Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

Stuff gets done here

recent posts

Category: Story

fiction and other truths

  • Socerer’s apprentice

    Writing badly is easy. You just open up the mental spigot and words flow out of your fingertips and pretty soon you’ve filled a bunch of pages. Writing well is hard. You open up the mental spigot and words flow out of your fingertips and pretty soon you’ve filled a bunch of pages and then…

  • The right question

    Robert McKee’s “Story” is my current best writing friend. It’s a book about how to write screenplays, but it is excellent as a guide to sorting out the architecture of a good story regardless of the format. I love it for being pragmatic. Here’s an example: “Here’s a simple test to apply to any story.…

  • Long time coming

    I have been thinking about “The Booker Rebellion” for seven years. I have been writing it in my spare time for five. And yesterday, a day of furlough from my newspapering job, I finished the final draft of the first chapter. It is good. It is pointing, finally, in the correct direction. I am easy…