Changers are characters who alter in significant ways as a result of the events of your story. They learn something or grow into better or worse people, but by the end of the story they are not the same personalities they were in the beginning. Their change, in its various stages, is called the story's emotional arc.

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.

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

Fiction is about stuff that's screwed up.

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

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

Conflict is the place where character and plot intersect.