Trust Your Reader
Among popular bits of advice—create empathetic characters, avoid rhetorical questions, try starting with an outline—“trust your reader” is often overlooked. Here’s how to trust your reader to understand what you’re trying to show.
Passive Character
It's hard for readers to engage with a passive character, especially in the protagonist role. Here's why.
Kill Your Darlings
As writers, we all have perceived strengths we fall back on time and time again. But can over-reliance on your strengths actually weaken your manuscript?
Realistic Fiction in Today’s Market
Scanning the NYT bestseller list, you’ll see a multitude of realistic fiction books. Realistic fiction deals with life as it is now and modern problems that its protagonists may face. But what happens when reality, the very thing that gives realistic fiction its name, has inevitably changed?
Need Writing Inspiration? Try Adding Top Gun
We’re all in need of a little writing inspiration right now. With all of the tumult in our lives, putting effort into creative projects seems both more important and more impossible. How can we mentally move beyond the walls that confine us to create new and interesting work? How can we find writing inspiration, talking to the same people every day in the same spaces?
Writing During Quarantine: Focus, and Create Bravely
How do we focus on writing during quarantine? Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your writing life during these challenging times.
How to Finish Writing a Novel
Ideas are easy; finishing a manuscript is hard. But if you have the right tools and the right mindset, crossing that finish line becomes much more doable. Here are some tips and tricks that I learned as I finished my first manuscript.
How to Write Feelings
If you're wondering how to write feelings in your fictional characters in a way that inspires readers to relate, check out this video.
Writing the Inciting Incident
If you're curious about writing the inciting incident, and how this applies to your novel, picture book, or story, check out this class.
What Makes a Character Interesting?
Characters are the most critical element for authors to get right in a novel. If the characters are interesting enough, readers will go on the most absurd journey or visit terrifying worlds with them. But if the protagonist is a snooze, they’ll most likely put the book down and reach for a better companion for the evening.
Beginning a Novel
What’s involved in beginning a novel? Whether it’s by plotting, planning, figuring out your characters, or simply not worrying about the mistakes you’re making, there are tips for you to follow.