Podcasts

2014

Get Rid of On-the-Nose Dialogue Once and For All: If you can identify on-the-nose dialogue and learn how to replace it with rich undercurrents of subtext, you’re on your way to becoming a master author.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 37: Unnecessary Filler: As we continue to discuss the most common writing mistakes, we’d be remiss to leave out the all-too-prevalent faux pas of unnecessary filler or padding.
How to Pitch Your Novel: What’s the Difference Between Your Story’s Hook and Your Story’s Heart?: When figuring out how to pitch your novel, you may realize your story’s hook and its heart might not be compatible within such a short description.
A Quick Guide to Beta Reader Etiquette: At last! A manual for beta reader etiquette – for how beta readers should conduct themselves and how writers, in turn, should respond.
What’s the Difference Between Your Story’s Theme and Its Message?: You can’t have a theme without a message, since your message is the vehicle on which your story’s theme will reach your readers.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 36: Too Much Introspection, Not Enough Interaction: Largely, the cure for this 36th of our most common writing mistakes harks back to one of my favorite bits of writing advice: “Skip the boring parts!”
Want a Powerful Theme for Your Novel? Play Devil’s Advocate!: Favoritism has no place in a powerful theme. Why? Because your readers will sniff it out in a second and instinctively discount your truth a little bit.
What Is the Role of Theme in a Story’s Climax?: Figure out how theme factors in to your story’s climax, and you’ll have a shortcut to figuring out everything else you need to know about your theme.
Don’t Know Your Story’s Theme? Take a Look at Your Character’s Arc: Theme isn’t an add-on or a bonus feature. Your story’s theme is its heart, and, as such, it must be all of a piece with your plot and your characters’ arcs.
How Much Realism Does Your Novel REALLY Need?: Are readers really as interested in realism as we think they are? Or might they be more interested in verisimilitude?
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 35: Random Story Elements: Random doesn’t sound so bad upfront. But give this insidious little devil half a chance, and it will unravel your story’s cohesion in the blink of a scene.
Why Your Character’s Goal Needs to Be 1 of These 5 Things: In order to resonate deeply with your very human audience, your character’s goal needs to be one of five specific things.
Story Concept and Story Premise: Do You Know the Crucial Difference?: Are story concept and story premise interchangeable words for the same idea–or are they separate tools with their own important jobs to fulfil?
FAQ: How to Write Character Arcs in a Series: You can approach character arcs in a series in either of the two ways.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 34: Repetitive Dialogue: At first glance, repetitive dialogue may seem to be nothing more than lazy writing. But even experienced authors can get caught in the trap.
What if Your Story Has No Character Arc?: Can you write a story with no character arc? Is that possible? If so, isl the story be doomed to drabness in comparison to those that do feature rich arcs?
You’ve Been Writing Sentences Wrong All Your Life! Find Out Why: Out of all the pitfalls of writing, surely the simple sentence isn’t one of them. But what if I said you’ve been writing sentences wrong all your life?
How to Use Rewards and Punishments to Get Your Character to Change: How do you get your character to change? As simple as this question may seem, it’s also an important question that deserves a practical answer.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 33: Telling Important Scenes, Instead of Showing: “Show, don’t tell” is the foundation of dramatic storytelling. Failing to show important scenes in your story is one of the most common writing mistakes.
Should All Your Minor Characters Have Arcs?: Think how much more depth you can create if all your minor characters have arcs! But it raises the question: Should all your minor characters have arcs?
The Impact Character: Why Every Character Arc Needs One: If the antagonist represents the story’s outer conflict, then the impact character represents the inner conflict.
Can a Character’s Arc Be a Subplot?: Can a character’s arc can be a subplot? Consider three different instances of character arcs that might figure better in a subplot than the main plot.
How to Figure Out WHAT Your Character’s Arc Should Be: Picking the character’s arc that’s perfect for your story requires nothing more than the answers to three questions.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 32: Boring Opening Lines: Boring opening lines aren’t something an author can afford. And yet they’re harder to avoid than you might think.
How to Write a Negative Character Arc, Pt. 3: The Third Act: If the positive change arc is about redeeming self and the flat arc is about saving others, then the negative character arc is about destroying self and probably others as well.
How to Write a Negative Character Arc, Pt. 2: The Second Act: Your negative character arc could follow one of three primary variations.
How to Write a Negative Character Arc, Pt. 1: The First Act: Your negative character arc could follow one of three primary variations.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 31: One-Dimensional Conflict: Conflict is an essential ingredients of fiction. But one-dimensional conflict isn’t enough to plumb the depths of a story’s potential. Find out why!
Why Every Story You Write Is a Guaranteed Failure: Very few writers are going to escape those bouts of frustrated depression in which you are sure every story you write is a guaranteed failure. Know why?
How to Write a Flat Character Arc, Pt. 3: The Third Act: In the Third Act of a flat character arc, the protagonist will be brought to a point where he seriously doubts his ability to use the Truth to defeat the Lie.
How to Write a Flat Character Arc, Pt. 2: The Second Act: In comparison to a positive change arc, a flat character arc in the Second Act emphasizes the character’s discovery of the Lie embedded in the world.
How to Write a Flat Character Arc, Pt. 1: The First Act: A flat character arc offers the opportunity for you to create a competent, committed protagonist who can transform the world around him.
Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 30: Describing Character Movements: Surprisingly, the most difficult part of describing character movements is simply remembering to describe those movements in the first place.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 15: The Resolution: The Resolution needs to fulfil two primary duties in finishing off your character’s arc.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 14: The Climax: In character arcs, as in plot, the Climax is the dot on the end of the exclamation point. The Climax is the reason for the story.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 13: The Third Act: In the landscape of the Third Act, we have four important road signs to guide our journey.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 12: The Third Plot Point: If you had pick the single most important moment in characters arcs, what would it be? The Third Plot Point, you say? Well, you’d be right.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 11: The Second Half of the Second Act: The Second Half of the Second Act is where you cue the hero music in character arcs. But this story ain’t over, not by a long shot.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 10: The Midpoint: Your protagonist’s personal revelations are going to lead him up to a very special turning point at the story’s Midpoint.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 9: The First Half of the Second Act: As you structure your character’s arc in the First Half of the Second Act, be sure to incorporate these four important elements.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 8: The First Plot Point: The effect of the First Plot Point on your character’s arc can be found in three important decisions your character must make.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 7: The First Act: Discover six major elements of the positive change character arc that need to be included in the First Act.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 6: The Normal World: The Characteristic Moment is only half of a good character arc’s opening. It still needs context. The Normal World provides that context.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 5: The Characteristic Moment: First impressions do count. And your protagonist’s Characteristic Moment is his first chance to impress your readers.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 4: Your Character’s Ghost: Why does your character believe his Lie in the first place? To find the answer, start looking for something your character’s ghost.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 3: The Thing Your Character Wants vs. The Thing Your Character Needs: The Lie Your Character Believes, which is the reason for all character arcs, is created from the conflict between the Thing He Wants and the Thing He needs.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 2: The Lie Your Character Believes: Your character needs to be harboring some deeply held misconception about either himself, the world, or both.
Creating Stunning Character Arcs, Pt. 1: Can You Structure Characters?: What if there were a sure-fire secret to creating stunning character arcs?
Most Common Writing Mistakes: Stories That Begin Too Early: Stories that begin too early suffer from their own set of problems, including tedium, verbosity, and info dumps.
Warning Signs! Your Character Is Acting Out of Character: If you’re getting reports that your characters are acting out of character, it may be a sign of a deeper problem in your plot, your character building, or your narrative flow.
How Minor Characters Help You Discover Theme: Find out how to put key minor characters to work in helping you build a more coherent and resonant theme.
How to Successfully Kill a Character: The Checklist: Seven good reasons to kill a character and three bad reasons.

2013

8 ½ Character Archetypes You Should Be Writing: Character archetypes present important guidelines for creating a well-rounded cast that can provide optimum help for advancing your hero’s journey.
Have You Chosen the Wrong Tone for Your Story?: All by its bitty lonesome, tone has the ability to either destroy your story – or raise it even higher.
6 Must-Know Tricks for Getting to Know Your Characters: How can you make sure your character will be adored by your readers?
Most Common Mistakes: Is Your Prose Too Complex?: Used wrongly or too often, complex prose can create distance between your readers and your words – or, worse, just leave them confused.
5 Ways to Write a Killer Plot Twist: Plot twists can bring a whole new dimension to your story. But done with less finesse than not, they can also submarine the whole thing.
How Story Cartel Gave Me 50-Plus Honest Reviews: In a nutshell, Story Cartel offers readers free e-books in exchange for honest reviews.
Crowdsourced Editing: The Future of Self-Publishing?: Could authors tap into crowdsourcing networks for help with mundane and time-consuming (and expensive) tasks like cover design, book layout, and editing?
Most Common Mistakes: When Your Scene Focuses on What Isn’t Happening: Writers often end up spending a huge chunk of time describing what their characters aren’t doing.
8 Promises You’re Making to Readers – and Then Breaking: These promises range from the big one at the top of the list (“I promise this will be a good read”) to a number of smaller ones along the way.
Exclusive Dialogue: When Readers Don’t Know What Your Characters Are Talking About: Think of exclusive dialogue as an inside joke. You and your characters know what’s being talked aboutóbut your poor readers are left out in the cold.
Are You Over-Thinking Your First Draft?: We can start getting all obsessive-compulsive about creating a perfect first draft – and we end by totally psyching ourselves out.
How I Self-Edit My Novels: 15 Steps From First Draft to Publication: A top-to-bottom editing process: from first draft to publication.
A Surefire Sign You’re Over-Explaining: Over-explaining can manifest in several ways, but the core of the problem is always repetition – and it’s usually symptomatic of authorial insecurity.
What if Your Antagonist Isn’t a Person?: The obstacle that stands between your character and his overall story goal could be any number of non-human manifestations.
5 Reasons You Should Stop Writing: Writers write. But sometimes, when they have good reasons for doing so, writers don’t write.
17 Steps to a Reader-Grabbing Title: As you’re planning your title and throwing around ideas, stop to ask yourself the following questions.
The Do’s and Don’ts of Dialect: If you can’t use phonetic spellings to indicate a character’s accent or dialect, then what can you do?
How to Use Foreshadowing: Readers don’t like to be cheated, lied to, or tricked. And that’s where foreshadowing comes into play.
Be a Better Writer: Get Organized: If we can spend less time trying to find our favorite pen or our notes on one of our minor characters, we’ll be able to spend more time actually writing.
Why “Suddenly” Is a Four-Letter Word: What’s one of the most overused, least-needed words in a writer’s repertoire? Try “suddenly.”
Why You Need to Be Excited About Every Single Thing You Write: Without passion, writing not only becomes drudgery, it’s also bound to produce less than stellar results.
Why the Reader Is Your Co-Writer: The responsibilities of the writer and the responsibilities of the reader.
Top 10 Sentence Slip-Ups: Authors should learn to spot the most prevalent sentence slips-ups and know when to eliminate them from their stories.
Motivation-Reaction Units: Cracking the Code of Good Writing: Dwight V. Swain famously cracked the code of efficient prose into what he called motivation-reaction units, or MRUs.
Incidents and Happenings: Scenes That Aren’t Actually Scenes: Two prominent exceptions to scene structure: incidents and happenings.
Frequently Asked Questions About Scene Structure: At first blush, scene structure can be a subject that takes a while to fully grasp and, as a result, can spawn all kinds of questions.
Variations on the Sequel: To help you realize the possibilities of the sequel, let’s take a look at some of the common variations we find.
Options for Decisions in a Sequel: This third and final piece of the sequel grows out of the character’s dilemma and leads right into the next scene’s goal.
Options for Dilemmas in a Sequel: Handled skillfully, a good dilemma can heighten tension, make characters more sympathetic, and, most importantly, keep readers turning those pages.
Options for Reactions in a Sequel: At the heart of every sequel is the narrating characterís reaction to the preceding scene’s disaster.
The Three Building Blocks of the Sequel: Like the scene, the sequel can be broken down into three segments that work together to create a rise and fall of drama.
Variations on the Scene: The great thing about structure is that it provides a solid framework for your story, while still presenting endless possibilities.
Options for Disasters in a Scene: Scene disasters come in every variety imaginable, but we can attempt to narrow them down into the four basic categories.

2012

Options for Conflict in a Scene: Analyze your scenes to ensure each one erects obstacles between your character and his goal.
Options for Goals in a Scene: Most scene goals will boil down into one of five categories.
The Three Building Blocks of the Scene: Like story itself, each Scene follows a specific structure.
Mastering the Two Different Types of Scene: Focuses on two different types of scenes: scene and sequel.
6 Types of
Courageous Characters: Bravery is the secret to creating characters readers love.
Why Non-Writers Give the Best Critiques: Non-writers can’t bring technical knowledge of the craft to the table, but they bring something else: their objective experience as readers.
Why Writers Should Never Hit Delete: Three reasons a delete file saves writers work.
Your Must-Have Book Checklist: From Idea to Publication: A start-to-finish checklist of how to write a book.
10 Stories With (Brilliant) Loose Ends: Engage readers’ imaginations in filling in the rest of the story by not tying off all the loose ends.
How to Tell if Your Book Is a Success: If we’re ever going to find happiness as writers, we have to understand what success means to each of us as individuals.
What’s Your Writing Personality?: A quick look at all four personalities to help writers identify into which categories they prominently fall and how to make the most of them.
Are You Skipping the Best Parts?: Sometimes, without even realizing it, writers can end up skipping the best parts and leaving readers growling their frustration.
Professional Resources for Writers: Whether you’re wanting to publish traditionally or independently, chances are these talented people will be able to help you achieve your goals.
Why Story Beginnings and Endings Must Be Linked: If the ending of a story fails to answer the specific question set out in the beginning, the whole book will fail.
Why Your Storyís Conflict Isn’t Working: Story conflict is only interesting or compelling within the context of the plot.
10 Excuses for Not Writing – and How to Smash Them: Consider some of our most common writing excuses, when they’re true, when they’re not, and how to get past them.
Most Common Mistakes Series: Does Your Character Lack Purpose?: Boring scenes often occur when the main character has no obvious purpose.
5 Ways Youíre Preventing Readers From Suspending Disbelief: Five of the most common ways authors kill their readers’ suspension of disbelief – and, by extension, their stories.
Add Muscle to Your Fiction With Unity and Contrast: Through a judicious choice of unifying and contrasting details, you canadded some real muscle to your scene.
6 Ways to Pull off Dual Timelines in Your Novel: Dual timelines can include a deeper plot, more resonant theme, and greater character development.
How You May Be Killing Your Story’s Tension: Sometimes we can zap a story’s tension without even realizing it.
5 Reasons to Write Your Scenes in Order (and 3 Not to): Is a linear storytelling process best for your story? Or would you be better off writing scenes out of order?.
What’s the Purpose of Your Scene?: Finding the focus of each scene in your story is as easy as finding purpose, conflict, and context.
10 Questions Your Readers Shouldn’t Have to Ask: Be wary of creating the kind of suspense that has readers floundering to understand the basics of your scene, rather than forging ahead with definite and pressing questions.
Talent vs. Learning: Do You Have to Be Born a Writer?: What if the dream of becoming a bestselling author is something within the reach of anyone willing to do a little hard work?
Why Do Bad Books Get Published?: One of the most common beefs among writers is that the industry is glutted with bad books.
Are You Writing Your Novel Too Fast?: Are faster writers better than slow writers – or vice versa?
The Top 25 Ways to Blow a Book: Let’s take a look at the top twenty-five ways we can blow our books right into our readers’ burn barrels.
How to Spot and Fix Non-Reactive and Over-Reactive Characters: Character reaction can be difficult to portray without falling into one of two pitfalls: non-reaction or over-reaction.
The Two Conflict-Creating Needs of Every Character: One need just isn’t going to be strong enough to get a character all the way through a book.
How Routines Save (and Ruin) Your Writing: Nothing affects our writing more than the routine (or lack of one) with which we implement our writing into our day.
Why Self-Conscious Writers Are Doomed: If we don’t stave the vocies of our critics, we’re likely to start writing for them, rather than out of the deep and honest well of ourselves.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 12: Your Questions Answered: Story structure is a subject that inspires endless questions.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 11: The Resolution: As you write your closing lines, consider all the words that have come before and cap them off with an intellectual and emotional home run of a resolution!
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 10: The Climax: The point is to bring the story and its primary conflict to its expected moment of irreversible resolution in a way that fulfills our every promise to our readers.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 9: The Third Act: If the first and second acts were engaging and aesthetic labyrinths, the third act is where X marks the spot.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 8: The Second Half of the Second Act: Your main character caps the dramatic event at the midpoint with his decision to stop reacting and start acting.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 7: The Midpoint: This centerpiece is your second major plot point, the midpoint, which divides your second act.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 6: The First Half of the Second Act: This first half of the second act is where your characters find the time and space to react to the first major plot point.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 5: The Inciting Event and the Key Event: The first quarter of your story hinges upon two important and irreversible moments: the inciting event and the key event.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 4: The First Plot Point: The first plot point is the moment when the setup ends, and your character crosses his personal Rubicon.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 3: The First Act: The first quarter of the book (the first act) is the place to compile all the necessary components of your story.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 2: The Hook: Readers aren’t about to surrender themselves to the lure of your story unless you’ve presented them with an irresistible hook.
The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 1: Why Should Authors Care?: Let’s consider a few of the reasons every author should care about structure – and why none of us should fear it.
A Wordplayer’s Manifesto: To help us keep our sights set high, we need to declare ourselves to ourselves, as well as the rest of the world.
The Writer’s Guide to Punctuation: Let’s look at some of the most commonly confused and misused punctuation marks.
The Case of the Vanishing Setting: How is it our settings can just arbitrarily vanish from our scenes?
Why I Hate Grammar Nazis – And Why I Am One: Good manners says overlooking the occasional and inevitable little boo-boo is the better part of courtesy.
Don’t Let Multiple-Character Scenes Run Away With You: Three’s a crowd – especially when authors have to juggle three or more characters in a single scene.
How I Learned to Write – And How You Can Too: I share some of the major catalytic moments in my writing journey.
Most Common Mistakes Series: Don’t Drown Your Readers in Explanations: When overdone, explanations can leave your reader feeling as if heís drowning in a flood of wordy information.
12 Writing Resolutions for the 12 Months of 2012: This year, instead of making a complete list of writing resolutions for the whole year, try implementing one new resolution every month.

2011

The Writing Gifts I’m Most Thankful for This Christmas: The (mostly) writing-specific gifts I’m thankful for this Christmas.
How Do You Decide Which Story You Should Write?: Five suggestions for culling the real story idea contenders from the wannabes and also-rans.
25 “Under $25” Christmas Gifts for Writers: 25 Christmas gift ideas for the fellow writer on your list, all priced at $25 or less.
Are Your Flashbacks Flashy or Flabby?: A good flashback is sometimes just the ticket for bringing to life an important event in your character’s past.
Action/Reaction – The Pistons Powering Your Story: What’s the difference between action and reaction?
4 Reasons to Mimic the Masters – and 3 Reasons Not to: Let’s take a look at what successful mimicry is and is not.
How Do You Know Which Rules to Break?: Are there certain rules that are concrete and others that aren’t?
Do Readers See Your Characters the Way You Want Them To?: The wrong choice of just a single word can be enough to give readers a completely different perspective of a character.
10 Fear Busters for Writers: Let’s take a look at ten methods for cracking our whips at our fears and forcing them to respond to our shouts of “back, back, vicious beast!”
5 Elements of a Resonant Closing Line: Explore the five elements that will help you craft the kind of closing line that caps your entire story and leaves readers with a feeling of unforgettable resonance.
5 Fun and Easy Ways to Lengthen Your Word Count: We see a lot of hype these days about books that are too lengthy for agents or editors to consider. But what about books that fall short of the expected word count?
The Dangers of Character Overload: When authors are dealing with large casts of characters, readers sometimes find themselves in grave danger of character overload.
What Elements Make a Good Book?: The one thing all readers share is their strong opinions about what makes a book resonate with them.
5 Elements of a Riveting First Line: Opening lines offer authors their first and best opportunity to make a statement about their stories.
Why Your Hero Absolutely Must Pet a Dog: A little trick authors can use to make even their darkest anti-heroes sympathetic.
Is Nothin’ Happening in Your Scene?: Let’s take a look-see at some of the signs your scene may be more of the nothin’ sort than the happenin’ sort.
Why Your Protagonist and Antagonist Should Be Stuck Like Glue: Something has to be keeping your hero locked in his conflict with the antagonist – and vice versa.
Captain America’s 10-Step Guide to the Likable Hero: Likable characters require careful crafting if they’re to come to life in a way that is not only believable but compelling.
10 Stylistic Mistakes Sabotaging Your Story: In writing, the little mistakes are often the big mistakes.
7 Ways to Make Family and Pets Respect Your Writing Time: Guidelines for getting friends, family, co-workers, and pets to respect your writing time – without your needing to resort to death threats.
Why You Should Kick Your Story Aside and Write a Different One: Few authors reach publication with their first novel.
What “The Story Knows Best” Really Means: What does this idea that “the story knows best” really mean?
Deus Ex Machina: Latin for “Don’t Do This in Your Story”: You might find yourself walking through the yellow caution tape into the pothole of deus ex machina before you realize the danger.
The Fast and Easy Guide to Writing Characters of the Opposite Gender: Writers too often create unrealistic characters by imposing their own perceptions (or fantasies) onto the opposite sex.
Is Your Opening Line Lying to Your Readers?: Your opening line may be bristling with energy, danger, and barbed fishhooks with which to reel in your readers, but if the paragraph that follows pulls the old switcheroo, your reader is more likely to be irritated than impressed.
Why There’s No Such Thing as a Writing Expert – And Why That’s a Good Thing: The more time we spend studying our craft and the more we learn, the easier it is to lose sight of our own fallibility.
Save Your Readers From Boredom: Five Fool-Proof Preventatives: If you can avoid these five boredom bombs, you can slay reader apathy before it starts and keep them riveted from page one all the way through to the end.
4 Tricks for Picking the Perfect Word: Let’s explore four sophisticated linguistic techniques for choosing and using words.
Is Your First-Person Narrator Overpowering Your Story?: Let’s take a look at some of the common pitfalls of the first-person narrator and how to avoid them.
Are Happy Endings a Must?: To cap every story with a happy ending is dishonesty to both ourselves and our readers.
The Kung Fu Panda Guide to Writing Action Scenes: You need to understand the basics of this integral type of scene if you’re going to blind readers from overexposure to your action awesomeness.
The Secret Ingredient of Original Stories: Sometimes the more we try to be original, the more hackneyed our stories end up sounding.
Ideas for Constructing Your Own Writing Routine: What techniques are most useful for making the most of your daily writing time?
Understanding – and Accepting – the Reasons You Write: Why do you write? Simple question that it is, it can be surprisingly difficult to answer.
What Is a 50-Page Edit… and Why Will It Rock Your Story?: The 50-page edit centers us in our story, reminds us of what we’ve already written, and keeps us on track for the next 50 pages.
How Not to Use Speaker Tags and Action Beats: Don’t jeopardize your characters’ witty dialogue with punctuation and stylistic mistakes.
3 Traits Your Hero and Villain Should Share: What if I told you that the best stories are those that feature protagonists and antagonists who share more in common than not?
4 Ways to Avoid the Pitfalls of a Writer’s Solitude: As important as it is to claim large chunks of uninterrupted writing time, it’s also important that we make time to actually live our lives.
Why Writers Should Take Their Own Advice: I’m about to introduce you to the wisest writing mentor youíre ever likely to meet. Yourself.
Why Vague Writing Is Weak Writing: If you are bold, precise, and definite in your choice of words, your readers will feel the power of your prose.
Are You Asking These Important Questions About Your Fantasy Setting?: An overview of subjects and questions to keep in mind as you develop your speculative setting.
What I Love Lucy Can Teach You About Writing Tics: Some words are overused so often that they find their way onto the Wanted: Dead or Alive list of practically every author, agent, and editor (not to mention reader).
5 Ways to Write Character Thoughts Worth More Than Penny: One of the key benefits of written fiction is also one of the most difficult techniques to master: the inner narrative of the characters.
8 Signs Your Writing Is Stuck in a Rut – And Why You Should Care: Laziness and fear – a writer’s two great nemeses – do their best to keep us stuck in the writing rut.
Are You Confusing Readers With Poor Cause and Effect?: It’s all too easy for authors to risk confusing readers by showing the effect of an action, before showing the cause itself.
The Good News? Writing Never Gets Any Easier: First-time novelists often make the mistake of believing their first novels will be the most difficult writing of their lives.
Why You Should Read the Type of Stories You Write: Studying stories of the type you want to write is legitimately important research, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Getting Past the “This Stinks” Blues: One morning you boot up your computer, glance through the manuscript file, and realize “This stinks!” Now what do you do?
Are You Using “There” as a Crutch?: Whenever you see the word “there” used as a pronoun, you can be sure it’s being used as a crutch to hold up a weak and passive sentence.
10 Writing Resolutions You Can Fulfill: When we focus on the goals that are slightly more achievable, we’re not only more likely to pull them off, but we’ll also feel much better about ourselves come next year.

2010

7 Reasons Weather Is a Writer’s Friend: Ever since Edward Bulwer-Lytton slapped readers with his infamous “dark and stormy night” line, writers everywhere have been leery of misusing weather in their stories.
Are Your Verbs Showing or Telling?: Keep your eyes open for places where you can effortlessly strengthen your scene by using verbs that show instead of tell.
8 Reasons to Let Your Stories Ripen: Like vine-ripened tomatoes, stories require the slow nourishment of sunlight and warm imaginative soil to grow into rosy, juicy maturity.
What Kind of Writer Are You?: Just as our stories are unique, so are our personalities and lifestyles – and, as a result, our working patterns.
Description: Friend or Foe?: I’m here to offer a shocking declaration: Description gets a bad rap.
Why Are You Writing This Story?: Figure out what makes this story more worth writing than any other story, and let that reason empower you in every subsequent word you write.
Are You Dating Your Fiction?: Many a book has lost all hope of timelessness thanks to its heavy use of cutting-edge references, which may be fresh today, but which will have grown stale and flat in ten years.
Juxtaposition: The Power of the Unexpected in Fiction: Juxtaposition is the art of contrast, the foundation of dichotomy, and the tool of both subtlety and boldness.
Use Motion to Spice up Your Scenes: A character standing still – especially if he’s standing still just thinking – isn’t doing much to move the plot forward.
Love Your Characters – Or Else!: I don’t have a favorite character. As an author, I can’t afford to.
Is Your Dialogue Pulling Its Weight?: So just what is dialogue is really capable of?
The Worst Writing Advice: Have you ever heard any these nuggest of advice and lived to regret it?
The Best Writing Advice: Another (highly unscientific) survey to discover some of the best writing advice.
Are You a Writer?: Every time you set your fingers on your keyboard, every time you take a pen in hand – you are a writer.
Research: When in Doubt, Make It Up: If you can’t find the exact data you need, get as close as you can and wing the rest.
Is Your Story Mysterious Enough?: The art of the mysterious is at the heart of every type of story, not just mysteries and suspense.
Should You Edit As You Go?: Like so much of the writing life, the answer to this little conundrum is largely bound up in each writer’s personality and preferred working methods.
Are You Benefiting From the Intimacy of Pronouns?: When used to their full potential, pronouns have the power to accomplish a number of impressive tasks.
5 Steps to Dazzling Minor Characters: Minor characters provide the color and conflict that fill our protagonists’ worlds.
Whap! Pow! Zing! – How Can You Tell if Your Story Has Emotional Resonance?: If a story doesn’t resonate first and foremost with you, why think it will ever be able to touch a reader?Why Your Character’s Motive Matters: Creating a character who acts in exciting and larger-than-life ways is wonderful, but unless this character also has a reason for these actions, he will ultimately fail to capture readers’ attention.
6 Reasons a Premise Sentence Strengthens Your Story: Crafting a good premise sentence is valuable for a number of reasons.
Is the Thesaurus Your Friend?: Some writers consider the thesaurus their secret weapon; others regard it as a crutch.
Should Stories Be Soapboxes?: As an author, your most powerful gift is your unique and integral view of the world.
Why No Writer Knows What He’s Doing: The truth is I really have no idea what I’m doing. In fact, no author does.
Change Is the Key to Powerful Character Arcs: The secret to memorable characters isn’t so much creating a strong character as it is creating a strong character arc.
Maximize Your Story’s Inciting Event: How do create an inciting event that will fuel your plot and drive your characters forward?
8 Ways Writing Longhand Frees Your Muse: Writing longhand is an invaluable technique my writing would suffer without.
Generality Is the Death of the Novel: Fiction is about the specifics.
Creating a Functional Writing Station: A tour of K.M. Weiland’s writing space.
Improve Yourself, Improve Your Writing: The only way to be a better writer is to be a better person.
When Your Story Doesn’t Turn Out Like You Planned: How many times have you come up with a brilliant idea only to have it fail to live up to your vision when you start putting it on paper?
10 Ways to Write Skinny Sentences: Learn to trim your sentences into lean, mean bundles of incisive power.
Why Character Stereotypes Are a Good Thing: Stereotypes can be successfully applied in two ways: we can use them and we can play off them.
Daydream or Die!: As writers, the one thing we can’t afford is not to daydream.
Are You Using Too Many Settings?: Tips for distilling your settings to the perfect number.
Does Your Story Have the Extraordinary Factor?: Finding perfect harmony between ordinary and extraordinary will produce just the right about of conflict between the character and his setting.
What a Mouse Can Teach You About Story Arc: This charming little story features almost all of the important tenets of a story arc.
Rewriting Made Easy: Rewriting can be both fun and easy.
15 Lessons From the Masters: When authors whose stories have impacted the world start talking, we start listening.
Three Words That Kill Writing Procrastination: At times, procrastination can seem like an incurable disease. Fortunately, however, I have an infallible solution, and it can be summed up in three little words.
Why You Should Steal From Other Authors: Just as we light our own torches from the fires of other authors, our own ideas will throw sparks onto the tinder of others’ imaginations.
Strengthen Your Story by Writing the Perfect Review: Here’s a little trick to help narrow the gap between your idealization of your story and its printed reality: Write yourself the perfect review.
Plot vs. Character: Which Is More Important?: The simple fact is that fiction requires both plot and character to achieve its full potential.
Are You Using Setting to Deepen Your Characters?: In the best of stories, setting is an inherent key in bringing to life not just the scenery but the characters themselves.
Embrace Your Internal Editor: We’ve transformed the internal editor into a monster of epic proportions, but only because we haven’t learned to utilize him.
Are You Called to Be a Writer?: Is our writing just a fun pastime – or is it a calling?
Why Word Count Goals Can Be Destructive: For some writers, word counts can prove more problematic than they’re worth.
10 Habits of Successful Authors: If, by the end of the year, you can cross the following habits of successful authors off your checklist, you’ll be a force to reckon with in the literary world!

2009

11 Killer Chapter Breaks: Chapter breaks are do-or-die territory for novelists.
Are Your Characters Talking Heads?: When planning your scenes, even scenes where what’s said is what’s important, give your characters something to do.
How Music Will Make You a Better Writer: Why not tap into the power of music when you need the inspiration most: while you’re writing.
Why You Should Write More Than One Genre: The better the artist, the more varied his work.
4 Reasons I Quit Writing Exercises: I argue that keeping a writing-exercise journal is an ineffective, inefficient, and occasionally even detrimental habit.
How to Kill a Character – And Avoid Hate Mail: When your story demands you kill a prominent character, how do you tap into the power and pathos without infuriating your readers?
Top 7 Reasons Readers Stop Reading: This week, I decided to take a highly unscientific poll in an effort to discover the most common reasons a reader stops reading.
6 Reasons Not to Listen to Your Critique Partner: How do you know when to heed criticism? How do you know what’s worth listening to? You can start by asking yourself the following six questions.
11 Dichotomous Characters – And Why They Work: Take a look at the following list of classic characters and the dichotomies that made them so memorable.
Emotional Connection: Punch Your Readers in the Gut!: So how do you go about creating emotionally resonant stories? It’s simple: You create stories with which you resonate.
Should You Outline Backwards?: Often, it’s easier and more productive to start with the last scene and work your way backwards.
Why You Should Be Writing Scared: A little dryness of mouth, a little dampness of face, a little quiver in the abdominal region – these are the symptoms of sheer, unadulterated panic. These are the symptoms of a good writer.
Good Writers Are So Lazy, They Make Readers Do All the Work! by Jason Black: By letting the reader imagine all the filler details, the stuff that’s not actually important to the plot, readers create for themselves a scene that is both vivid and completely believable.
How You Can Take Advantage of Art’s Subjectivity: For better or worse, art (like life) is subjective. Not one of us looks at a story, a painting, a movie, or a concert in the same way.
Should You Write for a Specific Audience?: Writing for an audience, instead of merely to an audience means you’re molding your artistic vision to please the whims of the public.
9 Ways to Strengthen Your Beginnings: Nine traits of a good beginning.
Angst, Mental Illness, and Creativity by Carolyn Kaufman: Is angst a necessary ingredient for creativity?
It’s What Your Characters Do That Defines Them: Characters need to do something to prove themselves worth defining.
Why Genre Writing Could Kill Your Career: Genres too often lead to clichéd storylines, sub-par writing, and, in the long run, a less discerning and demanding reading public.
Backstory: The Importance of What Isn’t Told: Particularly during this modern trend of beginning stories in medias res (in the middle of things), a deep and full-bodied backstory is every whit as important as the story itself.
Choosing Your Character’s Career With Care: What your character does for a living, even if it doesn’t feature prominently in your story, will profoundly affect who he is and how he responds to the world around him.
Sticking With a Story: If you are willing to stick with a story and resist the urge to let go when the going gets tough, you are likely to discover one of the most important traits of any artist: perseverance.
yWriter Software Tutorial: Tutorial for yWriter, the quintessential organizer for writers.
Making Clichés Work for You: Clichés need not be dreaded bogeymen who haunt our work, but rather exciting and multi-faceted challenges that we can make work for us in many ways.
5 Ways to Pace Your Story: Pacing is like a dam. It allows the writer to control just how fast or how slow his plot flows through the riverbed of his story. Understanding how to operate that dam is one of the most important tasks an author has to learn.
Details: Bringing Fiction to Life: Learn why the details of an author’s prose decide whether a story will be the entertainment of an hour or a lasting piece of literature.
Characters: Likability Is Overrated: Learn why readers connect with imperfection in characters, more than perfection.
Don’t Let the Big Words Die: Authors can encourage the growth of vocabulary and use it to enhance their writing.
Eliciting Emotion: Discover what drives emotion in fiction and how to elicit it in readers.
Branded: Negotiating Consumerism in Fiction: Two reasons to avoid specifying common and popular consumer names in your fiction.