Derek MurphyAuthor of 35 Articles

A character’s life is rolling along—maybe not perfectly, maybe not happily, but predictably—until suddenly, everything changes. The...

I used to think storytelling was pure magic—some ethereal force that separates the Tolkiens of the world from the...

Stories are magic. Not the fluffy, Hallmark-card variety where everything is bright and lovely, but the kind that drags you...

While a gripping plot entertains, it’s the well-drawn characters that capture our hearts and linger long after the final...

Writers love to overcomplicate things. We argue over word counts, obsess over whether a book is “long enough” to be...