Julie Glover The hardboiled detective, the spoiled princess, the bad boy with a heart of gold, the diamond-in-the-rough heroine—surely, these sound familiar. We’ve read them, and we may have written them. Call them tropes or archetypes, but they’re recognizable characters who can easily fall flat on the page. And flat characters are about as appealing […]

 Colleen M. Story You’ve heard the advice “write every day.” It good advice, especially if you’re serious about having a long-term writing career. But what if you’re doing it—you’re showing up—but you’re not happy with the results? Maybe you’ve suffered some of the symptoms: If you’ve experienced any of these, don’t despair. The solution is […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine Into Gold I am a writer. For ten years, as a dance critic, I failed to own the power of these words. For me writing was a guilty pleasure, like eating potato chips, only I could make a little money while doing it. But then I had a visit from my […]

Kate Moretti In July I wrote a guest post about finding your manuscript's hook. The post was geared toward writers of all genres, with the tenet that even character studies can find a central conflict and thus construct an opening hook. The same is true for writing with tension. Many people think that writing a […]

Margie Lawson Thank you for inviting me to guest blog again this month. I love being on WITS! Want more superpowers in your WIP? Most writers use just a few rhetorical devices. These are the most frequently used: simile, metaphor, alliteration, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, and the occasional rhetorical question. How many rhetorical devices are in your writing […]