Most novels are written on the premise of "what if." Our What-if muscles help us figure out what needs to come next in the story. Sometimes we're lucky and we just know. More often (at least for me) we often have no clue what needs to happen next. When I write non-fiction for awhile, […]

Kathryn Craft Turning Whine Into Gold In high school, I was the type of high achiever that had my teachers taking me under their wings. Turns out, that wasn’t always such a good thing. My fifth-year Russian teacher, thinking I’d follow in his footsteps, challenged me to write a research paper on a Russian ballerina—in […]

Amy Sue Nathan Twelve years ago, right in the middle of a memoir writing workshop online, I started writing fiction instead. From that day forward, I continued doing two things: writing novels, and signing up for online writing workshops. The comfort of taking a class while wearing my pajamas appeals to me almost as much […]

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 […]