Unsolicited advice from your local opinionated writer.
Happy Halloween — and more importantly, happy Nanowrimo Eve! With the very best month of the year just hours away, the anxiety is setting in for many. What, you may wonder, in the name of all that is good, were you thinking signing up for this thing? Worse still, all anyone will tell you is… Continue reading Nanowrimo advice that will actually help you win
Playlists are the secret sauce of both productivity and time-wasting when it comes to most people’s writing process. The right background music can drop you effortlessly into the world of your novel, and before you know it, the words just come flying out. Creating a writing playlist, on the other hand, can be a happy… Continue reading How to curate the perfect writing playlist
Ah, the first draft. The first step on the long staircase to publication, held together with the writing equivalent of duct tape and prayers. If you squint, it looks like a novel, but it’s never quite what you thought it would be, is it? It’s almost Nanowrimo time, meaning that millions of people about to… Continue reading Everything you need to know about first drafts
Do you ever start something and then kind of forget you were doing it and accidentally abandon it for months? Me too. Welcome back to my writing blog (she said to herself, shaking her head in disappointment). As it happens, I haven’t only been taking an extended break from blogging, but also from writing itself.… Continue reading How to get the most out of writing prompts
Despite having taken every single literature class I had the opportunity to take throughout high school, I was well into college before I ever heard the term “diegesis.” I can only assume this is because my high school teachers were afraid of having to explain it. I completely sympathize with this. It’s a great word… Continue reading Diegesis: breaking down the most confusing term in literature
I was perusing the Nanowrimo forums the other day and I stumbled across something absolutely magical. It’s a thread called “Find a Beta Reader, Become a Beta Reader” (it’s under the Novel Draft Aftercare and Critiques & Feedback categories if you’re looking for it). On it, users are posting calls for beta readers, as well… Continue reading Writer, you need an alpha reader
People have really strong opinions about tense. I know this because I write mostly in the present tense, which means I get to experience the full force of people ranting about how awful present tense is. I, as you might gather, respectfully disagree. I also think people get tense wrong more broadly – what it’s… Continue reading Present tense? Past tense? Here’s how to choose!
One of the most common things to hear from new writers seeking help with their work is, “My story doesn’t make sense.” Everybody has this problem at some point. Sometimes the concern rises from vague feedback. Other times, it’s a feeling you have – a strange, intuitive sense that something is just off. Sometimes the… Continue reading What to do when your story doesn’t make sense
Editing sucks. I’m in the middle of it right now, and I can tell you, 80,000 words looked a whole lot smaller before it was already on the page. And how do you even know what needs to change? It’s your baby – you think it’s perfect. And on top of everything, editing is boring.… Continue reading Why you should stop editing and start rewriting
Writers, bookworms, and critics alike love to talk about “three-dimensional characters” – how great it is when stories have them, what a horrid mortal sin it is when they don’t, blah blah blah. But it occurred to me recently that no one – literally no one in my 25 years on God’s green Earth –… Continue reading What are three-dimensional characters, anyway?