All right, so when writing one of the main goals is to draw the reader through the piece. This is done any number of ways with story and characters and plot, but that’s not what we are here to talk about. Instead, today, I’m going to forge into straight up writing craft specifics that are...Read More

Okay, so last week we talked about tension. How to use it, what it is, and how I define it. Now that we’ve gone through that, let’s talk about this new method of story crafting I created accidentally for the conference while planning my talk on story structure. Yes, I did plan it late at...Read More

I don't identify tension as the stakes of a story. The stakes are the stakes. They can be high or low. That's sort of dependent on the story itself and its ins and outs. But tension is more akin to potential energy.Read More

Hey, friends! I’m sorry this blog has been quiet the last few weeks. The holidays have been catching up to me, and I’ve been really busy planning the writing conference I’m putting on with some friends of mine. More on that at the end, though. Let’s get into the reason you clicked the header, shall...Read More

As we hit the middle of NaNoWriMo, many of you are shooting for your 1,667 – 2,000 words per day and trying to meet your deadlines. Fear of falling behind and the constant, looming sense that you aren’t writing fast enough dogs many writers at this point in the process, and I want to step...Read More

I am slowly starting to get back into the swing of things after my surgery and am finally beginning to have enough brain that I can think. Since I’m doing a talk on this subject for my Discord writing group this week, I figured I’d revisit the Beat Sheet and story structure. I’ve done several...Read More

Author voice is a concept that is far too often mistaken for other things, so I want to start by defining what voice isn’t. I start there because the majority of times I’ve ever dealt with an issue regarding author voice are situations where an author develops a mistaken idea of what their voice includes....Read More

This blog is focused around the ever-looming and ever-stressful writer’s block. There are people who don’t believe it’s real, but whether you call it writer’s block or just a feeling of being stuck somewhere, we have all experienced the inability to make the creativity happen. Below, we’ll get into some of the ways we can...Read More

I’m working on a class about this, so that’s forthcoming, but I’ve been spending a lot of time lately thinking about and discussing what, exactly, this means. It is, in my opinion, vitally important (as you might have guessed by the fact that I’m creating a class about it). So what, exactly, do I mean...Read More

First, before all else, I want to share the announcement that my novel, “Fallen” is up for pre-order on Amazon. I could not be more excited, to be honest. After a decade on the publishing side of the writing world, I am finally entering it as an author. I’ve put out a bunch of short...Read More