Category: Writing Craft

Discussing the various aspects of writing craft.

Using clichés in fiction

Reading Time: 4 minutes “I encourage students to pursue an idea far enough so they can see what the clichés and stereotypes are. Only then do they begin to hit pay dirt.” Robert Morgan To Cliché or not to Cliché? Clichés. We love them and we hate them. A quick Google search yields a copious quantity of articles defining […]

Scott Stoops 3 months agoOctober 21, 2022Post a Comment

Writing Craft

Using a deep point of view.

Reading Time: 3 minutes “Who says he’s seeing this place the way we’re seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You’re very stubborn—er, persistent, that way?” Richard Riordan, The Lightening Thief Albert and I were sitting around the fire with a few other writer friends. I was in a meditative mood, listening to and, sometimes vainly, following […]

Scott Stoops 4 months agoOctober 14, 2022Post a Comment

Characters Writing Craft

Let your characters fail.

Reading Time: 6 minutes “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them–in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Kurt Vonnegut Kurt Vonnegut’s quote is shocking. Should we really be sadists and do horrible things to our darling lead characters? I mean, they are the […]

Scott Stoops 4 months agoOctober 9, 2022Post a Comment

Characters Writing Craft

Why you should hide your villain

Reading Time: 4 minutes “Nobody is a villain in their own story. We’re all the heroes of our own stories.” George R. R. Martin Why should you hide your villain? In the days of the melodramas and silent movies, the villain was often easy to pick out. He often dressed in dark clothes, sneered a lot, and his intentions […]

Scott Stoops 4 months agoSeptember 30, 2022Post a Comment

Writing Craft

Are there only 36 stories?

Reading Time: 2 minutes “We tend to prefer stories that fit into the molds which are familiar, and reject narratives that do not align with our experience.” Andrew J. Regan et al., The Emotional Arcs of Stories are Dominated by Six Basic Shapes. Only 36 stories? I first heard this startling statistic several years ago. It seemed impossible to […]

Scott Stoops 4 months agoJanuary 18, 2023Post a Comment

Characters Writing Craft

What makes for a good villain?

Reading Time: 4 minutes “A villain must be a thing of power, handled with delicacy and grace. He must be wicked enough to excite our aversion, strong enough to arouse our fear, human enough to awaken some transient gleam of sympathy. We must triumph in his downfall, yet not barbarously nor with contempt, and the close of his career […]

Scott Stoops 5 months agoSeptember 30, 20221 Comment

Characters Writing Craft

Why you should have flaws in characters

Reading Time: 4 minutes “Flaws would not only bring death but, far worse, humiliation.” ― William Goldman, The Princess Bride We spend millions of dollars per year trying to hide those flaws and wrinkles we deem unattractive and humiliating. Dozens, if not hundreds, of magazines, promise ways to either remove or at least hide the blemishes. We earnestly seek any way […]

Scott Stoops 5 months agoSeptember 30, 20223 Comments

Writing Craft

An Anthropomorphic House

Reading Time: 3 minutes Write about this topic “Beacons of Hope.” That was the challenge for this past month’s writing prompt. Given the kinds of stories that I like to tell, I knew I had to find some sort of speculative angle to this. I have never been one to take the easy road with stories. As Ginger and […]

Scott Stoops 5 months agoSeptember 30, 2022Post a Comment

Writing Craft

What’s your point of view?

Reading Time: 4 minutes “I did some reading the other day,” my friend Albert told me. “What does Point of View mean?” Emboldened by our earlier conversation about dialogue, he decided he was going to write stories. He approached me with a notebook in which he had scribbled down story ideas and snatches of conversations. There were still no […]

Scott Stoops 6 months agoSeptember 30, 20221 Comment

Writing Craft

“Dialogue?” he asked.

Reading Time: 5 minutes “Dialogue?” he asked. I wasn’t sure I had time for this conversation, but my companion seemed eager to grill me. We had already discussed a handful of things related to writing, and my stories in particular. I was working on a major rewrite of Devil’s Advocate, a short story that I wrote a couple of […]

Scott Stoops 6 months agoSeptember 30, 20221 Comment

Posts navigation

1 2

About Me

Scott J Stoops

Scott J. Stoops is a humorist, novelist, actor. Living life and telling stories on and off the page. Find out more

Scott J Stoops – Writer

Category: Writing Craft

Looking for a Great Short story to read? Look No Further!