Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.

You must learn to be three people at once: writer, character, and reader.

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

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.

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.