Point of View, Part One

Ideally, the experience of reading both fiction and nonfiction is transformative. Readers pick up a book for that transformation, even if it is only to learn a new skill or to be entertained while the piece is being read.… Read the post

by Lynette M. Burrows

Before you can improve your writing, you have to know where your story is strong and where you can strengthen it. That means understanding story structure and taking your book apart bit by bit, examining it, strengthening it, and reassembling it.… Read the post

by Lynette M. Burrows

So you’ve written a first (or 100th) draft of your novel. Your emotions range from “Look how good I write” to “It’s rough, but I can fix it,” to “It’s broken beyond repair.” Maybe you’ve done this revision thing dozens of times before, but this novel is turning into a nightmare.… Read the post

by Lynette M. Burrows

To borrow and slightly twist Samwise Gamgee’s words*, the great stories, the ones that really matter, are stories about people, about their relationships. Relationships are a large part of what your readers relate to because we can’t escape them.… Read the post

You sit down to write but no words come. Or you grind out a few dozen or hundreds of words, then delete them all because the structure wasn’t there or the characters weren’t right or the sentences were crap. You bemoan the fact that writing is hard and you think maybe this writing gig isn’t for you.… Read the post