: they only stay strong when we keep using them.

Listen to your characters, follow them, rather than forcing them to follow you. Get to know them and let them tell you what they’re planning rather than the other way around. 

This will be the third year in a row that I have made a strange New Year’s resolution: I plan to get 100 rejections this year.

Don’t be afraid to find out that something isn’t working. It’s rare to stick the landing on your first draft.

While most agents and publishers want a first book to stand alone, it’s a bonus if your mystery novel (or any novel) has series potential.

If the protagonist is going to succeed, then you want to bring them closer and closer to failure. If they are going to fail, you want to bring them closer and closer to victory.

Plot is the transformation of the internal by the external.

Coincidence works when it ignites trouble, not when it puts out fires.