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 […]

by Christina Delay Ten years ago I was newly married, living in a new city, sans kids, and alone a LOT as the hubs was starting a new business. My community existed of my husband, a betta fish named Albie, and a hyper puppy named Trogdor the Burninator. I turned to writing.  In the past […]