I recently finished Neil Gaiman’s Masterclass on the Art of Storytelling (after getting sidetracked by an early recommendation in the class to read The Graveyard Book – amazing btw!).

Neil Gaiman is super inspirational, and it helped me get over a slump I was in during the revision phase of my first novel. Like in his prose, as a speaker he has a tendency to get to some deep truths in very artful ways. Here are a few of my key takeaways from the class:

• Fiction is lying, but you’re using the truth to make the lie feel true.
• A story is anything that makes you keep turning pages and doesn’t make you feel cheated at the end.
• Don’t be so dear with your characters that you’re not willing to have them face conflict.
• Show who a character is by what they say
• Characters will always get what they need, they don’t always get what they want.
• Don’t waste time arguing with critique partners. The feedback they’re giving you boils down to the important information that “something here isn’t working for them”. Just acknowledge the feedback and fix the problem.
• The five steps to being a writer: 1) Write 2) Finish 3) Send it out into the world 4) If rejected, send it out again 5) start the next thing