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
The First Draft Is Not a Verdict
Many beginning novelists are afraid of the first draft because they misunderstand what it is. They think the first draft will tell them whether they are a real writer. They think it will prove whether the idea is good enough, whether the characters are strong enough, whether the plot works, whether the voice is worth…
Small Towns Remember What They Pretend to Forget
One of the reasons I keep returning to Boaz in fiction is that small towns have long memories. Not perfect memories. Not always honest memories. Not even memories people admit to carrying. But memories all the same. A small town remembers who belonged to which family. It remembers who left and who stayed. It remembers…
What Story Coaching Is — and Is Not
A beginning novelist can get lost in several different ways. Some get lost before they begin. They have wanted to write a novel for years, but they are not sure whether their idea is strong enough. They may have a character, a memory, a setting, a family story, a crime, or only a feeling that…
Rereading The Boaz Secrets
The last few nights, I have been rereading The Boaz Secrets, one of my earlier Boaz novels. I did not pick it up as a critic. I did not pick it up as a story coach. I did not even pick it up with the intention of studying it. I picked it up as a…
You Do Not Need a Perfect Idea to Begin
Many people who want to write a novel never begin because they are waiting for the idea to become clear enough. They think they need the whole story first. They need the plot. They need the ending. They need the title. They need to know whether the idea is good enough, original enough, serious enough,…
Richard L. Fricks 