How to Write Dialogue: 8 Tips and Exercises
No matter your genre, learning how to write dialogue effectively is a vital part of any writer’s career. Poor dialogue can make readers put your [Read More]
write
Fiction University: A Faster Way to Write a First Draft
Writers are always looking for a way to write faster, and sometimes, writing more means starting out with less. For this year’s NaNoWriMo, I tried [Read More]
How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book: Writing about People You Know: Do You Need to Get Permission?
A reader from Connecticut is finishing up her new novel this month, getting ready to send it out to agents. She sent me a good [Read More]
Cliffhangers: How to Write a Story Your Readers Can’t Put Down
It’s no secret that the time-tested method of using cliffhangers at the end of your chapters or scenes is a sure-fire way to make that [Read More]
The 9-Minute Novelist: How to Write a Novel in Just Minutes a Day
Writing a novel is a complicated equation involving a lot of variables and moving parts—not the least of which are the authors themselves. In fact, [Read More]
Is Social Media Changing How We Write?
by Anne Leigh Parrish We’ve all heard it said that readers have increasingly short attention spans. Spending time with a print medium isn’t as engaging [Read More]
Where to Write
Written by Geary Smith Several years ago, while vacationing with the family in Key West, Florida, I can remember looking up at the home of [Read More]
This is a Truly Bizarre Way to Write a Novel
I’m a tinkerer by temperament. My most frequent nerdy joke with my writing students is that if you sat me down at a computer every [Read More]
Planning To Write Something Today? Tips for Setting Writing Goals that Work
Lynn Dickinson shares tips to help writers honestly examine their writing routines to make the changes necessary to achieve their writing goals. As an assignment, [Read More]
Learning to Write by Reading
You might think avoiding other influences makes you a more original writer. But nobody can write in a vacuum. Even the meanings of words depend [Read More]
Ask Polly: ‘Should I Quit My Day Job to Write a Book?’
Recently, after years of being afraid to confront this reality, I accepted that I want to be a writer. Specifically, a YA novelist. I work [Read More]
How to Write Attention-Grabbing Promo Copy for Books
The publishing marketplace is flooded with thousands of new titles every single day, and readers are inundated with offers, messages, pictures, and pleas to buy. [Read More]
Why I’ll Never Tell Anyone They Can’t Write
I was in a writing class once where the teacher decided to do a sentence-by-sentence critique of the first of page a student’s story. The [Read More]
How to Write a Book Without Losing Your Mind
Expert advice on ending procrastination and finishing that manuscript, dissertation, or other big project A few months ago, I promised some nice people in New [Read More]
How to Write Cunning, Clever, and Crafty Characters
My NaNoWriMo novels are full of clever characters, which has baldly reminded me just how difficult it is to write crafty people. I can just [Read More]
Less Words, More Often (How to Stay Motivated to Write Every Day)
You can’t become a concert pianist practicing only once a week. Just like you can’t become a proficient writer writing only once a week. Those [Read More]
How to Write a Book: 10 Ridiculously Simple Steps
Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.–Mark Twain As the bestselling author of five books, I can tell [Read More]
How to Write a Hook That Captures Attention
A good, hooky first line of a novel is found in Lois McMaster Bujold’s Cryroburn, which starts, “Angels were falling all around.” You have to [Read More]
Write By Accident, Refine By Design
In “The Accidental Novelist: How Stolen Moments Can Make a Book,” I wrote about an unorthodox writing technique I discovered — and the novel I’ve [Read More]
How to Use Free Online Tools to Write Better Content
It’s all well and good scanning blog post after blog post in search of content writing tips, but sometimes you want instant, actionable tactics you [Read More]
How to Write a Smash-Hit Debut Novel at 70
Publishing your first novel as a 70-year-old grandmother-of-three is quite a coup. But Anne Youngson’s Meet Me At The Museum, a present-day tale of late [Read More]