It has been a while since I’ve done a three-act analysis, so I thought one of my favorite Poe stories would be a perfect subject. Today we’ll do a three-act analysis of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Cask of Amontillado”

Spoiler Alert! If you have not read “The Cask of Amontillado,” it’s in the public domain so you can find plenty of copies online. In fact, you can download this copy from the DIY MFA site. I highly recommend reading the story (it’s only four pages!) before diving into this analysis.

Let’s get started with our analysis of “The Cask of Amontillado.”

ACT 1: In this story, act 1 is fairly short: only a few paragraphs. The first two paragraphs consist of Montresor justifying his need for revenge on Fortunato. The third paragraph gives us some background on the victim himself. Apparently Fortunato thinks himself a connoisseur of wines, so Montresor decides to use that against him.

While this  brief opening focuses mostly on Montresor’s justifications and Fortunato’s background, the five promises still come through loud and clear.

Character: Montresor is our protagonist. He wants to get revenge on Fortunato because the latter has wronged him. 

Voice: We are in a first person point of view with Montresor as both the protagonist and the narrator. The story is told entirely in Montresor’s voice. At one point, he breaks the fourth wall and speaks directly to the reader: “You, who so well know the nature of my soul.” It is almost as though he wants to convince us that his decision to murder Fortunato is justified.

Montresor is a somewhat unreliable narrator—though you could argue that any first-person narrator could be unreliable. He is not quite as unreliable as the narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” but we know from the outset that we cannot trust everything he says. 

World: We are in an Italian city during the carnival season. (We find this out in the fourth paragraph, just at the end of Act 1 when we meet Fortunato for the first time.) Acts 2 and 3 of the story take place in the catacombs of the Montresor family.

Problem: Montresor has an annoying friend (Fortunato) and has endured a “thousand injuries” from him.

Event:  Eventually one of these injuries crosses the line and Montresor vows revenge. But, he doesn’t just want to punish Fortunato, he wants to “punish with impunity.”

PIVOT POINT 1:  This pivot point is as long or longer than all of act 1. It begins with the external event where Montresor meets Fortunato (drunk) during the carnival time. He tells Fortunato that he has acquired a bottle of Amontillado but he is not sure of its authenticity. Immediately this piques Fortunato’s interest, especially when Montresor says he plans to ask Luchesi about the Amontillado. It becomes clear that Luchesi is a rival wine connoisseur of Fortunato, so when Montresor mentions him, right away Fortunato insists on seeing the bottle of Amontillado himself.

We have quite a bit of dialogue between Montresor and Fortunato. Montresor insists that the vaults are too damp and that he does not want to impose on Fortunato. He keeps mentioning Luchesi to provoke Fortunato, making him almost desperate to be the one to identify the Amontillado. The passage ends with a choice where Montresor takes Fortunato’s arm and—almost as though he is reluctant—takes his friend back to his home and wine vaults.

ACT 2:  This act begins with a bit of world-building. Montresor tells us that he left his home, giving his servants strict instructions to stay put in his absence, knowing full well that they will do the exact opposite and that his house will be empty when he arrives with Fortunato. This is important because it allows Montresor to commit his crime with no witnesses.

This tiny detail about the servants gives us a sense for Montresor’s world. It is clear that the servants do not respect him and yet he is able to use that lack of respect to manipulate them and have his house empty as he desires.

The rest of the story takes place in the catacombs where Montresor has his wine vaults.

SUPPORTING CAST:  There is only one true supporting character in this story and it is Fortunato. His name means “fortunate one,” which is ironic because as we find out at the end of the story, he is far from lucky.

We also have another character mentioned throughout the story—Luchesi—but he never appears on the page. Montresor brings him up multiple times as a way to manipulate Fortunato and make him all the more eager to be the one who successfully identifies the Amontillado. Luchesi’s sole purpose is as a mechanism to provoke Fortunato.

WORST: In this story, Montresor’s motivations are straightforward and we can map them easily onto the WORST acronym.

Want: Montresor wants to get revenge on Fortunato by killing him.

Obstacle: He needs to plan this murder carefully so that he may “punish with impunity.” He does not want to get caught.

Risk: There is a big risk that he might get caught, so he needs to be strategic about where he commits the murder and how he lures Fortunato to his death.

Stakes: If he doesn’t get revenge, he will be forced to endure a thousand or more future injuries from Fortunato. This prospect is likely unbearable, prompting him to come up with a permanent method of revenge: death.

Transformation: Montresor has a slight change of heart at the end, but it is not sufficient to prevent him from going through with the murder. Just before he forces the last stone into the wall, he says “My heart grew sick—on account of the dampness of the catacombs.” Clearly, he is having some second thoughts about his actions and is trying to convince himself that this feeling is a result of the dampness, not of the murder.

RULE OF THREE:  The rule of three appears twice throughout the story. The first is regarding Luchesi and the second is with respect to the nitre which contaminates the vaults.

Luchesi: There are three sections where Luchesi is mentioned. The first section is during the first pivot point, when Montresor tells Fortunato that he is planning to go to Luchesi to have him assess the authenticity of his Amontillado. During that passage, Montresor mentions Luchesi multiple times and it is clear that he is trying to provoke Fortunato into wanting to see the Amontillado for himself.

The second instance is early in act 2, when Fortunato has a coughing fit in the catacombs. Montresor pretends that he is concerned for Fortunato’s health and says they should leave the vaults. He ends by saying “Besides, there is Luchesi—” and immediately Fortunato insists that he is fine and that he “shall not die of a cough.”

The third mention of Luchesi is when they have reached their destination, the place in the catacombs where Montresor plans to murder Fortunato. It is a small, dark crypt and it is difficult for them to see anything in it, even with their torches. Montresor says “Proceed… herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—” Fortunato cuts him off by calling Luchesi an ignoramus and steps into the crypt, at which point Montresor chains him to the wall.

The first two mentions of Luchesi are clearly taunts from Montresor. He is using Luchesi to manipulate Fortunato into coming with him to the catacombs. The third reference to Luchesi is more of a passing mention than the previous two instances, but it is that final straw that makes Fortunato step into the crypt, thus leading to his ultimate demise.

Nitre: There are three sections referencing nitre while they are in the catacombs. Note that there is a fourth passing mention of nitre before we get to act 2, when Montresor is insisting that Fortunato should not come with him. This mention is not as significant as the others, so for the purposes of this rule of three, I only consider the mentions of nitre that occur while they are in the catacombs.

The first reference to nitre is shortly after they have entered the catacombs. Fortunato notices the nitre in the vaults and asks Montresor about it, then immediately proceeds to have a coughing fit. Ironically, he only starts coughing after Montresor asks him how long he has had that cough.

The second mention of nitre occurs just after the midpoint. Montresor points out that the nitre is increasing and “hangs like moss upon the vaults.” He uses this moment to provoke Fortunato further, saying they should turn back because of his cough. Fortunato refuses and instead takes a drink of Medoc, getting further intoxicated.

The final instance of nitre is just after the second pivot point, once Montresor has chained Fortunato into the crypt. He says: “Pass your hand… over the wall; you cannot help feeling the nitre. Indeed it is VERY damp. Once more let me IMPLORE you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must first render you all the little attentions in my power.” At this point, Montresor is no longer trying to pretend. It is clear what he plans to do, and he is saying all this as a way to torture Fortunato.

MIDPOINT: The midpoint is the moment when Fortunato asks Montresor about his family’s coat of arms. Montresor replies: “A huge human foot d’or, in a field of azure; the foot crushes a serpent rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel.” It is clear that Montresor sees himself as the serpent and Fortunato as the huge foot. The foot might crush the serpent but not before the serpent gets its revenge.

Fortunato then asks about the motto and Montresor tells him: “Nemo me impune lacessit” which means “No one provokes me with impunity.” The irony, of course, is that Montresor spends the entire story provoking Fortunato and his goal is to punish Fortunato with impunity. He is doing exactly what his motto threatens against. Note that we do not have a true moment of self-reflection at this point, but the midpoint instead serves as a foreshadowing of what Montresor is going to do.

PIVOT POINT 2: The second pivot point occurs when they reach the small crypt where the Amontillado supposedly is stored. Montresor taunts Fortunato by mentioning Luchesi and Fortunato steps into the crypt. Montresor immediately comes up behind him and chains him to the wall. The event at this pivot point is Fortunatio stepping into the crypt, while Montresor’s chaining him is the choice.

ACT 3: Most of act 3 is Montresor laying the bricks and closing off the crypt where Fortunato is chained. We get a detailed description of him laying each of the layers of the bricks, building up the tension. We can anticipate what’s coming and we know it isn’t good. 

CLIMAX: At the climax, Montresor has only a few more bricks to lay down and Fortunato starts laughing. He thinks the whole thing is a joke and that any moment now, Montresor will free him. He jokes that they will laugh about this at the palazzo over a glass of wine and Montresor replies with: “The Amontillado!”

Then he realizes that Montresor is not kidding and he begins to panic. Eventually he says: “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, MONTRESOR!” and Montresor replies: “Yes… for the love of God!” After a few moments without a reply from Fortunato, Montresor calls his name multiple times and receives no answer.

There is a brief moment when Montresor hears a jingling of bells from Fortunato’s jester’s cap and his “heart grew sick” but immediately he shrugs it off as a result of the damp catacombs and pushes the last stone into position.

Ending Type: While this is a terrifying ending, according to our four-ending classification this would be a happy ending. After all, Montresor wants to get revenge on Fortunato, and he does so successfully.

DENOUEMENT: The denouement in this story is quite short: “Against the new masonry I reerected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them.” This suggests that Montresor was, in fact, successful in punishing Fortunato with impunity because for half a century his crime has not been discovered. The story ends with a three-word paragraph: “In pace requiescat!” or “rest in peace.”

CONCLUSION: “The Cask of Amontillado” is a relatively simple story. Two friends meet on a street. They go into the catacombs to find a rare wine. One of the friends murders the other by burying him alive. Still, despite the simplicity of the plot and the constrained story world (we are in the catacombs most of the time) the story hits all the major plot points of the three-act structure.

The only place where “The Cask of Amontillado” deviates slightly from the three-act structure is at the midpoint. The event at the midpoint is neither a temporary triumph nor a false failure, and we do not have a true moment of self reflection on the part of the protagonist either. Instead, the midpoint acts as a moment of foreshadowing.

In fact, we have multiple moments of foreshadowing throughout the story. Early in act 2 when Montresor shows concern for Fortunato’s cough and Fortunato replies: “It will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough.” This, of course, is true. In the end, his cough is not the thing that kills him.

A little later, when Montresor produces a bottle of wine, they both give a toast. Fortunato drinks “To the buried that repose around us,” which is ironic because a short while thereafter, Fortunato becomes one of those buried in the catacombs. Montresor then replies “And to your long life.” This is, of course, further irony because Montresor knows exactly what he has in store and if he succeeds, Fortunato’s life will be far from long.

The midpoint with the coat of arms and motto is even more ironic foreshadowing. At that moment, Montresor is almost coming right out and telling Fortunato what he is going to do. Yet through it all, Fortunato is either too drunk or too oblivious to realize the hint.

The final hint comes a little later, when Fortunato asks Montresor if he is part of the masons and Montresor holds up a trowel, implying a play on the word “mason.” Throughout the story, Montresor hints at what he is going to do, yet Fortunato never figures it out until it is too late. It is only when we reach the climax, we the readers (along with Fortunato) realize the extent of Montresor’s thirst for revenge and just how twisted his motivations are.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of The Cask of Amontillado appeared first on DIY MFA.

Spoiler Alert! As with all three-act analyses, it’s impossible to talk about a book’s structure without giving spoilers. This book in particular has something of a twist at the end, so if you don’t want this analysis to spoil it for you, grab a copy and read the book first. It’s super-short and has lots of illustrations, so it’s a very quick read.

Without further ado, let’s dive into our analysis of The Little Prince.

ACT 1: The book opens with an anecdote where the narrator tells how, as a child, he drew a picture of a boa constrictor eating an elephant. When he showed it to adults, they all seemed to think it was a picture of a hat and they could not see the terrifying truth that it was really an elephant inside a snake. This anecdote is meant to show us the contrast between how adults and children see the world.

Many years later, the narrator’s plane crashes in the desert and he is completely alone, until a little boy—the little prince—appears as if out of nowhere. The boy asks him to draw him a sheep but no matter what the narrator draws, nothing seems to satisfy the boy. Eventually the narrator draws a picture of a box with holes in it and tells the boy that the sheep is inside. The holes are so the sheep can breathe. This is the first moment when the narrator begins to think like a child, rather than an adult.

For the rest of Act 1, the little prince tells the narrator his story. He is from a tiny planet where he lives alone, tending to the plants and trying to prevent baobabs from taking root. (This is why he needs a sheep, so it can eat the weeds and dangerous plants.) As the days pass, the little prince tells the narrator more and more about his planet.

Character: The little prince is the protagonist of this story. He begins seeming very childlike but by the end he shows wisdom beyond his years.

Voice: This book is told through the point of view of a nameless first person narrator. Like the book’s author, the narrator is a pilot, and at the beginning of the story he has a very grown-up mindset. As the story progresses, however, the narrator begins to identify with the little prince and think the way a child would think.

As with The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Little Prince is written in the first person peripheral point of view. This means that the character narrating the story is not the protagonist but a supporting character.

Note also that the voice and tone of the story shifts. At first, we are very much in the voice of the narrator relaying to us what the little prince has told him. As the story develops, however, and we get more entrenched in the story of the little prince’s adventure, the narrator begins to disappear from the picture and we slide into what almost feels like a third person limited point of view. Toward the end of the story, the narrator resumes his more prominent role and we are back in the first person peripheral point of view.

Periodically, the narrator’s voice shifts into the second person, as though he is speaking directly to the little prince (though it is clear that we are in the narrator’s thoughts). While the second person can be hard to sustain for a longer book, these short bursts of this unconventional point of view work well sprinkled throughout the story. In these moments of second person narration, we feel as though we are right there, inside the narrator’s head.

World: There are two primary worlds in this story: the harsh desert where the narrator meets the little prince, and the fanciful world of the asteroids and planets that the little prince visits along his travels. Each planet he comes to has its own quirky inhabitant and these people are meant to represent different facets of society.

Problem: The little prince lives alone and he worries about dangerous plants (like baobabs) taking root and overwhelming his whole planet.

Event: The story begins off with the narrator’s plane crashing in the desert, which is where he meets the little prince.

PIVOT POINT 1:  The little prince tells the narrator of the arrival of his flower, whose seed blew to his planet “from no one knew where.” He immediately falls in love with the flower and does everything he can to take good care of her. Yet, she is vain and selfish, and she torments the little prince with her constant requirements. Eventually, he decides to leave his planet.

The morning of his departure, he puts everything in order on his small planet. He cleans out the volcanoes and says goodbye to his flower. She apologizes for her past behavior, but he leaves nonetheless. The external event at this pivot point is first meeting the flower. The internal choice is the little prince’s decision to leave his planet.

ACT 2:  The second act has two distinct parts to it, split almost directly down the middle. The first part comprises all the planets the little prince visits before he gets to the Earth, and the second part takes place after he has reached our planet. 

SUPPORTING CAST:  As he stops at different planets, the little prince meets different men who represent various facets of society. When he meets these characters, the little prince wonders at their odd behaviors and remarks that adults “are certainly very, very odd.” These characters include:

The King: This king sits alone on a tiny planet, barely big enough to hold his throne and extensive robes. He instantly assumes the little prince is a subject because to him “all men are subjects.” He also commands the little prince to do things that he would have done anyway, simply as a way to flaunt his power. For example, when the little prince decides to leave, the king tries to prevent him, but eventually lets him go, calling him an “ambassador.”

The Conceited Man: Just as the king views everyone as a subject, the conceited man thinks of everyone as an admirer. Both the conceited man and the king are alone on their planets, which is ironic because the conceited man has no one there to admire him and the king has no one to rule over. Yet, they both believe they are the best or highest rank on their respective planets.

The Drinker: The next planet houses a man who sits alone, drinking. According to him, he drinks in order to forget that he is ashamed of drinking. As it turns out, drinking to forget is a vicious cycle.

The Businessman: This man sits alone with his ledgers and counts the millions of “little glittering objects” in the sky (i.e., the stars). The businessman insists that he owns everything that he counts and makes a distinction between kings and businessmen—kings do not own, they reign over, whereas businessmen own the things they count. The little prince tells the man that he owns his flower and his volcanoes, and that in owning them he is also of use to them, but the businessman is not of use to the stars he supposedly owns.

The Lamplighter: On this planet stands a man, alone with a single streetlamp that he must light and extinguish over and over again. He does this because it’s what he has been ordered to do. While at first the little prince admires the lamplighter’s industrious calling, thinking it a useful and beautiful profession, he soon begins to realize the futility of the man’s role. He is simply doing as he is told. “Orders are orders,” after all.

The Geographer: This man sits alone on a planet, writing in voluminous books. While the man claims to be a geographer, he does not know where anything is on his planet because he is not himself an explorer. In other words, his job is to catalogue the information related by the explorers, but he does not acquire any of that knowledge for himself.

MIDPOINT: If we look at the exact halfway point in the story, that brings us to the lamplighter planet. This chapter has a somewhat of different quality to it than the other planetary visits. Even the little prince himself says of the lamplighter: ”he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking  of something else besides himself.” He goes so far as to say that the lamplighter is the only man with whom he could have been friends.

This scene with the lamplighter has a different quality to it than scenes on the other planets and we do get some sense of self-reflection in that the little prince is considering the lamplighter’s beautiful occupation. That said, this scene does not really operate as a Temporary Triumph (or a False Failure). Yes, it seems as though the lamplighter is the only person among the planetary visits with whom the little prince can be friends, but the little prince is unable to stay on his planet because it is too small.

A bit later in the story (about 60% of the way through the book), we find a more significant Temporary Triumph when the little prince arrives on earth.

The Earth is not just an ordinary planet!  One can count, there, 111 kings… 7,000  geographers, 900,000 businessmen, 7,500,000  tipplers, 311,000,000 conceited men—that is to  say, about 2,000,000,000 grown-ups.

To give you an idea of the size of the Earth, I  will tell you that before the invention of electricity  it was necessary to maintain, over the whole of  the six continents, a veritable army of 462,511  lamplighters for the street lamps.

At first, it seems like the little prince has found what he has been looking for, but then he realizes that there are no people anywhere on the planet. His Temporary Triumph quickly dissolves into failure when he realizes that he has reached this significant planet and is still all alone.

ACT 2 (Cont’d): While the little prince meets various people on his planetary visits, when he comes to Earth, his interactions are at first with other creatures of the flora and fauna varieties.

First he meets a snake who tells him he is in a desert, which is why there are no people to be found. This interaction with the snake foreshadows the ending because while the little prince says the snake is “no thicker than a finger” the snake counters that he is “more powerful than the finger of a king.” The snake says it will send anything it touches back to earth, and that if the little prince should feel homesick for his own planet, the snake can help him.

Later, the little prince crosses the desert and meets a solitary flower with only three petals. The flower tells him there are no people because men have no roots and “the wind blows them away.” Eventually, the little prince comes across a garden filled with roses that look just like his flower back on his planet. He is distraught because he had thought his flower was unique and now he has found several just like it. He is overcome with grief and he cries.

PIVOT POINT 2: The second pivot point occurs when the little prince meets the fox. The little prince is very unhappy because he has just left the garden with all the roses and he asks the fox to play with him. The fox says it cannot play with him because it is not tamed. It asks the little prince to tame it and the little prince does.

When the little prince is ready to leave, the fox is very sad and the little prince realizes that in taming something you can both do it good as well as harm. The fox tells the little prince: “Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world.” When the little prince goes to look at the roses, he realizes that his own rose is, in fact, unique. The little prince tells the roses of the fox: “I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world” and he realizes that the same is true of his rose. His flower is unique because she is his.

The event at this second pivot point is the little prince taming the fox. The choice that he makes stems from realizing that his rose is, in fact, unique and that he is now responsible for those he has tamed—the fox and his rose.

ACT 3: In Act 3, the little prince meets a few other adults: the railroad switchman, the merchant, and eventually our narrator. Like the men the little prince meets on his planetary visits, the railroad switchman and the merchant each seem to have a futile existence.

The railroad switchman simply sends people on their way, going left and right. All the travelers are never satisfied with where they are and they also don’t seem to pursue anything. Instead, they seem to move simply for the sake of moving. Only the children seem to be interested in the journey itself, pressing their faces against the train windows.

The merchant sells pills that quench thirst, and claims the pills will save people fifty-three minutes every week. The little prince says to himself “if I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.” In other words, the pills the merchant sells don’t seem to have any significant impact or importance.

The third person the little prince meets is the pilot-narrator.

CRISIS: The little prince has told the narrator his story. The narrator has run out of water and goes looking for a well. They find the well and together they both collect some water. The little prince tells the narrator that he needs a muzzle for his sheep because he is responsible for his flower and does not want the sheep to eat the rose. The narrator realizes that the little prince has plans he is not telling him about. 

CLIMAX: The little prince tells the narrator that he is going back home, but that it is too far. He says he has the sheep (in the box) and the sheep’s muzzle. The narrator realizes that the little prince is becoming afraid and the little prince says that he is.

The narrator says he wants to hear the little prince laugh again and the little prince says:

All men have the stars… but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You—you  alone—will have the stars as no one else has them… In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of  them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky  at night… You—only you—will have stars that can laugh!

The narrator does not want to leave the little prince alone. The little prince says that it is too far to get home and he cannot carry his body with him. They sit out under the stars and when the little prince stands up, there is a flash of yellow near his angle and he falls to the ground. 

Ending Type: This is a Tragic Ending because the little prince starts out wanting to take care of his flower, but after he travels, his planet becomes too far away. Instead, he gets bitten by the snake and it is the only way for him to get back to his rose and his planet.

DENOUEMENT: Six years pass and the narrator still mourns the loss of the little prince. He imagines him back on his home planet, sheltering the flower under a glass globe and tending to his sheep. He worries whether the sheep will have eaten the flower. The narrator says: “no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!” 

CONCLUSION: Before we wrap up this three-act analysis, it’s important to note one thing about the little prince: he never answers any questions himself, but when he has a question he refuses to let go of it. In fact, we have a Rule of 3 where three times, the narrator says of the little prince that he “never in his life had let go of a question once he had asked it.”

The first time the narrator says this is when he is speaking with the little prince about the subject of thorns. The little prince wonders whether the flower’s thorns will be sufficient to protect it from the sheep and prevent the sheep from eating the flower.

The second time this phrase comes up is when the little prince is meeting the businessman and he wants to know what the businessman is counting. While the businessman is focused on owning everything he counts, the little prince later learns that what really matters is forging a connection with something (like his flower) and feeling a sense of responsibility for it.

The third time we hear that statement about how the little prince never lets go of a question, he is speaking to the geographer about the ephemeral nature of his flower. All three instances relate to his flower in some way—truthfully, everything in the story comes back to the flower, because she is the driving force behind the little prince’s motivations.

If we look at the order of the above instances as they appear in the book, it may seem as though the cadence is inverted. But if we consider the events chronologically, the first instance is actually the last one to happen (even though it appears first in the book). That instance is different from the other two because the little prince is actively trying to do something to protect his flower.

In this scene, the narrator responds to the little prince’s question with the first thing that pops into his head and says the thorns will not protect the flower at all. When the little prince pushes back, the narrator says he is busy with “matters of consequence.” The little prince replies:

If someone loves a flower, of which just  one single blossom grows in all the millions and  millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy  just to look at the stars. He can say to himself,  ‘Somewhere, my flower is there.. .’ But if the  sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened… And you think that is not  important!

This is the moment when we realize just how important the flower is to the little prince. We also understand why the little prince never lets go of a question: because the matters he is asking about are truly of grave importance, even if they may not seem so to a grown-up. In this way, this inverted Rule of 3 underscores not just what the little prince is asking, but why his questions are significant.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of The Little Prince appeared first on DIY MFA.

The Importance of Reading with Purpose

When I used to interview guest authors on DIY MFA Radio, I used to end each episode with the same question: “What’s your #1 tip for writers?” Hands down, the most common answer to that question was: “Read, read, read,” and it’s no wonder why. Reading is one of the most crucial parts of a literary life. If writers want to improve their craft, they need to read.

A writer who doesn’t read is like a chef who doesn’t eat. They have no idea if what they’re creating is any good because they can’t put their work into context. Reading with purpose allows us to see how our books fit in the greater literary landscape and understand how to make our writing better. It also allows us to see how other writers solve certain problems and we can borrow those solutions and apply them to our own work.

Note that this doesn’t mean we are copying someone else’s writing, not by a long shot. Instead, think of it as like being a mechanic, looking under the hood of a car to see how it works. When we read with purpose, we analyze another writer’s work to see how they do things, then we apply the concepts to our own writing to make it better. We’re not copying the author’s actual words or ideas, but we’re looking at the way they do things and then borrowing some of those strategies.

What Reading with Purpose Entails

Reading with purpose means reading with an eye toward your writing. It means having a core set of books on hand—what I call “the essentials”—so you have ready resources when you need them. It means being strategic when you select books, so your reading will help you with your current work-in-progress. Most importantly, it means reading with an analytical perspective, so you can understand more fully how a piece of literature works, and apply some of those concepts to your own writing. There are three important components of reading with purpose:

1. Having a select group of essential books on hand
2. Compiling a reading list that servers our goals
3. Reading with a writer’s eye

Essential Books to Have on Hand

There are three books that I recommend every writer have in their library. I know what you’re thinking—only three? Yes, you only need three, and these three will be different for each writer. If you’re like most writers, you probably have more than one book in each of these categories, but at the minimum I recommend having one of each. To remember the three books, just think of your ABCs.

• A = Anthology of Short Form Work
• B = Book of Prompts
• C = Craft Reference

Anthology of Short Form Work: It’s useful to have an anthology of short stories, preferably in your chosen genre. If you write memoir, then look for an anthology of essays, and if you write poetry, get your hands on an anthology of poems. Make sure that what you choose is a true anthology with stories by a variety of authors and not a collection by a single author. This is because you want a book that represents the broadest possible range of voices. My go-to short story anthology is The Art of the Short Story, edited by Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. It’s not super-new but it has the classics.

Book of Prompts: A book of prompts is always good to have on hand. I’m especially a fan of prompt books that are organized according to topic (dialogue prompts in one chapter, description prompts in another, etc.). The two prompt books I recommend are: The 3 A.M. Epiphany (and its sequel, The Four A.M. Breakthrough) by Brian Kiteley and the Now Write! series edited by Sherry Ellis and Laurie Lamson. Both series group the prompts by category, only in the Kiteley books, the prompts are by only one author, while in the Now Write! series, the prompts are from various different authors.

Craft Reference: It’s helpful to have a craft reference handy in case you run into questions you don’t know how to answer. Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style is, of course, the classic for matters regarding style and grammar. For broader craft topics, I love books by Donald Maass, Lisa Cron, and Steven James. For “small craft” (i.e., sentence-level stuff) check out Barbara Baig’s Spellbinding Sentences. And, of course, the DIY MFA book also gives an overview of general craft topics.

Building a Reading List

One of the most important parts of reading with purpose is compiling a reading list that truly serves your writing. I remember in the MFA program, reading some books that were completely irrelevant to what I was writing. I kept wondering “what’s the point?” It felt a bit like an exercise in futility. That’s why, when I started DIY MFA, one of the first things I did was develop a rubric so that writers could come up with their own reading list, their own syllabus. This rubric consists of four types of books:

1. Comps: Comparable books (i.e., comps) are similar to your book and would sit on the bookstore shelf next to yours. If a librarian were to recommend a book similar to yours, they would choose one of these comps.
2. Contextual: These are books you read for research. They may not be similar to your book in all respects, but they may have certain aspects in common, like the same setting, or a similar use of point of view. These books lend context to yours.
3. Contemporary: You need to keep your finger on the pulse of your genre or category. This is why it’s important to read a few contemporary books, so you can be aware of trends and know what’s new in your niche.
4. Classics: Everyone should read a classic at least once in a while. Keep in mind, classics don’t necessarily need to be hundreds (or thousands) of years old. Depending on your genre or category, books considered classics might actually be fairly recent.

Reading Like a Writer

I often call reading like a writer “reading like a revolutionary.” This is because when we read with a writer’s eye, we aren’t just passively taking in the story. Instead, we are actively analysing it, not just to understand, but to apply the concepts to our own writing. The key to reading like a writer is examining how the author does what they do on the page, and then considering which of those techniques you can borrow.

How to Read with Purpose

Reading with purpose is like swimming in the ocean: the swimmer is the reader and the ocean is the story. Like the ocean, the story has different layers of depth and reader-swimmers can explore some or all of those layers, depending on their inclination.

Ocean Surface: The WHAT

Most readers/swimmers skim across the surface, because that’s where the air is. At this surface level, they focus on the WHAT of the story (i.e., the logistics). At this level, the reader is con What’s happening? Who are the characters? What is the setting?

These basic, logistical considerations are what we focus on, particularly when we’re first developing as readers. These are the types of questions my kids would have to answer for homework in elementary school. They don’t require deep analysis, just a basic understanding of the facts.

There is nothing wrong with hanging out at the surface. That’s how most people read much of the time. This is the layer where you simply get carried away by a good story, and that’s a perfectly respectable way to read. But, if you want to read like a writer, you have to go deeper.

Coral Reef: The WHY

The second layer of reading is that in-between space between the ocean surface and the ocean floor. Imagine this layer as being like a coral reef with hundreds of colorful fish, lush corals, and brightly patterned shells. This reef represents the WHY of the story (i.e., the interpretation).

This is the layer where we consider deeper, more analytical questions. What does this story mean? Why did the author write this story? How does this story fit into the greater literary context? This is how we were taught to read in high school or college literature classes. We learned to go deeper than pure logistics, but still not quite all the way to the ocean floor.

Keep in mind, reading at this layer can be hard to sustain and you can’t do it indefinitely, just as a swimmer can’t stay underwater for hours on end. Instead, when we analyze literature in this way, we usually do so for contained, specific passages, rather than for the entirety of a book-length work.

Ocean Floor: The HOW

Finally, we get to the third layer. For this one, imagine you’re bobbing along on the surface of the ocean and then you spot a sparkling gem on the ocean floor. Then, you take a deep, gulping breath and you dive all the way to the bottom to retrieve it.

This is what we do when we read for the HOW. We look deep at another author’s work and we spot the gems, and we analyze what that author is doing to understand how exactly they managed to pull it off. Then, we take that gem and we see how we might apply it to our own work.

As with the coral reef layer, this deep dive is difficult to sustain for long passages. We can analyze a writer’s work at this profound level only for short passages. If we try to read an entire book at the ocean floor level, it will be very challenging. This is why reading like a writer is a delicate, aquatic dance, where we continuously shift up and down, from the surface to the ocean floor.

Personalized Anthology Project

One activity I often recommend to writers is to compile a personalized anthology. Whenever you read something and you come across a passage that captures your attention, make a photocopy and put it in a binder. Annotate each excerpt using the WHAT/WHY/HOW framework and once you have ten or more of them in the binder, sort them according to topic (character development, story structure, world-building, description, dialogue, etc.)

The idea here is that over time, you will amass a collection of excerpts specifically from books that are relevant to your writing—because they’re books you selected, not someone else like a professor. The fact that the passages are sorted by topic will make it easier for you to find what you need. Stumped by setting? Look at some of the world-building excerpts in your binder. Not only will they help you figure out craft-related techniques, but they will be directly relevant to what you’re writing.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: What It Means to Read with Purpose appeared first on DIY MFA.

I first saw this movie at a very pivotal moment in my life. I was in ninth grade and a total nerd who preferred reading to socializing. When I watched Beauty and the Beast, I felt seen. It was empowering to see a heroine who was more concerned with cerebral pursuits than pretty dresses or charming princes. This is probably why this film made such an impression on me—because I could see myself reflected in the main character.

Spoiler Alert! If you have not yet watched Disney’s Beauty and the Beast… What have you been doing with yourself? Seriously, this is an amazing film (the first ever animated film to be nominated for Best Picture in the Academy Awards) and you need to watch it. It’s part of what many call the “Disney Renaissance,” a period of time when Disney went back to making more animated films based on well-known stories.

Personally, I think Beauty and the Beast is the best film Disney has ever created and quite possibly one of the best films across the board. So, if you haven’t watched Beauty and the Beast yet, get thee to a streaming service! Trust me: it will be ninety minutes well-spent. (Also, if you’re like me and you cry during movies, bring tissues!)

Okay, let’s dive into our analysis of Beauty and the Beast.

PROLOGUE: The movie opens with a narrated sequence where stained glass windows depict the story of the young prince before he became the Beast. The music is haunting and shimmery (reminiscent of the Aquarium movement in Camille Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals) and the stained glass images are striking and like nothing else in the entire movie.

In this sequence we learn how the young prince is spoiled and unkind. When an old woman comes knocking at his door seeking refuge from the cold, he turns her away only to discover that she is, in fact, an enchantress. This enchantress curses the prince (and everyone who lives in the castle), turning him into the Beast. In order to break that spell, he must fall in love, and the other person must also love him in return.

Like a true prologue, this one gives us backstory and sets the scene for what comes later, but it feels separate from the main action of the story. The movie could begin right in Act 1 and would not lose any meaning, though it would miss out on some of the best music and artwork in the entire movie.

ACT 1: We shift gears to a small provincial town where our protagonist, Belle, lives with her father, Maurice. She longs for adventure and spends most of her time either with her nose in a book or dreaming of faraway places. Maurice is an inventor and many of the townsfolk do not think kindly of his somewhat whacky ideas and inventions.

At the beginning of the film we also meet Gaston (who later turns out to be the primary villain). He is arrogant, boorish, but also handsome, and he wants to marry Belle because she is the most beautiful woman in the town.

The opening scene features the ensemble song “Belle” where we meet various villagers as well as Belle and Gaston. It sets the tone for the entire rest of the film.

Character: Because this is a romance, we have two protagonists: Belle and Beast. Most of the key landmark moments in the story involve both characters.

Voice: As with most films, there isn’t so much a voice here as there is a mood. In this case, the mood is whimsical and magical, though it also has moments where things get a little bit dark and spooky.

World: There are two vastly different worlds in this story: Beast’s castle and the provincial town. These two locations exist in stark contrast to each other.

Problem: Gaston wants to marry Belle, but she can’t stand him. She rejects him outright, but unfortunately, he refuses to take “no” for an answer.

Event: Maurice goes to the fair to sell his latest invention. On the way there he gets lost and then becomes stranded in the woods. After being chased by wolves, he comes to Beast’s castle and eventually becomes Beast’s prisoner.

PIVOT POINT 1:  When the horse and cart return without her father, Belle sets off at once to find him. She finds clues that point her toward Beast’s castle and eventually she locates Maurice locked away in the tower. Beast startles her and tells her to get out. Instead, Belle volunteers to take her father’s place as prisoner.

Struck by her sacrifice, Beast offers Belle a guest room instead of the tower. The external event at this pivot point is Belle finding her father locked in the tower. The internal choice is twofold: (1) Belle takes her father’s place as Beast’s prisoner, and (2) Beast is moved by her choice and begins to drop his beastly facade.

The pivot point ends with Beast inviting Belle to dinner. Unfortunately, it’s not a gracious invitation. He says: “You will join me for dinner. That’s not a request!” Belle in turn throws herself on the bed in her room and cries as a storm swirls outside her window.

ACT 2:  From here we move into Act 2. It kicks off when we find Gaston sulking in the local tavern. This is typical of Act 2, where often supporting characters become more central to the story.

Gaston’s sidekick, LeFou, tries to cheer him up by singing “Gaston.” At the end of the song, Maurice arrives at the tavern, raving about a horrible beast that has captured Belle. This gives Gaston an idea. He decides to pay off the head of the local asylum to commit Maurice, only releasing him if Belle agrees to marriage.

After that sequence of scenes, we move back to Beast’s palace and spend some time with the castle staff, a group of enchanted people-turned-to-objects. There’s Lumière the candlestick, Cogsworth the clock, Mrs. Potts the teapot and her son Chip, along with various other characters who play smaller roles. The West Wing of the castle is forbidden and we discover that this is where Beast keeps the enchanted rose that serves as a sort of timer for how long he has to break the spell before it becomes permanent.

After fighting with Beast and refusing to go down to dinner, Belle sneaks out of her room and makes her way to the kitchen. There she finds the castle staff, who are lamenting the waste of a good dinner. Lumière, with the help of the others, puts on a dinner show for Belle (“Be Our Guest”).

After the dinner show, Cogsworth and Lumière give Belle a tour of the castle. She wanders into the West Wing and Beast startles her. When he loses his temper and roars, she decides she’s had enough and gets on her horse to run  away.

MIDPOINT: This midpoint is a False Failure in that it seems like Belle is leaving for good and she and Beast will never end up together. After riding away from the castle, Belle gets chased by wolves, but Beast saves her, injuring himself in the process. When they get back to the castle, they argue about whose fault it was that Beast got hurt. Eventually, Belle says “Thank you… for saving my life” and Beast says “you’re welcome.” This is a moment of self reflection on both their parts because they both realize that they were partially in the wrong.

ACT 2 (Cont’d): This is where the courtship happens. Beast wants to do something special for Belle so he gives her the castle library as a present. They also play in the snow and start to see each other in a new light (“Something There”). Later, they have a romantic dinner and dance into the night (“Beauty and the Beast”). Beast is falling in love.

After dinner and dancing, Beast asks Belle if she’s happy at the castle. She confides that she wishes she could see her father again. He takes her to the West Wing and lets her use his magic mirror that will show her whatever she wants to see. She sees her father lost in the woods, struggling to walk through the deep snow, trying to come rescue her. When Beast realizes how worried Belle is, he lets her go to her father. But, the spell has not yet been broken. While Beast has finally learned to love, he has not yet earned Belle’s love in return.

PIVOT POINT 2: Belle finds her father and brings him home. There, Gaston and the head of the asylum are waiting to take Maurice away. Belle takes out the mirror (which Beast had given to her when she left) and shows everyone the Beast. She tries to convince the townsfolk that Beast is really kind and gentle, but Gaston will have none of it.

ACT 3: Gaston takes away the mirror and riles up the townspeople (“The Mob Song”). He locks up Belle and Maurice in the basement of their house but Chip (the enchanted teacup, who snuck into Belle’s satchel) helps them escape. The angry mob of villagers marches up to the castle and fights the enchanted castle staff. The castle wins!

CRISIS: Beast fights Gaston. They jump and dodge around the gargoyles and turrets of the castle. It seems like Beast has won, when suddenly Gaston pulls out a knife and stabs him.

CLIMAX: Gaston falls from the tower but Beast survives. Belle goes to him as he lies dying. Just as the last rose petal falls, she says “I love you.”

Suddenly the spell begins to break. Fireworks stream down like rain and Beast turns back into a human. At first, Belle isn’t sure he’s really Beast, but she looks into his eyes and recognizes him. Beast and Belle kiss.

Ending Type: This is a happy ending for Belle. She starts out the film wanting to leave the provincial town where she lives. She ends up getting exactly what she had hoped for and more. Not only does she leave that provincial life behind but she finds true love.

For Beast we have a change of heart ending. He starts out the film spoiled and only thinking about himself. By the end of the movie, he has shifted his priorities completely, focusing more on what makes Belle happy than what would make himself happy.

DENOUEMENT: The spell is broken and all the enchanted castle staff turn human again. They all live happily ever after. The film ends with Belle and the Prince dancing in the ballroom while all their friends and family look on.

CONCLUSION: Part of what makes this film so great is that it turns the Disney princess stereotype on its head. Up until this point, all of Disney’s princesses (e.g., Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty) are characterized by their goodness. They are sweet, beautiful damsels in distress who endure one injustice after another without complaint. In the end it’s their goodness (and also their beauty) that makes “prince charming” rescue and fall in love with them.

Belle is different. Yes, she’s beautiful, but she has a mind of her own. She knows what she wants and she’s not afraid to stand up for herself or to make her opinions known. She doesn’t let an oaf like Gaston or even a gigantic Beast push her around. In fact, she’s not a damsel in distress, and she rescues Beast, not the other way around.

You could argue that the “heroine with a mind of her own” really first appears with Ariel in The Little Mermaid (which is the film that marks the beginning of the Disney renaissance). Yet I would say that Ariel’s character doesn’t quite reach the same level of depth as Belle’s. While Ariel is headstrong and impulsive, Belle is thoughtful and confident. While Ariel becomes timid when she loses her voice, Belle grows with inner strength when she loses her freedom. Ariel might be the first headstrong heroine in the Disney canon, but that character type really solidifies in Belle, and later continues with characters like Mulan, Tiana, and Moana.

The original Disney princesses—Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty—don’t have much agency in their stories. They get pushed around by other characters and very few of the story events happen because of choices that they make. I think this is why Belle really resonates with me as a character. Everything that happens in Beauty and the Beast is a product of her choice. And while she never sacrifices her goodness or integrity to make those choices, she still has agency throughout the story.

This is one of the reasons why the three-act structure is so powerful. This story structure isn’t about making things happen to the main character. Rather, the plot events are a result of choices the protagonist makes. This means the character is the one driving the story. While sometimes plot events must happen where the main character has no control (think: the tornado in The Wizard of Oz), it’s how your protagonist reacts to those events that makes the story interesting.

As you work on your own writing, think about your characters’ agency, particularly that of your protagonist. Are story events simply buffeting your main character to and fro? Or is that character making active choices that shape the plot and move the story forward?

Agency is especially important when you have a character who is very meek or quiet. Just because they don’t have a big, bombastic personality doesn’t mean they can’t have agency. Belle, after all, is an introvert. She’s an avid reader who’s not particularly interested in making lots of friends or socializing with people. Yet, she still has agency and her choices shape the story, not the other way around.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of Beauty and the Beast appeared first on DIY MFA.

That’s what this essay is all about: how to make the most of the resources we have, and how to know what to invest in next. Today, I’ll walk you through my signature “double-take” method for absorbing materials, so you can multitask while you learn, but still zero in on the things that matter. I’ll also give you some suggestions on how to vet resources before you invest in them, so you can make sure your time and money are well spent. Let’s dive in.

The Curse of Being a “Good Student”

I don’t know about you, but I’m a “Hermione” through and through, so when I take classes I go all in. I do all the assignments (including extra credit!) and I turn my schedule upside down so I can attend as many class sessions as possible. I take school very seriously.

But being a good student like this can take its toll. Sometimes, we get so caught up in cramming all that knowledge into our heads that we forget to make sense of it and implement what we learn. This is why at DIY MFA there is no such thing as “falling behind” in our courses. Wherever you are is where you’re supposed to be. The point of workshops and classes is to help facilitate learning and encourage implementation. It’s not about hoarding information while we pet it and whisper to it “my precioussss.” It’s about putting what we learn into practice.

So, if you’re a “good student” like me, I recommend shifting the paradigm. We need to recognize that it’s not the knowledge we acquire, but what we do with that knowledge that makes all the difference. Yes, being a “good student” can be a positive thing. (After all, Hermione and her smarts saved Harry and Ron’s backsides on more than one occasion.) But when that “good student” impulse overshadows implementation, that’s when things can become a problem.

This is why at DIY MFA, we place emphasis on practice rather than just learning the facts. Our courses have lots of implementation exercises, and our focused workshops include writing prompts. The goal is always to give writers ample opportunities to put what they learn into action. Many of us, after all, learn by doing, not just by studying.

We need to make the most of our writing resources—be they courses, books on the craft, webinars, summits, or anything else. But how exactly do we do that? This is where my “Double-Take” Method comes in.

Use the “Double-Take” Method

My daughter, Lady Bug, is in fifth grade and is learning how to annotate her reading. As part of her reading assignments, she’s tasked with highlighting her book in three different colors. One color indicates facts she wants to remember. Another color is for text that conveys the author’s opinions. The third color represents passages that she can relate to her own life. One of the skills she’s had to practice is learning not to highlight everything. After all, the whole purpose of highlighting is for some items to stand out over others, and that won’t happen if you highlight all the words on the page. 

The same thing is true when we take in information. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of trying to capture everything. Like good students, we take copious notes and we try hard not to let any details fall by the wayside. (As someone who is both a recovering “good student” and a perfectionist, this approach is totally my jam.)

The point of the “Double-Take” Method is to break you out of that pattern. With this method you let all the information wash over you and catch just one or two pieces that really make an impact. Here’s how it works.

You start by taking in the information via a format that allows the material to wash over you. For me, that’s listening to lessons in audio form, usually while I’m multi-tasking like riding the subway, out for a walk, or doing things around the house. I multi-task on purpose—not as a distraction, but rather to prevent myself from stopping every thirty seconds to take copious notes. While I’m listening, I’m paying attention and trying to capture 1-2 of the most important points conveyed in that lesson.

After listening, I let the lesson marinate in my brain for a little while, then I go back and revisit it, this time with a notebook in hand. (Hence the name “Double-Take.”) But this time, I don’t consume the entire lesson—I fast-forward through it and stop to listen only to those spots where those 1-2 most important points come up. That’s when I take notes, but I’m not taking notes on everything, just the most important things.

This “Double-Take” Method is based on the Pareto Principle (or 80/20 rule), which is the idea that 80% of results come from 20% of the input or effort. There’s debate about whether those percentages are exact, but the point of the Pareto Principle is that a small percentage of input will yield a large amount of output, while the rest of the input won’t lead to very much. So, when we use the “Double-Take” Method, we’re allowing a small percentage of the information gained to have a big impact on our overall learning.

But how do we know that we’ve picked the right 20%? What if we choose the wrong 20% and then we’re learning something that’s completely irrelevant?

The beauty of writing is that it’s subjective. The 20% of information that’s relevant to you might not apply to me, and that’s okay. The point isn’t to pick the “right” 1-2 pieces of information to focus on, but to prevent ourselves from getting bogged down in our learning. After all, while learning is great, it is time spent away from writing. We want to make sure that the time we spend building our craft is productive, useful, and efficient, so we can get back to writing as soon as possible.

Revisit Your Learning

One of the other habits that can be very useful to us as writers is to revisit things we think we already know. Periodically, I’ll pull up a learning resource I’ve already consumed (maybe a lesson from a course or a PDF download) and I’ll skim through it again. Inevitably, I’ll see something new in that resource, something I hadn’t noticed before.

That’s the great thing about learning. Some pieces of information might not be relevant right this minute, but if we come back and revisit that lesson down the road, those will be the pieces that stand out as most important. This is one of the reasons why we offer continuing access in our signature courses, because we know writers may need to come back to the materials again and again.

One of the things I’ve heard over and over from various course alums is “I skipped such-and-such module the first time I did the class, but now I’m taking it again and that module is exactly what I need.” In other words, different lessons or pieces of information will be relevant to us at different points in our journey. This means every so often we should revisit the writing resources we have to see what new insights we might gain from them.

Vet Resources Before You Invest

If you’re anything like me, your computer is probably overflowing with webinar recordings, writing summit replays, PDF freebies, eBooks on writing, and other learning materials. With so much information at our fingertips, it’s really easy to get overwhelmed, and when that happens most of us end up ignoring those resources altogether. So, how do we know where to invest our time (and money)?

The way I go about it is to find some trusted advisors. There are certain people in the writing space whose taste and judgment I trust, and when they recommend something, I’m likely to give it a second look. You need to find a couple of writing experts whose recommendations you trust. I hope DIY MFA can be that resource for you, but I also encourage you to look to other people so you can get a broader range of perspectives.

Now, I wouldn’t advise you to include too many experts in that inner circle of trust, because then the volume of recommendations and opinions will be dizzying. Choose 2-3 people whose work you really admire and follow them. Watch your inbox for their emails, and when they recommend something, give it a closer look.

Don’t get me wrong, you can still follow other experts and be on other people’s newsletter lists. That’s great! Just choose 2-3 people who really resonate with you and follow them more closely. Those are the recommendations you should really pay attention to, and when they share a resource, there’s a good chance that it may be one where you want to invest.

Again, it’s all about finding that small amount of input that will yield the most output for you. In this case, instead of paying attention to dozens or hundreds of experts, you choose two or three. You can still keep other experts on your radar, but those 2-3 “inner circle” experts are the ones where you’ll really focus your attention.

What you’ll find, when you emphasize a limited number of resources is you’ll actually make more progress than when you scatter your attention across the board. That 20% of effort and attention will yield 80% of your results, and by zeroing in on a few key resources or experts, you’ll actually have the bandwidth and energy to implement what you’re learning rather than simply stuffing your brain with information.

Make Time for Implementation

 The last thing I’ll share with you is about the importance of implementation. All that learning you do will mean nothing if you don’t put it into action. This is why at DIY MFA, we make a point of including implementation exercises in our courses and writing exercises in our workshops. We believe that in order to learn, we can’t just talk about writing, we have to do the writing.

Whenever you take a class, go to a conference, participate in a summit, or consume any sort of writing resource, make sure you schedule time for implementation. Put it on the calendar. Carve out 30-40 minutes after you’ve consumed the information and use that time to implement what you learned. Don’t just take notes, but spend time actually putting the concepts into practice.

There you have it, a series of tips to help you make the most of your writing resources. Use the “Double-Take” Method to zero in on the most important parts of any given lesson or resource. Also, go back and revisit different materials from time to time to see if you get new insights. Make sure you vet the resources you consume, and the best way to do that is to follow a couple of experts whose taste and judgment you trust. Finally, remember to schedule some time for implementation so you can put what you learn into action.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Make the Most of Writing Resources appeared first on DIY MFA.

For the last few months, we’ve been doing three-act analyses of various books and films. Today I thought I’d do an analysis of this fantastic short story. If you’re not familiar with the three-act structure (or want a refresher on how it works), check out this article.

Spoiler Alert! Thankfully, this time around I don’t have to warn you of spoilers because the story is so short that before you read this email you can click the link at the top and read it for yourself. There is a fabulous surprise twist at the climax of the story, so if you don’t want the analysis to ruin the ending for you, read the story first.

Alright, let’s dive into our analysis of “The Story of an Hour.”

ACT 1: The first act of this story is no more than two and a half paragraphs long. It begins with a line that hooks the readers and draws us in. “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.” This opening line is essential to the story, as it makes the stakes very clear.

As with most stories, “The Story of an Hour” makes five promises to the reader. These promises are: character, voice, world, problem, and event. Let’s look closer.

CHARACTER: Mrs. Mallard is the main character. Notice how she doesn’t have a first name, at least not at the opening. Her entire identity is wrapped up in being her husband’s wife and she has no identity of her own. As the story progresses, we eventually learn her first name is Louise, but at the end of the story, she goes back to being “his wife.”

VOICE: The voice here is typical of stories written at this time. It’s a third person narrator, who starts off feeling rather distant and omniscient in Act 1, but the author plays with narrative distance and eventually moves closer to Mrs. Mallard’s point of view in Act 2. That closer perspective continues until we get to Act 3, where we shift back into a more distant, omniscient narrator.

WORLD: The world of this story is not very expansive. We are in Mrs. Mallard’s house and the story begins with us downstairs in a parlor or some other such room. In Act 2, Mrs. Mallard retreats upstairs to her room where she sits and contemplates. We come back downstairs in Act 3 where the climax occurs just as she has descended the stairs.

PROBLEM: This is the substance of the opening sentence. Mrs. Mallard has a heart condition, making her fragile. This means that great care must be taken to break the news of her husband’s death.

EVENT: The event that kicks off the story is that Mrs. Mallard’s husband has died in a train crash.

PIVOT POINT 1:  After receiving the news from her sister (Josephine) and a family friend (Richards), Mrs. Mallard retreats upstairs to her room and she “would have no one follow her.” As with all pivot points, this one has both an external and internal component. The external factor is the breaking of the news; Josephine and Richards tell Mrs. Mallard that her husband has died.

The internal choice is how she reacts to the news. At first, she “wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment.” The narrator makes a point of saying that she does not receive the news as many other women would “with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance.” She gives in to grief right away. Then, once she has composed herself, she chooses to go to her room alone.

ACT 2:  Most of Act 2 is Louise Mallard sitting alone in her room. Now I don’t know about you, but writing a character alone in a room is just about the most challenging thing there is. There’s no one else in the scene for the character to interact with, and they are confined to a small space so there is little room for exploring the story’s world. Yet, the bulk of Act 2—and of this entire story, in fact—is Louise Mallard alone in her room, contemplating her future.

This second act starts with some ambiance. The window in her room is open, with an armchair in front of it. She sits down and looks out the window. Even though it’s a quiet moment, there is a fair amount of activity. There is a feeling of anticipation, like something big is brewing.

She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which some one was singing reached her faintly and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves.

As she sits alone in her room, a thought begins to materialize. She realizes that without her husband, she will have a greater degree of freedom. Even though she at first tries to fight this notion “striving to beat it back with her will,” when she finally lets go of her self-restraint she says again and again “free, free, free!” She looks ahead to her future and sees “a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely.”

The narrator makes it clear that it’s not as though Louise Mallard dislikes her husband. She would likely cry again at his funeral and she had even loved him at times in the past. But what matters to her in this moment is the realization of her future freedom. As the narrator says: “There would be no one to live for during those coming years; she would live for herself.”

MIDPOINT: Interestingly enough, we can look at this story as one giant midpoint. The majority of the narrative takes place during Act 2, where Louise Mallard is up in her room. And the bulk of that second act is taken up with her coming to grips with her future freedom. The midpoint begins with the section:

There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it fearfully. What was it? She did not know; it was too subtle and elusive to name. But she felt it creeping out of the sky, reaching toward her through the sounds, the scents, the color that filled the air.

Later, when she says the words “free, free, free!” under her breath, the midpoint realization comes into focus. Remember, the midpoint is a moment of self-reflection, a place in the story where the character examines their own life and asks themselves do I like what I see? Eventually, she recognizes that her husband’s death means her freedom. The pinnacle of that realization is when she whispers: “Free! Body and soul free!”

The end of Act 2 is rather interesting because we get the only piece of true dialogue in the entire story. Louise’s sister, Josephine, comes to her door and begs to be let in. There’s a nice rule of three where she says “open the door” three times. The first time she simply says “Louise, open the door!” The second time is a little more forceful, where she brings up Louise’s health: “I beg, open the door—you will make yourself ill.” Finally, the third iteration is the most forceful of all: “What are you doing, Louise? For heaven’s sake open the door.”

Of course, to all of this, Louise tells her to go away, saying she is not making herself ill. In fact, as the narrator says “she was drinking the very elixir of life.” Louise looks ahead at her life, at all the days in front of her that would be her own and the midpoint culminates with: “She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she thought with a shudder that life might be long.” In other words, now that she has her freedom before her, she wants to enjoy it for as long as possible, whereas before, when her husband was alive, she shuddered at the idea of a long life.

PIVOT POINT 2: The second pivot point is a mirror image of the first. In the first pivot point, Louise Mallard walks up the stairs to her room, now in the second pivot point, she opens the door and, together with her sister, walks back down the stairs. As she descends the staircase, she carries “herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory.” In other words, she is a very changed woman from the one who ascended the staircase at the first pivot point.

ACT 3: At this stage of the story, the point of view telescopes back out to a more omniscient, distant perspective. In Act 2, we are deeply entrenched in Louise Mallard’s thoughts, but now we are back with a more bird’s-eye-view perspective of the scene. There’s someone at the door. We find out it’s Brently Mallard, Louise’s husband, and that he had been nowhere near the scene of the train crash when it happened. Josephine screams. Richards tries to intercept Brently and Louise. All of this action happens in a single paragraph.

A note about Richards: Aside from Louise, I find Richards to be the most fascinating character in this story. In Act 1, he takes it upon himself to be the one to deliver the news, and “had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message.” He seems to take a certain level of pride in his relationship to the family, and I can’t help but wonder at his motives. Is he really just a friend, or does he want to be something more now that Brently Mallard is out of the picture?

Interestingly enough, at the end of Act 3, when Brently Mallard arrives back at home, what does Richards do? He steps between Louise and Brently, trying to “screen him from the view of his wife.” Notice how that’s phrased. Is he trying to screen Brently from seeing Louise or the other way around? It’s deliberately ambiguous. The only thing that’s not ambiguous is Richards’ choice to step between them. If his motivations were open to interpretation before, they now seem a bit more clear. He tries to appear as a dutiful friend, but there’s more to his true motivations than first meets the eye.

CLIMAX: The climax of the story is fascinating because it’s the only beat that doesn’t happen on the page. Every other moment (the pivot points, midpoint, denouement) all happen within the compressed scope of the story. The climax, on the other hand, is merely implied.

At this crucial point, Louise Mallard dies. We don’t actually see her die on the page, but we know it has happened because of the final sentence: “When the doctors came they said she had died of heart disease—of the joy that kills.”

The fact that Louise Mallard’s death happens off the page creates all sorts of ambiguities. Does she die from the “joy that kills” when she learned that her husband is still alive? Does she die from a sudden pang of grief at losing her freedom? Does she throw herself down the stairs in a moment of sheer desperation? We don’t know. We can infer—based on everything that has passed in Act 2—that the most likely cause of her death is her lost freedom, but we can’t be absolutely certain.

DENOUEMENT: The denouement, of course, is that final sentence when the doctors arrive on the scene. We don’t need much beyond that sentence because the story ends when Louise dies. After everything the reader has seen of Louise in Act 2, we don’t really need to know how the other characters carry on without her. All we need to know is that she is dead. That is all that matters.

Notice, also, how that closing sentence pulls back into a truly omniscient point of view, almost as though the narrator is telling us all of this after the fact, after the action has already happened. This final sentence, by necessity, has to be distant and omniscient. This is because with our primary, focal character dead, there is no other way for the point of view to work. It would be too jarring to jump suddenly into Brently’s head (or Richards’ or Josephine’s for that matter). The only option is to pull back into an omniscient point of view. 

CONCLUSION: If you take only one thing away from this analysis, it’s that in only two pages, this story covers all components of the three-act structure. Sometimes, writers complain that they need more room to tell their story in full. And yet, this short piece manages to do it all in a compressed space. (In fact, the irony is not lost on me that this analysis is longer than the story itself.) So, when you struggle with word count and you need to keep your story tight, just think of “The Story of an Hour” and channel your inner Kate Chopin. If she could tell a full story in just two pages, you can do it, too.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: Three-Act Analysis of “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin appeared first on DIY MFA.

This past summer, I rediscovered Myst as a smartphone app (called RealMyst) and I’ve been thoroughly sucked in all over again. While the crisp graphics and immersive sounds are great for setting the tone of the game, the thing that has really captured my attention this time around is the storytelling and world-building.

If you’ve ever wondered what makes a story world come to life, it’s a number of different things. The primary element, though, is that sense of the world being three-dimensional and truly immersive. The minute a reader (or gamer) becomes aware that they’re in a story world, it loses its magic and the spell is broken.

What can we learn about storytelling and immersive world-building from Myst? Here are three things. Note: If you’ve never played the game and you think you might want to in the future, be forewarned—there are spoilers ahead.

1) There has to be something at stake.

The game starts with us materializing on an island with a series of buildings on it. The buildings range in architecture from a classical style with imposing stone columns to more scrappy and makeshift structures like the wooden cabin at the far end of the island. As we meander around getting the lay of the land, we suddenly discover a note left on a patch of grass, giving us the first set of instructions. This note tells us to go to a specific place on the island and explains how we can decode a secret hidden message left there for us by one of the characters in the game.

When we decode this message, immediately we discover that there is something deeply wrong on this island. The creator of the island world, Atrus, has been trapped and he suspects his sons are the culprits. Now it’s up to us to assemble all the clues and free him. But there’s a catch. In the library, we find two books—one red, one blue—and when we open them, we see garbled video messages from what appear to be Atrus’ sons. Our mission in the game is to figure out how to free Atrus without accidentally freeing one or both of his malevolent sons.

In this way, Myst puts the stakes right up front in the story. We know that freeing Atrus is the goal, but we also know that bad things can happen if we inadvertently free his sons instead. And if we don’t figure out all the clues, Atrus will be trapped where he is forever.

Examine your own writing: Are the stakes clear? Are they buried in the narrative, or are they right up front in the story?

2) A story world is not static.

The way Myst is designed, you can travel to and explore the different Ages in any order. And yet, there is also a logical progression to the game. This progression gives the game a sense of story—an arc—and if you unlock a particular achievement too early (like accidentally finding the white book page before you’ve visited all the Ages) the game will not make sense. There is an internal logic to how the story is put together and most players will go through the steps in a particular order.

First and foremost, players tend to focus their attention on the main Myst Island. They find the hidden message right at the start of the game (establishing the stakes) and then they explore the island and figure out how to find the Linking Books that connect to the various Ages.

Most players will solve the puzzles leading to a specific Linking Book and then they will go to that Age and explore it. Once in that Age, they will solve multiple puzzles there before coming back to Myst Island. Once the player has explored all four Ages (Mechanical, Selenitic, Stoneship, and Channelwood), they will have enough information so that they can solve the final puzzle and release Atrus from where he is trapped.

While the graphics and sounds of Myst make the various worlds (or Ages) come to life, what makes them interesting is that there is activity. There’s something to do. The world of the game is not static. The player can make choices and change things as they solve the various puzzles. They have agency, just as the character in a story must also have agency.

Speaking of characters, while we don’t interact with many characters throughout the game and most of the adventures are solitary, we do feel the characters’ presence in the world. When we visit the various Ages, they feel lived-in, as though the characters might walk in at any moment. This lived-in quality makes the world feel dynamic and interesting because it puts characters at the center, rather than emphasizing the setting for the sake of itself.

Look closely at your story: Is there a clear arc or path through the story? Are the characters at the center of the world? If so, do they have agency, or are they just buffeted to and fro by story events?

3) The world must be a multisensory experience.

Perhaps Myst’s greatest claim to fame when it was first released was the quality of the graphics. I remember playing a demo version of the game in a computer store and when I got to that place where you click the painting in the library and it swirls around and makes a bwowooo sound, my fifteen-year-old mind was blown. Clearly the graphics are an important part of making this world feel real, but the sounds are even more important.

The place where you might notice it most is in the Channelwood Age. When you’re at ground level, the background sounds are of swampy things like frogs and flowing water. Then, when you go up into the trees and you’re walking along the canopy, you can hear birds chirping and wind blowing as well as the creaking wood of the bridges between the tree houses.

Sounds play an especially important role in the Selenitic Age, where you need to use different sounds in order to solve the puzzles. To get into the Selenitic Age, you need to decode a puzzle using the keys of an organ inside the spaceship. Then in the Selenitic Age, you have to use a combination of different sounds in the right order to open up the doorway leading to the spaceship back. Finally, once inside the return spaceship, you have to use sounds to navigate your way through a maze, eventually leading you to the Linking Book that brings you back to Myst Island.

In some areas of Myst there are only background sounds (as in the Channelwood and Selenitic Ages), but in other areas, there is also the use of a soundtrack to set the scene. For example, some of the buildings on Myst Island have music that plays when we go inside. There is an oboe theme when you go into the observatory and there’s a pulsing, almost metallic song when you climb into the tower. These snippets of soundtrack all add to the immersive experience of the game.

The key to this game’s success is that it really makes you feel like you are in that world, and a large part of that is that it doesn’t just rely on fancy graphics—it also uses sounds.

Consider your story’s world: Do you create a multi-sensory experience for your reader? Where can you tap into the five senses to add more dimension to the world? 

At the end of the day, world-building is not just about creating a nice setting for your story. The world needs to feel almost like a character in its own right. A story’s world is like a living, breathing organism that can change as the characters interact with it. This is not unlike the way the Ages of Myst change as the player discovers clues and unlocks various puzzles.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: World-Building Lessons from the Video Game Myst appeared first on DIY MFA.

For folks who may not be familiar, let’s define what DIY MFA means. We all know that DIY stands for “do-it-yourself” but what about the MFA part? No, it’s not short for “mafia,” though we do get that a lot. Actually, MFA is the abbreviation for “Master of Fine Arts” which is the graduate degree most frequently offered for creative writing.

Why would you DIY your MFA?

I got a traditional MFA myself, and while I absolutely loved my graduate school experience, I also recognized that I was in a very privileged position to be able to get that degree. At the time, I was married with no kids and lawyer-hubby was working at a big, fancy law firm, so it was okay for me to take two years off work and go back to school. We also lived in NYC, where there are dozens of schools with traditional MFA programs right in our backyard. I could go back to school without having to move.

Today’s Gabriela (by the way) would never be able to do that. Between running DIY MFA full-time and having two kiddos, ages 10 and 12, there is no way I would ever be able to go back to school at this stage in my life. I’m grateful that I had that opportunity at the time and I loved every minute of it, but I also recognize that the traditional MFA is not feasible for everyone.

DIY MFA grew out of this realization that while traditional graduate programs are wonderful and can serve some people very well, they are by no means the best fit for every writer. What I discovered in developing DIY MFA is that there are many writers out there who want the rigor of a graduate education, but the logistics are just not in their favor.

For some, it might be a matter of geography. Many writers don’t have a school with a writing program within commuting distance. Or it might have to do with the time commitment and other logistics. For a lot of writers, day jobs and family responsibilities need to take precedence, and they have to fit their writing around all these things.

For others it might come down to the type of writing they want to do. Most traditional MFA programs emphasize literary fiction, so folks writing children’s books or genre fiction would be out of luck. Yes, there are some rare programs that offer genre or writing for children concentrations, but they are few and far between.

And, of course, there is the matter of tuition. While there are some schools that offer fully-funded MFA programs, it’s certainly not true of all programs by any stretch. And if you were to pay full freight for some of these schools it could end up costing you $80,000+ per year. Unlike medical school or law school, where there’s a clear career pathway after graduation and odds are reasonable that you might be able to recoup that tuition, things in the writing space are quite a bit fuzzier. You might get a great book deal, or you might work for years and years and never pay back those loans.

With tuition rates increasing faster than inflation and the tricky state of publishing (what with the advent of AI), now more than ever, writers need a do-it-yourself education option. We need ways to build that academic rigor into our lives without the major time commitment and the ridiculous costs. DIY MFA offers many workshops and courses to help writers deepen their knowledge of the craft, but today I wanted to make the fundamentals available to everyone and walk you through—step by step—how to DIY your MFA.

How to DIY Your MFA

This is a topic I get asked to speak on all the time and it’s one of my favorite things to discuss. I love giving writers the tools they need to succeed and my favorite thing is seeing my fellow word nerds reach their goals. This is why I started DIY MFA, after all.

So, how do you do it? How do you DIY your MFA?

The key is understanding DIY MFA’s three-pronged approach. There are three pillars of DIY MFA and these are: (1) write with focus, (2) read with purpose, and (3) build your community. If you’re going to DIY your MFA, you need to build all three components into your author life.

I developed this framework after studying many different traditional MFA programs. I visited several MFA websites and looked at how they laid out their curricula and what courses they required of their students. From all this research, a pattern emerged. There were three elements that kept coming up again and again, and these were writing, reading, and community.

From this, I deduced that in order to create a DIY version of the traditional MFA you needed to have these three things. First and foremost, you need to write and practice your craft. Second (and equally important) you need to learn how to read with a writer’s eye. Finally, you also need to engage with your community, both that of fellow writers as well as your readers.

Write with Focus

Writing with focus means writing with an end-goal in mind. Sure, it’s great to noodle around and try out different ideas, but sooner or later you need to decide on a project, then knuckle down and write it. Finishing projects is probably one of the most important skills a writer will need to develop.

When you write with focus, you also take the time to study the craft and improve your skills. Lately, I’ve been revisiting the book Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, who I interviewed for DIY MFA Radio some time ago. In this book, they talk about how to use deliberate practice in order to improve your skills. Just as a top athlete or accomplished musician needs to practice in order to reach a level of excellence, so too is it with writing. If we want to reach a higher level with our writing, we need to practice.

Finally, it’s important to track your progress, because you can’t modify what you can’t measure. Many writers make a note of their word counts every time they write. Other writers might track the amount of time they spend writing. I find that word count and time are both good measures of writing progress, but they apply to different situations. Word count is best for measuring how much progress you make when first drafting a manuscript, whereas time might be a better measure if you’re in the revision process.

Read with Purpose

One of the first things I recommend to people when they ask me about how to read like a writer is I tell them to build a reading list. Just as a professor puts together a syllabus with all the books you need to read in a given semester, you need to do the same thing if you’re going to DIY your MFA. The key is understanding what kinds of books to put on your list.

When putting together a reading list, I like to think of the 4Cs: comps, contextual books, contemporary books, and classics. Comps are books similar to the one you’re writing. Imagine your book sitting on a bookstore shelf; the comps are the books on the shelf next to it. Contextual books are your research, books you read in order to inform your writing. Contemporary books are any books in your genre published within the past two years. These books do not need to be similar to your current project. Finally, classics are self-explanatory, but these are books that have stood the test of time. A good reading list is like a well-balanced diet and should include a couple of books from each of these categories.

Once you’ve selected your books, you need to practice reading them with a writer’s eye. This means not just considering what the book is about or why the author wrote it, but also focusing on how the writer crafts the story. The key to reading like a writer is to ask yourself two questions: (1) How did the writer achieve this effect? and (2) How can I do that in my own work?

Build Your Community

Finally, we come to the community piece of the puzzle. To build your community, you need to consider three different groups of people with whom you need to connect: fellow writers, your readers, and the industry as a whole. In other words, it boils down to 3Ps: peers, platform, and publishing.

When it comes to connecting with your peers, you want to consider many different questions. Do you want feedback on your writing? If so, maybe a workshop or critique group might be your best bet. How will you build support and accountability into your writing life? To do this, you may want to surround yourself with writer friends, be it via social media, a writing class, or some other type of community. Finally, do you have advisors to whom you can go for help? All writers need advisors of some kind, whether it be a mentor you admire from afar or someone you work with closely.

Building your platform is a subject that comes a little bit later in a writer’s development, but it’s good to have it on your radar so you know what’s coming down the line. Remember that as you build your platform, you want to develop an audience of readers, not necessarily of fellow writers (though writers can be readers, too!). This means that as you develop your platform, you need to do so in a way that attracts the ideal readers for your book.

Finally, at some point, you will want to get your writing out in the world, and to do that you will need to publish. There are a lot of experts out there helping writers get published, but not all are of the same high caliber. One expert whose work I highly recommend is Jane Friedman. She has two newsletters, one called Electric Speed (free) where she shares digital resources for creative people, and the other called The Hot Sheet (paid) where she reports on the publishing industry. I read both, and highly recommend them.

Putting It All Together

So, you’ve got plans to write with focus, read with purpose, and build your community. Now what? How do you know if you’re “doing it right”? The truth is, there’s no one right way to DIY your MFA. There are just two guidelines I can offer you:

1. Make sure all three elements are present in your writing life at any given time.
2. Be flexible and allow for ebb and flow between the three elements.

The way I like to think of the writing life is as a pie, where writing, reading, and community each make up a slice. You could have a perfectly balanced pie with each element taking up one third, or you can vary the sizes of the slices. Personally, I like my DIY MFA pie to look like the diagram below, where half of the pie is dedicated to writing and the other half is split evenly between reading and community.

This pie isn’t static, though. For example, if I were at a conference, the community slice would probably take up 90% of my pie, and the last 10% might be split evenly between writing and reading. The key is that all three elements are represented in some capacity, and the pie proportions can shift depending on what’s happening in my author life at that moment.

HOMEWORK: Try this experiment for one or two weeks. At the end of each day, draw a pie that represents what you did that day as part of your writing life. Over the course of a couple of weeks, you’ll start to see a pattern and you’ll get a sense for your writing life’s natural balance.

Until next time, keep writing and keep being awesome!

P.S. For more info on Gabriela Pereira, the founder and instigator of DIY MFA, check out her profile page.

The post Writer Fuel: How to DIY Your MFA appeared first on DIY MFA.

In the past, some leveled the criticism that puzzle mysteries lacked in character development. I read some of the classics thus accused, such as Agatha Christie’s novels, and I disagree. The puzzle takes precedence, but the characters are very real and alive. Well, all except the victim(s).

In recent years, genres mixed, and crime fiction became more emotional, descriptive, heartbreaking at times, and occasionally heartwarming. The books I selected today all involve a main character on two quests. One they know about – the actual puzzles leading to solving a mystery. The other an emotional quest, discovered and solved alongside the other. (When not actually mixed in with it.) Every one of these books thrilled my brain and my heart and I hope they will yours as well. 

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle

By Stuart Turton

The Hardcastles throw a party at Blackheath to celebrate the return of their daughter Evelyn from Paris. But Blackheath is crumbling, because they abandoned it years ago, ever since their young son Thomas Hardcastle was murdered by the gamekeeper. 

The grieving parents banished Evelyn to Paris, because they couldn’t forgive her for not watching Thomas that morning as she was asked. This party, held on the anniversary of the crime, at the scene of the crime, will culminate in Evelyn’s death at 11 pm. Every morning, that day will start again, with our narrator in the body of a different party guest, until he solves Evelyn’s murder. 

A Goodreads reviewer described this book as “bonkers,” meaning it as a compliment. I agree. It’s confusing, but intentionally. It’s beautifully, creepily written, which keeps you turning pages to clear up that confusion. The twist at the end took me by surprise, which rarely happens. 

Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore

By Matthew Sullivan

Lydia works as a bookseller at the Bright Ideas bookstore in Denver. Her favorite Bookfrog (nickname for guys who spend all their time in the bookstore, often homeless) Joey hangs himself on the third floor at midnight. Lydia finds a picture of herself at her tenth birthday party in his pocket. She doesn’t remember this picture and can’t understand how Joey got it. He leaves her all his possessions and when she goes through the books she discovers cutouts in some of them. What do they mean? 

Meanwhile, her picture appears in the paper with the article about Joey’s death. Lydia has been hiding from her past, but now it comes to find her. Is there a connection to Joey’s sad story?

I can’t believe it took me so long to read this book. It includes horror aspects that you don’t often find in puzzle mysteries, but they tie the story together and explain Lydia’s trauma. The author evokes a marvelous sense of place with his descriptions of Lydia’s part of Denver (a city that hasn’t figured in many books I’ve read) and the mountain towns nearby. Somehow, the magic of books, the use of them to convey a message in code, and the horror and trauma aspects combine beautifully with great characters whose relationships you root for. This is a complex read, both puzzle and emotion-wise, but I enjoyed every page.

Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts

By Kate Racculia 

Tuesday Mooney grew up in Salem feeling different. Her best friend Abby disappeared at 16 and Tuesday started talking to her ghost. This raised concerns and Tuesday stopped listening to the voice. She’s still not sure if it really was Abby or her grief talking. 

Now she lives alone happily in Boston, wears all black, works as a charitable researcher for a hospital (a job she enjoys), has a sort-of friend Dex, and tutors her teenage next-door neighbor Dory on what they call Tuesday Thursdays. She feels safe. But Vincent Pryce, the eccentric billionaire, drops dead at a charity event for Tuesday’s work. Then, a notice appears in the paper of a game. The prize? Pryce’s massive collection of priceless oddities. 

This book is amazing. I can’t express how much I enjoyed it. It was everything I like and so very satisfying. The story includes some darkness, a few chilling moments, and some violence and peril, all of which are a bit unusual for the puzzle mystery genre. There are also heartwarming and heartbreaking moments. One is even transcendent. And it’s funny. You will love the characters. It is a testament to the skill of the author that she got away with naming a character Vincent Pryce. 

The Twyford Code

By Janice Hallett

This very twisty book keeps circling back on itself and adding details. Then changing everything again. Yet, it does not lose the reader. 

Steven Smith finds a mysterious book by the author Edith Twyford on the bus to school one day. He shows it to Miss Iles, his remedial reading teacher. The text contains strange notes and Miss Iles becomes convinced they lead to a treasure rumored to have been hidden by Twyford and her husband. On a class trip to Twyford’s home, Miss Iles disappears. Decades later, after a stint in prison, Steven is trying to start over and connect with his adult son, a professor of whom Steve is immensely proud. 

Steve’s son gives him his old iPhone, which Steve treasures. As a result, the whole story is told in voice memos, complete with incorrect transcription. (I thought he was talking about missiles at first, rather than Miss Iles.)

Steve feels haunted by the day his teacher disappeared, so he decides that he needs the truth to move forward to a better life. But none of his old friends want to talk about that day. However, after finding a partner in the search, bits and pieces come to light, through old photographs, stained glass windows, and abandoned basements. Steve inches closer and closer to the truth, but is he hiding something, too?

This book confused me at times and sometimes frustrated me a little. But I loved it. I loved the clues and the ways they were hidden and connected. I loved the twist. This book is intriguing and absorbing and you really root for Steve. 

Chester Keene Cracks the Code

By Kekla Magoon

Chester is a middle-schooler who lives with his mom. He has never met his dad, who is a spy. As he encounters difficulties in middle school, he wishes more and more to talk to his dad about things and figures out how to email him. 

Chester follows a careful routine everyday, which usually includes school and then hanging out at the bowling alley after school, so his mom’s friend Amanda can watch him. Chester is clearly neurodivergent and both Amanda and his mom understand and accommodate this.

Chester’s routine begins to fall apart when he finds a coded note tied to the front door on his way to school. He is convinced his dad is in trouble and asking for help. Then a girl named Skye plops down at his lunch table talking about “their” clues. Chester is taken aback, but decides his dad sent her. He and Skye combine their clues into a complete message and follow them to other clues hidden around Chester’s world. 

It took the puzzle part of this story a little while to get going, but hanging out with Chester provides a fun and interesting time. He’s a good kid with a big heart and very smart. His transition to middle school has been rough, a situation with which many can sympathize. When he bonds with Skye, your heart leaps. 

The clues are fun, but when Chester endures some disappointments and changes your heart aches for him. Magoon does a wonderful job of bringing Chester’s emotions to life as a middle-schooler and someone who struggles with being different. The strong love between him and his mother is beautifully portrayed, too, as well as his burgeoning friendship with Skye. It seems like she might be his first friend and a great one she is. 

The Swifts: A Dictionary of Scoundrels

By Beth Lincoln and Claire Powell (illustrator)

This novel is delightful (adj. causing delight, charming). Shenanigan Swift is a young girl living in the family’s crumbling mansion with her Arch-Aunt Schadenfreude (the family Matriarch), Uncle Maelström, older sisters Felicity and Phenomena, and Cook. Everyone in the family receives their name from the Family Dictionary at birth. Their names seem to match their personalities for the most part. 

It is time for the Swift family reunion, which means it is also time to search for Grand-Uncle Vile’s Hoard, which has been hidden somewhere in the House for decades. This is Shenanigan’s first Reunion, but she has been prepping for this treasure hunt for a long time. She knows this House better than anyone and is sure she will find and keep the Hoard. However, a more pressing search takes priority when Aunt Schadenfreude is found at the bottom of the stairs. It does not look like an accident. Shenanigan, her sisters, and new friend cousin Erf, must put aside thoughts of treasure and find the culprit. As more bodies appear the tension causes many to question the role of their names, family traditions, and the meaning of family itself. 

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. Pure fun from beginning to end. Shenanigan is a feisty, funny, smart character and the bonds between her, her sisters, their uncle and aunt, and Erf are lovely, but still realistic. I felt echoes of Flavia de Luce and her sisters from Alan Bradley’s Flavia series, particularly with Phenomena’s interest in science and Shenanigan’s troubles as the youngest sister. I am so glad a second in the series will be published in early 2024. 

Do you like puzzles and puzzle mysteries?

Sara Farmer lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, three kids, and two cats. When she’s not chasing kids and cats, she reads and writes mysteries. You can find her at www.kittymomma.com and on Twitter @avonlea79.

The post Cozy to Cold-Blooded: Puzzle Mysteries appeared first on DIY MFA.

Why? Something about not wanting to be influenced by other people’s work, or some such malarkey. And for a while, it worked, I mean, I got words on the page, but nowhere with agents and publishers.

What the heck? Yeah, to say I was irritated would be a serious understatement. But what did all those other books have that mine didn’t? And so, after a considerable dry spell, I picked up the science fiction book du jour, The Fifth Season, by N. K. Jemisin.

Oh. Ohhhh…

Yeah, it was pretty eye-opening. Why? Whelp, I had been writing based on the books I’d grown up with and a hefty infusion of classics I’d loved along the way. Now don’t get me wrong, that’s great for learning story structure, but style?

Not so much.

See, the thing is, people’s taste in book style changes in much the same way fashion does. Case in point, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is an amazing sci-fi classic. It’s also not something most people are rushing to put in their Amazon carts. Ice Planet Barbarians? Ruby Dixon can’t write them fast enough.

And so began my reluctant sojourn into reading frequently and reading currently. Nope, I wasn’t a fan at first. After all, I wanted to be working on my stuff. But I pretty quickly understood the merits of following that tidbit of advice. Spoiler, I also learned that the advice to read your genre and to read widely was also correct.

Huh? Read your genre, read widely? Yeah, it confused me too. Like, if I’m reading SFF, what the heck could my writing possibly gain from reading a mystery or romance? More than you would think, and I’ll prove it. Check out some of the titles I’ve read this summer, and the insights I gained from them:

Read your Genre

Praying for Rain, by B.B. Easton (2020)

This is the first book in an apocalyptic science fiction trilogy, and I devoured all of it. The premise is that the entire world dreams that on April 23rd, the world will end and chaos ensues. Praying for Rain begins three days before the big day. The pacing of this book is excellent and features a dual point of view, some great character development, and all the fab tropes that make this genre so addictive. The first book is free on Kindle and is one of the few series I’ve shelled out cash to finish.

Epicentre, by Chris Andrews (2020)

Epicentre is a fantasy and another series starter. In it, a mermaid has some serious issues with the fact that she has to kill to stay alive. I found the world building in this excellent, and the stakes steadily rise throughout, giving the reader a real incentive to turn the page. There’s also some plot twists that I didn’t see coming, and let me tell you, they’re a doozy. Throw in how to shock your reader to my lessons learned.

Dogs of War, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (2017)

In this science fiction novel, a cybernetic bio-form security team is forced to determine between right and wrong during a mission gone sideways. Their choice has far-reaching repercussions. Again, the world building was excellent, but what I loved most about this book was the character development. The internal vs. external stressors on the main characters is masterful, and definitely something to aspire to. There’s a second book that follows this one, which I haven’t yet picked up, but it’s definitely on the list.

Bayou Moon, by Ilona Andrews (2010)

Yep, not exactly current, but I love me some Ilona Andrews, which is written by a husband and wife team. This is the second book in The Edge, a paranormal romance series. Everything about their books resonates with me. They’ve got the tropes, wicked plots, super-strong heroines and dialog that hits the mark every time. If you want to see how a long-running series keeps a reader’s attention, check them out because there’s several under their belt.

Read Widely

The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl, by Annika Martin (2020)

Why yes, this is a contemporary romantic comedy. It’s not anywhere near SFF, but let me tell you, the comedic timing is fantastic, and I love the ridiculousness of the situations. Books like this make me reassess the bizarreness of the mundane and how to translate that into prose. My urban fantasy writing says thank you. There are several of these books all revolving around a circle of friends, and the ones I’ve read do not disappoint.

Bad Boss, by Lana Sky (2023)

This is a good example of why I read contemporary romance with an alpha-hole trope. What I like about these books is that the dual POV gives me insight into the push and pull between characters and how each rationalizes their actions. Well, yeah and they’re steamy, but it’s for research, people! Seriously, if I want to um…inject…some heat into my own book, there’s no better way to learn than reading what’s out there. And let me tell you, these are not your mother’s Harlequins.

The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward (2021)

This is straight up horror, and so frickin’ good! It’s a multiple POV novel with rising tension and a mystery behind it all that’s a powerhouse of a driving force. If you want to know how to weave a complex story, this is absolutely the book to check out. It’s a study in drip-feeding your readers information to keep them hooked.

Now it’s Your Turn

Not sure where to start with your own reading? I’d recommend checking out Goodreads. You can easily search by genres, reviews, or new releases. It’s definitely the rabbit hole of books with some cool features. One of which lets you view your read list by publication date, and another that gives you similar reads to choose from. Let me know how you do, and if there’s something that wows you, let me know, ‘cause you know I’m gonna want to add it to my own TBR pile.

AK Nevermore writes science fiction and urban fantasy with spice. She enjoys operating heavy machinery, freebases coffee, and gives up sarcasm for Lent every year. Unable to ignore the voices in her head, and unwilling to become medicated, she writes about dark worlds, perversely irreverent and profound, and always entertaining. Her debut novel, Flame & Shadow comes out November 2023.

You can find her on her website or follow her on her sadly neglected Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds.

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