I was a musician back in high school, in Italy. From around fifteen to twenty-two, and then the band slowly died, the way bands do, not all at once but gradually, until the sound just stopped. And while I was writing music, I was writing my stories too. That is why this technique feels like mine in a way no other does. That is why I am a little obsessed with it. Which is strange, because I am not really friends with techniques. I have studied them, yes, but I have never been comfortable thinking of writing as a set of rules to follow. I believe, though, that to be truly free you first have to know. Otherwise, the freedom is blind. And blind freedom is just another word for chaos. There is a piece of writing advice, four short paragraphs by a writing teacher named Gary Provost. It has been shared so many times online that most writers have seen it. And most writers nod, think yes, of course, and then go back to writing the way they always have. The idea is almost embarrassingly simple. Sentences have length. And length creates rhythm. And rhythm, when handled with intention, becomes music. When every sentence runs to the same length, the prose becomes monotonous, the way a drumbeat without variation stops being music and becomes noise. When you vary the length, something happens to the writing. It starts to breathe. Cormac McCarthy understood this at a cellular level. In The Road, short staccato sentences create urgency and tension, and then, without warning, a long sentence arrives and carries the reader somewhere vast and slow and devastating, before a short one lands again like a door closing. "The cold relentless circling of the intestate earth. Darkness implacable. The blind dogs of the sun in their running. The crushing black vacuum of the universe. And somewhere two hunted animals trembling like ground-foxes in their cover." Cormac McCarthy Here is what the same moment sounds like without the technique, and then with it. Without: - The man looked at the fire. It was dying slowly. He didn't have enough wood to keep it going. The boy was asleep nearby. He watched him breathe. He thought about the morning.

Alright. A new Board for your writing process! Yeah! Here you can share your work, pieces of what you’re writing, or excerpts from a book you’ve already published. Let’s keep this an honest board. If we write, we should read as well. That way, anyone who shares their work here and wants to be read will have a real audience of readers. But I’ll say it again: if you want people to read your work, return the favour by reading others too. That’s how a community works. I’d also encourage writers to share just a few pieces at a time, maybe one or two a day, so readers have the time to actually read them and, hopefully, leave a comment. 😃 How does all of this sound? enjoy!

This is a gift for my community. It’s a topic unknown to many, but very important when we pitch our novel to an agent. A strong high-concept premise strengthens your chances of landing an agent and, subsequently, a publisher. In my classroom, inside Creative Writing Basic, you’ll find a clear breakdown of what “high-concept” really means, why agents look for it, and how to shape your idea so it works in a single sentence. At the end of the article, you’ll find a ready-to-use ChatGPT prompt to turn your story into a strong high-concept pitch. If you read it, please leave a comment with your high-concept premise. Also, not every story has a high-concept premise by default, so this is a challenge you might want to take on. 🙂 https://www.skool.com/marcello-iori-7056/classroom/b302f4fe?md=d6a6e730f03f4a4580b04663e53e3a18