Lisa Hall Wilson                 Deep point of view is a great writing technique when used well, but if you’re not careful, deep POV will bloat your word count and tie an anchor to the pace of your story. Pace Must Be Strategic I’ve met very few bestselling authors […]

Christina Delay A couple of weeks ago, I filmed a video interview with my six-year-old daughter on one of the elements of creativity: play. She’s kind of an expert on play. Most kids are, but she had some really fantastic and insightful points about how adults need to relearn how to play. You can watch […]

Orly Konig There are certain words that make most writers break into a cold sweat. “Synopsis” is one of them. Until recently, the thought of writing a synopsis would send me into fits of, “screw this, I’m going to become a unicorn farmer.” After all, I’m a pantser, I can’t possibly write about a story […]

Tracy Brody   I was a contest addict. Or, if you’d prefer, a contest whore. Either way, I’ve had a lot of experience with writing contests. I’m not entirely reformed, but I’m going to share a little about my feelings on the pros, some cons, and why I think you should consider using contests to […]

Lori Freeland There are lots of different ways to start sketching in the empty page of a new scene. Dialogue. Setting. Action. Internal thought. But for me, the easiest way to get words on the page is to use dialogue—what I want my characters to say to each other—as the blueprint of my scene.   […]