By Sara Domet Writing a novel is a bit like cooking a gourmet meal. You know you must include your individual ingredients: character, plot, setting, conflict, dialogue, action, etc. But how do you know how to throw them all together? What balance must you strike to achieve the right flavor? How will you put all […]

—by Karen Dionne Backstory refers to the characters’ history and other story elements that underlie the situation at the start of the book. Backstory helps to establish the setting and makes the reader care about what happens to the characters. But as authors, we need to be careful: Backstory by definition takes the story backward. Whether

Writing The Perfect Scene