Oftentimes, the hardest thing about writing something new is how to translate the composition from your head to the page. We might take notes in notebooks, scribbling ideas or pieces of dialogue for later use, but that doesn’t mean they always translate with ease. The hardest thing is the first jump, the start, and if … Continue reading Brick by Brick: How to Build a Scene from the Ground Up

If you’ve been around the writing community for any period of time or have been to a bookstore lately, you probably have a general understanding that Middle Grade (MG) protagonists are middle school age and Young Adult (YA) novels star teens. Right? Well, yes and no. Beyond the age of readers and main characters, there … Continue reading Analyzing the Differences between Middle Grade and Young Adult

I'll be honest, when I wrote TECHNICALLY, YOU STARTED IT I had only a vague idea of how to manage the pacing. I had the basics: a sense of time and story progression. I had a weak beginning and an ending too spread out to achieve the right emotional payoff. But those are normal pacing … Continue reading Epistolary Pacing

Atmosphere, by definition, is the pervading tone or mood of a place, situation, or work of art, and it includes so many different things when it comes to storytelling. Setting, character development, plot movement, reader senses—you see where I’m going with this. We use atmosphere as a motivator or a catalyst, as a way to … Continue reading Atmospheric Pacing

My biggest love is for so-called “quiet” books. Books where the narrative is close-set, intimate and intensely personal. Give me all of the small casts, small stakes, and contained settings. But when it comes to pacing, how do we keep a reader engaged in a story that doesn’t have immediately evident hooks? There’s no explosions, … Continue reading The (Quiet) Hero’s Journey

Recently there was a question floating around on twitter—what’s a subject you could talk about for 30 minutes straight with no prep? For me, story structure is at the top of that list. And while I might not have a full half-hour to ramble, let’s see what I can do with a 2,000 word blog … Continue reading The 3 Act 9 Block 27 Chapter Method

Today I’m going to discuss something which strikes fear in the hearts of many a writer: structure! Structure is a very scary thing to both think about and revise. Identifying your novel’s structure and deciding what to revise is always the hardest part of revision for me. This is because I’m a panster and rarely … Continue reading Identifying Structure in Your Novel

Think about how a friend told you a story about the last time they were late. They picked the important moments that established a cause and effect that led to them standing you up. ‘First I spilled coffee on the floor. I had to go to the store to buy more carpet cleaner. But it … Continue reading Story Structure Overview

Imagine your favorite movie with nothing but the characters in front of a white screen. No background, no objects, nothing. Without the world around them you lose the illusion of being swept away. Similarly, in writing, your world gives your story and characters the depth to entrance your reader. The way you build your world … Continue reading Organic Worldbuilding

“Oh my god, I’ve been shot.” “Holy shit.” “Saints, that was close.” Sounds familiar, right? There’s a ton of books out there that have instances like this: where a character gets wounded or sees/hears something bad and they do a swear. And the first thing when I come across these instances I’m like. “Wait a … Continue reading Papa Do Preach: Worldbuilding a religion