Brick by Brick: How to Build a Story

Most writing craft books, courses, and workshops focus on the tools for being a writer and how to use them: dialog, setting, pacing, plot, openings, exposition, point-of-view. And so on.

And on and on and on.

Their aim is to add another tool, or maybe even a set of tools, to your writer's toolbox.

The problem with that approach is the vast gulf in knowledge between having your toolbox filled with tools and applying those tools to create a story.

Those craft books are the equivalent of telling a...