Greg Schultz talks about writing a bit on Ploughshares’ blog.

Craft can be counterproductive. I’ve already registered my suspicions about how-to advice on the craft of writing in a previous post. One problem with the axioms (“show, don’t tell”) and diagrams (Freytag’s triangle, below) of craft is that they turn the act of writing on its head. Freytag’s triangle, for example, is much more effective as a tool of analysis than one of instruction. It can be useful to study a completed story through the lens of the triangle. However, when taken as instruction, Freytag’s triangle, like most craft advice, is more hindrance than help. Like a cookie-cutter, it stamps the uncooked dough. The resulting story, built to satisfy preconceived notions of craft, is likely to have about the same resemblance to real life as a gingerbread man has to a living, breathing person.