Writers in the Storm

By Jenn Windrow

When December rolls in, many of us find ourselves standing in front of a tree, ready to transform it from an ordinary object into something warm, bright, and full of meaning. It’s a small act of yearly magic, and, surprisingly, it mirrors one of the most transformative processes in writing.

Developmental editing.

Much like decorating a holiday tree, shaping a manuscript is not about adding more and more until the branches bow under the weight. It’s about choosing intentionally, trimming thoughtfully, and arranging elements so the whole structure feels harmonious and complete. If you’ve ever wondered whether your draft needs a festive “trim,” this season offers the perfect metaphor.

1. Start With the Structure: The Tree Trunk and Branches

Every beautiful tree begins with a solid structure. Before ornaments, tinsel, or lights come into play, the first question is simple: Is the tree stable? In developmental editing, this is your plot and narrative framework.

Ask yourself:

Are the major story beats in place?
Do the branches (subplots, supporting arcs) extend naturally from the trunk (central conflict)?
Does the overall shape convey symmetry, intention, and direction?

If the answer is “not quite,” resist the urge to decorate prematurely. No amount of glittery prose or clever dialogue can compensate for a wobbly trunk or lopsided shape. Straighten what leans. Reinforce what weakens. Remove the branches that are redundant, unhealthy, or distracting. A strong narrative structure, like a sturdy tree sets the tone for everything that comes next.

2. Trim the Excess: Clearing Cluttered Branches

Real trees often grow unevenly. Some branches jut out too far; others crowd together so tightly they obscure the natural shape. Manuscripts, too, accumulate clutter—scenes that don’t move the story forward, subplots that go nowhere, characters who don’t serve a function, and exposition that spools endlessly.

Clutter happens to every writer. But revision is the season of intentional trimming.

Ask yourself:

• Does this scene reveal character, advance plot, or deepen theme?
• Is this subplot meaningfully connected to the main arc?
• Would the story lose anything if this character disappeared?
• Is this passage explaining something the reader already senses?

If you hesitate, the branch probably needs trimming.

Remember: trimming doesn’t diminish your story. It reveals it. Just as cutting away dense, unnecessary branches uncovers the natural beauty of a tree, removing narrative clutter allows your core story to breathe. Your draft becomes clearer, sharper, and easier for readers to navigate.

3. Add Light with Tension and Pacing

Once the excess is gone, it’s time to string the lights. Those glowing lines of energy that guide the eye and create warmth. In a manuscript, these lights take the form of tension and pacing.

Lights don’t simply wrap a tree; they guide a rhythm, creating bright spots and soft shadows. In the same way, tension should ebb and flow through your narrative, offering contrast and momentum. Good pacing invites readers to lean in, follow the current, and stay connected.

Consider:

• Are there stretches where tension drops for too long?
• Do the emotional highs feel earned and well-spaced?
• Does the story’s rhythm encourage readers to turn pages?

String your “lights” with care. Too few and the story feels dim. Too many and it becomes overwhelming. Balance is the goal.

4. Choose the Right Ornaments: Highlighting Themes and Emotional Beats

Now comes the fun part: decoration. Ornaments aren’t random. They’re symbolic, personal, and chosen with purpose. In your manuscript, the “ornaments” are thematic elements, motifs, and emotional beats you want to emphasize.

Themes become the standout ornaments, those meaningful pieces that catch the light and resonate. Motifs act as repeating accents, giving unity and cohesion. Emotional beats are the sentimental pieces. The ones that make readers stop and feel something.

But be selective. Not every ornament deserves a place on every tree. Too many, and the shape gets lost. Too few, and the story feels flat.

Identify the moments and ideas that matter most:

• What emotional truths sit at the heart of this story?
• Which symbolic elements reinforce the characters’ journeys?
• Where can a motif subtly echo a theme without overwhelming the scene?

Place these narrative ornaments with intention, and your story will sparkle with clarity and resonance.

5. Step Back and Admire the Whole

Finally, once the tree is fully decorated, you step back. You squint a little. You tilt your head. You look at the whole picture.

Developmental editing requires this same distance.

Read through with fresh eyes, asking:

• Does everything feel balanced?
• Does each element contribute to a cohesive whole?
• Does the story glow with its intended emotional and thematic impact?

A manuscript that has been trimmed, lit, and ornamented with purpose becomes something special. A story that shines not because of excess, but because of thoughtfulness.

This December, Give Your Draft the Gift of Intention

Just as we decorate trees to bring warmth and meaning to a cold season, developmental editing transforms your manuscript into something vibrant, cohesive, and deeply felt. So, this year, when you find yourself trimming your tree, let it be a reminder that your draft deserves the same care, clarity, and celebration.

Happy revising and may your stories shine bright.

What part of your draft are you planning to “trim” this season?

About Jenn Windrow

Jenn Windrow once attempted to write a “normal” book—and promptly bored herself into a coma. So now she sticks to what she does best: writing snarky, kick-butt heroines, broody supernatural men, and more sexual tension than a vampire in a blood bank.

She’s the award-winning author of the Alexis Black novels and the Redeeming Cupid series, where the undead never sparkle and the drama is always delicious. Jenn moonlights as a developmental editor, helping other writers wrangle their wild plots and tangle-free prose.

When not arguing with her characters or muttering about Oxford commas, she can be found binge-watching trash TV, wrangling the slew of animals that live in her house (husband and teenagers included), or telling herself she’ll only have one more cookie.

You can find her at jennwindrow.com or lurking on social media where she pretends to be an extrovert.

Header image by Sabina Sturzu - Unsplash

 

by Penny Sanseveiri

The power of a book title cannot be overstated in the publishing world. A book's title serves as both a promise to readers and a crucial marketing tool that can either propel your book to success or doom it to obscurity.

Mistake #1: Your Title Being Unclear

The first major mistake authors make is creating titles that lack clarity or are difficult to pronounce. This applies to both fiction and nonfiction, though in different ways.

For nonfiction, your title should clearly communicate the problem you're solving or the benefit you're offering. With fiction, readers need to intuitively understand what kind of story they're getting within microseconds of seeing the title. Even character names that are difficult to pronounce can pull readers out of the immersive experience of a story.

Authors often want to be mysterious with their titles, thinking this will intrigue potential readers. However, this approach typically backfires, making it harder for Amazon to categorize the book properly and for readers to find it.

Mistake #2 – Confusing Words

Another critical issue is the use of made-up words, uncommon spellings, or titles that might be confused with other well-known properties.

I once worked with an author who had “accidentally” named his book after a major movie, creating significant marketing challenges. Needless to say, this is a cautionary tale against the strategy of deliberately copying successful book titles (like Stephen King novels) in hopes of appearing in the same search results – a tactic that might seem clever but ultimately leads to disappointed readers who feel tricked.

While you can't copyright a book title, duplicating successful titles is a poor business practice that creates confusion and resentment among readers.

Mistake #3 – Being Too Generic

Generic titles present another significant challenge. Many consumers don't first navigate to the Books or Kindle department – they simply enter terms in the main search bar. With a generic title like "Good Things," your book might get lost among crackers, children's books, and countless other products.

So be sure to spend some time researching existing titles before finalizing yours, especially considering how Amazon's algorithm prioritizes established products over new releases.

My recommendation is to also use an incognito browser window when conducting these searches to get unbiased results.

Mistake #4 – A Surprising One

Perhaps the most personal mistake is creating a title that only makes sense to the author. This issue is particularly common with memoirs, where authors develop an emotional attachment to titles with personal significance but little meaning to potential readers.

It’s very hard to let go of a title you love. However, if reviewers consistently indicate confusion between what they expected from the title and what the book actually delivered, it might be time to consider a change.

Final Thought

The good news is that unlike many other aspects of publishing, book titles can be changed if they're not working. While it involves updating covers and metadata, which can be complex with a publisher involved, it's a viable option for books that aren't performing well.

Get started with this by doing a thorough Amazon research to see if your title is causing discoverability issues by appearing in unrelated searches or failing to show up in relevant ones.

Have you had issues with your book titles? What solutions have you found? Please put any questions you have for Penny down in the comments!

About Penny

Penny C. Sansevieri, is a powerhouse in the publishing industry. As the Founder and CEO of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., she has revolutionized book marketing, shaping the careers of authors and guiding them to bestseller status. Penny's influence is undeniable—named one of New York Metropolitan Magazine's Top Influencers of 2019, she's known for her cutting-edge Amazon campaigns and innovative strategies that catapult exceptional books onto bestseller lists. She is also the author of 24 books and the co-host of the Book Marketing Tips and Author Success Podcast!

To learn more about Penny's books or her promotional services, visit www.amarketingexpert.com

by Lisa Hall-Wilson

Want to level up your deep POV? Master subtext. K.M. Weiland calls it the black belt of fiction writing—and for good reason. When you truly inhabit a character’s internal world, you no longer need the authorial voice to summarize, explain, or justify motives. Everything the reader needs emerges from what the character notices, avoids, reacts to, and interprets.

Subtext is where the emotional truth of a scene lives. Done well, it pulls readers deeper into the character’s internal world; done poorly, it creates saggy tension and yanks them out of the immersion deep POV promises.

How Subtext Works to Deepen Characterization

Deep POV strives to remove the psychic distance between the reader and the character’s lived experience. Instead of the narrator/author voice interpreting events, offering conclusions, or explaining or justifying emotions and actions, the reader instead experiences the story AS the character: through their eyes and the physical experience of the story’s emotional journey.

Become curious about the character’s perceptions, biases, assumptions, and internal processing. Let this be the only lens through which the reader experiences the story. Subtext becomes the byproduct of that exploration. When this happens, subtext stops being something you “add” to a scene and becomes something that happens organically.

If you’re wondering how to do that, let’s break it down.

1. Avoid Narrating/Summarizing Thoughts and Feelings

Real thoughts aren’t tidy paragraphs. We notice, react, jump to conclusions, get things wrong. Thoughts are fragmented, visual, and anchored in memory or emotion.

Instead of writing “The scent of lilac was heavenly,” ask: What thought or emotions does that scent evoke? A funeral? First kiss? Betrayal? Let the character’s body react—tight chest, sudden smile, clenched jaw—before the mind catches up.

This gap between the external moment and the character’s internal, often incomplete interpretation is where subtext lives. Subtext becomes a byproduct of authenticity.

2. Bias Is Subtext Fuel

What is your character’s worldview—what lens do they see the world through? Do they have a prejudice, a bias, a fear? Do they have a singular focus or goal for a scene? Let that guide what they notice, prioritize, and ignore. This is all part of subtext.

Every character sees the world through a warped lens: fear, desire, shame, pride, trauma. A distrustful character will scrutinize kindness for strings, hoard information, plan three exits. A perfectionist will notice only the mustard stain on her blouse while the room burns.

Repeat the bias across scenes. Juxtapose it against other characters’ reactions. Avoid explaining their reactions with a backstory dump (or a flashback). Let readers piece together why.

Subtext lives in the gap between what’s actually happening vs what the character thinks it means. Subtext happens in the unspoken between what’s said, and what’s understood. In real life, we use subtext every single day.

3. Priorities Become a Filter for Subtext

What a character notices—and ignores—telegraphs stakes. The teen raiding the fridge doesn’t see the new paint or smell gas because pizza is the priority.

Show the hyper-focus or the blind spot. Let the reader feel the emotional weight without a single named emotion. Instead of telling or explaining (through backstory for instance) that a character is terrified of abandonment, show their exaggerated response to a partner’s delayed text, the hyper focus on making someone happy, the physical response to a random joke, the suppressed reaction to a harsh comment. Their attention telegraphs the emotional stakes without explaining — she feared he’d leave her.

Show what the character is fixated on or misses completely and let the reader assemble the meaning.

4. The Reader Becomes the Interpreter

When you stop explaining gestures, tone, or silences, the reader steps into the vacuum. They read micro-expressions, vocal shifts, averted eyes the way they do in real life. There’s no narrator whispering, “She’s lying because her ex cheated.” There’s only raw data and the reader’s intuition.

We take in raw information and interpret all day long. There’s no great narrator in our lives or in our heads explaining what someone really meant, or that our past is hijacking our perception, or that we’re being a bit judgy but that’s to be forgiven because we didn’t get enough sleep last night.

Let your reader engage in the story and connect emotionally with the journey the character is taking.

How the point of view character feels (internal sensations, sensory information) directs their decisions and emotions. Allow room for your character to get things wrong!

5. Emotional Truth Is Rarely Simple

Deep POV works if you want to keep the emotions simplified, but subtext will have you plumbing the emotional depths of the scene and asking what ELSE is going on.

This is where you build in surprise for the reader. What’s the obvious emotion in your scene? Many times when I ask this, I often get one of these two responses: I don’t know. Or, I get broad-level emotions noted: he’s angry, she’s afraid.

Don’t label the cocktail. Show the body caught between impulses—fingers reaching then curling back, voice bright while gut knots.

Emotions serve us (generally) in three main ways: They seek to keep us safe, collect information to make decisions, and protect us from danger. Each emotion clamoring for attention believes it’s doing one of these three things. I’ve written about emotional context here. When you’re not naming emotions, the emotional truth in your scene has to reveal itself through behavior, internal sensations, tone, and context.

Why is your character feeling afraid? Be specific and particular. We can be afraid for all kind of reasons from physical threat, emotional pain, perceived loss — and the intensity of that fear is determined by the threat level and stakes. Leave room to amplify the emotions as needed.

6. Subtext Mirrors Real Life

In real conversations we don’t always say what we mean. We hint, deflect, omit, perform, stumble and stutter. Fiction should imitate this ambiguity. (Great post here from K.M. Weiland on this.) Go beyond the obvious emotions like fear, anger, and joy, and dive deeper into what Donald Maass calls Third Level Emotions. Readers connect with, identify with, more layered emotional narratives. We are steeped in ambiguous feelings, suppressed desires, and tangled internal contradictions.

Conflicting emotions and priorities make for compelling fiction: fear vs desire, hope vs guilt, longing vs caution. Show this conflict through setting, body reactions, context — not from introspective monologues — so that the reader feels instead of being told.

This means going deeper into what the character notices (and either interprets, ignores, or makes a judgement on). What does the character’s body pick up on, identify, or reveal even before the character’s thoughts catch on to? Whenever you’re tempted to write: something feels off — replace that with what sensory or setting info the character is taking in and reacting to instead.

Example:

A character glanced at the framed photo face down on the desk, doesn’t recognize the face in the photo, yet goosebumps rise. She rubs her arms, forces a laugh and goes back to the party. The unease intensifies, her hands tremble – maybe she’s going crazy. She excuses herself and leaves. Only in the car does memory click: that’s the same woman in the old newspaper clipping about the Jane-Doe murder. The reader was uneasy pages before the character could articulate the danger—pure subtext.

Deep POV gives readers access to the juxtaposition between what the character feels vs. what is said or done. That difference becomes a natural home for subtext. This is where the reader steps into the story and fills in the gap.

Putting It All Together

Deep POV trusts the reader to engage with the story and intuit what’s not being said to create emotional intimacy that’s honest and irresistibly immersive. The character’s perceptions and feelings are the only lens available.

• Don’t explain what the character feels—show the trigger and the body’s reaction.
• Do not translate gestures—let the character (and reader) mis/read them.
• Don’t summarize internal conflict—let readers live the beat-by-beat conflict.
• Don’t fill silence with narration—make the silence part of the conversation

When every word filters through the character’s perception, subtext isn’t something you manufacture. It’s what remains after you strip away every unnecessary explanation.

Looking for examples? This post got too long. Find a continuation on my blog here.

* * * * * *

About Lisa

Lisa Hall-Wilson is a writing teacher and award-winning writer and author. She’s the author of Method Acting For Writers: Learn Deep Point Of View Using Emotional Layers. Her blog, Beyond Basics For Writers, explores all facets of the popular writing style deep point of view and offers practical tips for writers. 

Other Recent Deep POV Posts by Lisa:

• The Essential Deep POV Checklist: 11 Tips For Better Writing
• 4 Tips To Master Backstory In Deep Point Of View

Top Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay