Darkness coiled between what he wanted them to believe and the self he despised. It only made him more alone. How could you save someone when he didn't let you kno him? What a waste. The beauty he murdered in this place. He could never see what he had, only what he failed to achieve.

A dependent clause (a sentence fragment set off by commas, dontcha know) helps you explore your story by moving you deeper into the sentence. It allows you to stop and think harder about what you've already written. Often the story you're looking for is inside the sentence. The dependent clause helps you uncover it.

So much wanting and longing, clutching, desiring, passion and hatred and terrible need. Here, death was suitable, there was room for it, the grip of life's relentless urges slackened, replaced by this icy simplicity. This wasnt her death. It was his. That was the sad and honest truth. Though it would stay with her, it would be more like a black onyx heart on a silver chain, worn privately, under her clothes, close to her body, all her life. The guilt, the beauty, everything. It wasnt over, it had only begun. Well ok then, Okay.

When you started thinking it was easy, you were forgetting what it cost.

Who can judge another man's suffering?

I usually start with something that has some energy, like a compressed character or a situation that's wound up like a spring. Then all I have to do is let it go, let its energy carry the story. And that may not turn out to be the beginning of the book.

I felt like an undeveloped photograph that he was printing, my image rising to the surface under his gaze.