Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 78

The Magic Pill

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If there is one question that I get asked again and again and again, it’s this:
Is there a resource available that lists all of the conventions and obligatory scenes of each and every genre?

The short answer to this is “not that I’m aware of.”
I have a theory
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Learning the Craft

If you and I want to be taken seriously as writers, it goes without saying that we have to study the craft. However we do it (read Aristotle, enroll in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, study McKee and Coyne and Stephen King), we must learn the timeless principles of storytelling with the same thoroughness that a
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Contracts and the Art of Driveway Grading

I’m married to a numbers guy who taught me the art involved with math and business. Before him, I ran from numbers.
This afternoon, I spoke with a guy who said there’s an art to grading a driveway. Thinking back to what my husband taught me about numbers, I don’t doubt the art of the driveway
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Contracts and the Art Driveway Grading

I’m married to a numbers guy who taught me the art involved with math and business. Before him, I ran from numbers.
This afternoon, I spoke with a guy who said there’s an art to grading a driveway. Thinking back to what my husband taught me about numbers, I don’t doubt the art of the driveway
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Atticus Finch 2.0

One of the hardest things for a writer to do is to take criticism. Notes. That dreaded memo from your editor that says, “Back to Square One, baby.”
So I must give major, major plaudits to Harper Lee for what she did (according to the stories we’re all reading in the Times and elsewhere) after turning
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A One Page Story Bible

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The subject of today’s post comes from dedicated SP.com commenter and Story Nerd, David Kaufmann.
For those of you who’d like to suggest topics for my posts for What it Takes, feel free to email me at Shawn at Storygrid.com.  I can’t promise that I’ll be able to answer
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Making A Scene Cut Two Ways

I once did a rewrite on a porn flick. The producer wanted to impart a couple of guidelines before I began. We met for breakfast at a coffee shop in Santa Monica. What he told me has proved incredibly useful over the years—in all kinds of writing, including the most literary.
“Every skin flick makes the
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What Kind of Pitcher Are You?

I’ve spent the past week thinking about a comment Steve made in an interview and a comment my son’s baseball coach made during a practice.
At the 20 minute mark in the interview, August Cole asked Steve what happens when he doesn’t do the work. Steve replied:
“I get symptoms . . . I’ll start to get in
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The Writer’s Skill

The artist’s world is mental.
The sculptor may manipulate clay, the software writer may work with code, but, like the filmmaker and the mystic, their real tools are Shadows and Light.
The sphere of the artist is the mind.
Her currency is imagination.
She asks (how can she not?), “Where do ideas come from?”
Did Rhapsody in Blue come to
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How NOT to Tell a Story

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A full page advertisement on Page 7 of the Sunday June 21, 2015 edition of The New York Times—in the main news section a full page requires 126 column inches at a retail price of $1,230 per inch ($154,980)—ran as follows:
Dear Food Leaders,
I’ve had lots of successful folks
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