by Lisa Hall-Wilson Many people take my deep point of view master classes because they’re looking to create an emotional gut punch for readers. They want readers to feel like they’re IN the story, in real time, and digging deep emotionally is the powerhouse tool of deep point of view. Many writers have heard of […]

by Janice Hardy I work with a lot of new writers, and a common frustration I see is getting tangled up in the details of the story and being unable to see the larger problem. These writers have a general sense of what they want their novels to be about, but they keep focusing on […]

Jenny Hansen A few years back, I wrote a post called How To Focus on Your Story's DNA that identified the elements of story that never change. I use those unchanging elements to help keep my story on track. Theme is one of those important elements, and it's a tough one because most of the […]

by Tasha Seegmiller I’m in A LOT of Facebook writing groups. I suspect I’m not alone in this. It’s actually one of my favorite things about social media.  One of the perks of being in so many groups is I get to see what people are wondering about. And the thing that has been showing up […]

Psychologist Abraham Maslow developed a theory about what each human needs. The hierarchy, shown below as a five-tier pyramid, attempts to explain the connection between our basic human needs and our motivation. But we are writers. Our needs might differ a bit from the average human. We are mighty beings formed of stubbornness, creativity and […]