A collection of chewable ideas about writing from my curation bucket.

Delicious, delicious crunch: You gamers out there took one look at the headline and recognized exactly what we’re up to this week.

Roleplaying game players refer to game mechanics as “crunch,” the rules and systems that support the players’ choices during the game. Google offered me this definition from Game Dorks Corner: “Crunch is the ability of the players to make an optimal choice within the game that lets the player feel smart.”

The picks in this week’s Writes of Fiction zoom in on narrative technique—the strategies and techniques that help you make optimal choices and feel smart because you know how to create the effect you want on the page. These crunchy bits aren’t so much rules as they are time-tested, proven techniques for fiction writers.

So join me in exploring a selection of crunchy bits, furthering our practice of The Writes of Fiction.