Breaking Through Doubt and Embracing Your Unique Voice as an Author
How do you come back from the dead?
Recover from being told who you are and what you write is wrong?
From bending yourself around like a pretzel trying to fit someone else's writing mold only to figure out that it’s pointless because it sucked the joy and life out of what you stand for?
If you write dark, spicy romance in the wheelhouses of sci-fi or fantasy, or if you struggle to express your voice in writing, you don’t want to miss this conversation.
How to Write Character Thoughts: Read Deep to Write Better Fiction-The Micro Elements (Part 3)
Inner monologue are the thoughts the POV character thinks but doesn’t voice out loud. It’s their “inside voice.” This inside voice is key to allowing the reader into the story's experience. Without it, the reader will feel like a spectator, forced to watch something they don’t completely understand.
How to Craft a Credible Villain for Your Novel for Mystery, Suspense and Thriller Authors
We discuss the common challenges mystery, thriller and suspense writers face, including self-doubt, thinking the story is painfully boring and obvious, plus understanding genre expectations, and forming a compelling villain.
How to Write Interiority: Read Deep to Write Better Fiction-The Micro Story Elements (Part 2)
Interiority is looking directly inside the character's head and heart; from it, we understand their emotions, motivations, decision-making process, and psychological states, which can be very different from their actions on the page.
Announcing The Write It Scared Podcast - Why I’m Doing It Scared!
This podcast for fiction writers has been a dream of mine for a long time and I want to share with you the why behind it.
The Mission: Tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories: the one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it.
How To Write Better Fiction By Learning the Art of Deep Reading: The Micro Story Elements (Part 1)
In our last deep reading article we focused on the macro elements of fiction writing: Character, Plot, Conflict, Theme, Setting, Tone and POV Choice. Now we will turn our attention to the glue that holds those pieces together with the same intention—figuring out how they work so that we can craft better stories.
How to Tone Down the Critic and Tune In To Your Inner Writer’s Wisdom
As writers, we often talk about the painful struggle of dealing with our inner critic and are constantly looking for ways to silence that internal writing bully. You know the voice I'm talking about. It’s that pushy one who always says some version of "not good enough."
How To Write Better Fiction By Learning the Art of Deep Reading: The Macro Story Elements
We all want to be better at our craft, and we've likely all heard that to be a good writer, one must first be a reader—and that we need to read A LOT. Stephen King said it pretty plainly in his book On Writing "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write." But not all reading is equal for learning. Here’s what you need to know about reading like a writer to enhance your storytelling chops.
How to Beat Procrastination and Write Your Novel
As a fiction book writing coach, one of my clients’ top struggles is how often they procrastinate when they “should” be writing. This article discusses several simple strategies to help your rethink and outsmart your procrastination problem so you can get back to writing.
Crafting Complex Characters: Why Villains and Antagonists Matter
Antagonists will create obstacles for your protagonist to overcome. Depending on your intention, they can also highlight specific aspects of your main character and make them more or less relatable. The villain wants to hurt the protagonist — usually in the worst way possible and on purpose!
How to Write Suspense and Tension in Your Novel to Keep Readers Hooked
Suspense vs. tension: Why you can’t have one without the other, and if you have neither, you don’t have a story.
How to Create Undeniable Romantic Chemistry Between Your Characters
Romantic chemistry is that unspoken, elusive connection that you "know" when you see it, or rather when you feel it because it triggers a happy little soup of neurochemicals inside your body that scream more, more, more!
How to Structure a Romance Novel: Beyond the Beats
Today we’ll discuss how to outline a romance novel to hit the beats readers expect and talk about when and where those beats fall. But we’ll also look at character arcs, and themes because you really can’t talk about mapping a story without them!
Romance Writing Essentials: Tips for Writing Romance For Fiction Writers
Romance stories are among the most difficult to execute well. Why? There are many reasons, but the biggest is that structurally, the protagonist’s object of desire is also a major antagonistic force in the story. The love interest is the opposition! Wrangling that conundrum into a satisfying emotional experience takes some finesse, my friends.
Worldbuilding Tools - A Simplified Approach to Creative Worldbuilding for Fiction Writers
Worldbuilding is where writers create the social, cultural, historical, political, and physical realities for our characters.
It feels like a colossal endeavor that we could talk about for days, but we won’t. Today, we’re going to streamline the process by following our curiosity through a series of strategic questions.
How to Find a Writing Community That Will Help You Accomplish Your Goals
Even when we have dozens of characters dancing through our minds, this writing business can get damn lonely. We have big ideas and exciting plots to explore, but many of us don't have anyone to share with, especially when we're new. If you are looking for a community, I wholeheartedly encourage you to find your tribe because the benefits far outweigh the cost!
How to Use Genre To Structure Your Novel
The writing industry puts a lot of focus on the importance of a writer identifying their genre once the book has been written to determine where it will fit in the marketplace, but minimal emphasis on identifying genre before you begin to write it.
This is a problem because a book’s genre is much more than which shelf it sits on in a bookstore.
How to Create Writing Habits that Stick: Applying Atomic Habits
We’re fifteen days into 2024, and I bet most of us are still feeling the freshness, motivation, and excitement of all the opportunities to come … but, sadly, experience teaches that motivation only lasts so long.
What really keeps us in the game is our habits.
Cultivating good writing habits in service of the changes we want to make and the people we want to become.
That’s the secret sauce. Here’s how to do it!
How to Develop a Story Idea For a Novel
Are you writing a novel this year? Maybe it’s your first time, and you’re wondering where to start. Or you’ve done this before, but you’re looking to nail down your process. Either way, this article will help.
Today, we’ll discuss how to explore a fresh idea and develop a firm foundation of the essential elements every story requires so that you can create a rock-solid premise statement for your novel.
Becoming a Better Literary Citizen: Unpacking Gandhi's Wisdom in the Book World
Do you ever feel like your actions don't really matter in the grand scheme of things?
In a world filled with chaos and noise, it's easy to wonder if anyone cares or will even notice our efforts. I'll admit, I've had those moments too (plenty). But life has a way of reminding me that my actions do matter, even if I can't always see the immediate impact.
As Gandhi wisely said, "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it’s very important that you do it."
This article will show you how to take action to become a better literary citizen and why it’s so important that we do this together!