Writers Helping Writers^®

Writing Craft

The Advent Calendar for Writers Is On Now!

December 1, 2020

The Advent Calendar for Writers Is On Now!

December 1, 2020

Writers all across the globe look forward to this annual event – the biggest and best writing giveaway around: The Advent Calendar for Writers. What exactly is an Advent Calendar…

Master Storytelling and Save: One Stop for Writers is 50% Off

November 27, 2020

Master Storytelling and Save: One Stop for Writers is 50% Off

November 27, 2020

Well, Black Friday is here and keyboards everywhere are heating up. I wish you a successful day of bargain hunting! While you’re out there taking advantage of the sales, consider…

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…

Black Friday Deals for Writers

November 23, 2020

Black Friday Deals for Writers

November 23, 2020

Black Friday is coming and so now is a good time to think about how to invest in our writing career and save money doing it. Here are some of…

Stuck in No-Man’s-Land: Your Novel’s Middle

November 19, 2020

Stuck in No-Man’s-Land: Your Novel’s Middle

November 19, 2020

If you have hit the point in your draft where you’re looking out at the vast landscape of your novel with no idea where to go next, congratulations…you’ve probably made…

Determining Your Character’s Emotional Range

November 17, 2020

Determining Your Character’s Emotional Range

November 17, 2020

I firmly believe that while readers sometimes do connect with our stories, they more often fall in love with our characters. If we want to really pull readers in, we’ve…

Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Neighbors

November 14, 2020

Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Neighbors

November 14, 2020

Successful stories are driven by authentic and interesting characters, so it’s important to craft them carefully. But characters don’t usually exist in a vacuum; throughout the course of your story,…

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.…

Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Police Officer & Informant

November 7, 2020

Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Police Officer & Informant

November 7, 2020

Dropping Breadcrumbs: How to Show a Character’s Emotional Wound Through Behavior

November 5, 2020

Dropping Breadcrumbs: How to Show a Character’s Emotional Wound Through Behavior

November 5, 2020

Emotional wounds are transformative and have the power to re-shape a character in many negative ways, impacting their happiness, their self-worth, and causing mistrust and disillusionment to skew their worldview.…