This is an outline that I'll turn into the pillar main content page, I'll update this as I go or when I'm done, and also add some notes in case anyone has questions. There’s an allure to the idea of writing a novel—

Ever opened a book “just to skim” the first page and, an hour later, realized you’re fifty pages in and hopelessly late for life? That’s the power of a stellar first chapter. It’s a story’s promise that you’re about to embark on something worth your

Finishing a novel doesn’t just mean tying off the final battle or concluding that grand love story. It means offering your reader a final emotional chord – a note that lingers and replays in their mind once they set the book aside. This concluding portion can take various forms: a

There’s a moment in every good book where you can’t blink, can’t breathe. Because the hero is facing the one thing they’ve spent the entire story avoiding, dreading, or plain denying. It’s the culmination of every choice, every wound, every tiny clue—slamming together in

By this point in the story, your protagonist has fought, struggled, adapted, and failed. They’ve had victories, but they’ve also suffered devastating losses—especially at the Second Pinch Point, which should have shattered their confidence. And now? They hit rock bottom. The Second Plot Point—also known as

Let’s be brutally honest: if your final battle fizzles, your entire novel collapses like a bad soufflé. You can have the most epic buildup, the meatiest character arcs, and a villain so deliciously twisted they deserve a cult following—but if the climactic showdown flops (or worse, feels like

By this point in the novel, your protagonist has fought battles, made mistakes, and maybe even scored a small victory or two. They’ve moved from reacting to acting—they’ve gained some confidence, maybe even started to believe they can win. They’ve moved from reacting to acting—but

Writer’s block is a cliché, but that doesn’t make it any less real. You know the feeling: you open your document, type a few words, backspace them, stare at the blinking cursor, then somehow find yourself scrolling social media for “inspiration.” The standard advice—take a walk, drink

I once spent an entire afternoon staring at a single paragraph—an angry little block of text that refused to make sense, as if my characters had all gone on strike. Everything else in my manuscript felt like a muddy tangle, so of course my mind started whispering, “Just go

I once slogged through the first half of a novel that started off brilliantly—there was a murder, an eccentric detective, and this prickly sense that a grand conspiracy lurked beneath the city’s polished veneer. But by page 150, I was weirdly indifferent. The detective just kept reacting to

The first act of a novel is all about disruption—the protagonist’s life is thrown off course, they’re forced into something unfamiliar, and by the First Plot Point, they’ve officially crossed the threshold into the unknown. But now, at the First Pinch Point, things get real. This

Ever open a book’s flap, read one sentence, and think: Okay, I need to see how this ends? That’s the power of a great premise—the spark that grabs curiosity, frames conflict, and gives your story a reason to exist. But there’s a difference between a vague

Every great story has a moment where the protagonist crosses a threshold—where they step into the unknown and can’t turn back. This is the First Plot Point, the hinge that swings the story from Act One into Act Two. If the inciting incident is the spark, the First

First chapters are brutal. They have to do everything—hook the reader, establish the protagonist, set up the world, hint at the larger conflict, and most importantly, make us care enough to keep turning pages. But most first chapters don’t. They meander. They front-load backstory. They introduce too many

(In Which We Discover That Story Structure Is Your Friend, Not Your Dictator) There’s a moment in every writer’s life when we glance at our ragged draft and think, Wait, did I forget to build a proper skeleton under all these words? That’s where story structure swoops

You’ve got about three seconds—maybe a sentence or two—to convince a reader not to toss your book aside. Harsh? Absolutely. But that’s the reality in a world brimming with distractions and unlimited reading options. A killer opening is your best chance at survival. But how do

A character’s life is rolling along—maybe not perfectly, maybe not happily, but predictably—until suddenly, everything changes. The ground shifts beneath their feet. A door swings open, or slams shut. Someone arrives, or disappears, or delivers an ultimatum. And in that moment, the protagonist is faced with a

I used to think storytelling was pure magic—some ethereal force that separates the Tolkiens of the world from the rest of us mere mortals. Then I realized there’s a very real, almost clinical side to the craft. Plot arcs, pacing, emotional payoffs—they’re practically little buttons we

Stories are magic. Not the fluffy, Hallmark-card variety where everything is bright and lovely, but the kind that drags you under, twists your gut, and leaves you staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. wondering what the hell just happened. The kind that makes you feel—that hijacks your

A good plot can keep a reader entertained. A good character will keep them obsessed. Think about the books you love—the ones that stay with you long after you’ve finished them. Chances are, it’s not just the story that hooked you. It’s the people. The characters

I once spent an entire weekend plotting out the trade routes of an imaginary empire—every caravan stop, every bandit hideout, every snippet of local gossip—before I’d written a single page of my novel. By Sunday night, I was ridiculously proud of my elaborate notes. On Monday morning,

Writers love to overcomplicate things. We argue over word counts, obsess over whether a book is “long enough” to be taken seriously, and panic when we realize we’ve spent six months writing something that might be a novel but could be a novella (or worse—an overgrown short story