Improve Your Writing
What Writers Can Learn from Runners
The most useful work is that which tests our limits and forces us to write something we didn’t realize we were capable of producing.
Don’t Tease Your Reader. Get to the Tension and Keep It Rising
If you write knowing how the story will end, you’ll deprive readers of the tension that comes from putting obstacles in your characters’ way.
Deepen Characterization by Mining Your Own Reactions
Paying attention to your own visceral reactions and thoughts can help you create richly developed characters who leap off the page.
Why Your Memoir Also Needs the Good and “Normal” Times
Showing the moments of normalcy brings the reader more fully into your life, and heightens the drama when traumatic events occur.
To Write a Better Memoir, Learn This F-Word
True forgiveness can take years to achieve. That’s why memoirs take longer to write than novels. But it’s worth the effort.
4 Voices That Can Help (or Hinder) Your Memoir
In writing memoir, internal voices—with competing interests—can emerge to inform the narrative. A rounded story is careful to balance them all.
When I Decided to Write My Own Story—And Not Someone Else’s
One author struggles to prioritize between major writing projects when time and energy are limited.
3 Key Tactics for Crafting Powerful Scenes
When placed intentionally, crafted well, and set up via emotional context and backstory, scene might be the writer’s most powerful tool.
Which Comes First: Character or Plot?
Without insight into how your characters will react in even the most mundane of circumstances, you aren’t ready to plan or pants your plot.
How to Get Accepted by a Writing Mentorship Program
Mentorship programs are a popular way to gain knowledge and exposure, but as their popularity has risen the competition has gotten tougher.
Finding Your Way to the End
Given that many of us sidestep endings in real life, it should not be surprising that writers have trouble concluding book projects.
3 Common Pitfalls When Writing From Your Own Life
Factual details can be great fuel for your writing, but it’s crucial to recognize when adherence to them is getting in the way of the story.
Beware of Chapter-by-Chapter Book Critiques
Misguided feedback, which can damage your manuscript, often arises from a common mistake: asking the right question of the wrong person.
The Green-Eyed Monster: Jealousy in the Time of Quarantine
Despite our best efforts, artistic jealousy affects us all at times. But how we perceive another’s success is never the whole picture.
Are You a Mom Writer Thinking of Quitting? Read This First.
Mom writers are wired to succeed at writing (and querying) because they can multitask like no other.
6 Tips for Writing Deep Third-Person Point of View
Deep third pulls readers into a character’s world view, but pronoun ambiguities and apparent point-of-view shifts push readers away. These 6 tips keep prose sharp.
3 Traps That Subvert Our Ability to Accept Feedback
Finding the right editor or critique partner is important, but so is being mentally prepared for the feedback you’ll receive.
Find the Ending Before You Return to the Beginning
Just as we might be conflict averse, it can be tempting to keep revising a story’s beginning instead of proceeding into the messy middle.
Backstory and Exposition: 4 Key Tactics
There’s a good chance that getting these essential elements right are among the biggest challenges you’ll face with your novel.
Fix Your Scene Shapes to Quickly Improve Your Manuscript
Like story arcs, individual scenes also have shapes. Understanding yours can help you improve the ones that are falling flat.
Building Your Writing Support Triangle
The key to an author’s emotional wellbeing and continued productivity is creating a support system, and knowing which part to call on when.
Do Stories Have a Universal Shape?
The idea of universal story archetypes is not a new one—but its corroboration by an A.I. brings a new dimension to the debate.
The One Thing Your Novel Absolutely Must Do
There’s only one thing that any novel must do if it’s going to succeed, and that’s arouse the reader’s curiosity.
Understanding Third-Person Point of View: Omniscient, Limited and Deep
Third-person POV dominates the current publishing market, so it’s helpful to learn to navigate its many facets.
How to Restart Your Unfinished Book
Your calendar will never be suddenly free of urgent distractions. To finish that book on the back burner, you must actively bring it forward.
The Differences Between Line Editing, Copy Editing, and Proofreading
New authors are often confused about what level of editing they need. Here’s some insight into the differences.
Is Your Writer’s Block Really Writer’s Indecision?
When facing decisions in your writing, it helps to identify which questions have lower stakes and which ones are preventing real progress.
How to Effectively Manage Multiple Narrators in Your Novel
There’s nothing wrong with using multiple narrators in a first-person story, but it requires some serious background work.
The End May Only Be the Beginning: Infusing New Life Into Your Fiction
One editor’s technique to add narrative tension, deepen characterization, and force you to think past the original boundaries of a premise.
How to Move From First Draft to Second Draft to Publishable Book
When you’ve completed a draft but it’s falling a bit flat, it’s time for the Story Draft: creative work done technically.
Pick Your Pond: How Nonfiction Authors Can Find the Right Positioning
As an author, it’s good to be a big fish in a small pond—but you’ll benefit even more if your pond is connected to a larger system.
The Charm of the Large Word
Use of a big word can be beautiful, as long as it meets two criteria: it must be the right word and the best word.
Emotional Truth and Storytelling: Why It Works and How
Emotional truth is the lens that allows us to see ourselves in a story, resulting in a heartfelt connection in a fictional narrative.
4 Story Weaknesses That Lead to a Sagging Middle
If your middle’s lost momentum, check to see if your plot, characters, stakes and suspense consistently propel readers along the story arc.
Don’t Hold Out for Publishing to Make You Feel Seen. Here’s Another Goal Instead.
Publication is elusive and in many ways out of your hands, but feeling seen is something that writers can offer each other right now.
The Benefits of Writing Flash Fiction
Let go of description, extra words, and clever exposition. What’s left is a tightly crafted nugget of concentrated gold—flash fiction.
2 Methods for Structuring Your Memoir
Authoring a memoir, the gift of hindsight allows you to invest moments with deeper meaning than they may have had at the time.
Letter Writing as a Powerful Prompt
From Franz Kafka to Bob Dylan, history shows that letter writing can be a portal to discovery that benefits a wide variety of projects.
3 Tips for Cutting Your Word Count (Without Giving Your Whole Story the Ax)
Like pruning the extra sprouts out of a garden, sharper and tighter prose makes the details you keep stand out.
Writers Often Ask Me a Question I Can’t Answer
The field is saturated, so many people wanting to tell their interesting stories. You wonder: Am I a good enough writer to keep doing this?
A Successful Daily Practice Requires Honesty
A daily practice can only succeed if we're 100% honest about our doubts and weaknesses, because one area of denial can scuttle the ship.
Where Novelists Get Stuck: 3 Common Issues with Early Drafts
Writing can be a lonely process, and it’s easy to feel stuck. Editors and coaches can help identify the common problems—and their solutions.
To Avoid Rejection, Take the Writer Out of the Story
Experienced editors look for a story so engrossing the reader forgets that he’s reading—story in which the author’s voice seems not to exist.
Why Write Memoir Right Now
Writing memoir won’t fix what’s wrong. But writing what you know will give you the kind of insight that begets a better sense of control in uncertain times.
6 Principles for Writing Historical Fiction
Whether grappling with believable world-building or adherence to historical accuracy, these six tips will help you navigate this daunting genre.
You Win This Round Comma
Why sweat the commas? To save your reader from working to decode syntax-level meaning, enabling full focus on your protagonist, your plot, and your prose.
Writing, Pitching & Promoting in the Age of the Coronavirus
In this Q&A, agents Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel and Leslie Zampetti tackle the complications of authorship and literary citizenship in the pandemic age.
Stop Staring at a Blank Page: 4 (Not So) Silly Writing Tips to Get Words on Paper
If the idea of facing a blank page gives you the sudden urge to do chores, the problem might be that you’re trying to write in a way that doesn’t suit you.
How to and (Especially) How Not to Write About Family
Writing about the people you are closest to can be one of the most rewarding experiences a writer can have—but also the scariest.
Do You Torture Your Metaphors? The Problem of Self-Conscious Writing
Unless a metaphor spontaneously suggests itself from your creative, subconscious mind, it’s probably forced and phony-sounding—and far from “literary”.