Colleen Story  Does using social media make us depressed? Scientists seem to think so, which is a little…well, depressing. Writers (and other creatives) are encouraged to use social media, after all, for marketing purposes. Many of us might have even stayed away completely if not for the gentle nudgings of our editors, agents, writer friends, […]

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."  E.L. Doctorow Y'all know I have process envy, right? I think most of us do. I always thought I'd be a plotter. I loved outlines so much that […]

Laurie Schnebly Campbell What does braiding a book mean? Off the top of my head, that seems like an easy question. Since a braid has three parts, a braided book has -- hmm. Goal / motivation / conflict. A hero / heroine / villain. Emotions / actions / thoughts. Description / dialogue / narrative. A […]

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy A lot of focus gets put on the core conflict of a novel--the main problem the protagonist has to solve to win. It's no wonder since that's the whole point of the book, but sometimes, when we look too hard at the external problems, we miss out on opportunities to let the […]

Margie Lawson When people talk, subtext happens. Every time. You can’t say one word without sharing subtext. Subtext for dialogue: The psychological message behind the words. When the words and the subtext are incongruent, the truth is in the subtext. In the real world, we factor in subtext all the time. On the page, we […]