A Call to Action: Your Story’s Inciting Incident
Every story has to start somewhere. You can start with your protagonist waking up in the morning or looking at themselves in the mirror...
Jonathan Franzen: “The Novel Can Change Things”
During an interview with the Open Source podcast, Jonathan Franzen talks about the importance of writing about big ideas.
"I had this idea that the...
Blending Facts and Imagination in Historical Fiction
Writers who use historical settings or real-life characters in their work must walk a fine line between hewing too closely to biography and veering...
Marguerite Duras on Finding Stories Everywhere
In an excerpt from her book, Writing, acclaimed novelist Marguerite Duras shared how watching the death of a common housefly taught her that stories...
The Three R’s of Editing
Unless you're a rare genius or a sloppy typist who publishes your latest novel on Amazon the weekend after you finish writing it, you...
Human Connection is in the Details
An article on BookBaby suggests a deceptively simple method for making emotional connections with your readers: using evocative details and engaging their senses in...
M.I.C.E. Quotient, After the Fact
In their eighth and final episode discussing the M.I.C.E. quotient, the Writing Excuses hosts explore using M.I.C.E. as a diagnostic tool. For example, if...
Use Dialogue to Convey Subtext
Subtext is easier to spot in visual storytelling. It's body language and facial expression. It's the way an actor's voice catches when they speak...
How to Research Your Book
This editor hasn't done any serious literary research since college (Wiki-holes don't count). But, those old term paper skills do come in handy when...
“That’s Not Writing, That’s Typing.”
Word count goals. NaNoWriMo. Writing sprints. Everywhere you turn, writers are told to ignore their inner editor, shut the thesaurus, tune out the world,...
