Notes from the Story Desk is where I write about fiction, structure, mystery, revision, storycoaching, and the making of the Boaz novels.
Some notes will be for readers who want a glimpse behind the stories. Others will be for beginning novelists trying to understand how a manuscript works beneath the surface.
The common thread is story: how stories are built, how scenes earn their place, how characters change, how mysteries create pressure, and how fiction can reveal what ordinary explanation often misses.
This is not a general journal and not a personal diary. It is a working desk — a place for thoughts on story, structure, and the craft of making fiction hold together.
Begin with the latest notes below.
Latest Notes
When an Earlier Novel Still Has a Pulse
I have been rereading some of my earlier Boaz novels. That is not as simple as it sounds. A reader can open a novel and enter the story. A writer brings more baggage to the page. I see the story, but I also see the sentences. I see what I was trying to do. I…
The Scene Question That Keeps a Chapter from Wandering
A chapter can contain good writing and still wander. That is hard for a beginning novelist to see. The sentences may be clean. The setting may be vivid. The characters may sound real. The backstory may be interesting. The dialogue may even have energy. But after three or four pages, the reader may begin to…
The Letter in the Safe
In The Boaz Safecracker, a man opens an old safe and finds more than coins and jewelry. That is the moment that still interests me. The safe itself matters. It is old, heavy, hidden, and difficult to move. It belongs to a house with history, a house that has passed from one generation to another,…
What to Do When Your Novel Still Feels Too Big
A novel can feel too big before you write it. It can also feel too big after you have written part of it. That may be even more discouraging. Before the draft begins, the size of the story can still feel exciting. You have characters, possibilities, settings, secrets, turns, memories, motives, and maybe even an…
Rereading The Boaz Safecracker: When Fiction Opens an Old Door
A few nights ago, I started rereading The Boaz Safecracker. I did not begin with a formal plan. I was not preparing a lecture on the Boaz novels. I was not trying to analyze my own work as a story coach or editor. I was simply reading. Then somewhere in the early pages, I caught…
Richard L. Fricks 