Writers Helping Writers^®

Resident Writing Coach

Creating from the Familiar

January 28, 2021

Creating from the Familiar

January 28, 2021

Have you watched The Mandalorian yet? It’s worth it just to listen to the opening theme music. It has this haunting western-scifi feel that is utterly unique, compelling, and has a complexity…

7 Ways Deep POV Creates Emotional Connections With Readers

January 19, 2021

7 Ways Deep POV Creates Emotional Connections With Readers

January 19, 2021

Deep POV (point of view) is a popular (and lately, divisive) writing style to employ. Many blogs about deep pov will list out the same four or six foundational tools…

Writing Better Dialogue

January 12, 2021

Writing Better Dialogue

January 12, 2021

Have you ever read a book or watched a movie where the dialogue has been so beautifully written that you are in that moment, experiencing the character’s emotions and hanging…

Story Tropes: To Avoid or Not to Avoid?

December 8, 2020

Story Tropes: To Avoid or Not to Avoid?

December 8, 2020

Every genre and medium of storytelling uses tropes, common themes or story devices. For example, a popular trope in the romance genre is “enemies to lovers,” where the characters start as enemies…

The Importance of Practice as a Writer

December 3, 2020

The Importance of Practice as a Writer

December 3, 2020

I’ve been playing basketball most of my life. When I was a kid, falling in love with the game, I happened across a book called A Sense of Where You Are by…

How Stakes Set up Expectations

November 25, 2020

How Stakes Set up Expectations

November 25, 2020

Last time I coached on Writers Helping Writers, I talked about 6 Tricks to Layer on Stakes, in it, I explained how I like to think of stakes as potential…

Why You Should Side-Write Your Protagonist’s Origin Scene

November 10, 2020

Why You Should Side-Write Your Protagonist’s Origin Scene

November 10, 2020

Side writing: Any exploratory piece of writing that helps a writer get to know elements of their story but isn’t intended to make its way into a draft in its entirety.…

What You Can Learn from Rhetorical Questions in Your Manuscript

October 20, 2020

What You Can Learn from Rhetorical Questions in Your Manuscript

October 20, 2020

It is such an easy thing to do. Once you become aware of author intrusion and what that looks like in limited third person, first person, or deep POV, the easy…

How to Use Your Excuses to Get More Writing Done

October 1, 2020

How to Use Your Excuses to Get More Writing Done

October 1, 2020

Writers are master excuse-makers. Whenever we don’t get the writing done, we have a library of excuses ready to use. I was too tired.I was in a bad mood.I didn’t…

Meet Our Newest Resident Writing Coaches!

September 24, 2020

Meet Our Newest Resident Writing Coaches!

September 24, 2020

Can you believe this is the 5th year of our Resident Writing Coach program? It’s true! And today we introduce (and reintroduce) the wonderful experts who will be joining us…