There are two wrong reactions to a rejection slip: deciding it's a final judgment on your story and/or talent, and deciding it's no judgment on your story and/or talent.

You think intelligence and grit can succeed by themselves, but I'm telling you that's a pretty illusion.

What characters do must grow out of who they are, and who they are is, in turn, influenced by what you make happen to them.

Every paragraph should accomplish two goals: advance the story, and develop your characters as complex human beings.

Characterization is not divorced from plot, not a coat of paint you slap on after the structure of events is already built. Rather characterization is inseparable from plot.

Some writers find that they don't know their themes until they've finished the first draft (I am one). They then rewrite with an eye toward balancing on that tightrope: not too contrived, not too rambling; does what I'm saying about the world below me actually add up to anything? Other writers pay attention to these things as they write the first draft. Either way, an awareness of the macro and micro levels of theme can provide one more tool for thinking about what you should write, and how.

Anything said in upper-crust British automatically sounded intelligent.