Like this or like that?

Sylvia Plath, in Paris. (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) 

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Trigger/Content Warnings for this Title, Followed by # of Votes:

Car Accidents: 1

Death: 1

Domestic Abuse (Emotional): 1

Domestic Abuse (Physical): 1

Domestic Abuse (Verbal): 1

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We use a crowd-sourcing model, in which readers are able to use this Google Form to vote on what trigger/content warnings should be included. As a trigger/content warning gets more votes, it will be placed higher on this list.

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How J.K. Rowling Plotted Harry Potter with a Hand-Drawn Spreadsheet

At the height of the Harry Potter novels’ popularity, I asked a number of people why those books in particular enjoyed such a devoted readership. Everyone gave almost the same answer: that author J.K. Rowling “tells a good story.” The response at once clarified everything and nothing; of course a “good story” can draw a large, enthusiastic (and, at that time, impatient) readership, but what does it take to actually tell a good story? People have probably made more money attempting, questionably, to pin down, define, and teach the best practices of storytelling, but at the top of this post, we have a revealing scrap of Rowling’s own process. And I do, almost literally, mean a scrap: this piece of lined paper contains part of the handwritten plot spreadsheet she used to write the fifth Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.