Its application season again, and a lot of writers are applying to MFA programs, fellowships, and other creative writing opportunities.

These 3 guiding questions will help you write a competitive personal statement 🧵 (1/13) Since graduating from undergrad, I have received a Fulbright grant for my novel, been a finalist for the Rhodes, and attended several summer workshops on scholarship. These tips helped me write successful applications. Remember, take what’s useful to you and leave what’s not.

Translating for Korean video games taught me good revision practices. This thread covers the techniques I learned while working in the video game industry and how they made me a better fiction writer 🧵 (1/19) Disclaimer: I am relatively new to video game localization, so I’m still learning. But I hope outlining how I apply my localization strategies to fiction revision can help other writers out there. As always, take what’s useful (if anything at all) and leave what’s not behind.

I’ve gotten some great craft and career questions in the last two weeks. Here’s a thread on scene objectives, reactive characters, and other writing life things 🧵 (1/12) 1. How do I better connect scenes and avoid writing filler?

First, make sure your character has a scene objective, a small goal that they will either accomplish or fail at by the end of the scene. Next, make sure that scene objective contributes to their long-term story goal.

Let’s talk about the four categories of external goals: win, stop, escape, retrieve. This concept works well with genre, but when I was a new literary fiction writer, it was difficult for me to apply it to my own stories. So, here are examples from films and short stories🧵(1/15) I first encountered this concept in Eric Edson’s book, The Story Solution. Remember, this thread is about how I understand and study craft. Take what’s useful to you (if anything at all) and leave what’s not behind.

Earlier this year, I took a job as a narrative designer at a video game company. Here are three things I learned while writing video games that made me a better novelist 🧵 (1/14) 1. Plot is your friend.

External conflict does not work without internal conflict. And for the literary fiction writers out there like myself: internal conflict ABSOLUTELY does not work w/o external conflict. How do you write a story with both external and internal conflict?