Improve Your Writing

An elaborately structured plot, without clearly-defined character goals and motivations, is like mapping a trip and calling it a vacation.

Shifting from memoir to fiction allows painful memories to be expressed, while sharing the hard-won wisdom we’ve gained through experience.

Subtext, the real conversation hidden by surface talk, can deepen the story with unpredictable outcomes and emotion.

It takes grit to seek and implement qualified feedback, and to keep finding ways to improve a manuscript even after you’ve given it your all.

If you’d like to see your work in national publications—and get paid—tailor your essay to smoothly fit their voice and mission.

A half-hour’s writing might yield only 500, 300, even a mere 100 words. But a half-hour’s writing over 7 or 8 months: a book’s worth of words.

Anticipation—“Will it happen or won’t it?”—keeps readers on edge, and we can make use of their need to know by building scenes that cater to it.

Why one freelancer believes that spending too much time at a computer holds writers back from producing their best work.

As writers, we often cling to certain myths that suck up emotional energy and reinforce practices that undermine the creative process.

When writing a prescriptive nonfiction book, anticipating doubts and objections lets your readers feel seen and keeps them on the page.

Skillful authors weave suspense and tension to draw readers through stories on a taut thread of unanswered questions and constant frictions.

Focusing on your “just right” reader—instead of trying to convey everything that every reader might need to know—can help combat overwhelm.

What’s between scenes is like mortar—necessary for your story’s structure, but not significant—and well handled using summary and spacers.

A little preparation—noting environmental details, character moods and motivations—will make a big difference in the way your scenes unfold.

Many successful authors maintain side writing careers, in less glamorous forms such as grant writing, copywriting, and ghostwriting.

“Making a scene” in public often happens spontaneously, but creating emotionally compelling scenes on paper requires considerable planning.

One author’s tips for performing your stories in front of a live audience.

Your novel’s external and internal parts must be intricately woven together to create a work that truly resonates with readers.

One of the best ways an author can learn their own storytelling craft lies in what we already avidly do: take in other creators’ stories.

Tips for avoiding stereotypes and tokenism, and presenting more interesting, complex, three-dimensional queer characters.

Providing feedback to every pitch would leave agents no time for their existing clients. Instead, check your own first pages for weak spots.

Beta reading for others can be a creative education. Lean into that, and your future books will be all the better for it.

Dedicated and even obsessive engagement with another creator’s work can open unexpected doors for your own writing.

Does my story matter? Is it good enough? They’re questions every writer asks, and the way to answer them is to connect to your why.

The early part of your memoir should reveal the short list of narrator flaws and problems you’ll resolve by the end of your book.