Helping Writers Become Authors

One of the best ways to approach the complex topic of theme is through the realization that you can use theme to create character arc--and vice versa.

Check out four surprisingly marvelous pacing tricks you can use to grab your audience's attention and keep them riveted throughout your story.

Boiling your story down to a pithy thematic principle can sometimes seem overly simplistic, but this is exactly what makes it a valuable tool.

No matter what type of story you write, its success will arise from the balance of its three most important pieces: plot, character, and theme.

When your writing is hard, here are a few practicable steps that will help you move toward a solution for your situation's unique challenges.

Writers must use paragraph breaks to direct a reader's experience of the story's action and pacing. Here are three guiding principles to keep in mind.

Multiple-POV story versus single-POV story? Which is the right choice for you? Knowing which approach to choose is not difficult once you know how to choose.

Today I am sharing my top nine writing goals for this year, with a specific focus on how they impact my entire focus on and journey through life.

Heeding your brain's natural wiring is the first step in creating your own personalized writing process. You can start by asking these five questions.

Check out my list of the top books of 2018 in three categories: Fiction, Writing How-To, and General Non-Fiction.

On your way to writing an above-average novel, learn how to apply these ten straightforward solutions to common fiction problems.

Stories with large casts of characters offer many challenges. Use these ten important rules of thumb to you help you manage your own teeming call sheets.

Learn how your story's plot points can be rearranged and strengthened to create a more powerful overall effect for your readers.

Is it possible to start a book with a dream? The answer is yes, but only if you understand the five important principles of successful dream sequences.

Find out how to know when enough is enough in your story by refining your storytelling instincts to to feel whether something is too sparse or too excessive.

Learn from five mistakes that contributed to a failed novel, as well as important tips about how you can avoid them in your own story.

Words create more than just stories. They create life itself. As custodians of words, writers bear a responsibility to cherish language--and to share it.

Have questions about story structure? The best way to find good answers is to ask good questions. Here are six excellent questions about story structure.

The better you get at refining show, don't tell, the better your writing. Use these tips to gut-check your progress in clearing clutter from your story.

Here is how to figure out which sloppy writing habits unleash your creativity and which inhibit you by unnecessarily complicating the process.