Becca Puglisi I firmly believe that while readers sometimes do connect with our stories, they more often fall in love with our characters. If we want to really pull readers in, we’ve got to make each protagonist relatable and easy to connect with. This can be a tall order when you consider […]

Lisa Hall-Wilson   Deep point of view lets your readers experience story through a virtual reality headset. Readers want to take an emotional journey alongside the main character in every scene. This style puts readers IN the story as much as possible. To achieve this, writers have to avoid summarizing or telling how a character […]

Piper Bayard of Bayard & Holmes The Americans, a show about undercover Soviet agents posing as Americans in the DC area during the Cold War, teaches writers solid lessons in both what it gets wrong, and what it gets right. Since I write espionage nonfiction and fiction and partner with a senior member of the […]

Sarah Cy According to the old adage, "practice makes perfect." For a writer, reading and writing is practice. So the more you do it, the better a writer you should be, right? In reality, reading and writing every day does not a great writer make. Not if "reading and writing every day" means browsing news […]

I first learned about the 12 Stages of Physical Intimacy from Linda Howard, who used to give a very popular talk on the subject based on the work of Desmond Morris, Intimate Behavior: A Zoologist's Classic Study of Human Intimacy. On the downside, Linda has stopped giving this workshop. On the upside, she has spoken […]