Your novel’s first page is like the first 5 minutes of a blind date. Be honest, you can usually tell within the first five minutes whether or not there’s going to be a second date. Just like readers can tell by the end of the first page whether or not they’re going to stick around  … Read more

You finished a first draft. Phew! And now you may or may not be staring at a huge pile of messy pages that may or may not resemble a novel. My guess is you’re exhausted. You’re burnt out. You’re sick of this story and all of the characters and never want to look at them  … Read more

Coming up with the perfect title for your novel is no picnic. Especially if you’ve been working on the story for months and you’re so close to it, it’s nearly impossible to see it objectively. That’s what happened to me with my latest middle grade novel, so I thought I’d write a post that breaks  … Read more

It’s officially NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where writers across the globe challenge themselves to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.  To help you smash through that 50k word mark, I’m sharing with you my NaNoWriMo Starter Beat Sheet. What’s a “starter beat sheet?” Well, think of it as a foundation  … Read more

It’s no big secret that if we want to hook readers from the first chapter, we actually have to write a first chapter that hooks readers. With TBR stacks getting taller and taller, and Netflix releasing a new bingeable show every twenty minutes, gone are the days when readers will graciously give new books 50,  … Read more

Today’s writing hack is something I’ve been doing for years (maybe even all of my career) and I didn’t even realize it was a hack. I just assumed everyone did this. But the more I shared it with other writers, the more I heard a similar response, “I’ve never done this before and it helps  … Read more

Sometimes a character will pop into your head fully formed, like you’ve been friends forever and you know everything about them and can finish each other’s sentences. But sometimes–most times, I’d say–you start with a glimpse of a character. A piece of dialogue. A specific reaction. Or another sliver of information that’s just one facet  … Read more

Dialogue can make or break a story. Strong dialogue can lift your story to new heights, while weak dialogue can turn a reader off. The key to writing strong dialogue is to think of it as another extension of your character development. Your dialogue is just another way you reveal your characters to the reader.  … Read more

  “Show, don’t tell” is one of those pieces of writing advice you hear over and over again without a lot of concrete guidance on what it is and how to implement it. Which is why, for this month’s writing tip, I thought I’d present a fun writing challenge that will not only help you understand what “show, don’t tell”  … Read more

  Writers are accused of a lot of unforgivable “crimes”: head-hopping, adverb overkill, predictable endings, cliched characters. Eek! I’m getting cold sweats just writing them all in one sentence!  But in the post, I want to talk about the common and far-too-often detrimental crime of “info-dumping” (also known as “too much exposition.”) Info-dumping is when  … Read more

Imagine you’re reading a great adventure story. The hero has spent 80% of the story fighting against an evil regime that’s oppressed his village, scattered his friends and family, imprisoned the person he loves, and even kidnapped his dog! Just when everything seems lost for our hero, he realizes what he has to do–he’s got  … Read more

Well, we made it! It’s 2021. 2020 is now officially “history.” And I don’t know about you but 2020 felt like a very messy first draft to me. Full of false starts, random plot twists that made no sense, a hard-to-follow narrative, and very poor pacing.  But although we can’t revise that mess, we can  … Read more

  If your novel or story is suffering from slow pacing, dragging chapters, saggy prose, or just needs an overall pacing BOOST, then this revision hack might be just the thing you need. I picked up this trick while revising my young adult, sci-fi novel, SKY WITHOUT STARS, which is a retelling of Victor Hugo’s Les  … Read more

It’s a new year and a new you! Which means it might be time for a new writing routine, too? Is your old writing routine failing you or just non-existent? Are you struggling to sit down to write every day? Or are you just looking for a way to jump start your writing this year?  … Read more

If you’re writing a novel or short story using the Save the Cat! beat sheet and wondering exactly where your beats should fall, then have I got a cool tool for you! (Not to mention a nice rhyme there.) When outlining, writing, or revising a novel, it’s helpful to know not only what story beats  … Read more

Can you smell it in the air? No, it’s not the smell of pine trees and gingerbread. It’s the smell of your regular writing routine wafting out the window and getting buried under ten feet of snow. The holidays are great fun but they can also be a difficult time for writers. Relatives descend, the  … Read more

We all have it. That voice inside that tells us we’re a hack. We’re a fraud. We’ll never amount to anything and what business do we have writing a book?   Mine can be particularly nasty and noisy throughout pretty much all of Act 2. The inner critic is basically your fear given voice. That fear  … Read more

If you’re looking for the perfect gift for the writers in your life, look no further! I’ve put together a list of some of my favorite gifts for writers to help get you started. 1. Freewrite Traveler All writers sometimes struggle with staying focused on getting those words written instead of scrolling through social media,  … Read more

Writing a book outline is hard. Writing a book in general is hard. Plotting a compelling character arc and figuring out what happens next is a challenge for any writer, professional and newbie alike! Fortunately, I’m here to make it WAY easier for you. This blog post features my tried and true 15 steps to  … Read more

Prologues! Prologues! Prologues! It seems like everywhere I turn these days, I’m being asked about prologues. Namely, how do prologues fit into the Save the Cat! Beat Sheet? And whenever I get asked the same STC-related question an uncanny amount of times it makes me A) Wish I could go back in time and write  … Read more