Ellen Buikema offers seven "rules of the YA road" and examples of YA fiction in nine different genres. Most important of all: be sure your characters achieve maximum growth.

by Julie Glover When my husband read the first draft of the first novel I ever wrote, he asked about my protagonist, “Is this you?” That’s hardly the only time that question has come up. How much of our real lives and personalities go into the characters and world we writers create? Our readers, including […]

Writers are masters of hunting down and purging the extraneous from our novels. It hurts to "kill our darlings." But isn’t that the perfect metaphor for our writing? Let go to love more.

Participating in the NaNoWriMo challenge changed my approach to writing. I found a way to push aside self-doubt and my inner editor to win the challenge.

Barbara Linn Probst examines the importance of thinking like a reader and offers tips and perspectives for improving the readers' experience.