Category Archives: Guest Post

As an author, it’s good to be a big fish in a small pond—but you’ll benefit even more if your pond is connected to a larger system.

Use of a big word can be beautiful, as long as it meets two criteria: it must be the right word and the best word.

Emotional truth is the lens that allows us to see ourselves in a story, resulting in a heartfelt connection in a fictional narrative.

If your middle’s lost momentum, check to see if your plot, characters, stakes and suspense consistently propel readers along the story arc.

Publication is elusive and in many ways out of your hands, but feeling seen is something that writers can offer each other right now.

Let go of description, extra words, and clever exposition. What’s left is a tightly crafted nugget of concentrated gold—flash fiction.

Authoring a memoir, the gift of hindsight allows you to invest moments with deeper meaning than they may have had at the time.

Like pruning the extra sprouts out of a garden, sharper and tighter prose makes the details you keep stand out.

The field is saturated, so many people wanting to tell their interesting stories. You wonder: Am I a good enough writer to keep doing this?

A daily practice can only succeed if we’re 100% honest about our doubts and weaknesses, because one area of denial can scuttle the ship.

Writing can be a lonely process, and it’s easy to feel stuck. Editors and coaches can help identify the common problems—and their solutions.

Experienced editors look for a story so engrossing the reader forgets that he’s reading—story in which the author’s voice seems not to exist.

To gauge your manuscript’s pitch-readiness, turn a critical eye to the query letter, synopsis, and first fifty pages.

Writing memoir won’t fix what’s wrong. But writing what you know will give you the kind of insight that begets a better sense of control in uncertain times.

Whether grappling with believable world-building or adherence to historical accuracy, these six tips will help you navigate this daunting genre.

Why sweat the commas? To save your reader from working to decode syntax-level meaning, enabling full focus on your protagonist, your plot, and your prose.

In this Q&A, agents Stefanie Sanchez Von Borstel and Leslie Zampetti tackle the complications of authorship and literary citizenship in the pandemic age.

If the idea of facing a blank page gives you the sudden urge to do chores, the problem might be that you’re trying to write in a way that doesn’t suit you.

Writing about the people you are closest to can be one of the most rewarding experiences a writer can have—but also the scariest.

Unless a metaphor spontaneously suggests itself from your creative, subconscious mind, it’s probably forced and phony-sounding—and far from “literary”.

A goal 10 times bigger than what feels achievable is a psychological kick in the pants that gives you the motivation to achieve liftoff and sustain effort.

The science suggests that repetition can make a new practice reach the “second nature” part of your brain sooner, creating a habit that’s hard to break.

Employing the science of captivating rewards is one way to keep yourself excited about and engaged with a big writing project, all the way to The End.