Crafting tension, suspense, and how we either ratchet up or release it, is probably my favourite thing about writing a story. It's the undercurrent of uncertainty, the magnetic pull that keeps us engaged, anxious, and eager for what comes next.

I won’t pretend I’m a master at this, but I’m a good student of it! So: this is the collected set of notes I’ve gathered around conflict and tension over the last little while.

There are three types of conflict

In The Story Grid, Shawn Coyne outlines that there are three types of conflict a character can experience. All three types of conflict are important in a story for driving the plot forward:

1. Inner conflict —1 happens inside your protagonists mind, alone or with other characters present that they might be attempting to hide their inner conflict from, and helps to humanise them and make them relatable.

2. Inter-personal conflict — happens in dialogue and body language in scenes with other characters, creating friction, intrigue, and perhaps even forcing your protagonist to reconsider their beliefs/approaches/goals.

3. Extra-personal conflict — happens in action and dialogue as your protagonist clashes with forces beyond their immediate circle.

   1. Might be societal — they stand against societal norms, laws, or expectations, and have the threat of ostracisation, whether from society as a whole or from their family or found family.

   2. Might be verses nature — they might struggle against a natural disaster like a hurricane, flood, or the worst winter of all time, and the indifference and unpredictability of nature adds to the tension.

   3. Might be verses a ‘monster’ — they might be trying to overcome a monster of supernatural origins, and here unpredictability is also adding to the tension, but also the monster is usually an allegory for a societal norm (so play into that, too).

How conflict drives the plot

Gustav Freytag, a 19th-century German playwright and novelist, dissected the five-part structure of classical drama, and one of the most vital parts of his structure is the rising action, where tension builds, and the story’s conflict takes shape.

According to Coyne, there are two techniques that escalate the rising action. If we accept that rising action builds the conflict, then these are conflict building techniques, and as we move through the three conflict types we can alternate these techniques to create even more tension.

1. Unexpected character action — a character behaves in a way that surprises the reader AND other characters.

2. Unexpected revelation — crucial information is revealed that changes the understanding of the story or a character.

Character choices that drive conflict

When it comes to character action of any kind, you can also ramp up the tension in the way you present options to them.

1. Torn between 2 mutually exclusive good choices — offer them two things they want really badly, but choosing one means giving up the other forever.

2. Torn between the best of 2 bad choices — offer them two equally terrible options, where they’ve having to really assess which one is going to do the least damage.

Plot devices that drive conflict

Professor Jennifer Lynne Barnes studies theory of mind in fiction, and based on her work, we can extrapolate that there are two main ways to drive conflict with plot devices:

1. Things in opposition — diverse beliefs/worldviews, diverse desires/objectives, betrayal, a ticking clock.

2. Things that are hidden — not everyone has access to the same knowledge/information, hidden emotion, secrets and lies, suppressed memory/amnesia, unreliable narrator, false identity, false victory.

3. Change — anything unsettling is going to drive conflict: a new setting/location with new challenges, a change in alliances, time jump, reversal of fortune.

Betrayal, specifically

I’m not going to deep-dive into all of those, but betrayal is an interesting conflict plot device for me, because it can be betrayal of another character (inter-personal conflict) or it can be a self-betrayal (inner conflict).

Here is a (non-exhaustive) list of things that motivate betrayal:

• Resources — either greed, need, or loss aversion (and the resource can be money, power, building materials, influence, seeds/food, water, dragons)

• Ideology — siding with a long-held belief or misplaced loyalty over something/someone else, even if it’s the wrong choice (the ideology is not necessarily always bad. It might be a quest for the truth, for example, that leads to putting a whole lot of people in danger).

• Compromise/Blackmail — forced/trapped into a betrayal in order to protect or safeguard something/someone.

• Ego — self-importance, arrogance, revenge for a wounded ego, or a belief that they can get away with it. I’d also put a romantic affair as betrayal in this category.

This is a deep-dive into the design of tracked changes. I know track changes seems like a kind of table stakes feature for a writing app, and not one worth writing a whole article about, but let me cook.

Every writer who’s ever worked with an editor, or a beta reader, or even just with a past version of themselves, has first-hand experience of the headache of editing a manuscript. Assuming you’re working with someone else, that probably also means emailing documents back and forth like philistines, then trawling through different versions to compare feedback and edits, while also trying to work out if the latest draft was “final” or “final_FINAL_v2_this-one_okay-no-THIS-ONE”.

Part of the idea of building First Draft Pro was changing this forever and ever. The whole point of a collaborative writing app that acts as a shared source of truth and can have different permission levels for co-writers vs an editor/book coach, is removing that pain. But, that requires really good tools for getting feedback, reviewing and vetting it, and then deciding what changes to take on, and what to reject.

Some of this is managed with comments, and that deserves an article of it’s own, but a lot of this happens via tracked changes!

Core design concepts

Design is about form and function, and research is super important! These concepts shaped my approach to designing the track changes feature:

• The project owner must have ultimate control over access, permissions, and collaborators can only suggest changes, never make changes without approval.

• It’s important that change notifications are always accessible, but that you don’t have to look at them all the time (they stay on an activity tab) so that you avoid fixating/negativity bias, and can choose when to engage.

How tracking changes works

Toggle suggestion mode ‘on’ and ‘off’ to switch between direct editing of your manuscript, or suggesting changes to text or formatting.

With suggestion mode on, suggested changes will appear as notes on the right-hand side of your manuscript. This is perfect for working with co-authors and editors – or even if you have another idea that you’d like to come back to. When you’re ready, accept or reject suggestions by clicking the tick or cross icon.

Compare versions

No one likes to kill their darlings, but version control in First Draft Pro makes it easier to commit to changes, safe in the knowledge that your original version is never lost! Editing always involves a bit of rewriting – but being able to track suggestions, and easily roll back to previous versions, allows you to let go and embrace change.

Plus, the version history tracks each scene individually, so if you need to roll back a scene without affecting other changes, that’s possible!

Gather feedback in one place

All step-by-step edits made by you or your collaborators are visible alongside longer, inline comments on your manuscript, making it simple to collate and integrate changes.

I love reading about writer’s processes. I love when there are rituals involved, exact timings, specific environmental requirements, as if the act of creating fiction is a spell we are trying casting on ourselves each day; I love when a writer explains the difficult act of extracting words from themself, but also love when the words come easily, when there is no rhyme or reason, it just pours out, unstoppered. No logic, just magic.

When I learn from writer’s routines and from talking to other writers about how they do the hard work of making art, it’s always so interesting how many different ways there are to approach writing a book. And when it came to designing an app in which to write a book I thought a lot about how to create just the right amount of structure, and still leave flexibility (but not too much!).

I knew that writers might come to First Draft Pro because it was collaborative, or because of the plotting and outlining features, or the structure guides, or because it was designed with neurodivergence in mind, but that regardless of what feature(s) drew them in, they would spend the vast majority of their time in the manuscript view: writing.

So, even though the other features of the app were super important, everything would fall apart if I didn’t get the manuscript and text editor right.

Core design concepts

Design is about form and function, and research is super important! These concepts shaped my approach to designing the writing and manuscript features of the app:

• Cognitive overload is essentially on every one of these little lists, because every decision you make, every pixel you see, distracts you from actually writing. It was super important in the text editor, because this is where you’re spending almost all your time. This influenced a bunch of decisions:

  • Lots of white space, easy to read font (and no font decisions).

  • The toolbar only coming up when you need it, rather than always visible.

  • The ability to make everything disappear if you didn’t want to see it.

• The colours of light and dark mode are also chosen to be soothing, and calm, there are no themes that give you another decision to make or something to ‘play with’ rather than writing.

The evolution of the manuscript text editor

After a lot of testing and feedback from writers, I continued refining the design to keep it clean, motivating, and functional.

Formatting your writing

Sure, writing is about getting words on the page, but you also want your words to look beautiful! So, the manuscript features also include formatting text and adding images:

• Format your text with the formatting functions available on the toolbar bubble. Highlight the relevant text and the toolbar will appear.

• Add images to your project from the toolbar bubble and resize them to fit your manuscript.

Craft a better story with First Draft Pro

Whether you’re putting your first tentative ideas to paper or making finishing touches, First Draft Pro has great features to help you craft your next bestseller 😉

These are the playlists I write to, when I’m trying to get into a very specific kind of writing headspace.

I’ve found that I can’t write to songs with lyrics because I hear all the words, and I can’t use a mixed writing playlist, because the emotions might not hit right for what I’m trying to achieve. This is my solution!

A playlist for writing romance

All romance books are about one theme: love conquers all... That journey from hole-hearted to whole-hearted is the romance arc for each character. ― Gwen Hayes

Sweet // Romantic is a playlist for when you’re bringing characters together.

A playlist for writing humour

I’ll take A Midsummer Night’s Dream over Hamlet every time. Any fool with steady hands and a working set of lungs can build up a house of cards and then blow it down, but it takes a genius to make people laugh.― Stephen King

Upbeat // Quirky is a playlist for when you need to add a touch of comedy.

A playlist for writing action

In the exposition we put a pot of water on the stove; getting the action to rise is making the water boil.― George Saunders

Excitement // Action is a playlist for when you need to feel the thrill.

A playlist for writing tension

A scene without conflict is a scene without tension... which is to say, a scene that gives us no reason to read it. ― Chuck Wendig

Anxious // Tension is a playlist for when you need to amp up the conflict.

A playlist for writing about hope and resilience

Novels ought to have hope; at least, American novels ought to have hope. French novels don’t need to.― Anne Lamott

Hope // Resilience is a playlist for when you’re writing those moments of lift.

A playlist for writing about loss

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.― Robert Frost

Bittersweet // Sorrow is a playlist for when you’re writing scenes about loss.

I’ve already written about the design of the outlining features in First Draft Pro, but another of my big faves is a feature that acts kind of like a bridge between the outline and the manuscript.

Early on in my own writing journey I realised that the map I’d created of where the novel was going, was only helpful if I could actually see it while I was writing. The outline in First Draft Pro gave me two ways to plan and plot the novel, but I didn’t want to keep switching from one tab to another to see where I was going next, or have to scroll up and read entire chapters over again to see where I’d been.

I wanted to be able to see both at the same time. I wanted everything on the same page. As the Rolling Stones taught us, you don’t always get what you want. But you know what? Sometimes you do!

Core design concepts

Design is about form and function, and research is super important! These concepts shaped my approach to designing an outline that is visible while you’re writing:

• A visible outline reduces cognitive overload, by creating an external source that doesn’t have to stay in your head.

• Reducing cognitive load is also easier if you have a way to do cognitive offloading (ie: a place to dump ideas rather than having to remember it). Both notes and the outline actually help with this!

• Capturing ideas on the outline also helps our brains close open loops, which helps free up brain space for what we want to actually work on.

The evolution of the outline in the manuscript

The first version of the outline was just three scenes: your current scene, the last scene you wrote, and the one coming up next.

Initially, I wanted to keep it really focused to just those three, but quickly realised that writers wanted to see the whole outline at one time. So, it was back to the drawing board/page:

Planners vs Pantsers

It was really important to me that First Draft Pro suit writers who love to outline everything in advance, as well as discovery writers who want to figure it out with just enough structure as they go.

• If you’re a planner, use the outlining tool to jot down each scene in the order you imagine your plot unfolding. When you’re done, you’ll have a neat overview of each chapter and the scenes within them, that you can write against (like cues).

• If you prefer your plot to take shape organically, First Draft Pro doesn’t impose a particular way of working. Jump right into manuscript mode to start writing. If a thought occurs to you about a current or upcoming scene, simply add them as you go. These notes are automatically added to your outline view so that you can drag and drop scenes later when refining your structure.

Writing a book is hard. Particularly if reduced dopamine availability (in the case of ADHD) makes a long term goal with no immediate payoff feel literally impossible.

So, when working on goals, streaks and other things that are meant to help drive motivation, I thought a lot about what actually helps us keep showing up for ourselves and our big dreams: how we establish (and maintain) a healthy, sustainable writing practice, and build momentum for the long haul without it feeling positively Sisyphean.

After a ton of research, I realised that the two big problems we’re trying to solve are how to make it easier to start writing and easier to keep going.

Of course part of this is about being able to set goals, being able to see your writing streak, celebration moments when you achieve a goal, and reminder emails each week celebrating your writing progress. Most of what I’m talking about here is that stuff. But, it’s also worth mentioning that it’s also about the whole feel of the app, not just those individual features.

It’s as important that the overall design is clean, clear, and reduces overwhelm while you’re plotting and writing. It’s super important for the process of writing to be super visible. That means that your outline stays accessible while you write, and your notes stay pinned.

Staying motivated, for me, is also about having a beautiful ‘home’ for my writing. Something I’m excited to open each day. Which brings me to…

Core design concepts

Design is about form and function, and research is super important! These concepts shaped my approach to designing for motivation:

• Reward and motivation as a tool for staying engaged in completing a long, complex project.

• Promoting healthy writing habits that are built around consistent effort.

• How to reduce task initiation and paralysis by making goals more trivial and less overwhelming.

• How dopamine feedback loops with celebration moments can help with motivation.

• Fostering psychological momentum by making wordcount progress super visible.

• The damage to motivation by negativity bias, and how we help to support positive reinforcement by only celebrating progress and never sending “you haven’t written today” loss aversion emails.

• Identity reinforcement around ‘being a writer’ by helping writers to show up for themselves every day.

Dashboard 1.0

The first version of the dashboard had daily goals and a tracker for your wordcount per day, but no steaks or celebration moments.

Redesigning the dashboard

I did a big redesign of the dashboard this year, trying to bring more fun, more space, and streaks and goals into one place :)

In short: goals, celebration moments, and designing for delight helps to set-up a dopamine feedback loop, and provides a framework for rewards and motivation. Streaks help to short-circuit paralysis by providing an impetus for task initiation, encouraging consistent effort and creating psychological momentum.

Plus, First Draft Pro now has celebration animations when you hit a milestone, but an off switch for them, in case it becomes distracting. And: you only get emails to celebrate your writing progress. No green birds will come knocking down your door if you don’t log in for a day 🦉

Hey, so, writing a novel is hard (who knew!)

Lately, I’ve struggled with keeping up the pace, so I turned back to some old lessons (that somehow never really sink in?) at the tail end of a hard 3-month run of drafting my current project. The slump hit me, and then I hit a wall at the end of Act 2. It wasn’t a story problem or an inspiration problem (though I’ve been there), because I know exactly what needs to happen next, but I’m struggling to engage with the draft.

When I’m flagging or losing motivation, It’s hard to remember that I’m not alone. We aren’t machines, so we’ve gotta work with the ebbs and flows (preferably more flows, if we can get them) of productivity to get across the finish line.

For me, there are levels to this kind of slump, and I’ve created my own little reset protocol that I run through whenever I’m feeling like this about any project of any sort. Since I’m currently in the midst of it, I thought I might share!

Reset

‍Redoing part of my routine acts like a mini reset, and helps me feel physically refreshed back in the right frame of mind. This is essentially my ‘start the day over’ reset, and sometimes it works for getting back into something that same day.

• Take a shower.

• Brush teeth.

• Make a fresh cup of tea in a different mug.

Step away

Sometimes we just need a break! It’s okay to step away from your writing and think about something else for a while.

• Take a walk around the block.

• Take a nap and when you get up, put on a different outfit.

• Complete a concrete, easy task to give your brain a dopamine boost. Keep it simple (empty the dishwasher, make a phone call, or play with the cat)!

Change perspective

‍There’s nothing like a new way of looking at things to get you out of a rut.

• Physically move to work in a new space.

• Write on paper instead of working on your laptop, or narrate the story to yourself and make a voice recording.

• Skip to the next scene. Don’t force it if you’re stuck on a certain part! You can always come back to it later. This is what ‘TK’ was made for :)

Find the fun again

I love this song, which I listen to when I forget that I’m supposed to be having fun:

• Jennifer Lynne Barnes recommends keeping an ‘id’ list, which is a list of all the settings, scenes, jokes/bits, big dramatic moments that you love to read and see on screen. I’ve been keeping one of these, and when I’m really struggling with a scene I now try to go to that list and see if I can reframe it by setting it in a location that lights up my pleasure centres, or include moments in the book that spark joy for me.

• I also made some writing playlists to get me in the right headspace for whatever scene I’m working on.

Check in with yourself

‍Mindfulness can help you to be fully present and engaged with your work.

• Remind yourself why you’re undertaking this project—focusing on ‘why’ can help us to see that the struggle is worth it. Your ‘why’ might also change over time, and that’s okay too.

• Manage your feelings of frustration or demotivation with intention. Intentionally decide to ride the wave, but don’t try to ignore your feelings or pretend they’re not there.

• Acknowledge where you are, and think about what future success looks like to you (this is called mental contrasting). What small step can you take that gets you closer to your goal?

There’s just something about a map. If there’s a map in a book, it’s an adventure. And I don’t really care what sort of adventure, if I’m being honest, I’m already in. Maps are wonderful as a reader, but they’re also really important for my writing practice as well.

I love a gorgeous illustrated map, but if you aren’t a skilled illustrator or cartographer, that can be expensive to commission — especially if you’re at the stage of drafting, and you might still need to change things, or add stuff as you go.

Whether you are working on a small-scale, local map for a single town or city, or a larger-scale map for an entire planet or even a galaxy, I’ve gathered a list of a variety of tools are available to help bring your vision to life, though of course the right map-making tool will depend on the specific needs of your story and your personal preferences.

Choosing the right tool

Map-making tools come in various options, each with features and capabilities. Most are built for tabletop RPG games but are just as useful for writers. When selecting a map-making tool, consider the scale of the maps you want to make.

• Small-scale map-making tools are great for detailed maps of specific locations, such as cities or buildings, and often include features like customisable labels, symbols, and visual elements. You’ll want the ability to make detailed maps of small areas, including streets, buildings, and other landmarks.

• Large-scale map-making tools are great for creating maps of vast areas, like continents or planets, and often include features like the ability to import data from real-world maps or generate maps based on geographical parameters like climate, elevation, or vegetation.

Map-making tools

Inkarnate

Inkarnate is excellent for both small and large-scale map creation. It offers a range of features, including custom terrain and location icons, the ability to import custom images, and an intuitive interface. You can make fantasy and sci-fi style assets, which means you can use the tool to build spaceships, flesh out rooms inside your ships, or create a galaxy.

Wonderdraft

Wonderdraft is best for large-scale maps. It offers a variety of customisable templates, symbols, and brushes, as well as features for adding annotations and notes to the map, allowing you to include important information and details about your worlds.

Dungeondraft

Dungeondraft is brought to you by the creators of Wonderdraft. It's best for small-scale maps, and the two work hand in hand.

Wonderdraft and Dungeondraft also support third-party art packs, so you can quickly adapt your maps to your story's aesthetic. If you want to go that route, you can get third-party art packs from Crosshead Studios, 2 Minute Tabletop, Forgotten Adventures, and Caeoria.

Dungeon Scrawl

Dungeon Scrawl is a really well-designed and uncomplicated tool for small-scale maps. It's best for single locations, houses or other establishments, caves, or mazes. Its hand-drawn aesthetic is perfect for writers who want to add a touch of whimsy or old-school charm to their maps.

Metro Map Maker

Metro Map Maker is a tool for creating custom subway or metro maps. It allows you to customise their map's layout, colours, and labels, as well as add points of interest and other details. It could be used to create maps of the fictional subway system that can be included in the story or shared with readers to help them visualise the city and understand the layout and locations mentioned in the story.

Arkenforge

Arkenforge is a good option if you're working on a space opera rather than a magical epic. Whether you're building a sprawling space station or a small, distant planet, Arkenforge offers a range of customizable assets and features with a more futuristic twist.

Astrosynthesis

Astrosynthesis is a powerful, feature-rich map-making software for science fiction writers and game designers. AstroSynthesis allows users to create detailed and customizable maps of entire galaxies, star systems, and planets.

Lord of Maps

If you want something a little more crafty and tactile, but don’t want to illustrate a map yourself by hand, these stamps from Lord of Maps are both super cute and super useful.

Other tools for worldbuilders

• Space Engine is a powerful, real-time 3D space simulation software that allows users to explore the universe, observe celestial bodies, and create custom star systems and galaxies.

• Simpop Solar System Simulator is an interactive, web-based tool that allows users to create their own solar system, complete with planets, moons, and other celestial bodies.

Something that a lot of people don’t know about First Draft Pro, is that the idea started out as a plugin for Google Docs. I’d been writing my novel in Google Docs, and was up to around 50K+ words by mid-2019, but I was really struggling to see the wood for the trees (or I suppose I’d quite literally lost the plot).

What I wanted was a way to “zoom out” of the story and see a higher-level picture of where I was, and Google Docs was just not giving me that. What I did love about Google Docs was that it was collaborative and I could share it with other people. I have learned about myself that I love a bit of external validation, I’m just not a your-own-opinion-is-the-only-one-that-matters girlie yet, however much I strive to be her.

I also loved that Google Docs was clean and modern, where a lot of other writing apps felt very dated to me. So, while there were other writing apps available at the time, there wasn’t one that hit my exact Venn diagram of pretty/collaborative/functional. All the apps that hit those requirements were not made for writing stories, so I always felt like I was trying to jam an organic amorphous process into a square hole.

The failed prototype plugin :)

The plugin for Google Docs was my solution, and we even built a prototype of it! But ultimately, we realised it would never work. Google put too many restrictions in place for it to have the features I wanted. Of course, the only remaining option was to build it from scratch!

The first thinking around a standalone app

I moved from there into thinking about what a full app might look like, starting with the outline. These were the very, very first designs: the first draft of First Draft Pro!

The whole point of this outline was that it needed to work for both pantsers and planners. Heavy outliners and discovery writers have different needs, so I wanted to make sure that it was possible to:

• Start outlining first, and write to that plan.

• Start writing first, and use the outline to capture ideas for future chapters quickly, or just complete it as you go.

The next iteration of the outline

It’s super interesting to me to see what stayed and what was axed. If you’re using First Draft Pro today, you can also see how much of this version is still in the DNA of the current design!

The first “final” version

The version of the outline that we ended up with in the first release was closer to the designs below, and we lived with this version for a good while.

Biggest changes:

• Made clearer differentiation between the title of a scene card + the description

• Made the cards wider and easier to read

• Changed the font

• Moved settings and wordcount into the top navigation to save space

• Redesigned the “add scene” buttons

• Added colour coding (!)

Adding the plotlines feature to the outline

But then… we added a second outlining method: plotlines! So, we needed to make some changes… I started with some rough sketches.

Then moved to design in both light and dark mode.

But today, the outline looks like this! It’s much cleaner and more focused, but a lot of the same principles are there, six years of refinement later. You’ll also notice that each time I took away more than I added, which is part of the big focus on improvement of the overall app by reducing cognitive overload.

The power of a great outline

Many existing writing tools were built for word processing in an office environment. But storytelling is a creative process, and scrolling through one long batch of words isn’t exactly conducive to creativity.

The outline and plotline features in First Draft Pro allow you to create an intuitive framework for your story. Zoom out for a high-level view of the beats in your story, or zoom right in to work on the finer details. Where you start is up to you! And if you want to explore all the app’s features, you can find them here.

According to Jennifer Lynne Barnes, the question of why humans, as a species, are so wired to love fiction, and the question of why a particular story takes off, are integrally related to, and inform one another.

Why fiction?

There are six different theories, but Barnes’ preferred one is from Stephen Pinker1, who argues against the evolutionary theories for why we love stories2, and says that there are a bunch of hardwired pleasures in the human brain, and fiction/art (like cheesecake) is designed to light up a whole bunch of them.

These hardwired pleasures are your ‘id’, which she explains is a Freudian theory that defines three levels of the self: the id, the ego, and the superego. The ‘id’ is the pleasure-seeking part of the self, the heart-wants-what-the-heart-wants part of the self, the part of the self that insists on rewatching The Vampire Diaries for the twelfth consecutive time.

Why that story?

Barnes’ theory is that stories that take off are the ones that have more rather than less of the the things in them that speak to the ‘id’. The stories that are packed with our hardwired pleasures.

She also observes from her own experience as an author, from conversations with other authors, and from her research into bestselling fiction and their fandoms, that while a writer’s craft and writing ability improves over time, often their earlier work resonates more with readers than later books. Those early novels are more likely to catch fire for some reason. But, why?

Her theory is that as you absorb external opinions as a writer and person, you often start editing your ‘id’ out. You remove things that hit those hardwired pleasures in your earlier work, because you’re worried that they might be cringe, cliche, unrealistic, or overdone.

And so, her message is to find ways to write the ‘id’ back in to your work.

Listening out for your ‘id’

What Barnes means when she says you should write for your ‘id’, is that you should write the things you inexplicably love to see, without worrying about if it’s silly or having to justify it. Those are the bits that will light up the brains of readers who love the same things you do.

Her recommendation is that you keep an ID list where you note down all the things you love to see in books, TV, film, so that you can include these in your work. She identifies 6 hardwired universal pleasure3 groups that you could use to brainstorm this list (but of course, it’s non-exhaustive).

Hardwired universal pleasures

Beauty

You might include beautiful people, places, art, music; or deal with beauty as a concept; or have characters grapple with what beauty really is.

Scenes/settings that hit this: makeovers, getting ready, corset tightening, looking through a closet, waterfalls, massive canyons/fjords, Amalfi coast, giant trees, forests, Rivendell, Wakanda, “he smells like crushed clove”, purple/silver/golden eye colours.

Wealth

You might include this by writing about wealthy communities (see: Gossip Girl, Crazy Rich Asians, Great Gatsby), having a billionaire playboy philanthropist character of choice (Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, Lara Croft), by using rich materials: golden amulet, jewelled sword hilt, etc; or you could show comparison, as in the different districts in The Hunger Games.

Scenes/settings that hit this: lavish parties, mansions, room of expensive toys (cars, crime-fighting equipment, books, etc), clothes.

Status/Power

You might include royalty, or people who lead the world, politicians, peers of the realm, CEOs, FBI and other assorted acronyms. Also: people who are well connected, who are incredibly talented, who are influential in some way: legal, medical, religious. Anywhere you can find prestige, essentially. It might also include physical power and strength. Brains, brawn, reputation.

Scenes/settings that hit this: corrupt and powerful governments, finding out the guy you hooked up with last night is the new head of neurosurgery.

Competition

The Hunger Games. The Inheritance Games. Game of Thrones. Mazerunner. Etc, etc, etc. Tons of books have a competition in them or as a sub-plot.

Scenes/settings that hit this: trials (legal, sporting, magical, to gain admission), contests, games, sporting events, a race (even if it’s against time/the clock), rivalries between two characters (which can be romantic, academic, super petty).

Safe danger

You might have actually dangerous events happen, or include inherently ‘dangerous’ characters (like vampires, or assassins).

Scenes/settings that hit this: the narrow ledge or rickety bridge, the mythical beast that might not accept you as it’s rider, the vampire who saves you from a careening car in a school parking lot

Physical touch/contact

This might include intimacy of any level through a romance novel, but also sensations that a character experiences (like the wind on their face, or the warmth of the sun).

Scenes/settings that hit this: intimacy, holding hands, hugging, cuddling, accidental touch, fighting, a character ‘coaching’ another in golf/pottery/combat.

The two most NB moments in your book

Barnes argues that there are two critical points in your book that you have to land if you want it to stand the best chance of igniting, based on the peak-end effect from economic theory:

1. The ending — this is often what people remember most after reading a book.

2. The most intense moment — if you’re writing a comedy it’s the funniest, if you’re writing a tragedy it’s the saddest.

Other opportunities for using ‘id’

You can also use these principles in your marketing:

• Try to use an ‘id’ coded buzzwords in your title or log-line (game, liar, beauty, lovely, assassin, etc)

• Use ‘id’ coded descriptions and tropes in your social media marketing

• Not mentioned by Barnes, but that occurred to me: you could try to use ‘id’ framings in your query letters to get an agent.

This is not Barnes’ original RWA workshop, but she does cover a lot of the same concepts in this podcast episode, and is well worth a listen (or three):

Before I started working on First Draft Pro, I became obsessed with the fact that while only one person’s name1 is printed in shining letters across the cover of your favourite book, most books are the loving work of many people: editors, co-writers, ghostwriters, and early readers. Queenie, the debut novel from Candice Carty-Williams had two pages (!) listing every person who worked on the book at the end.

Of those two pages of contributors, eight of them worked just on the words: they collaborated to craft the story, refine it, copy edit and proofread it. And they almost certainly did it by emailing Word documents back and forth and then trawling through these different versions to compare feedback and edits.

The thing that I couldn’t let go of was that storytellers don’t have great tools to help us work together. We rely on software that wasn’t built with story writing or collaboration in mind, and then do the best we can to collaborate to create stories anyway, because we love stories that much!

This was why from the very beginning, I wanted First Draft Pro to have collaboration and storytelling as a foundational part of the app design. Even the earliest marketing illustrations I commissioned for the app (done by the extremely talented Jess Jardim-Wedephol) focused on collaboration as part of the writing process. Gah, I still love them so, so much! LOOK:

Core design concepts

Design is about form and function, and research is super important! These concepts shaped my approach to designing for collaboration:

• Consent and control, and how this affects motivation when sharing a project that others can edit and make changes in… That is: the reason why roles and permissions are very important!

• Collaboration as a way to increase motivation with external accountability, but also: how feeling watched while working can make a writer self-conscious. As a result, we show when (and where) another author/editor is working in the document.

• Building trust through visible changes rather than allowing someone to make changes that can’t be seen or undone. This is what led to track changes!

Here’s how to invite a collaborator

Whether you’re writing with someone else, or just roping in some help to spot typos and inconsistencies, it’s easy to invite editors and co-authors in:

• Send an email invitation to any collaborator to ask them to join your writing project.

First Draft Pro allows you to control access to your project according to each person’s role:

• Project leads have the highest level of access and can grant permissions to co-authors and editors to edit a project. Read more about understanding collaborator permissions.

• Change a collaborator’s permissions at any time under your project’s ‘Sharing’ tab.

All the features designed around collaboration

Because writing and editing happens in the same place, here’s how to make the most of writing together:

• Start a discussion thread. Leave comments for collaborators in your manuscript. Pick up the discussion at any time, and easily collapse the comment thread when you’re done to reduce overwhelm.

• Keep notes. Worldbuilding notes and work-in-progress ideas live right alongside your manuscript, making it easy to comment on and add to.

• Turn on suggesting mode. See step-by-step changes made by you or your collaborators with track changes. Tracked changes appear alongside longer, in-line comments and suggestions, making it easy to integrate all feedback when you’re ready.

• Juggle scenes around easily. The outline feature makes it simple to drag and drop cards to move chapters and scenes around. Never fear, you won’t lose anything in the restructure – any text associated with those scenes will automatically be reordered in your manuscript.

• Export to a different format. Need to share your manuscript with an external collaborator? Simply click the Drive icon in the top toolbar to export to Google Drive.

The power of collaborative storytelling

There really is magic in creating a story together. Although some parts of the writing process will be down to your individual genius, what better than to nerd-out with fellow story lovers about the nitty-gritty of your manuscript? First Draft Pro is designed with exactly this kind of collaboration in mind.

If you, like me, have that big nerd energy, then you’ve probably spent a lot of time studying story structure. Which means you’re acquainted with the idea that characters have an external motivation and an internal motivation. You’re not friends with the concept, but you’ve seen it at parties. You’ve nodded at it other across the aisle of the grocery store, and then desperately prayed that it didn’t approach you to have a conversation.

• External motivation is what a character wants, the thing they’re chasing.

• Internal motivation is the thing they need to be the most Oprah version of themselves.

Most of the time, the character knows what they want from the very first page, but have no idea what they really need until much later. The arc is the process of them learning what they need as they pursue the thing (they think) they want. Plus, we get bonus points if the want and the need are in conflict with one another, because that causes natural tension, and tension makes the storytelling part of our brain make that cartoon ‘AWOOGAH’ sound.

But, I’ve always struggled to really make it work for me.

In their book, Scriptnotes, Craig Mazin and John August call bullshit on this view of character motivation. Their feeling is that the want vs need framework is a trap that’s not that helpful for planning a story. In Episode 611 of the Scriptnotes podcast, John and Craig offer a different way in: instead of starting with what a character wants or needs, start with what they’re doing.

They break it down into five base-level things that all creatures do in order to survive: the five Fs.

1. Flee: Run from danger.

2. Fight: Push against a threat.

3. Feed: Consume, hoard, accumulate.

4. Feel good: Chase comfort/relief.

5. [Another word that starts with an F, redacted because my mom reads this]: Pursue desire, connection, intimacy.

Here’s John on feeding:

“Feeding, like literally they could eat, but also, any time they’re trying to hoard or they’re trying to store up or save things, that’s all about feeding. It’s the fear of hunger down the road. Greed is essentially a feeding expression. It’s the desire to accumulate, to have those things. With control of the food, with control of the money, you have power, you have status. These are all tied up together.”

And John on fleeing:

“Obviously, we think about fleeing as it relates to a slasher movie, where you’re running from the killer. But realistically, our characters are often running from something, running from a danger that they may not even be able to say is the danger they’re running from. Characters are always running from something, some version of something that scares them, something about themselves, something about their situation.”

The power of framing motivation this way is that every one of the five Fs is an action, which gives the character something to do in a scene, which means it gives you plot. What sparked my brain was that those base-level motivations are also connected to something deeper in each character… and so perhaps give us a clever way to position the internal motivation (the need).

Listening to this episode, I kept thinking about the horror film Abigail (2024). It’s a vampire movie, and the two motivations driving the story map straight onto the five Fs. Abigail is literally consuming her victims (feeding), and her victims are fleeing from her through the house.

There’s such a clear link between those base motivations and their internal needs: Abigail hungers for the love and affection and attention of a parental figure, and each of her victims are at her mercy because they were avoiding something in their real life.

That’s about when I paused the podcast, and began doing my best Beautiful Mind impression:

The question to ask your own characters

Which F are they doing? Not which F do they feel, which one are they doing, in scene after scene? That’s the base-level motivation generating your plot.

What’s the internal need that F is a distorted version of? The thing they actually need to become whole, but can’t see because the external action feels like it’s working.

The whole point is that the F and the need pull in the same direction. Abigail feeds on blood and hungers for parental love, her victims flee from a vampire and from their own unresolved lives. The character’s arc is them slowly realising that the external version was never going to satisfy the deeper one.

Setting this up in First Draft Pro

Because I’m working on my own novel in First Draft Pro, I keep character notes linked together in my notes folder. I have a note for each character, with the following information:

External Goal

• What does the character do*?

Internal Goal

• What does the character need to be emotionally whole (a distortion of what they currently do)?

Arc

• How does the character grow over the course of the story?

Significant Relationships

• Family, friends, foes (and I tag each one as a helper or hinderer, and then link to that character’s note so that I can navigate between them easily)

*I used to put in what does the character want, but I’m trying this new approach.

When it comes to writing advice, chapter one gets all the love, and the other ninety scenes (as well as the writers of those scenes!) are on their own. There’s no agony aunt column for how to begin scene fifteen or twenty-seven. You sit down and there it is: a blank page.

But, every scene opening, no matter where it sits in the book, has exactly two jobs:

1. To orient: The reader needs to know, fast, who’s in the room and what’s at stake between them, and what the emotional tone is.

2. To pull: The reader needs a reason to keep going. Something is off, something is coming, something has shifted since the last scene. A secret confession. A small forward lean.

Every scene opening you’ve ever read that worked does both of these in the first paragraph or two. Take this example from chapter twenty-seven of Six of Crows:

Where the hell is Kaz? Jesper bounced from foot to foot in front of the incinerator, the dim clang of alarm bells filling his ears, rattling his thoughts. Yellow Protocol? Red Protocol? He couldn’t remember which was which. Their whole plan had been built around never hearing the sound of an alarm.

We know exactly where we are. We know who’s there (and who is supposed to be there, but isn’t!). We’re practically vibrating with Jesper’s anxiety. And we’re pulled in by the fact that things are not going according to plan.

What you’re actually orienting

The part I’ve been thinking about most lately is the orientation bit, and it comes from a slightly weird place.

A couple of months ago I signed up for an improv class, because I wanted to write scenes with better comedic timing. What I didn’t expect was that almost every lesson in that class has turned out to be about how to create a scene between two people, and how to draw the audience in. Making people actually laugh is the bit that you do unconsciously through absurdity or juxtaposition.

The first thing they hammer into you is that a scene is not the room. It’s not the activity. It’s not even what the scene is “about.” A scene is the two people in it, who they are to each other, and how they feel about each other right now. Everything else is set dressing. Relationship and emotion. That’s the start of an improv scene.

That sounds obvious until you’re on stage and realising five minutes in that you’ve set up an entire coffee shop scene and served three customers, but the audience has no idea who these two people are and if they love or hate each other, and the scene reaches this uncomfortable lull. You don’t know what to do next because there was never a relationship for anything to happen to.

The fix is simple but (for me at least) so hard to do in the moment. Before you do anything else, establish three things:

1. Who these people are to each other: Brothers who haven’t spoken in a year. The teacher and the parent who’s about to complain. The ex and the new girlfriend, meeting on purpose. We’re coached to name our scene partner, and the relationship as early as possible.

2. How they feel about each other right now: Resentment, longing, suspicion, embarrassment, the careful politeness of two people who just made up after a fight. The emotion is what makes the relationship matter.

3. A point of view: Having a point of view (ie: a thing you love/hate) helps to make the character unique and believable. It also gives you something to play with, because you can keep bringing your point of view back to focus.

The point of view one is interesting because it reminds me of a piece of writing advice I once read from Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She said that she always tries to give a character three things that they are juggling at any one time: they’re trying to order a sandwich, the deli is unbearably hot, and they’re trying very hard not to let on that they plan to rob the bank down the street in twenty minutes.

What a fun scene to write!

An openings menu

Once you’re holding all that in your head, the objective gets a lot less mysterious. But, I wanted to go a little further, so I looked through some chapter openers to create a little menu of openers:

• Open mid-action: Kaz sped through the upper cells, sparing brief seconds for a glance through each grate. [Six of Crows, Ch 26] — Good for scenes where momentum matters more than mood.

• Open on an object: They’d been blessed with a strong wind. [Six of Crows, Ch 42] — Good for scenes that hinge on a single piece of evidence, gift, or threat.

• Open on a line of dialogue, unattributed: Where the hell is Kaz? [Six of Crows, Ch 27] — Good for scenes that turn on a confrontation or a reveal (and notice this one does relationship work instantly). Whoever says it knows the other person well enough to have an expectation about them.

• Open with a small contradiction: Jesper wanted to pace, but he’d staked out this spot on the bench, and he intended to keep it. [Six of Crows, Ch 23] — Good for scenes that need a low hum of unease.

• Open with summary, then drop in: Everything hurt. And why was the room moving? [Six of Crows, Ch 16] — Good for scenes where the lead-in matters.

• Open after the beat: It took two days after she emerged from the surgeon’s cabin for Kaz to make himself approach Inez. [Six of Crows, Ch 18] — Good for scenes where you want to start inside the wound, not outside it.

• Open on a sensory detail: Kaz woke to the sharp scent of ammonia. [Six of Crows, Ch 3] — Good for scenes that need atmosphere fast.

• Open on a thought: Nina dared one more glance over her shoulder, watching the guards drag Inej away. She’s smart, deadly. Inej can take care of herself. [Six of Crows, Ch 31] — Good for scenes that turn on a decision the reader needs to know about going in.

What I see masterful storytellers (like Leigh Bardugo) doing is picking the opening that matches the job of the scene, and creating variation in how they start each one so that the chapters flow.

How this works in First Draft Pro

The way I’ve built this into my own writing process is through the Story Genius scene outline I already use inside First Draft Pro. Since starting improv I’ve quietly added a small new section at the top of my classic scene card — three lines for relationship, emotion, and POV.

The other thing I’ve been doing, and I’m a little obsessed with it, is using the highlight feature to colour-code my scene openings on an existing draft.

There are eleven highlight colours in First Draft Pro, which is conveniently more than enough to assign one colour per opening style, and I go through the manuscript tagging each opening as I read. The first time I did this, I noticed I had consecutive scenes starting with the same colour. Every scene opened on a sensory detail because that’s my comfort zone.

An overview

The 3 Act Structure for narrative fiction was popularised in the screenwriting world by Syd Field’s 1976 book on screenwriting (which itself has been a fan favourite for the last fifty years). It’s been a staple of story telling for a long time. Understandable, since it’s a useful tool for understanding the basics of how to balance exposition, action and subplots for great story pacing.

Because it’s a classic, I wanted to use this framework as the basis for creating the novel templates in First Draft Pro. But, as it’s been distilled down into a highly simplified model, I always found it difficult to use for actually plotting a story.

So, in the process of creating a system for templates in First Draft Pro, I decided to combine a couple of different structures to create a richer set of guidelines for pacing.

Here’s what that stripped back version looks like:

In order for a framework like this to be more useful for outlining, I needed more information! So I decided to overlay it with the 12 Chapter Outline (a middle grade chapter-book framework) that also follows the 3 Act Structure. Of course, we’re not limiting ourselves to 12 chapters, but in theory we can still map it to the overall structure. I particularly like the 12 chapter outline because of how it handles the obstacles or “battles” that your character faces. This helps us orient big “events” in the story a little more clearly.

I still felt like I needed a little more structure. Save The Cat is an update on Field’s 1976 work, and it’s a modern take on the original structure (though, still 21 years old). The rising action in a modern film is quicker than a novel, and it starts to wrap up faster too. As a result, Act 2 starts at 20% and Act 3 starts at 80%. It otherwise maps quite nicely to the classic structure.

This is what the model starts to look like as we combine them:

This version of the three act structure is what became the foundation for all structure templates in First Draft Pro.

Novel structure templates in First Draft Pro

If you’re wanting to use the most classic version of the structure, you can choose to start a project using one of the following templates:

• Three Act Structure: Our most stripped back template, this also includes pre-writing and planning set-ups that follow the Story Genius methodology.

• 30-day Novel Structure: This is a version of the classic three act structure template (above) that’s been condensed into a chapter-per-day guide for writers doing a 30-day novel writing challenge.

App improvements (v 1.1.40)

Hello darkness, my old friend. Version 1.1.40 of First Draft Pro includes the single biggest new feature request from writers: Full Dark Mode.

New features

• Full dark mode: We’ve had partial dark mode in the deep focus feature for a while, but you asked for site-wide dark mode for those long writing sessions and we love to deliver. You can activate dark mode across the whole app from the toggle in your profile menu. 🖤

• Updates to templates: We refreshed the content in the 3 existing templates (30 Day Novel, Romantasy, and Short Stories), to include elements of the Story Genius methodology.

• 3 new templates: We released 3 entirely new templates: Romance, Christmas Romance, and a template inspired by the Story Genius methodology.

• UI improvements: We made design updates to linked notes toolbars and the display of notes with long titles in your side bar, as well as to plan badges, highlights, and buttons.

• Split screen with Chrome: Chrome recently released a browser update that lets you use two tabs in the same browser window, and here’s how you can use that for First Draft Pro (eg: If you want to view notes and your manuscript alongside one another).

Bug fixes

• We fixed a bug that was affecting project selection and made accessing the correct project settings difficult.

• We remedied an oversight on the project settings tab that meant that the “delete” button was inaccessible! There’s a lovely little scrollbar now, so you can access the button to delete projects easily.

Once again, a massive thank-you to everyone on a paid subscription, you literally make these improvements possible. May your tea never get cold.

Save 50% on a new annual subscription

If you’re currently using the free version of First Draft Pro, you can take 50% off the first year of a new subscription to any of our annual plans using the code:

NEWYEARNEWNOVEL!

This offer is for new paid subscribers only, and expires on the 31st of January 2026.

Feedback and feature requests

If you have feedback or feature requests for First Draft Pro, you can add them (and upvote others) on our feedback forum.

Want to give First Draft Pro as a gift?

If you’re looking for a last minute gift idea that you can print out immediately to stick in a card, or schedule to be emailed to the beloved writer in your life, I humbly submit a First Draft Pro voucher for your consideration!

Announcing gift vouchers

Today, I am Ms Bennet because: you can officially purchase First Draft Pro gift vouchers for all of the beloved writers in your lives (or send the link to family members who keep asking what to gift you)!

Gift vouchers can be purchased for Basic or Premium plans, and for 12 month, 6 month, 3 month, and 1 month periods.

When purchasing a voucher you can select the option to have it delivered to the recipient via email immediately or on a future date, or you can choose to download a PDF version to print out and pop in a card. So cool!

Each voucher contains a unique code that your favourite writer can redeem in their account.

Buy a gift voucher

App improvements (v 1.0.80)

And that’s not all, because we have some app updates!

Version 1.0.80 of First Draft Pro is a bit of a polish of the new features we released earlier this month (including connectivity improvements, goals & streaks, and the new dashboard).

Bug fixes

• There was a small glitch in streak tracking for some writers, that meant streaks were resetting to ‘zero’. Whoops. This has been fixed and all streaks should be tracking correctly!

• It was taking up to 20 seconds to create a new project. We’ve streamlined this, and it’s much quicker to create a new project now.

• We fixed a bug that was preventing the creation of new projects on Starter and Basic plans.

Once again, a massive thank-you to everyone on a paid subscription, you literally make these improvements possible. May your tea never get cold.

Feedback and feature requests

If you have feedback or feature requests for First Draft Pro, you can add them (and upvote others) on our brand new feedback forum.

App improvements (v 1.0.78)

Phew, it’s been a minute. We’ve been working so hard behind the scenes to bring you this latest update… Version 1.0.78 is about motivating consistent effort and helping you achieve your writing goals (plus a significant focus on stability of online/offline editing).

Goals, streaks & a dashboard revamp

• This update is all about motivation, more dopamine, and a cleaner design of the project dashboard.

• We also made substantial improvements to online/offline editing stability.

New features

• Daily word count tracker redesign: This has had a total revamp, complete with an animated celebration when you hit your goal, and the cutest little cheery flame to keep you motivated (I call him Sparky).

• Writing streaks: See your current streak at the top right of your dashboard and on your writing calendar. Scroll back to view past streaks!

• Words per day chart redesign: Now called “Goals” shows your actual words vs. your goal words over the last 30 days. The new look makes your progress easy to see (and gives an extra dopamine boost when you hit your targets).

• Dashboard layout: We removed the left-side file navigator to give more space for your projects, moved project settings to the project cards, and made the actions you can take from the dashboard clearer to see.

  • Project settings: Click the settings cog on your project to open your options.

  • Clearer actions: The “Add project” button has moved to the project section, and the “Reset goal” button now lives in the goal section for easier access.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug where adding a chapter using keyboard shortcuts while text was highlighted caused that text to be deleted (this won’t happen again!)

• Re-worked offline access to fix issues where “connectivity dropped” even when you were connected to the internet, and made this much less intrusive (a big win!)

Coming soon

I’m so excited about some of the features we’re planning, that I can’t hold back. Here’s what you can expect to see in the next few months:

• Premium trial (test before you decide to upgrade)

• Export to .doc & .pdf

• Email + password login

• Archive/unarchive (soft delete)

• Strike-through formatting

• Line breaks in scene cards

• Tasks & editable pinned notes

• Screenwriting project type

• Option to hide the left menu

• Full dark mode

Thanks to our paid subscribers!

If you’re on a paid subscription — thank-you. Seriously. Your support made these improvements possible.

The best way to keep supporting this work:

1. Tell us about your needs

2. Share First Draft Pro with others

Want to try the Premium plan out for a month? 

Use this code to get one month free: PREMIUMTRIAL

A note on designing with neurodivergence in mind

Writing a book is hard. Particularly if reduced dopamine availability (in the case of ADHD) makes something like... say... a very, very long term goal with no immediate payoff feel impossible.

When working on goals, streaks and the improvements to the dashboard, I thought a lot about what actually helps writers keep showing up for themselves and their big dreams.

I kept coming back to and reading around:

• Reward and motivation

• Consistent effort

• Task initiation and paralysis

• Dopamine feedback loops

• Psychological momentum

• Negativity bias

• Identity reinforcement

Design is about form and function. These concepts really shaped my approach with the revamped dashboard and the goal and streaks feature.

Goals, celebration moments, and designing for delight helps to set-up a dopamine feedback loop, and provides a framework for rewards and motivation. Streaks help to short-circuit paralysis by providing an impetus for task initiation, encouraging consistent effort and creating psychological momentum.

I’ve also always been a strong believer that the look of the software matters more than people think it does. Especially for neurospicy brains, a beautiful interface isn’t fluff. It’s fuel. And it ties into something even deeper: your sense of self.

Being able to show up and write consistently is what makes you a writer, and that, in turn, reinforces your identity and reduces negativity bias.

I’m so pleased with the way these features turned out, and how they can better support us through the creative journey. I’d love to hear about your experience of them!

Feedback and feature requests

If you have feedback or feature requests for First Draft Pro, you can add them (and upvote others) on our feedback forum.

Everyone’s tastes as a reader (and writer) are different. But for me, whether I’m reading it or writing it: a book has to have a good dollop of humour. I love banter. I live for hijinks. Shenanigans? I’ll take a full helping. And seconds. And thirds.

I want to be able to write great jokes, and I want the humour in my stories to be varied, because sarcastic banter starts to fall flat if it’s the only thing you ever do.

So, in an effort to build my comedy writing skills over the summer, I signed up for a comedy writing class at Boom Chicago in Amsterdam (which has notable alums like Seth Meyers, Jordan Peele, and the Ted Lasso creators).

It was honestly SO fun. Here’s some of what I learned:

How comedy works

A joke is a story, and a punchline is a mini plot-twist. The logic of humour is surprise. You build an expectation… and then you break it. Cliches and stereotypes aren’t funny, because they aren’t surprising. Humour works best when it’s super-specific and relatable.

But, there are many ways to pull it off.

Eight joke formats

1. Set-up / Punchline

The classic structure: introduce an idea or scenario (set-up), then surprise the audience by taking it in an unexpected direction (punchline).

The key is misdirection. You lead the audience to assume one thing, then twist their expectations for comedic effect.

2. Triple / List Jokes

Rule of Three:

Present two items, then hit with a third that breaks the pattern. Start looking out for this in the dialogue of your favourite TV comedies, you'll notice it every episode.

• Normal, normal, random: “I bought bread, milk, and 4,251 gummy bears.”

• Normal, normal, alarming: “I bought bread, milk, and a flamethrower.”

• General, general, super-specific: “She likes music, movies, and the sound of raccoons fighting over pizza twists at 3 a.m.”

List Jokes:

List jokes are like the rule of three, they just extend beyond three items. It works particularly well when the items are wildly different or the list is comically long for no reason.

3. Comparisons

Use similes or metaphors to draw funny parallels.

• “X is like if Y and Z had a baby.”

• “X is like Y: [unexpected twist].”

4. Character

Physicality and character voice are ways to add extra humour. And they don’t have to be cracking jokes and witty retorts. A character that takes themselves extremely seriously, or who is oblivious to the humour in their actions or speech can be very funny in the right context (Think Drax from The Guardians of the Galaxy, or Phil Dunphy from Modern Family).

5. Callbacks

Callbacks create a sense of payoff and are a strong way to close a chapter, sequence, act or the finale. Use a joke or phrase from earlier in your story over again (creating a sort of “in-joke” in the context of your character’s world).

6. Commentary

Step outside the joke to comment on it using a second character. This meta approach can highlight the absurdity or awkwardness of the joke, or help to provide a rounded view if the joke takes a particular angle.

7. Alliteration

Repeat consonant sounds. I don’t know why this works, but it does.

8. Game within a game

This is sort of like a callback in that it creates in-jokes in the context of the novel. Hide wordplay, puns, song lyrics, or quotes within your joke. This adds layers and rewards attentive readers with extra laughs.

What we’re working on in FDP

Curious about what to look forward to in First Draft Pro later in the year?

• Writing streaks + better goal tracking

• Export to .doc

• Email + password login

• Strike-through formatting

• Line breaks in scene cards

• Option to hide the left menu

• Adding an external link to a chapter

If you have feedback or feature requests for First Draft Pro, you can add them (and upvote others) on our feedback forum.

I recently posted a carousel on TikTok about how I get ideas (without using AI), and it did really well, so this week, I’m unpacking that a bit! Plus, we’ll look at how FDP helps with idea management, and an improvement to support processes.

This newsletter covers:

• Healthy practices for getting good ideas

• Managing ideas in First Draft Pro

• An update on improving author support :)

Healthy practices for getting ideas

There are four practices that have recently helped me unlock story ideas for little jokes (and “bits” between characters), big plot points, and dialogue.

Feed the creative beast

Before you can dip in to a well, you have to feed it:

• Reading novels in your genre, or screenplays for movies that you love

• Listening to music with strong narrative drive (I like compelling story-centric lyrics and evocative movie soundtracks for this)

• Looking at graphic novels & art, or just sitting outside and watching the way the wind moves the trees

• Talking to friends and strangers, especially about the experiences they have that are different than your own

Morning pages

Anyone who’s read The Artist’s Way will tell you that morning pages—the act of free writing without judgement for 30 minutes every morning—are a staple creative practice. The idea is that it unstoppers the well, and helps get your ideas flowing.

I struggled with them because I felt they made me too internally focused. I’m already an over-thinker. Giving myself a space to overthink on a page just seemed to be counter-productive.

But then, I started reading How To Write Funny by Scott Dikkers. He recommended doing morning pages, but with a twist: instead of free-writing every spiralling thought that came to him, he would nudge his brain to write about things that are funny.

This changed everything for me.

Suddenly, while I’m free writing with no judgement, I’m coming up with great ideas for my work.

There are two aspects to Scott’s process:

• Free writing — 30 minutes per day, without judgement and without editing yourself.

• Curation — Once a week he combs through his morning pages to see if there’s anything in there that’s worth spending more time on.

Clustering

Clustering is a technique I learned in a four week comedy writing workshop I recently finished. It’s like mind-mapping, if mind-mapping was like free writing.

Say you’re writing a romance novel, and one of the scenes is a first date. You take the topic (“First Date”), and then you bullet point everything you can think of related to a first date. What can go right? What can go wrong? What’s funny about first dates? What’s awkward about them?

Then you flesh out each of those bullet points with things you remember from your own life experiences. Jot down as much as possible about the feeling, the thing you wanted in the moment, what caught you off-guard.

Then, edit the list of ideas for the really good stuff. This is what you’ll want to include in your scene.

Quantity

Something I have to keep reminding myself is that good ideas come from having a lot of ideas and picking the best ones. It gets easier to think of new ideas if you’re doing this often.

To practice, set yourself a topic like: Things that go wrong at a birthday party.

And then write a list of 30 things that you can think of. Or 40. Or 50. Push yourself! Bad things, funny things, sad things, things that would make you cry.

Then edit that list.

Idea management in First Draft Pro

But all of that ideation has to go somewhere. For the most part, the place I’m saving this is in the notes folder of First Draft Pro.

Some people don’t write down every idea they ever have, instead believing that if an idea is good enough, it’ll come back to you. I’m not some people. I write down everything.

I like to keep two folders specifically for ideation:

• Sandbox — this is where I do my clustering exercises/ideas lists

• Saved Snippets — this is where I keep collected ideas and observations that I might want to dig into later.

I keep this per project, so that all the notes saved in each folder are relevant to the the project they are saved with.

App improvements (v 1.0.75)

Version 1.0.75 is about clarity and realignment with our core values! I’m really excited about the changes we’ve made this week, and the updates we have planned in the coming months! Without further ado:

Turning-off AI in First Draft Pro

• We’ve removed the AI features in First Draft Pro, even though these were non-creative and opt-in. I’ve written more about this below, if you’re curious about the decision.

New features

• Save button: There’s now a “Save” button so you can back things up before logging off.

• Share button: The share button is clearer and sets the stage for more options coming soon.

• Notes in order: If your notes have numbers in the title, they’ll now show up in numerical order now.

• Better on small screens: Using FDP on an iPad or smaller screen should now feel much smoother.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug with chapter numbers in shared excerpts

• Improved the look of the color picker, buttons, text, comments, and pinned notes

• Document preview on import now works properly

• Comment scrolling feels a lot better

Coming soon

I’m so excited about some of the features we’re planning, that I can’t hold back. Here’s what you can expect to see later in the year:

• Writing streaks + better goal tracking

• Export to .doc

• Email + password login

• Strike-through formatting

• Line breaks in scene cards

• Option to hide the left menu

• Better support — we’re hiring a part-time author community manager!

Thanks to our paid subscribers!

If you’re on a paid subscription — thank-you. Seriously. Your support made these improvements possible.

The best way to keep supporting this work:

1. Tell us about your needs

2. Share First Draft Pro with others

Why we’ve turned off AI features

Early on in the development of First Draft Pro, AI was everywhere. It was clear that because AI was so new, and because there were no guardrails, that legal and ethical lines were gleefully bounded over in its creation. But, it was also clear that the metaphorical cat had clawed its way out of the bag, and the bag was in shreds. There was no going back.

I wanted to try to assess what was valuable and useful in this new landscape, while protecting the human-essential role of storytelling.

I remember reading a Threads post in 2023 where someone said: “I don’t want AI to love my children for me, I want it to do my dishes”. My early thinking about whether there was an appropriate place for AI in a writing app was along those lines: What’s the equivalent of doing the dishes for a writer, and is there a way that we can use AI to do that? Was there a use for AI that was not creative?

The feature I decided to build was one that updated your outline in line with any changes you’d made to your manuscript. Importantly, it was: 1. non-creative, 2. clearly labeled, 3. optional. I even built an all-off switch that would remove it from the interface in order to be respectful to writers who wanted absolutely nothing to do with it while I explored the question.

There were still ethical and environmental concerns for me. No reasonable person can dispute the fact that AI was made with stolen work. And that theft makes very clear the value that commercial AI companies put on writers and artists. There are two things that are important for training an AI: data and processing power. Nvidia’s stock soared 300% in the first 12 months of the AI boom. Why? Because they paid for the processing power. But, they stole the data (and had the gall to claim they wouldn’t have been able to make the tech if they had to pay for it).

I watched as authors sued for the theft of their work, and was optimistic that courts would take the opportunity to establish guardrails, and set right the wrong that was done when this material was stolen. I (naively, in hindsight) believed that the legal systems would help to define the grey areas in fair use to prevent what is an obvious infringement. That copyright law would be clarified, fair compensation would be given, and that consent would be mandatory going forward.

So, what’s changed?

Two of the copyright infringement cases levelled against two of the biggest players in the commercial LLM space had judgements that came down. And neither of those cases were ruled in favour of the authors. Sigh.

All is not lost. It’s just going to take much longer to establish guardrails. But that is FRUSTRATING, because this was the first opportunity to start to set things right. These cases have been in progress for 2 years, and now it’s going to take longer and be far more expensive for authors to fight for their rights.

I was listening to this episode of Scriptnotes where they talk about the concept of having to “turn it in before it’s done”. You have to stand on stage and say a joke to see if it’s funny. Making an app is a lot like that. One of the hard things about building something in public is that you have to put something in the world that’s in-progress, when you’re still exploring what something means and if it’s even useful. And sometimes that means rolling things back once you decide where you stand.

When we implemented this feature in First Draft Pro, we got a ton of very positive feedback. That’s why it’s taken so long for me to make this call, despite feeling very uncomfortable about it for a long time. I still think that non-creative AI features could have a place in a writing app, but until there’s an ethical alternative, or commercial AI companies begin to respect author copyright, we won’t be building them anymore.

Feedback and feature requests

If you have feedback or feature requests for First Draft Pro, you can add them (and upvote others) on our feedback forum.