Photo by Mathieu Stern on Unsplash Today’s post is by writer and editor Lisa Cooper Ellison. Join her on Wednesday, June 19, for the online class The Psychology of Character Development for Memoirists. In a previous career, I worked as an inner-city special education teacher. Many of my students were trauma survivors who’d experienced...

Photo by Yi Liu on Unsplash Today’s post is by Andrew Noakes, founder of The Niche Reader. You’ve assembled your team of excellent beta readers, you’ve convinced them that yes this manuscript is your precious creation, years in the making, but no you will not have a complete meltdown if they don’t enjoy every single aspect, and...

Photo by Zdeněk Macháček on Unsplash Today’s post is excerpted from Breathe. Write. Breathe.: 18 Energizing Practices to Spark Your Writing and Free Your Voice by Lisa Tener. When my husband Tom and I began dating, he took me to his mom’s house one weekend and invited a couple he knew. As the four of us walked down the road, I...

Today’s post is by author and book coach Janet S Fox. Let me just start with: I do not condemn “telling.” There’s a place for it in every story, and that’s mainly in the interstices between scenes. But there’s a reason we must show things when we are in scene and not tell: readers attach to clear actions and emotions. And...

Today’s post is by author Ginny Kubitz Moyer. Over the course of my life, I have chosen names for two real human beings and approximately 200 fictional ones. The processes are surprisingly similar. Both involve a blend of logic and intuition, and both feel like deeply consequential decisions. Of course, it’s fair to say...

Today’s post is by regular contributor Susan DeFreitas (@manzanitafire), an award-winning author, editor, and book coach.  One newspaperman, Red Smith, is credited with saying, “Writing is easy. You just sit at your typewriter until little drops of blood appear on your forehead.” When Dorothy Parker was asked if she enjoyed...