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

In commercial fiction especially, everything in the story usually contributes directly to the plot The shorter the story, the truer this is

Religious reverence for one's own job, even if the job is worth doing, is a sexual turnoff.

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

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.

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.

Technology is Darwinian. It spreads. It evolves. It adapts. The most dangerous wipes out the less fit.