Jamie Raintree What do you imagine the most productive writing life to look like? The most creative? The most dedicated? Do you imagine it, like I often do, to look like a cabin hidden away in the woods with no wi-fi and food that appears with the snap of your fingers? Do you imagine a […]

June Stevens Westerfield What is an author brand?  Some say it’s the genre you write.  But it’s really not, at least not entirely.  Your brand is what makes you recognizable to readers.  In short, your name is your brand. If you are a romance reader and someone says “Hey, I’m reading the new Nora book,” […]

Angela Ackerman Are you afraid of using the weather in your writing? If so, you're not alone. After all, if not careful, weather description can be a minefield of clichés. The sunny, cloudless afternoon at the beach. The gloomy rainstorm at a funeral. Overdone setting and weather pairings can lie flat on the page. Then […]

"Disneyland! That's the answer." (Fiction 101 -- Drop your reader into the action immediately.) My wife and I went to Disneyland recently. The trip was fun, of course, but it was also a revelation. Suddenly, Nancy turned to me and said, "The essay you are working on for Writers in the Storm! This is it! […]

 Piper Bayard A character arc in fiction, as in life, is the path by which a character transcends his deepest fear to achieve greatness. Without this evolution, the reader has no reason to travel with that character through the story.     To create this character arc, we must know our character’s greatest fear. According […]