Tiffany Yates Martin How to Dig Deeper for the Buried Treasure in Your Story There is a scene in the movie Crazy, Stupid, Love that wrings my heart out every time I see it. Childhood sweethearts and longtime spouses, played by Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore, are separated after the wife’s infidelity. Carrell’s character can’t stop sneaking […]

Angela Ackerman Put your character up a tree and then throw rocks at him. This iconic advice is something every writer hears at some point and keeping it at the forefront of our minds when writing is one of the wisest things we can do. Not only must we make good on our back-jacket blurb […]

Over the last few years, I've been able to experience the joy of sharing the Harry Potter books with my daughter. We're on Order of the Phoenix (Book 5) and going strong, so J.K. Rowling is a bit of a celebrity in our house.  She's a celebrity to me as a writer. She accepted that snippet […]

Piper Bayardof Bayard & Holmes Everyone loves a good fight, and a good fight scene is arguably the heart of every thriller. But as NYT Bestseller James Rollins says, in fiction, never use the same killing method twice in the same book. As a result, fiction writers are always looking for a new twist on a […]

I'm currently working on yet another edit of my young adult book that managed to eke out an RWA Golden Heart final in 2015. You'd think this baby would be in pretty good shape. When I entered my novel into that contest, it was hardly a first draft. More like Draft #72. I think I'm […]