A pink pencil with pink lead has a broken tip. By Hernán Piñera via Flickr.

2 Stammer Verbs to Avoid in Your Fiction

Editor Jessi Rita Hoffman warns against the use of "stammer verbs," words that cause an unnecessary halt in the scene.
Delacroix, Faust Trying to Seduce Margarete (detail)

Perfecting Your First Page: 3 Tasks or Exercises

Over the weekend, I was a speaker at the Missouri Writers Guild conference (a terrific group of people and an