May 6, 2024
Timelines establish the sequence or schedule for your story. Everything on them should be necessary to the world or your characters and must be done in a precise order so that what you create makes sense in story form.
March 6, 2024
Take the advice for protecting your voice during illness seriously. Use the suggestions as you perform with your instrument as if they were gospel. Welcome the sometimes-gross descriptions of your inner workings so you can better know how to use, protect, and save those vocal cords.
March 2, 2024
This year, we thought we'd try a series of content for writers in visual format: writing prompts in images. Being a huge music nerd who's reviving her love of performance, I thought I'd start with music story prompts. It may be a bit niche but you never know what these images could spark for your writing exercises or even those novels you've been puttering your way through. Enjoy!
February 18, 2024
Story setting is more than just the physical stuff. It’s the mood and culture, period and genre, and many other things all wrapped into one. But it’s worth parsing out to find the sticky spots in your work that need more detail.
November 18, 2023
Your characters are worldbuilding tools, but they are also much more. Use them correctly, interact with them as if they were real, and you’ll see them come to life. They’ll become the guides to your storyline and world.
October 26, 2023
Your map represents the world your characters live in. It might be as small as a doll’s house or as large as a multi-galaxy supercluster, and that’s fine…provided you can keep it all straight.
October 5, 2023
Maps don’t have to be hard. They certainly don’t have to be impossible. They just need a little creativity of a different sort.
July 16, 2023
The story is only a part of the story. It only thrives if the world built under it can stand in the face of your readers’ scrutiny.
July 11, 2023
One of the standards I have run across many times myself as a writer and journalist has been that of punishing writers for speaking their minds and expressing their voices. I can think of many times a professor, a fellow journalist, or writer’s club member has mentioned being suppressed at the hands of their editor(s). The editor holds all the power.
December 8, 2021
Writing a character biography can be one of the most helpful things to do when writing a book. In fact, those character bios about your primary and secondary characters may very well be the best tool for creating the perfect twists and turns for your plot to keep your readers engag
November 30, 2021
You've done it. You've pushed and pushed, writing thousands of words each week, making it to this day - November 30, 2021. You've written like mad, and today, as you enter that last update, you'll taste that sweet victory of winning NaNoWriMo.
November 29, 2021
Whether you're into city living, country living, or that in-between suburbanite, landscape is a huge part of writing. Not only is it critical for helping our readers establish physical aspects of our writing universes, but the landscape can be an inspiration for storytelling.