5 Steps to Writing Better How-To
Learn how to simplify the writing process for how-to books and write them in a way that provides maximum value in an information-filled world.
Category Archives: Writing Advice
Nonfiction Writers: Beware the Curse of Knowledge
Few of your readers care about what you know, no matter how many years you have spent accumulating that wisdom. They care about what they need or want to understand.
Fix Your Story By Focusing on Place
For beginning fiction writers, focusing on place is one of the easiest ways to improve stories that aren’t quite working.
How to Skillfully Use Subplots in Your Novel
Subplots help you pace your story and keep the tension rising. Unfortunately, the name “subplots” wrongly suggests they are somehow inferior or substandard.
How to Evaluate Small Publishers—Plus Digital-Only Presses and Hybrids
As the publishing industry has transformed in the digital age, small press activity has proliferated. Here’s how authors can evaluate their offerings.
What Does It Mean to Write a Scene That Works?
On the whole, stories are about change. And scenes are a boiled down, less intense, mini-story. They should do the same thing your global story does: upset the life value of the character and put them on a path to try and restore it.
What It Really Takes to Break Through with Your First Book Deal
In many ways, it’s never been harder to get a traditional book deal. At the same time, there have never been more ways to establish a career as an author.
There Are Only 2 Types of Stories—and Why That Matters
Why should you care that there are only two story types? It actually matters. Like a chef, knowing what defines the concoction you’re about to create will help you figure out how to make it work. And how to stop it from failing.
How to Write Memoir So They Don’t Read It, They Live It
If your readers are going to put themselves in your skin and live your experiences, you need to be hyper-conscious of what those experiences looked, felt and sounded like before you write them.
Hedge Words and Inflation Words: Prune Them From Your Writing
I’d like to highlight two common writing flaws that clutter the manuscripts of many aspiring authors. I call these culprits “hedge words” and “inflation words.”
Can You (Should You) Typeset Your Own Book?
If people judge books by their covers, then typesetting is the difference between a brief or a lasting impression. The cover may grab a reader’s eye, but what the reader sees when they crack open the book is what will hold their attention.
The Secret of Great Memoir: The Mature Self
Memoirists have to write their story, the events of their life, from a future perspective. From NOW. Now brings with it maturity, wisdom, insight, and grace. The mature self speaks from a place of distance but not detachment.
How to Find a Literary Agent for Your Book
A step-by-step guide to finding literary agents, plus how to select the right agent for you and your work.
Why Pursue Traditional Publishing? (Are There Enough Good Reasons?)
What’s the overriding reason for an author to find an agent and a traditional publishing deal? Is it possible that the reasons may be flawed?
The Conflicting Advice You’ll Receive on Query Letters
At its core, a query letter is a sales document, and so it’s meant to sell. But opinions differ on the best possible sales approach in a query.
Don’t Back Down: Choose the Writing Territory You Can Defend Long and Fiercely
Many people want to be rock stars—and many people want to write books. But there are many ways in which a writing dream can crash and burn. One way is to be unclear about what you want with what you are ready to do.
4 Key Ways to Launch a Scene
Each scene in your book requires a beginning, middle, and end. Here are four paths to launching your scene—plus the questions you should ask about each one.
Using Dysfunctional Behavior to Reveal Characters’ Emotional Wounds
Giving characters painful backstory makes them feel credible to readers. But when it comes to describing what happened, many writers jump headfirst into an info dump, hoping a summary will create a shortcut to empathy and “catch readers up.” Unfortunately, this can have the opposite effect.
What Authors Need to Know About Crowdfunding Their Book: A Case Study by the Numbers
Any author can successfully launch their book through crowdfunding if they are willing to put in the effort. However, it may not be the right path for everyone.
How Fiction Writing Influences Real-Life Relationships
Fiction writing, while not closely associated with affecting one’s real-life relationships, can indeed have that power and develop one’s empathy.
What Do Young Adults Want to Read? Let My Students Tell You
Four lessons for YA: Make it real, get rid of parental oversight, feature topics making the headlines, and include hope.
When You Shouldn’t Hire and Pay For a Professional Editor
There are many good reasons to hire a professional editor, but also a number of compelling reasons to hold off and save your money.
Secrets to Developing the Best Title for Your Nonfiction Book
If you’re pitching your book to agents or editors, the perfect title for your book will define your subject and grab their positive attention. It should be a label they can confidently share with colleagues in editorial board meetings and use to convince the powers-that-be to release money to acquire your book.
Writing Secondary Characters That Pop—And Sell More Books
Series have become extremely popular, and secondary characters are now in the spotlight. Readers enjoy trying to spot the next potential hero or heroine.
Emotional Etiquette for the Writer Seeking an Agent
Sometimes guidelines for writers discourage perfectly private, internal envy, anger, indignation, etc., directed toward other writers, or toward agents (or publishers) rejecting work. But that hardly seems realistic, nor is it fair to ask humans to stop being human.
The Challenges of First-Person POV
There’s no quicker way to intimacy with a lead character than first-person point of view (POV). But numerous challenges also come with this POV. One of these is the natural limitation of being stuck in one perspective throughout the story.
How to Turn a Microsoft Word Document Into an Ebook (EPUB)
Word doesn’t export to EPUB, but you can still produce an editable file quickly, without buying software or using a “meatgrinder” conversion.
How to Pitch Agents at a Writers Conference
Pitching agents at a writers conference can be a difficult task for the new writer. Here’s how to make it a little easier on yourself.
How Do You Respond to Criticism of Your Work? 6 Patterns to Recognize
Are you getting the most from professional feedback, or are you inadvertently sabotaging your progress? Look for these patterns in your response.
Start Here: How to Self-Publish Your Book
This is an introductory guide to the major self-publishing options available to authors today, and how to choose the right service for you.
Start Here: How to Get Your Book Published
If you want to publish your book, here are the steps you should follow to assess your work’s potential, then research and pitch editors and agents.
How to Immediately Improve Your Query Letter’s Effectiveness
In my many years of critiquing queries, I see the same weaknesses again and again. Here are the biggest issues that afflict novel queries and how you can fix them.
The Perfect Cover Letter: Advice From a Lit Mag Editor
When submitting your short form literature to a magazine or journal, your cover letter is often the first impression an editor sees. It serves as an introduction to your thoughtfully crafted art. As such, it is significant, but it shouldn’t be intimidating or even take much of your time to write.
Why Your Memoir Won’t Sell
Everyone has a meaningful story to tell, but not everyone’s story (or writing) is going to deserve a commercial publishing deal. Here are the most common problems I encounter in memoir pitches and manuscripts.
5 Research Steps Before You Write Your Book Proposal
Writing a nonfiction book proposal—a good one—requires not only sharp clarity about your idea, but also how that idea, in book form, is relevant and unique in today’s market. You’ll have a much easier time writing your proposal if you take time to conduct market research beforehand.
Start Here: How to Write a Book Proposal
Everything you need to know to start writing a book proposal for your nonfiction book.
How Much Should You Personalize a Query Letter?
Some agents and editors say that personalizing a query letter can backfire. Others say the opposite—that it’s mandatory. What should you do?
The Author’s Path: The Journey to Publication
A detailed look at how NetGalley’s Stuart Evers and Myfanwy Collins went from manuscript to publication, with marketing and PR advice.
How to Spot Toxic Feedback: 7 Signs That the Writing Advice You’re Getting May Do More Harm Than Good
If you recognize the following characteristics in the critiques of your work, it may not just be inept—it may, in fact, be toxic.
Classic Story Structures and What They Teach Us About Novel Plotting
Turns out there is only one universal rule of plot, and it goes back to what Joseph Campbell uncovered: every single story worth telling is about transformation via trials.
Pantser or Plotter? Deciding Which Can Save Your Writing Life
Half of writers are plotters, and the other half are pantsers. One is not the right way or the wrong way; there is only the way that works best for you.
4 Methods for Developing Any Idea Into a Great Story
How do great authors develop stunning narratives, break from tradition, and advance the form of their fiction? They take whatever basic ideas they’ve got, then move them away from the typical.
5 Commonly Confused Words Starting With A
Learn the difference between all ready/already, altogether/all together, all right/alright, any time/anytime, anyway/any way.
The Most Common Entry-Level Mistake in the Writing Game
By far the most common entry-level mistake in the writing game, the thing that can get a perfectly good story rejected by an editor on the first page, is overwriting.
The Importance of a Strong Opening Scene
No pressure, but the opening of your book is the gatekeeper in determining whether your novel will sell. If your opening is weak, it won’t matter if chapter two is a masterpiece. Editors and agents and booksellers and librarians and readers will stop reading before they get there.
4 Freelancing Myths That Are Holding You Back
Misconceptions about getting started often hold new writers back. You may think that to be successful as a freelance writer, you need a J-school degree, an impressive database of editorial contacts, and a truckload of supplies. Not so—read on to learn the most common myths that can sabotage you before you start.
How to Write Your Memoir with Fun, Easy Lists
You need to write a memoir—except the mere thought floods you with anxiety. You’ve got decades of memories; where would you even start? Lists to the rescue!
How to Get Violence Right in Your Fiction
For new writers, throwing in a few combat scenes can seem like an easy way to add some excitement to a novel, but the reality is that violence can be incredibly difficult to pull off effectively.
How to Produce an Emotional Response in Readers: Inner Mode, Outer Mode, and Other Mode
All three paths to producing emotional responses in readers are valid, but all three have pitfalls and can fail to work. To successfully use each, it’s necessary to understand why each is effective when it is.
How to Land an Agent for a Self-Published Book
If you’ve given up on the self-publishing route and want to try traditional publishing, then there are several approaches you can take to interest agents.