Writers, Grab a Knife: How To Kill Your Darlings
Writers, Grab a Knife: How To Kill Your Darlings
Good writing involves rewriting. An essential part of rewriting is combing through the first draft and carving out material that isn’t essential. When we edit out nonessentials, we are killing…
Read more…How to Draw Readers in Through a Character’s Choices
How to Draw Readers in Through a Character’s Choices
Quick, what’s one thing you need in every scene? This question can have a lot of answers – tension, conflict, stakes, emotion, action…on and on it goes. But I would…
Read more…Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Master and Apprentice
Relationship Thesaurus Entry: Master and Apprentice
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,…
Read more…Changing Your Reader’s Perspective
Changing Your Reader’s Perspective
As writers, we all know how difficult it can be to win readers over. The writing has to be strong, the events realistic, the characters well-rounded, etc. etc. We know…
Read more…Want a Stronger Manuscript? Read It Aloud
Want a Stronger Manuscript? Read It Aloud
Editing freaks a lot of people out. Drafting is creative and inspirational, and every writer LIVES for that moment when you get into the groove and the words just flow.…
Read more…Story Resolutions: Mastering the Happy-Sad Ending
Story Resolutions: Mastering the Happy-Sad Ending
Gilbert Bassey is tackling a challenging yet rewarding type of ending: a happy-sad one that readers will think about long after the book closes. It was 10pm, and I was…
Read more…5 Tips for Writing Stellar Romantic Subplots
5 Tips for Writing Stellar Romantic Subplots
Does your story contain a romantic subplot? They can be tricky to write well while not allowing them to take over the main plot line. Savannah Cordova is back with…
Read more…Your Character’s Job May Be More Important than You Think!
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…
Read more…Why You Should Side-Write Your Protagonist’s Origin Scene
Why You Should Side-Write Your Protagonist’s Origin Scene
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.…
Read more…Conflict Thesaurus: A Competitor Showing Up
Conflict Thesaurus: A Competitor Showing Up
Conflict is very often the magic sauce for generating tension and turning a ho-hum story into one that rivets readers. As such, every scene should contain a struggle of some…
Read more…Improve Your Fiction by Studying the Brothers Grimm
Improve Your Fiction by Studying the Brothers Grimm
We all know how important it is to read within our genre. Doing so shows us what elements make those books successful (and also what overdone tropes to avoid). But…
Read more…Joining Forces: Harnessing the Power of Coauthoring
Joining Forces: Harnessing the Power of Coauthoring
I always knew coauthoring had benefits – half the workload, and twice the platform to launch from are the obvious bonuses. Sure, you have to split your royalties, but you…
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