On reflection: It's not a problem to write a first draft with poorly-written characters. I worry about it. That worry slows down my writing. But I don't think it actually matters. I've often worried if the characters I'm writing "work."
Contrary to what I might have thought, I did write an outline once, and it seems pretty good, but I wrote a different story because it was too detailed to review nicely. I had a clear statement of theme, notes relating the characters to the theme, a four-scene outline with
I write fiction a sentence at a time, one each day. That's my routine minimum. On a good day, I write an entire paragraph or three. I'm pretty happy with how the prose comes out this way, but less happy with the story. There's
There's a quote that goes something like "good artists borrow, great artists steal." A quote investigator post looked into this and found a similar quote in a T.S. Elliot essay from "The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism." One of the surest
(Minor spoilers for Too Like the Lightning. Names may be spelled wrong because I am listening to the audiobook, not reading.) Too Like the Lightning pre-reveals the identity of its Anonymous far before it officially reveals it. I don't think this is even supposed to be foreshadowing, because