Craft guides for stories that run long
Guides, templates and references for novels, light novels and web serials: keeping a story bible, managing canon, the genres readers search shelves for, and the structure and prose decisions underneath. Every craft claim here carries its source, and where the community disagrees, we say so. Looking for a quick definition instead? Try the glossary.
Continuity and canon
Story bibles, canon and the continuity errors that break long stories.
What is a story bible?
Guide · 4 min read
A story bible is the reference record of everything your story establishes. What goes in one, how to keep it current, and the failure modes that make one useless.
What is canon in fiction?
Guide · 4 min read
Canon is the set of facts a story has established as true within itself. What counts as canon, how it drifts, and a working method for managing it while you write.
Seven continuity errors that break long stories
Field guide · 4 min read
Character contradictions, timeline conflicts, items that come back, knowledge nobody earned. The seven continuity errors and how to catch each one.
Track character state across chapters
Guide · 3 min read
Health, location, knowledge, inventory and relationships change every chapter. A practical method for tracking character state through long fiction.
Character profile template
Template · 3 min read
A fill-in character profile built for long fiction: identity, goals, state, relationships, knowledge and arc, with field-by-field guidance and a worked example.
Story structure
Beat sheets and frameworks, each verified against its source.
The Save the Cat beat sheet
Guide · 3 min read
Blake Snyder's 15 beats in order, what each beat does, its conventional placement, and how novelists use the sheet without letting it flatten the story.
Kishotenketsu: story structure without a central conflict
Guide · 3 min read
Ki, sho, ten, ketsu: the four-part structure that turns on a twist instead of a confrontation. How each part works, and when to reach for it.
Three-act structure
Guide · 3 min read
Setup, confrontation, resolution, with turning points at the act breaks: the beats of the three-act model, and how to use it without being flattened by it.
The Hero's Journey
Guide · 3 min read
Campbell's monomyth and Vogler's practical twelve-stage version: the full stage lists, what the pattern is good for, and where it stops fitting.
Want vs need
Guide · 3 min read
The want is the external, conscious goal that drives the plot; the need is the internal lack the story actually resolves. Where the pair comes from and how to use it.
Character arcs: positive, negative and flat
Guide · 4 min read
K.M. Weiland's three arc types: the character who changes for the better, the one who falls, and the one who was right all along. How to choose and plot each.
Dan Harmon's Story Circle
Guide · 3 min read
Eight steps around a circle: You, Need, Go, Search, Find, Take, Return, Change. What each step means and why the circle works at scene, episode and season scale.
Genres
Guides to web-fiction genres and the conventions readers expect.
How to write LitRPG
Guide · 3 min read
LitRPG puts the game system on the page: stat blocks, levels, skill trees. What defines the genre, what readers expect, and how to keep mechanics and story in balance.
How to write progression fantasy
Guide · 3 min read
Progression fantasy makes power growth the narrative engine. The genre's branches, its structural pattern, and how to keep escalation satisfying for hundreds of chapters.
How to write isekai
Guide · 3 min read
Isekai sends an ordinary protagonist to another world. The genre's setup elements, what readers expect from the first chapters, and the pitfalls particular to it.
Prose craft
Point of view, tense, voice and sentence-level technique.
Head-hopping
Field guide · 3 min read
Head-hopping is an unmarked mid-scene jump between characters' thoughts. How it differs from omniscient narration, why it reads as a slip, and how to fix it.
Show, don't tell
Guide · 3 min read
The most quoted writing rule, without the myths: where the famous moonlight version really comes from, and when telling is the right tool.
Choosing point of view
Guide · 3 min read
First person, third limited, deep, omniscient, second, or rotating: what each point of view buys and costs, and how to choose before chapter one.
Worldbuilding
Magic systems, world rules and consistency at novel scale.
Sanderson's three laws of magic
Guide · 4 min read
Brandon Sanderson's three laws of magic: what each law says, why they are guidelines rather than rules, and what they mean for your system's costs and limits.
Magic A is Magic A
Guide · 4 min read
Once a rule is established, an unexplained later violation reads as a plot hole, not a surprise. The crowd-sourced principle behind continuity checking.
Serialization and web fiction
Release schedules, chapter endings and serial platform conventions.
Choosing a web serial release schedule
Guide · 4 min read
Daily, weekly or fixed multi-day: how serial authors pick a cadence, why consistency keeps readers, and how a buffer keeps the schedule honest.
Cliffhangers and chapter endings
Guide · 3 min read
The naive rule of ending every chapter on a cliffhanger loses force fast. How to vary chapter endings so each chapter reads as a complete micro-arc.
How long should a web novel chapter be?
Field guide · 3 min read
Platform advice genuinely disagrees: 2,000 to 3,000 words or 4,000 to 8,000. What the sources actually say, and how to pick your own number.
Tools and the writing life
Choosing software, writing with AI, e-ink and multilingual writing.
How to choose novel-writing software
Guide · 4 min read
A decision framework for writing apps: where your manuscript lives, structure tools, story bibles, what the AI is allowed to do, and what the options cost.
The glossary
From LitRPG to xianxia to free indirect discourse: short, sourced definitions for the terms writers actually look up.
Browse the glossary