Helping Writers Become Authors

The problem of overthinking your writing is really part of the larger challenge of learning how to live a truly creative lifestyle.

Scene sequences bring together a series of individual scenes into a distinct narrative section, united by focus, location, and/or theme.

Growing as a writer is not merely about mastering a skill, but also, and more pertinently, about our growth as human beings.

An overview of chiastic story structure itself, along with four tips to employ this technique over the longer work of an entire series.

How can you keep your pacing tight and the story interesting over the long haul of the Second Act? The simplest answer: Mind the Midpoint.

Learn to identify and leverage several important story structure similarities between your story's Pinch Points.

Deepen your understanding of story structure by examining the parallel functions of the First Plot Point and the Third Plot Point.

You can think of the link between your story's Hook and Resolution in four different ways. Ask these questions to help in brainstorming.

Structurally speaking, the Inciting Event initiates the story's conflict, while the Climactic Moment fully resolves it.

Once you've decided in favor of the indie route, what are the actual steps to self-publish your book? Use this actionable list.

Your antagonist's motivations can make or break your story. If they are weak, unconvincing, or complicated, your story suffers in key areas.

Once you understand why you are afraid to let anyone read your writing, you can come up with a successful plan to mitigate the fears.

Your story instincts and your ability to tap into them clearly will define how much "talent" you may have as a writer.

Learning how to write sequel scenes is a specialized technique that will allow you to grip readers' attention on every page.

Want to help writers during the pandemic? Here are five ideas--along with giveaways to help you get started in bolstering the writing community.

The more lightly we grab hold of certain misconceptions about being a writer, the more easily we can discard them when they're no longer of use to us.

Whether you're outlining or editing, here are four questions you can ask to help identify, rectify, or prevent plot holes.

Sooner or later, procrastination is stumbling block for most of us. As an INTJ, here are my top four tips for how to get stuff done as a writer.

Writing looks a little different in every stage of a writer's life. Here's a look at the way your age affects your writing in the Three Acts of your life.

How to better understand the four cognitive functions as a writer by consciously developing them--Intuition, Sensing, Thinking, and Feeling.

To help you improve your writing and storytelling, here are eleven exercises you can use to consciously access your visual thinking and creativity.

Have questions about editing your novel? The best way to find good answers is to ask good questions. Here are eight excellent questions about editing.

Controlling and cutting down on distraction is the first step in reclaiming our full creative capacity. Here are 13 tips to get started!

In order to grab readers, you'll need to consider several specific types of hooks for your opening chapter. You may want to use one--or all of them.

If you find you don't feel like writing right now, here's a list of 15 important writing tasks you may be more in the mood for.

The more you learn to listen to the self that appears on the page, the more writing improves your relationship with yourself in an ever-deepening journey.

Sometimes the hardest part of getting some writing done is just... doing it. Here are 10 tips for cultivating discipline and renewing enthusiasm.

Writing and stories have the power to help all of us--but especially writers. Here are seven ways writing can help us keep going in times of uncertainty.

If you're writing from home (or honestly, trying to accomplish just about anything from home), here are eight tips for maximizing your daily routine.

Want to put something good into the world right now? Here are five ways the power of hopeful stories can create change in a positive way.

Knowing your story's ending will help you know the right answer to almost any POV question. Let's look at 5 questions about using multiple POVs.

Your goal in introducing characters should be to do so with the least amount of info possible while still making the characters memorable. Here's how!

When creativity becomes a servant of the ego, rather than the other way around--we can get confused about what we're doing and why.

Here are fourteen professional writing resources to help with all parts of authorpreneurship: writing, editing, blogging/podcasting, book formatting, marketing.

Learn how to be critical of stories in a way that turns the potential for negativity into a positive force that drives your own creativity.

Of all the many aspects of scene structure, scene dilemmas are among the most powerful but also the most overlooked. Here are six steps to acing yours.