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Why Preparing a TED Talk Makes You a Better Memoirist (Even If You Never Intend to Get on Stage)

If you’re struggling to shape life experiences into a story, consider key points that illustrate a common thread, as if preparing a TED Talk.
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It Might Be Time for a Reality Check on Your Writing Goals

Goal-setting is much like the Alcoholic’s Prayer: accept what’s beyond our control, assess what we’re able to change, and know the difference.
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The Forgotten Element of Story: The Author

Embracing the You in your story can feel frightening, but it’s the best way to craft a novel that is truly unforgettable.
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Gray Space: Making Room for the Reader

When we let the reader fill in our intentionally left blanks, or “gray space”, we invite them inside our imaginary worlds.
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How to Figure Out Which Writing Advice Fits You Best

Like clothing, writing advice should be tried on to see if it fits you and your writing life. Here are five tips for assessing what works.
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Villain Logic: The Key to Solving Your Thriller’s Climax Block

When writing thriller, authors must understand our villain’s motivations, end goals, and progressive, logical actions toward that goal.
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Is Deep Third an Actual POV?

Used well, deep third can be one of the most intimate, engaging, revealing ways for readers to viscerally share your character’s world.
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How to Write a Nonfiction Book Chapter Without Tears

If you sit down to write and find that you can’t, the typical reason is that you don’t know what job the chapter is supposed to do.
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I Hired ChatGPT As My Writing Coach

Engaging with generative AI in a way that enriches human creativity, you can take your writing further than you might have on your own.
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10 Ways to Nurture a Young Writer

What do you do when a teen in your life is a diehard writer? When they won’t clean their room and just want to write stories or poems all day?
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3 Ways Writers Block Their Success (While Thinking They’re Hard at Work)

Working hard isn’t necessarily a virtue if it masks the ways that we might be sabotaging our own paths to success and fulfillment.
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When Your Characters Speak a Language Other Than English

No matter what language our characters are speaking, writers should strive to express dialogue and inner thoughts in a naturalistic way.
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How to Develop a Complex Protagonist

With these four elements you’ll be able to create a more compelling protagonist and, as a result, a more interesting story.
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Using ChatGPT for Book Research? Take Exceeding Care

Authors should consider using AI for historical research—not as a replacement for primary sources, but as just another useful tool.
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The Fascinating Neuroscience of Scene

According to neuroscience, scenes make the reader feel as if they are actually in the world of the story. And that makes scene the most memorable way to share information with the reader.
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Writer’s Block? Maybe You’re Writing in the Wrong Format

If your writing project has hit a wall, consider whether it really wants to be a different form than the one you’re trying to shape it into.
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The How, When and Why of Writing Autofiction

In this nexus of fact and fiction, writers can mine, select and transform their real life journeys, turning points and discoveries into story.
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Why Beta Readers Lead You to Getting Paid for Your Writing

Building up courage to own your identity as a writer starts when you realize you need to ask someone for an objective opinion on your work.
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Create Effective Dialogue by Asking the Right Questions

Asking yourself the right questions about why, when, how, and how much your characters speak will help you craft more powerful dialogue.
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Are You Giving Yourself Writing Credit?

One of the hard parts of working on a book is that day-to-day progress isn’t readily visible. Give yourself credit for all the small achievements.
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A Framework for Moving Beyond Your First Draft

Finished a first draft and unsure where to go next? Here’s a 5-point checklist of what the second draft revision process should accomplish.
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Banish Writer’s Block in 5 Minutes Flat

With a regular five-minute meditation you’ll become a master of focus, able to dismiss distractions before they even fully form as thoughts.
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5 Reasons to Write Your “Taboo” Stories

When we lean into stigmatized topics, we invite readers to wrestle with the same complexities we’re examining in ourselves.
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What Memoirists Can Learn from Historical Novelists

Writers of both genres have to make decisions that somehow mold real people and events into a story with a shape, an arc, and meaning.
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Writing About Native Americans: 7 Questions Answered

A Choctaw author offers tips on researching and connecting with First Americans in order to write respectfully and without stereotypes.
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Picking a Point of View for Your Story

Consider the benefits and limitations of each POV, along with the feel each might lend to your story and how well it fits the tone, tenor, and genre.
How to Write a Hybrid Memoir

How to Write a Hybrid Memoir

Bridging the gap between research and personal experience can become a book’s greatest strength—but it might require Herculean effort.
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How to Survive Editing

Having a gut-punch reaction to being edited is part of the cost of doing business for writers. Here’s advice on how to survive the process.
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How to Get Emotion on the Page: 2 Most Critical Tactics

To truly put your reader in the emotional position of your POV character, focus on conveying body language and internal narration.
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Always Read the Acknowledgments Page

Acknowledgment pages allow us to peer into authors’ lives, and reveal the fascinating web of the publishing world.
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How to Minimize Hurt Feelings When Writing Your Memoir

Memoirists can take steps throughout the writing and publishing process to minimize fallout and family strife.
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Create a Book Map for Your Nonfiction Book

A book map—a visual representation of your book’s structure—will help you maintain momentum and ensure a smooth journey for your reader.
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Backstory Is Essential to Story—Except When It’s Not

Focus on the main story’s forward momentum, and use backstory as the seasoning that makes the stew.
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The Biggest Mistake Even Expert Writers Make

Your audience won’t remember the chapter where your hero took a breather. What’s memorable are the forces of antagonism, and how your hero reacted.
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3 Critical Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Draft (or Revise!) a Novel

Before spending time on a story that doesn’t work, ensure you’ve addressed the critical questions of character, plot, goals and motivations.
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Build Your Writing Self-Efficacy

Here are four ways to help create the mindset that we can realistically accomplish something we’ve never tried before.
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An Argument for Setting Aside Arc in Story Development

It might not be essential to impose a standard arc structure on a character who’s non-traditional or isn’t affected by the story’s actions.
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The Necessity & Power of Sitting With Your Critiques

We writers know that critiques are an integral part of improving our work. But we rarely learn how to receive feedback or what to do after.
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Michael Lewis (Once Again) Tells the Biggest Story in Finance

Central to most of Michael Lewis’ works are larger-than-life characters who find themselves at the center of major industry or societal shifts.
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How to Get Back to Writing

When completing a readable draft left one author exhausted and overwhelmed, these three steps helped him start writing again.
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You Don’t Need a Platform If You Can Find an Audience

If your subject already has a large existing fandom, how can you quantify that audience, using the data to impress agents, publishers, and editors?
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Why Prologues Get a Bad Rap

A prologue can open the door to your story and entice the reader in, or throw up a barrier that delays or prevents their engagement.
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Write a Sympathetic Villain Your Readers Will Love to Hate

A great villain character should have complex motivations and be able to evoke sympathy from readers.
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How to Free Yourself from Endless Revision

The writers who get their books into the world are those who find a middle ground between refining their work and endlessly tinkering.
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3 Key Strategies for Effective Fiction—Derived from Neuroscience

Science says these three techniques can draw your readers in, keep them engaged, and provide them with a compelling experience.
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How to Write Your First Paragraph

You can mine the first paragraphs of well-written novels for four critical components that keep readers hooked.
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The Secret Sauce to Being a Good Writer

What makes a good writer? Relentless internal drive, a thick skin for editorial feedback, and reading voraciously across many genres.
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20 Reasons Why Everybody Should Write Short Stories

From appealing to short attention spans to offering no-fuss ways to play in another sandbox, short story writing has many benefits.
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What You Should Know About Writing a Co-Authored Book

Writing a book with multiple authors requires trust, vulnerability and patience. But done right, group writing has some surprising benefits.
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Writing Through the Impossible

When we’re dealt life-altering circumstances, how do we stay true to creative ambitions while finding a whole new way of existing?