Improve Your Writing
How to Write Compelling Inner Conflict
When we show our character’s cognitive dissonance—wrestling with conflicting beliefs—readers can’t help but relate and empathize.
5 Reasons You Should Consider Writing Your Memoir in Present Tense
Present tense is tough to execute and doesn’t suit every writer or every memoir, but here are a few reasons to give it a try.
Embrace Complication to Develop a Can’t-Put-It-Down Narrative
Even if your plot is moving along nicely, a well-placed complication can jolt the action forward or sideways, or surprise your reader a little.
Avoid, Persevere, Endure, Fight: 4 Goals for Unforgettable Opening Scenes
A strong story opening might introduce your character's normal world, while also making clear the untenable situation they must change.
A Writer’s Secret Weapon: Add a Listening Pass to Your Editing Arsenal
Using a phone’s text-to-speech feature to read your story aloud while doing chores is a great way to catch errors that you might otherwise miss.
Turn Fact Into Fiction—Without Hurting Someone or Getting Sued
Imagine a friend reveals a secret past so compelling that no novelist could resist turning it into fiction. Here’s how one author went about it.
Boundaries Are About More Than Simply Carving Out the Time to Write
Boundaries within ourselves—our limits, standards, knowing which interactions are worthwhile—are as important as those we set with others.
Why Your Flashbacks Aren’t Working
Like a genie in a bottle, flashbacks can be wonderful and terrible things. If not carefully controlled, flashbacks can get disastrously out of hand.
How to Deliver Backstory Without Confusing the Reader
A brief but super-powered lesson from one of our recent webinars about the how to avoid overly coy and "mysterious" backstory in fiction.
How to Teach Word a Scrivener Trick
MS Word is great for collaboration using Track Changes, but can it offer drag & drop organization like Scrivener? Yes, with a little know-how.
How Do You Know What Backstory to Include?
Backstory risks feeling clumsy or intrusive if it’s not directly relevant to the main, “real-time” story, and can stall forward momentum.
Using Beat Sheets to Slant Your Memoir’s Scenes
Identifying your story’s turning point or “beats”, and the function each one serves, can help shape your material into a more focused narrative.
Pay Attention to the Obsessive Workings of Your Mind
The headlines, facts, and observations that fuel your obsessions will seed your own work and grow it into the stories only you can tell.
Writing the Other: 4 Not So Easy (But Doable!) Steps
There’s no formula for “perfect” characterization of marginalized people, but these tips can pave the way to better representation—and better writing!
3 Elements That Make Historical Romance Successful
If you approach a book with a writer’s eye, even the most pleasurable, light reading can teach you something that can enrich your own storytelling craft.
Emotional Intimacy Between Characters Isn’t Just for Romance Novels
No matter what you’re writing, emotional intimacy between characters is important to creating authentic relationships on the page.
Tropes: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Just as a painter uses brushes and colors to blend and create, writers can experiment with tropes to make stories both familiar and refreshing.
Scene, Summary, Postcard: 3 Types of Scenes in Commercial, Upmarket, and Literary Fiction
Understanding how to use them, and how to balance different types of scenes within a single narrative, is crucial for becoming a skilled storyteller.
When—and Why—Reveals Don’t Work
It’s an author’s job to create questions that readers crave the answers to, but questions posed with unclear stakes or context can backfire.
Structure: The Safety Net for Your Memoir
The more faith you have in your story’s structure, the more you’ll become the safety net your reader is hoping for.
3 Ways to Experiment with Memoir Structure to Improve Your Narrative Arc
Playing around with different storytelling forms during manuscript revision can lessen anxiety and reveal new possibilities.
What Taylor Swift’s Vault Tracks Can Teach You About Not Killing Your Darlings
If a scene, storyline, character, or image doesn’t quite belong in your story, save it for later use—as Taylor Swift does with song ideas.
Writing Rules That Beg to Be Broken
Aspiring writers are inundated with rules to follow—but writing is creative, so don’t look to prescriptions or those who preach them.
Demystifying Miscreant Memories and Crafting a More Authentic Narrative
Memoirists owe it to readers to tell them the truth. But what do you do when the truth isn’t black and white?
The First Rule of Writing Is Writer’s Block Does Not Exist
Writer’s block is an excuse, based on fear, that gives us permission to quit as soon as writing gets hard.
Designing Thriller and Mystery Twists That Work
Twists feel “twisty” because the author has carefully engineered the story to mislead readers via the protagonist’s journey and assumptions.
Beyond BICHOK: How, When and Why Getting Your Butt Out of the Chair Can Make You a Better Writer
While you can’t publish a book without sitting down to write, there are many times when we can gain insight by looking away from our work.
What Is LGBTQ+ Fiction—And Does a Writer Have to Be Queer to Write It?
While there are no fixed conventions writers need to adhere to, there is nonetheless much to think about and be aware of.
How to Write Realistically About Drug Use in Your Novel
A new book, The Grim Reader, helps authors understand how to write convincingly about drugs and their use.
The Über Skill for Writers
By paying attention to how you are impacted by story, you can learn to trace those effects back to the techniques that elicited them.
4 Things Every YA Writer Should Know About Teens
A good novel has everything teen brains are primed to crave—excitement, emotion, and escape.
Add a Luke Skywalker Moment: Give Your Main Character a Bitter Choice
For a memorable story, give your main character a strong motive, a flaw, and a series of escalating decisions leading to an impossible choice.
Journals and Dreams: The Unsung Heroes of Literature
Like a pot of broth simmering on the stove, the contents of our journals nourish us and provide the basis for countless delicious creations.
What Sleeping With Jane Eyre Taught Me About Pacing
Going too fast is one of the biggest mistakes storytellers make. When you arrive at a moment readers have been waiting for, slow things down.
One Well-Chosen Detail: Write Juicy Descriptions Without Overwhelming Your Reader
It takes practice to write immersive descriptions that draw readers in, without going overboard and risking boredom or loss of attention.
Embrace Your True Subject: A Writer’s Case Study in Running from (and Returning to) Herself
An author considers how we often try to turn ourselves into other kinds of writers instead of following our internal compass.
How High Stakes Keep Readers (and Viewers) Invested
Shonda Rhimes’s Netflix series is a master class in amping up stakes and keeping viewers invested in the characters’ outcomes.
How to Read (and Retain) Research Material in Less than Half of Your Usual Time
Too many books and not enough time? One author learns that speed-reading print and audiobook versions simultaneously can enhance retention.
First-Page Critique: How to Elegantly Reveal Character Motivations
Evocative scene-setting can be wonderful, but be careful of letting it get in the way of your story’s action and momentum.
How to Use Brain Waves to Enhance Your Writing Practice
Make the most of your writing practice by understanding which brain waves are active during the day and best support specific writing tasks.
Why I Prefer to Read Fiction without Lessons or Messages
As with abstract painting, fiction can find worth in technique rather than specific meaning—emphasizing not the What, but the How.
What It Means to Make Your Story Relatable
When author and readers have little in common, what makes writing relatable? A teacher examines Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird to find out.
How Connected Settings Give Your Fiction Emotional Depth
To create unforgettable scenes, purposefully choose settings that trigger character emotions, intensify conflicts, or evoke specific moods.
How Can I Set Aside the Cacophony of Writing Advice and Just Write?
Writing advice is everywhere—newsletters, podcasts, workshops—and it can leave you feeling anxious and unproductive. Here's what to do.
How to Create Character Mannerisms from Backstory Wounds
To be vivid on the page, each character you write should display life-long emotional responses to wounds that occurred in their past.
The Flashback: A Greatly Misunderstood Storytelling Device
Flashback can be a potent tool for presenting essential backstory, as long as you apply it without interrupting the story’s forward momentum.
Get Started With Dictation: Choosing the Best Techniques and Tools for You
One author shares what she’s learned about using voice dictation to write in any setting: on a walk, washing the dishes, even lying in bed.
Is It Worthwhile to Write My Memoir, Especially If a Publishing Deal Is Unlikely?
An experienced author of advanced age considers the value of tackling a memoir with resonant themes but a challenging road to publication.
3 Ways to Use Theme to Deepen Your Story
Identifying and bolstering your story’s theme can develop a layered narrative that resonates with readers on conscious and subconscious levels.
How Can You Tell If You’re Starting Your Story in the Right Place?
To make readers care, you generally need to get three things on your novel’s opening pages before the inciting incident arrives.