Category Archives: Motivation
Your Character’s Job May Be More Important than You Think!
Confession time: when I was a newer writer, I didn’t think much about my character’s occupation. In fact, if they needed one, I’d pretty much assign the first thing that came to mind. I didn’t think hard about their career because … Continue reading
10 Steps To Revise Your Nano Novel
by Lucy V Hay So, you did Nanowrimo and you made it to 50K! Congratulations, but you still have work to do. That’s right, now you need to revise … But where to start?? If you are feeling overwhelmed, then … Continue reading
Story Tropes: To Avoid or Not to Avoid?
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 before falling in love. Most articles we come across in … Continue reading
How Stakes Set up Expectations
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 consequences–what could happen if a certain condition is (or is … Continue reading
Stuck in No-Man’s-Land: Your Novel’s Middle
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 it to Act 2. I know, I know, there’s an … Continue reading
The Best Resource for Planning Your NaNoWriMo Novel
Can you believe it? We’re less than 10 days from the biggest, craziest, event in Writerville: National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). That means 50,000 words written in one month, and all the coffee, stale pizza, and Skittles you need to … Continue reading
What You Can Learn from Rhetorical Questions in Your Manuscript
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 workaround becomes a rhetorical question. A rhetorical question is used to … Continue reading
Awesome Writing Tips From 6 Famous Writers
As I always say on Bang2write, there are no specific writing rules to break, just risks to take … That said, there are ‘best practices’! This is why it can be a good idea to check out what others who’ve … Continue reading
Yesterday: Looking Back at the First Act
“Yesterday.” A beautiful, beautiful song that easily applies to our writing process. Confused? Go with me for a minute. It doesn’t matter if we’re a pantser, a plotter, a plotser, a puzzler, or some other mash-up of a writing process … Continue reading
6 Tricks to Layer on Stakes
Stakes are what are at risk in a story. It might be that the protagonist’s life is at risk, or perhaps a romantic relationship, or maybe the opportunity to go on a long-awaited trip (Hello, Covid!). But I find this … Continue reading