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

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

Writers are typically categorized into two camps: plotting and pantsing. And never the twain shall meet. These two categories have been around as long as I’ve been in the industry (over fifteen years now), and they’re talked about in countless books about writing and publishing as the two primary methods used to craft a book....Read More

This is part one of a three-part series I’m doing over the next three weeks where I talk about book taglines, book blurbs, and marketing hooks for authors. I know marketing is about as exciting as watching paint dry for a lot of authors–either that or they feel like it’s going to bite them–but I...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

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

Being an author also means you need to maintain that public-facing image. Which means marketing, acting appropriately in your public spaces, sharing parts of your life with the world (not all of it, but some), and so on. You are an author, not just a private citizen.Read More