Category Archives: Revision and Editing
How to Find Critique Partners & Beta Readers
Outside feedback is vital to the success of your manuscript. As I’ve quoted many times before on my YouTube channel, according to Terry Pratchett, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” Our first drafts are imperfect translations … Continue reading
Tools to Make You a More Powerful Writer in 2020
The start of the year is when I pay close attention to what is happening in our industry: what publishers and organizations are focusing on, the changes occurring on sales platforms, and what author advocates are suggesting writers pay attention … Continue reading
Mastering Show, Don’t Tell
We hear it over and over: Show, don’t tell. You can’t get away from this advice, not in writing workshops, at conferences, or heck, even when visiting this blog. Writers Helping Writers and the thesaurus work we do is all … Continue reading
Improve Your Novel Writing: 11 Tips For Newbies
Writing a novel is flipping difficult. It often takes years to complete your first novel (and even more years after that to write a good one). You heard that right — writers’ first books are usually a hot mess. That … Continue reading
Story Feedback: Free and Paid Options for Writers
It’s a sad fact, but most writers don’t have a basement full of money, meaning the word BUDGET is kind of a big deal. We want to publish but to do it, we have to think carefully about where we … Continue reading
Writing Feedback: Should We Seek It Out?
As most of you know, Becca and I have been writing and publishing for some time now. Many thing have changed in the industry, including how a book reaches the shelf. Thankfully the slush pile of doom is no longer … Continue reading
Taking a Character from Good to GREAT
FACT: Characters are the heart of a story. The stronger one is, the more powerful your novel will be. In today’s competitive fiction market, there’s no room for okay-ish characters. This is why most writing courses, books, workshops, retreats, etc. … Continue reading
Motivation for Character Arc: A Different Approach
When it comes to discovering and writing about your character’s motivation, there are a dozen different methods. We can get there by any number of roads—most of which originate in the planning stage. But what if the key to unlocking … Continue reading
When Telling, Not Showing, Emotion is the Right Choice
Hi everyone! A past resident writing coach is visiting us with an excerpt on a new course she’s teaching on mastering emotions: C.S. Lakin. This post is a touch longer than usual but it will give you a good window … Continue reading
Digging Deep: The Psychology of a Layered Story
Humans like complexity; puzzles, questions, layers. It fascinates us. My guess it’s because there are so many complex systems in nature that our brain needs to navigate successfully. Ecosystems, weather systems, the tax system…But the one that has the most … Continue reading