‘Only criminals and idiots don’t read.’ Albert Camus

Journal

Review: “The Wizard of the Kremlin”

The trouble with power is not that it corrupts, but that it clarifies. In “The Wizard of the Kremlin,” Giuliano da Empoli offers ...

Journal

Emotionality

Structure gives you a functioning scene. Values give it consequence. But neither guarantees the only thing the ...

Journal

Six types of scenes

Story doesn’t just move. It moves along an axis of value. Something shifts from one state to another. Better to worse. Worse to better. Known to unknown. Tim Grahl reminds us that a love story isn’t built on love alone, an action story isn’t sustained by life-

Journal

Every scene needs a foundation

Stories are about change. Without change, there’s no story. Yes, this applies to the story overall. But also to every scene that hinges together to make the story. Tim Grahl says it’s critical to get the foundational building blocks of a scene down on the page that ensure

Journal

Review: “Something to Do with Paying Attention”

There are books that reward attention, and then there are books that audit it. David Foster Wallace’s “Something to Do with Paying Attention” doesn’t so much invite reading as administer it, like a slightly underfunded institutional test you didn’t realise you’d enrolled in until you started