What Hemingway Designed: Dialogue in “Hills Like White Elephants”
Dialogue in this story is a pressure system: characters want things, and they want them from each other. Every line spoken is an attempt. Every response is either resistance or retreat. There’s no idle talk. Just two people trying to win a scene neither can.
What O’Connor Designed: Torque in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
Discover how O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find uses structural torque—a twist in belief built scene-by-scene—to transform plot into catharsis, and learn how to apply it in your own writing.
Sequence Design: How to Build Pressure That Actually Turns the Story
Scenes don’t carry a story. Sequences do. This lesson breaks down how to structure narrative momentum that escalates and turns—so your story doesn’t just move, it changes.
What O’Connor Designed: Sequence in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
O’Connor didn’t build scenes—she built a sequence. This breakdown shows how escalating structure, not shock or sentiment, drives the story’s moral turn.
Sequel Design II: How to Compress, Disguise, and Bury Internal Structure
Skilled writers don’t skip sequels. They learn how to compress, disguise, and bury them—so the story keeps moving, but the character still turns.
What O’Connor Designed: A Mini-Sequel Masquerading as a Scene in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
After the crash, O’Connor gives us one sentence of omission. It’s not mood. It’s structure. A full internal arc buried in restraint—and the choice that sets everything in motion.
What O’Connor Designed: Sequel Structure in “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”
The grandmother’s final moment isn’t a plea—it’s a sequel. Emotional reaction, review, anticipation, and decision compressed into a single gesture of grace.
Basics of Sequel Writing I: The Part of Story No One Teaches and Everyone Fakes
Most writers have never heard of sequels—not the publishing kind, but the structural kind that lives between scenes. This essay breaks down the four beats of a properly designed sequel—emotional reaction, review, anticipation, and decision—so you can stop writing stalled interiority and start building character turns that actually move the story.
Basics of Scene Writing
Most scenes fail because they’re not designed—they’re just written. This essay breaks down the four structural elements every scene needs to work: a point-of-view character with something to lose, a clear goal, a meaningful obstacle, and an outcome that escalates tension. Includes scene breakdowns from Breaking Bad, The Godfather, and Raiders of the Lost Ark.